Dante looked at his new master, a girl who looked incredibly weak and sick. His thoughts of suicide or killing her vanished the moment he saw her.
"I am your master, who are you?" she asked, her voice a mix of weariness and fear.
Our protagonist sighed at the sight, and the thought crossed his mind to try and help this girl, since that's what a hero would do. After all, what was the worst that could happen?
*Three Doritos later*
Chaos and multiple explosions erupted everywhere amidst the sand, their origins a mystery to everyone.
From the smoke, a figure emerged and stopped amidst several Egyptian-looking buildings.
Dante looked up, his gaze fixed on the Great Pyramid, which unleashed a blast of light energy that he dodged at the last second.
Using Soru, he managed to hide and watch the two opponents fighting.
Laser beams and fire attacks flew and erupted; after all, both possessed powers related to the sun, though they wielded it differently: one relied more on combustion and the other on light.
The dark-haired man struck the white-haired one, sending him sprawling to the ground. He got up to find himself unharmed. In response, using his spear, he unleashed a spinning slash with his body, which was blocked by the enemy's staff, thrown outward.
Seizing this opportunity, he charged forward at full speed to try and kill Rider, but Rider looked at him, and with a single gesture, several laser beams appeared around Dante.
The red-eyed blond watched this, using everything he had to dodge all the attacks, only for Lancer to appear behind him.
Turning his body, he managed to use a main blade of the Fusion Sword to stop Lancer's spear.
"You're in the way," our protagonist growled at his opponent.
"I could say the same about you, Saber," Lancer replied monotonously, only for a sphinx to emerge from the sand and try to crush them both.
Saber quickly regrouped and, grabbing the white-haired man's spear, hurled his opponent against the skiff's leg, destroying it, both the limb and the head.
In midair, a beam of sunlight struck him, sending him flying far away.
The blond man charged at the dark-haired man, only to be intercepted by his staff, which spun him around swiftly.
"Think you can win, you fool?" Rider asked, smiling, but he didn't sound annoyed but, rather, amused.
"I don't just think so; I can," Saber replied, attacking with everything he had.
Meanwhile, Lancer had already gotten up without a scratch, only to continue receiving attacks from the multiple pyramids the Rider had summoned for quite some time; therefore, before rejoining the fight, he decided to destroy them all.
On the other hand, the fight between Saber and Rider was somehow going Rider's way. The dark-haired man spun around and struck the blond man's hand with his staff, forcing him to drop his weapon, only to be thrown backward.
Saber, spitting blood, grabbed two more swords from his back and charged again, this time pushing himself beyond his limits.
With speed comparable to that of light, he attempted to intercept the great pharaoh, but the pharaoh somehow managed to respond, which annoyed Saber, so he feinted.
Using a sword, he tried to strike a very obvious point, only to be intercepted by his opponent's staff, receiving a kick from Rider that made him vomit blood, but he remained motionless.
At that moment, a large amount of Conqueror's Haki emanated from Saber, slightly suppressing Rider's divine power. Gritting his teeth and using all the Haki he possessed, he executed a slash.
"Δικαστήριο Απολύτης Επικρατείας: Ανωτάτη Δύναμη," Saber exclaimed, making a cut.
Rider, realizing the danger, took a step back, trying to protect himself.
Saber's sword completely severed Rider's arm and ripped open his neck, nearly decapitating him.
"Haaaa," Rider laughed as best he could at this, only to point to the sky, only for a pyramid even more gigantic than the previous ones to appear and then for the sun to emerge from nowhere.
Saber watched this completely bewildered, especially since the moment the sun appeared, Rider's neck began to regenerate.
"I am the very reincarnation of Ra; as long as the sun shines, I will not die," Rider declared proudly, only for Lancer to appear behind him, burying his spear in his chest.
Rider realized this, but too late, which is why he couldn't react properly, not even to the kick Saber delivered, sending him crashing into the pyramid she had just created.
But the fight didn't end there. Saber and Lancer immediately clashed weapons.
