Far away from the modern world rested a holy cup. It was nestled deep inside of a cave, far from human eyes. A thin layer of dust covered its rough wooden shape as a testament to the fact that it had remained untouched for a long time. This cup was the Holy Grail, the real Holy Grail, and a shadow of its glory had once been a part of a great and terrible contest between mages.
It was an artifact of untold power, powered only by untold sacrifice, and it had been untouched for a very long time. In another world, maguses would have their servants fight to the death over this grail. In some worlds it would become corrupted and in other worlds it would remain pure. Sometimes it would grant a great wish and sometimes the only people capable of using it would die terrible deaths. In this world, the world of ours, it had once caught the blood of a simple carpenter, and was forgotten.
Until now.
Golden power flowed forth from the grail as a strange light illuminated the cavern that it rested in. The cup's power had been touched by Alaya herself, and soon a golden liquid seeped out from the top of the grail and onto the pedestal it sat on.
The water continued to flow outwards in all directions before moving with an unnatural motion, congealing into a single large pool which then sprang upwards in defiance of gravity. The gold continued to spew from the chalice as the liquid turned into a pillar and rose higher and higher into the cavern. All the while radiant power saturated the cave with energy.
And then the liquid fell away, leaving behind a single gold-haired man who was dressed in a fine golden armor. He blinked once and then clicked his tongue, all the while smiling arrogantly.
"You summon me for this grail war, not to compete, but to administer it. Not to act, but to direct." He noted to no one in particular, although his conversation partner was listening intently. "I hope, for your sake Alaya, that this war proves to be entertaining. For me to wager the use of my personal treasure is already asking a lot, this contest had better be adequate repayment. "
His name was Gilgamesh, the great King of Heroes. In the entire world, everything was his possession. Indeed, he was to be the ruler of Alaya's great Grail War. In this impromptu war, there was no one better suited for administering this tournament than him. And, while Gilgamesh had half a mind to simply tell Alaya to screw off, she did promise at least some semblance of a show that he had never seen before.
"I suppose that I can at least orchestrate a performance for the ages, even if you give me mongrels instead of real actors."
So he would humor her, at least for now.
It wasn't like she could wish him out of existence in a heartbeat. Nope, that had nothing to do with his willingness to aid the goddess of humanity.
"Well, first things first, I guess I should summon the masters for this contest. I don't think they actually know what they're doing in this world." Gilgamesh mused as he picked up the Grail beside him. With a careless shrug, he tossed the Holy Grail into the air behind him, not at all watching as it disappeared into a golden portal that led to somewhere outside of this world. After all, all the treasures of the world were contained inside his Gates of Babylon – the cup would be safe for now.
"By the command of Alaya and the servant Ruler, I summon forth the minds of the fourteen masters for this war!"
At his command, fourteen lights were summoned into existence. Each one corresponded to a master that Alaya had chosen to participate in this tournament. Gilgamesh himself didn't know who the masters were, but Alaya had promised him that he would soon enough find out. Regardless, they were sure to be disoriented and confused, at least one of them was registering nothing but complete terror at the situation. He could feel their emotions, and they were the finest appetizers for the finest meal.
This would be fun.
"Greetings chosen meat bag masters! I am servant Ruler and I have summoned forth the fourteen of you with a magnificent announcement, so rejoice!" Gilgamesh proclaimed with a radiant grandeur, throwing up his arms and bathing the cavern with treasures from his personal vault. "I declare that this Holy Grail War will commence! The fourteen of you will summon forth fourteen legends like myself, although vastly inferior to me, in a bid to gain my favor. The winner of this war will be the last master to retain control of their servant and I shall bless them with any wish in the world."
"Be it material, such as gold, or immaterial, such as returning a loved one to life or fixing a mistake of the past, no wish will be too great. Now, summon your servants and prepare for war. I grow tired of this lecture so I'll not bother with the finer details. Instead, you shall simply know the rules."
Gilgamesh snapped his finger and smirked devilishly as he drank the terror of the fourteen lights before him. With a simple cue, Alaya had inserted the rules and finer details of the grail war into their heads. Such magic was unfortunately beyond the great king of heroes's abilities but there was no point in letting the actors know that. No, it was best to let them think him as truly omnipotent.
"Know now what you do, with that knowledge in your minds, I shall see you in one month's time in the Holy Land of Judea. There we shall create the most magnificent performance to ever grace this world. Now get out of my sights you mongrels!"
