Amidst A War Of Heroes, Shall A Witch Crash The Party

Glen and Martha Mackenzie were an elderly Canadian-Japanese couple who, estranged from their son, found themselves living quietly in the Miyama residential district of Fuyuki. Their life was largely uneventful, until one day they were surprised to find their grandson show up on their doorstep! Needless to say, the pair were overjoyed to finally meet the lad, having never gotten the proper chance due to their son's fervent refusal to leave Japan. The grandson, on the other hand, seemed all too happy to travel, bringing tales of studies abroad in England to the peaceful Japanese suburb.

It was something that, under normal circ.u.mstances, they would have no choice to be suspicious of. And they would be justified in those suspicions, as the young man who'd appeared on their doorstep and claimed the upstairs guest room was not their grandson at all. Rather, he was the English apprentice mage Waver Velvet, who had hypnotized them into believing his lies. Ironically, though he did so purely due to a lack of funds after the expensive plane trip to Japan, his moving into that humble home had actually landed him one of the best hideouts in the war. Unlike the 3 Founding Families of Einzbern, Matou, and Tohsaka with their long-established bases, or the ridiculously flashy fortress that the Archibald head had built-in Fuyuki Hyatt (before it was blown out from under him), the Mackenzie home was plain in every way. Waver hadn't even bothered to build any kind of bounded field. The apprentice mage and his mighty chariot rider were, essentially, traceable only by line of sight.

None of this, however, was providing much comfort to Waver as he lay on his bed, flipping lazily through a series of bizarre mystery novels and several volumes of literary and critical analysis. It all just made his eyes glaze over and unable to read anything in detail.

"Oho! This young manservant is quite bold!" declared the guest room's other occupant, who was having considerably more fun than Waver. Unlike the mage, who was skimming, skipping chapters, and basically ignoring anything save for bits of hard fact in the analytical volumes, Rider was taking his time to digest every word. The Servant was still engrossing himself in the first of the two actual "message bottle" volumes, occasionally referencing the analysis published by the group called Witch Hunt. "To challenge, with only a mortal body and a cleaver, a powerful magus who kills from the shadows? His bravery is truly commendable!"

The young mage scoffed at that, "More like 'crazy.' Anyway, can we even trust any of this? Apparently only two of these, Legend and Turn, even came from Rokkenjiima, and they were message bottles forged in the name of the family's youngest. The rest are even less related, they're just mystery novels (and not very good ones from what I can tell) by some crazy recluse."

Rider merely waved off Waver's complaints saying that "Even if that is the case, it still cannot be denied that those bottles at least are the origin of her legend. You certainly can't deny that this witch Beatrice is our Caster. So stop being impatient boy, information gathering is a vital part of this war. You've got to lay back and take in things one detail at a time."

Waver stood up from the bed and stepped over the Servant currently sprawled on the floor, grabbing another book from the pile they'd collected on the Rokkenjiima incident at the bookstore. This one focused on trying to relate the magic supposedly performed by Beatrice to magical systems known throughout the world. However... "And what details are those exactly? Attempts to figure out vaguely described magic in a series of inconsistent stories? Attempts made by people who know nothing about how actual magecraft and magic works?"

"Even a faulty answer may have something to offer boy," Rider said offhandedly, engrossed in the book's ongoing dialogue about a new, burnt corpse with 6 toes. "Besides, with this to work with, we can always compare her behavior to what we've read next time we see her. Beyond that..." the Servant trailed off, then lowered the book to look his Master in the eye, "...are you not curious?"

Waver: "Curious about what? Her power? Obviously but that-"

The giant put a hand up to stop his Master, "No that's not what I mean. It's important of course, but what I refer to is something else entirely. You see boy, to me one of the best things about this battle is that it allows for heroes from many different eras to cross blades. Of course, I'd prefer to add them to my army and seek the world rather than destroy them for something as vague as the Grail, but if they refuse there's little I can do."

The giant held up the cover of Legend of the Golden Witch, the published form of the first of the two original message bottles from which he'd just been reading. "However even in that event, I can still experience a number of interesting new tales. Indeed, even if this book relates only superficially to Caster, it is nonetheless a compelling tale. Have you never simply read a book or seen a play for the fun of it boy?"

The 3rd heir to the Velvet family hesitated a moment when faced with such a question, but did eventually reply, "Well of course, but research is far more important than that. Especially in this case, given that we're researching the ridiculously powerful spirits who have extremely good reason to kill us."

Rider could only shake his head and sigh, "Honestly boy, you come to the other side of the great wide world and just can't learn to enjoy it. Tomorrow, when we're done looking through these volumes, we're going back to the market to get that interesting 'game console' I saw."