Using her mobility, not unlike a Rider, she quickly found an opening in Lancer's armor and, with an Armament Haki-infused slash, closed the distance, but it didn't seem to do any damage.
Lancer was thrown backward, vomiting blood.
"I still can't understand how you manage to hurt me through my armor, Saber," Lancer remarked, getting up and wiping blood from his mouth.
"That's a secret technique I invented to be able to kill gods." Saber offered an explanation.
"I see, so it wasn't just the sword," she replied.
"So you researched me, huh?" Saber questioned.
"It was mostly my master, but facing someone who was able to stand up to gods and kill one is something to be proud of, God-killer," Lancer said.
"I still can't understand how you hurt me through my armor, Saber." "It's not such a great feat, hero of charity," he exclaimed, lunging at Lancer.
While all this was happening, Rider calmly helped him up from where he had fallen. Almost his entire body was fully regenerated; only his arm was missing, which he calmly went to retrieve.
As he strolled along, he glanced sideways at the two monkeys fighting with weapons and fists.
He saw Saber punch Lancer, making him vomit blood and, incidentally, knock out a tooth. In response, he spun his spear and launched multiple fire spears, which his opponent dodged.
While considering his options, he reached his arm and reattached it to his wound; in a few minutes, it was fully rejoined.
Rider had ways to deal with Saber, but he couldn't harm Lancer. Saber could harm Lancer, but she had trouble against Rider. Lancer could defeat Rider, but Saber posed a challenge.
It was a stalemate, and Rider knew it. Faced with this situation, he decided to go all in.
Striking his staff into the ground, a creature with the body of a lion and the face of a human began to emerge, but its skin was as if it were gazing at the universe through the sand.
Lancer and Saber realized this immediately, because the latter delivered a swift blow, pulling back his opponent to unleash his full speed and soru, attempting to decapitate Rider.
Trying to inflict the greatest possible damage as quickly as possible, he extended his hand, intending to seize Rider's neck, snap it, and decapitate him in one swift motion. But just as he was about to touch him, his enemy smiled.
Saber, opening his eyes, stopped abruptly, but the laws of physics wouldn't allow him to stop in an instant. The moment Rider shielded himself from a powerful beam of sunlight, half of the blond man's hand was instantly disintegrated.
Had he not noticed thanks to the observation hack, he would have been disintegrated immediately.
"How reckless," Rider sneered, prompting the beast behind him to strike Saber, sending him crashing into several houses. He landed on one, allowing the entire structure to collapse on top of him.
The blond man stood there weighing his options and realizing that the best course of action now was to play dead.
Rider turned his gaze to Lancer, who was already armed with his spear, ready to counterattack.
At that moment, the sphinx behind Rider teleported behind Lancer. He barely had time to react to stop Rider's kick, only to have to move to dodge a solar beam from the creature.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Rider lunged at Lancer, but the creature merely looked at him; then a beam of fire hurtled toward him.
Rider, using his staff, managed to deflect the attack, only for Lancer to fall on top of him, causing both weapons to collide and creating a shockwave.
Lancer was about to react, but the beast struck him, and as he was airborne, multiple solar beams crashed down on him.
Amidst the barrage, Lancer landed without a single new injury.
"Is that all?" Lancer asked emotionlessly.
Rider simply smiled at him.
"There's more to come," the dark-haired man exclaimed, twirling his staff and striking the ground.
In the sky, he saw a circle with various Egyptian patterns and, in the center, an eye.
Lancer looked up, confused, only to find himself being lifted into the sky by a pyramid on the ground with the same patterns. Another pyramid also began to form around the circumference.
"Behold and be crushed, son of the sun, by the most fascinating structure of all time, the grandest temple, Ramesseum Tentyris," Rider said, and the moment both pyramids began to rise, they crushed Lancer, forming a temple with two peaks, one base representing the sky and the other the earth.
But this didn't last long. A few seconds later, the intersection of the two temples cracked, and in an instant, a miniature sun destroyed everything around it.