A figure seated idly before a warm fireplace snapped his head up, eyes of scarlet looking beyond the what normal eyes of mortals could see for a moment, before a grimacing whine of despair filled his throat and the room.
An annoyed voice spoke from another room in the well kept log cabin mansion. Jean Baptiste didn't cease his dirge as the owner of the annoyed voice entered a few moments, practically stamping in.
"I am trying to make some decent potions," the woman who entered the warm den said with clipped tones, a scowl on her gorgeous face and concern flashing in her blue eyes as her long golden hair almost seemed to bristle, "I don't need your obscene hilarity to interrupt the delicate procedure."
“My apologies, mon cher. This… the solution melted the bottom of the cauldron again,” her fiancé said as he sunk in his seat.
Isabel Fimbulvintr, heiress of the clan of famed alchemists, was a young woman on a mission.
Last night, her world had been turned inside out, never mind upside down, with the amount of revelations taking place.
Holy Grails, Heroic Spirits, Magi, other such insanity. All of which was beyond confusing. But she managed to take it all in stride, stubborn disbelief despite clear evidence was not a wise trait after all, just as a child of science should. However, there was one particular revelation that had her on edge, and making her scold herself for not seeing it months earlier.
Jean-Baptiste was no longer the Jean-Baptiste she thought she knew.
About a month after they had began an official engagement, she had noticed slight changes in him. Subtle and small ones, barely noticeable, but in hindsight seemed to be greater than she had originally thought.
Increased focus on jobs at hand. A more studious demeanor. A way of taking things far more seriously. More thoughtful and patient. An drive to excel that seemed crafted from the bones of the earth itself. A desperation that clung to his every action, to his every concoction.
She could pick up on these things, remember them, after spending a sleepless night going over her interactions with her fiancee after the revelations.
She had thought that these changes were because of his growing maturity. Obviously, there had been more to it.
These changes, and ones she probably hadn't unconsciously noticed, all revolved around knowledge that had been gifted, ones that had been thrust upon him.
Ones she hadn't been able to share with him.
Now he sat in the chair, his face think and gaunt with worry and his normally meticulous hair how a tangled mop that hung past his eyes. He clearly had been doing little to take care of himself, his crisp white shirt stained with elixir solutions and soot. Dark bags hung under his eyes: he had spent the past ten hours on this sole concoction.
It made her ill at ease. She had thought she knew who her lover was, what was inscribed in his deepest hearts of hearts. She had thought she knew what made him tick, what made him think.
What was held dearest to him.
She had thought she knew. Now she wasn't so sure, even as she desperately hoped that that part him, the one that held golden hair and blue eyes close to him, hadn't changed.
She didn't think she could cope if it had.
To see into the heart of this morass of these emotions and thoughts, there was only one thing she could do, something that was, not exactly anathema but certainly not her most favoured of plans. She needed to be bold, blunt and forceful.
She needed to grab the bull by the horns.
She needed to confront her problems head on.
She needed to talk to , bluntly and forcefully, without any hidden agenda, forthrightly.
His own steel grey eyes met the hard sapphires. She kept approaching, eyes locked and not saying a word. She would save them up for her little fact finding mission, a quiet one, rather than shouting them for half the Alps to hear.
To her surprise, the face that had not held a true smile for the last month as far as she could recall, slowly let his lips turn upward slightly, even if his eyes turned slightly resigned, and gestured to a empty chair was directly beside the hearth, before turning back towards the brewing cauldron.
Isabel frowned. Did he just blow her off? She shook herself. No. No, even if the world burned, he wouldn't do that. The brief thought still stung slightly though, gnawing at her uncertainty on who he truly was, rather than what she thought he had been.
She quietly took the offered seat, using the wall of the cabin to slide down beside the one she hoped still held heart. Neither of them spoke for a time, a silence that was both familiar and tense falling between them. She had so many things that she wanted to say, so many questions to ask, that she didn't even know where to begin. She felt like she was almost bursting at seams, wanting to explode with her inquiries but pure willpower preventing her tongue from tripping over itself. She knew if she started to speak, this whole conversation would go downhill faster than sodium’s survival in the ocean.
Thankfully for her, she wasn't the one to break the silence.
"I remember when I first succeeded at a transmutation," Jean-Baptiste said softly, jolting her out of her whirling thoughts enough to hear what he was saying, "I must have been six or seven, not exactly sure of the precise date, and Mum and I were at Montauk. She had managed to get some time off work and had a friend drop us at the cabin," he smiled slightly, softly and slightly crooked, a Jean-Baptiste smile she had seen for as long as she had known him, even if they had rarely come up over the last few months. It put her at ease somewhat.