Waver g.r.o.a.n.e.d at the thought of being forced to endure such modernity, and wondered if any other Servants drove their masters so mad.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi's servant drove him mad. Not, in his defense, on purpose. No, Lancer's entire character and attitude made abundantly clear that in terms of his conscious thoughts and actions, his Master's wishes were indeed the first thing on his mind. No, Lancer's problem was one that Kayneth had honestly thought wouldn't be an issue: that thrice-damned mole on his face.

Really, it shouldn't have been an issue. And maybe it wasn't. Maybe Kayneth was merely imagining the longing gaze, the flushed face, and heated breath of his fiance Sola-Ui every time the woman looked at the face of Fianna's most famous knight. No, that mole had ensnared her. But how was the question. It wasn't a particularly powerful charm curse, any woman with a grasp on magic should be able to brush the charm aside. The only way it should have grabbed Sola's heart was if she wanted it to, and that made no damn sense! Who would want to be brainwashed? Not the driver of the car Kayneth and Lancer were currently in, that's for sure. He'd resisted the brainwashing spell despite being a mere mundane (he'd cracked in short order of course, but for the purposes of argument it still counted), so why couldn't Sola resist the curse on Lancer's face touching the deepest parts of her mind in what Kayneth suspected to be a wholly inappropriate manner?

Of course, this confusing matter could be put aside if Lancer were actually of any use, but that clearly wasn't the case. Oh, he'd managed to push back the King of Knights and curse her hand, it was true, but only due to careful deception on Kayneth's part by concealing the true forms of both lances. That was a trick that would only work once, and it wouldn't avail Lancer of much against any of the other Servants even if it did. The only one Lancer would be theoretically useful against was that strange Berserker, as Gae Daerg's ability would likely dispel Berserker's ability to infest things with his own prana. Now they'd have to press their advantage on Saber and just hope the other servants murdered each other. Which, fortunately, they seemed to be doing just fine based on the morning announcement that Tokiomi Tohsaka had followed his former apprentice into retirement from the war.

Less fortunate was the fate of Kayneth's hotel fortress. It had been a masterpiece, a creation which put even the defenses of the 3 Founding Families to shame... and it was all blown away by some mundane bomb! The truly humiliating bit was that they'd been explicitly told there was a bomb threat and he, heir to the Archibald clan, had willingly dismissed the threat as a ruse by one of his magi opponents!

And so there Kayneth sat, in the back of a car with a nearly useless Servant who'd managed to seduce his fiance by accident, and with only himself and some mundane terrorists to blame for the loss of nearly every tool at his disposal. The only bright spot was that he'd managed to pinpoint the hideout of Saber and her Einzbern Master in the forest outside of town before his scrying crystal had been destroyed. With that information, he and Lancer had left the abandoned factory they'd been forced to hide in, leaving Sola behind to monitor the newly erected barriers. The El-Melloi camp may have been crippled, but Kayneth would die before simply walking out of the game!

Well, that was the initial plan anyway. "Stop the car!" Kayneth commanded of his puppet driver, who swiftly complied, stopping them in the deserted streets of Shinto.

"...So you felt it too my lord?" said Lancer, who fully materialized for the first time since their trip began.

"Indeed," Kayneth replied, looking out the window of the vehicle at a nearby office building. Though the streets of Shinto were mostly deserted due to the killings, the lights of the building were all on, signs of office ladies and salarymen continuing to burn the midnight oil. This in and of itself was hardly unusual in this modern era where mundanes happily ignored the comings and goings of the sun.

What was unusual was the flare of prana that had just emanated from the building, bearing with it the signature of a Servant at work.

Lancer: "...I believe that, based on the prana signature, it is most likely Caster. Shall we investigate, Lord Kayneth?"

The Archibald's 11th head contemplated this. Certainly, the obvious choice would be to continue on to the Einzbern hideout and ignore the unknown danger presented by the golden mage, however... during his attempts at scrying out the location of the Einzbern castle the previous night, hadn't he sensed a similar flare of magical energy? He'd dismissed it at the time in order to focus on scrying, but this morning he'd sent out a familiar to investigate while he built their new base's defenses. That familiar had come upon a great massacre being combed through by mundane law enforcement.

If, as Kayneth supposed, the one responsible for that killing was Caster... then there was a Servant committing wanton acts of mass murder. Not something that bothered Kayneth from a moral standpoint, mundanes were naturally replaceable after all. But what was bothersome about it was the idea that a Caster class Servant was doing something that required multiple instances of mass sacrifice.

That particular thought was far more worrisome than letting Saber go another night alive. "Let's go, Lancer," the mage said, abruptly exiting the vehicle while fumbling for something inside his coat.

"Yes, my lord!"