Lancer fell, gasping, his mouth full of blood and covered in Egyptian seals. As soon as he saw this, he realized the seals were nullifying the fusion of his impenetrable armor.
Before anyone could react, Sabr appeared behind Rider, attempting to slice him in half, but the beast teleported behind him, slamming him to the ground.
Rider turned around, only to be struck by a sword that pierced his chest and trachea. He simply pulled it out, and his wound immediately regenerated.
The beast's leg was flung back, causing it to take two steps backward.
Through the smoke, Saber could be seen walking calmly, without his sword and with his right arm missing.
"This isn't working," he muttered to himself, seeing Lancer in such a bad state.
They didn't need to say a word to convey what they wanted to say.
Lancer nodded and quickly confronted Rider, who already sensed what was happening.
Saber turned to face the beast behind him.
"I think I took a little while to get serious," he declared. He raised his only available hand, and a winged weapon, resembling a blood-red katana, appeared in bursts of red lightning.
Lancer tried to harm Rider, but anything he did was easily regenerated. He knew this power came from the sun, and even more so because of his legend as a pharaoh, the reincarnation of Ra himself.
Rider opened his eyes to look to the side, seeing how his Abu el-Hol Sphinx was destroyed with several crimson cuts.
The white-haired man seized the opportunity and, with a spin, tried to strike Rider, but he managed to react, blocking the attack. However, the force of his opponent still sent him flying.
The dark-haired man looked at Lancer, who stood motionless, unsure of what he was doing, only to see his mountain momentarily glow.
As soon as he looked, he saw his miniature sun destroyed at the same time as the pyramid split in two.
At that moment, he realized what was happening, but it was too late; the explosion changed the colors of the sky, and by the time he realized Saber was above him, it was too late.
He said nothing, as there was little he could do at that moment; He just stood there watching as Saber flawlessly balanced her movement, creating the illusion of two swords. And as all this unfolded, he could only sigh at his bad luck.
"Διπλή Αυλή Απόλυτης Κυριαρχίας: Υπέρτατη Δύναμη," Saber declared, and suddenly the ground was divided into four parts, forming an x, and the pharaoh's body suffered the same fate.
Saber fell to his knees, breathing rapidly. Doing all that in the shortest possible time using thirty fully charged attacks and hacking to the limit was something he hadn't done in a long time, and this body was technically weaker than his real one, so he had to be careful.
At the same time, Rider's dismembered body fell, slowly fading away.
"I don't regret anything I did, and this was quite entertaining," he commented, then looked at the blond-haired man. "I hope to face you next time, but with our full real power."
"You're asking for too much, King of Kings," Dante replied, his voice slowing.
"It's possible," Rider said mockingly before disappearing completely.
[Congratulations, you have defeated the King of Kings, Ozymandias; you have obtained 2,000,000,000,000 LP].
Saber heard the system's voice within him. Ignoring it, he fixed his gaze on Lancer, whose Egyptian seals had vanished.
"Even without the seals, you could still harm me, so make them disappear; it was all for nothing," Lancer remarked, looking directly at Saber.
"What do you propose then?" the blond asked, assuming a fighting stance.
"To end this with one blow," the white-haired man said, rising into the air. "If you can withstand my most powerful attack, I will surrender willingly."
"Then I will defend it head-on so that I can renounce the Holy Grail willingly," Saber declared.
"I would expect nothing less from you," Lancer exclaimed, and the ground began to heat up.
The sand turned to glass and then shattered into thousands of pieces.
A sun unlike Rider's appeared behind Lancer as a massive spear materialized in his hands, his armor vanishing.
Saber watched, swallowing hard, and assumed a one-handed defensive stance.
"Know the laws of the gods, whose power you now possess. Incinerate, Vasavi Shakti," Lancer declared, aiming his spear at Saber.
At that moment, all the sun's energy was channeled into the spear's tip and unleashed as a pure blast of mass destruction.