Somewhere in there, her Jean still existed.
"I was a little restless the first day after we arrived," he continued, "so I ended up awakening when it was still dark. I clambered out of bed, quietly passed my sleeping Mum and went down the laboratory, sitting on the stool as my feet brushed the snow I trudged in, a steel grey to match the sky," he smiled softly, "it was probably one of the most relaxing times of my life," he chuckled ruefully, "or even the only relaxing time of my life."
Despite herself, Isabel couldn't help but smirk. Considering his life, she wasn't surprised. Trouble seemed to follow him like a lost puppy.
"Then I saw the faint glimmer in the flask," he smiled, his lips curling lightly, "a dim red circle, slowly ascending into flute. With every moment that passed, it grew brighter, from red to orange to a burning gold. As I watched, I couldn't help but think of the promises it held, that I had succeeded at transmuting gold. A achievement I desperately wanted to strive, even in those early times," he sighed slightly, "to me, that shining glow was the symbol of hope, a part of a dream I wanted to make come true," he grimaced then, his face and shoulders tensing and flexing, making her distracted for a moment as he took in the shifting of his bared muscles, "It was brass," his face hardened, turning to the stony features that she had seen so recently and yet remained alien to her, creating the mask of a jaded and disappointed realist
Isabel lowered her head in respect for the experience, even as her agile mind began to put the pieces together, almost profiling this stranger in her fiance's skin.
Perhaps she had been too hasty, too quick, about knowing her boyfriend. She had always been surprised by him before, his formulae being more spur of the moment and instinctive made predicting, anticipating and facing his experimental results a nightmare. It was one of his more well known traits and, to her family, feared traits. But, as if to balance that, there was always one thing, one specific line of thought, that always made her know where he stood with her.
His fatal flaw. His personal love.
What he would do, the acts he had done, in normal society, or at least as normal as you could get for a Magi, would hardly be condoned, let alone understood for the necessary acts they were. Understanding that, and knowing of his fatal flaw and the deep and powerful connection he had with her, the strong desire to be with her, it was unsurprising that he would hold his tongue, to keep his peace, and struggle through the obstacles and problems caused by the knowledge by himself.
Understanding all this, knowing his secrets that he had kept, even if she had learned about them in an unusual way, her next actions were not surprising, except to Jean-Baptiste.
"I know," she spoke slowly into his ear, soft and gentle, as her hand gently stroked his hair, liking calming a frightened deer, stopping it from bolting, "I know you looked at the odds as against. I know you think you won’t come back. I know you think you will fail and these will be your last day. I know you’re afraid," she could feel the stiff and shuddering frame of her paramour, her partner, as she felt emotions begin to rise within him, ones that were kept suppressed by him for almost a four months, dealing with them one at a time, barely making a dent in the sheer number of them. With him now on the edge, teetering above an abyss of madness, they swarmed to the forefront, engulfing his mind even as she knew that he hung onto to her every word.
"And I accept them," she held him tighter, feeling him tremble, burying her face into his hair, smelling the unnatural scent of smoke that clung to him, "I accept you."
As she held him, at the beginning of a new night, she pretended not to hear the choked sobs that came from his throat.
It was not until the following evening that a new Jean Baptiste stood over his finished work, a new bubbling cauldron in his hands, clean shaven and showered. He stood confident and self-assured, taking a deep breath to calm his still shaky nerves. The red Command Seals, a trio of interlocking rings, was brandished as the damning stigmata of this ritual.
“It is time,” he whispered as Isabel knelt beside him and placed a something into the center of the carven circle that took up the majority of their cabin.
A simple bottle with the faintest residue clinging to the bottom.
A bottle that had once held the Elixir of Life and the Stone that had made it.
It would be their Catalyst for the legendary French Magician, the Master of Alchemy, Nicholas Flamel.
It had taken nearly every personal favor her father had gathered over the years to obtain this, though the Fimbulvintrs would have surely thrown their entire fortune in this endeavor if they thought her love as capable as she did.
It had been Jean-Baptiste’s idea, a strategy he thought was flawless. Play the alchemical field to defend themselves with the Master himself, something they could both understand and add to. It was a sound plan, and several locations had already been scouted for suitable workshops.
“Do you know the words?” Isabel asked as Jean stepped into the center of the circle.
“Like my own birthday. Everything… everything will be fine.”
He remembered many things from his father's tomes. He was proud as he had very little time to search and remember the contents of the event. The Magus Association kept this information on the down low, choosing to select specific candidates responsible for minimizing the damages the war can bring up. She looked around the wide cabin, her bright blue eyes critiquing what they could call their own. While preparing for the ritual, he had forgotten several logistical issues. She had suggested waiting until they had made it to the Holy Land, but Jean-Bapitste had insisted on summoning his Servant as quickly as possible.
'What matters is here and now as he finally summon the key to victory,' she thought. The intricately designed circle was etched on the wooden floor. He carefully shifted his eyes to every tiny detail of the circle. It had to be perfect.
He tilted the small cauldron, carefully pouring the alchemical solution into the carvings. The shining fluid raced to fill the circle, the finer details only coming to light under the chemical luminescence.
It was a unique use of the rather simple spell, one that was barely above a starting Initiate's if he remembered, but it was one that would have required a decent amount of skill, needing to keep in mind every detail of the circle and where they would be placed. A single wrong stroke, a misremembered or forgotten piece of the circle, and if it was used, especially considering what the circle was supposedly designed to do...
Well, let's just say Cthulu may not just be an idle thought and the creation of silly mortal imagination.
"I command thee..," Jean recited, swiftly sweeping his hand across the runes.
"Thou shalt come forth to my side;
Thy sword shalt control my fate."
"Abiding by the Holy Grail's haven,
If thou accedest to this will and reason,"
Power was now heavy in the air, making it feel it almost stifling. Something was beginning to answer this call. The Question was; What?
"Then answer me,
The oath set forth here,
I am the embodiment of good in the eternal world,
I am the disposer of evil in the eternal world."
The words were coming faster now, her fiance's eagerness could clearly be seen, but he did not neglect the necessity, holding himself back and controlling himself to ensure that this ritual was performed properly.
The very air around him was beginning to distort, such was the amount of power gathering, but it seemed that the Alchemist was not even aware of anything but the ritual.
"Open the Gate. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill.
Thee, the seven heavens that bear the great trinity,
Come forth from the circle of constraint..."
The light coming from the circles grew so much that it was almost impossible to look at them with a naked eye as a whirlwind of prana swirled and roiled inside. The air above the circles seeming to almost shimmer and distort as if it was a mirage or heat haze as the power of both Grail and magi sought to rip apart the very fabric of the world to bring the worlds long dead heroes back to fight on her soil once more.
The final words of the chant were called out, and the power trapped within the circles reached an apex. Enough power to rewrite the very laws of life and death that governed this world, and make a miracle happen.
"... O Guardian of the balance!" Jean Baptiste declared, almost triumphantly, and echoed by the magic of the seal.
Then power roared, the veil of energy exploding outward in a great flash of light, blinding Isabel. She swore rapidly in german, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. By the time they were back to normal, bare moments (though uncomfortable ones) had passed, and what greeted their returned sight was breath taking.
In front of each of them stood a being of power.
That was honestly the only way Isabel could describe him. The presence he exuded, the power they emitted and even the way they stood, completely at ease and yet ready to explode into action at a moment's notice. The fading light drew his eyes towards a figure standing before him. What he saw couldn't be real. The gleaming armor adorning a medieval-styled, red surcoat shimmered in the rays. The oversized shirt of mail coated the sides of the skirt, and the tunic and lower sleeves, were enclosed in a breastplate and gauntlets, intricately segmented shells of plate armor. Held in its tight grip, the warrior carried a naked longsword and kiteshield, that seemed with radiate with mana.
"Merde," her fiancé breathed in shock, surprise and awe.
So these were Servants. Copies of a great Hero. The Daughter of Fimbulvintr smiled slightly, satisfied. They were adequate enough.
Jean would need it in the coming struggle.
The figure held his head high. But what drew her attentions in was the countenance of the figure. Though his face expressed no emotions, his emerald eyes displayed a sort of stern bemusement in their intense gaze directed at him. Those eyes… They werere the only readable part about him.
Then he spoke, though his words contradicted his noble demeanor.
"I am Saber, your servant. I have come in response to your summons." He paused, before turning to Jean, his eyes boring into his. "I ask of you … Are you my master?"
Jean turned to look at Isabel, a look of upmost despair on his face.
“I’m dead.”