Consequently, Saber, using God Slayer, gathered all her mana, energy, and Haki, only to respond at the moment Lancer's attack was about to collide with a single cut.
The Vasavi Shakti was briefly shattered into fragments, destroying everything around it, but the attack's power far exceeded expectations. Where Dante was, an explosion occurred, which began to destroy everything, even affecting Lancer to a lesser extent.
Once the attack subsided, the place fell silent. Lancer was seen standing there, bearing several wounds, some more serious than others, but the most severe was internal, not external.
The moment Saber's body was seen, he relaxed.
"Ah, I think that was my limit," Saber said, quite tired, as he looked at his body. "If I was missing a hand before, now I'm doubly missing," he remarked humorously.
Saber was missing a large part of his left chest, his arm was completely severed, his right shoulder was gone, he had a hole in his stomach, and he was missing a foot.
As he stared ahead, his body began to fade away.
"Can I ask you a favor?" Saber asked, and Lancer nodded. "You can ask your master to take care of mine; if it weren't for that girl's condition, perhaps I wouldn't have participated in this war."
"Then I can only ask my master to safeguard the reason why I was able to face such a noble warrior as yourself," Lancer replied.
"You're exaggerating." Saber dismissed Lancer's words, looking him in the eye. "I only hope that in the future we will meet again as allies and not as enemies."
"I hope the gods hear your prayer, and mine as well," the white-haired man said, smiling.
At that moment, Saber vanished completely, leaving Lancer as the victor of this Holy Grail War.
...
Back on the Throne of Heroes, Dante could be seen floating in the air.
"Well, there's one out of three; two more to go," he commented into the void.
"That war was pretty chaotic," Kiss-shot thought to himself.
"If the two of you hadn't been beings with powers related to the sun, and if my master hadn't been a sick child, I could have brought you here to help me," Dante said listlessly.
"It doesn't matter; we don't need the Holy Grail, we just want to fulfill our agreement with the Throne of Heroes and get out of here," Kiss-shot reminded him.
"Truthfully, I got a little carried away by the excitement of the battle," Dante reflected, and at that moment, they felt a tug. "I'm being summoned again."
With that said, Dante didn't resist the summoning and went directly to the next situation to which he was called as a heroic spirit.
...
In the middle of a summoning circle, a thick cloud of smoke billowed, and amidst it all stood Dante, clad in a robe that covered his entire body like a mage, since this time he had been summoned as a Caster-class Servant.
"You're the one who..." Dante's words trailed off for two reasons.
The first was that, besides him, another Servant had been summoned beside him. This one was dressed in the attire of a Gothic duchess from the Victorian era.
The second was the person who had supposedly summoned him.
"Oh, Dante, did you die or what? No wonder I couldn't find you. It's good that you came," Altrouge Brunestud remarked, rising from his chair to stand before Dante.
The other Servant, sensing the presence of the two people, decided to remain silent.
"Uh, another Servant, that shouldn't be happening," Altrouge said, looking at the other Servant.
"Hey?" Dante asked, and Altrouge looked at him. "What did you do?"
Altrouge paused for a moment before answering.
"I stole the Holy Grail straight from the clock tower to create my own Holy Grail War," she explained cheerfully, leaving the room in silence.
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Hi, I have something I'd like to share, more than anything.
I had planned to summon Ozymandias as a Rider in the Second Holy Grail War, in which Dante was summoned as an Assassin, but I felt it would be too much to have him in the war, so I ended up discarding it. Regarding Karna, I had planned for Dante's first summoning as Saber to replace Siegfried in Fate/Apocrypha, creating a rivalry with Karna. Due to time constraints, I scrapped that idea, but I really wanted to do that interaction, hence this post.
It's worth clarifying that this fight took place during a Holy Grail War, from any parallel or not-so-parallel universe; it wasn't in the Fate/stay night, Apocrypha, or Grand Order universes, just to be clear. With nothing more to add, I'll take my leave.