"Servant, Saber! I, Mordred, the true heir of Camelot, have arrived!"
I blink, taking a second to get my bearings. So my return point got moved again, huh?
"Yo! I'm Natsuki Subaru, and the two other servants are Mash and Hanam. I'm sure you've got questions, but they're gonna have to wait. That berserker's gonna be here in about five minutes, so we've gotta go." I say with a smile.
"Eh!? Subaru-kun, what are you- oh crap he's right!" Romani says. "We've got a servant signature moving towards you guys at high speeds - still around sixteen kilometers out, which is why I didn't notice it, but that's not super far for some servants!"
"He never leaves that forest… what could have agitated him..?" Hanam mutters, and then turns to me. "Master, our enemy is Heracles, of Greek myth. Of the three servants here, I'm the fastest, and he can still keep pace with me - but he has higher endurance. If we flee, he'll catch us for sure."
Shit. So our only choice is to fight him head on? That's so unfair!
"Goddammit! We'll fight, then! Romani, I'm going to need to use a command spell to let Mordred use his Noble Phantasm, right?" I say.
"That's right. He should be able to go wild otherwise - your master affinity is high enough to support a servant without Chaldea. But because of the setup here - !"
"...The energy for Noble Phantasms is sourced directly from Chaldea's generators, which are broken, right? That's fine. We'll figure it out." I say, interrupting him. "More importantly…" I grab Avalon from the summoning circle.
Mordred's eyes widen. "Is that..?"
"Avalon. Yeah. Hey, this thing is supposed to make whoever wears it immune to injury, right? How do I get that to work?"
He scowls. "You can't. It only works for Father - maybe if you were contracted with him, you could get it to function for you, but it's no good otherwise."
Well, in that case I suppose it'll remain a glorified magic wand. And not even a particularly good one, either - the fairies of Avalon are similar to the spirits of Lugnica, but they aren't the same - I'm limited to the spells that I know how to cast on my own. In other words, all I've got to my name is Shamak.
And I'm not so sure what sensory deprivation is going to do to someone who's already blind.
"One kilometer remaining! Brace yourselves!" Romani yells.
"Mordred! By my command spell, use your Noble Phantasm and annihilate Berserker!" I yell, and one of the icons on my left hand glows bright red.
"Gladly! [Clarent…" He responds, his blade engulfed with crimson light.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!" Berserker sails into sight, hurtling towards us at sonic speed, blade raised.
"Mash!" I yell, and she manages to get between him and me before the blow lands.
His stone axe-sword smashes into her shield, and he jumps back, landing a few meters away with his left hand on the ground and his blade held to the side. A cloud of steam hisses out from between his teeth - and then he whips his head to the right, staring directly at Mordred.
"...Blood Arthur]!" the Saber roars, and then a massive geyser of energy engulfs Heracles. A veritable wall of red light, shooting out into the distance some ten or twenty kilometers before curving up into the sky.
The battlefield is silent for a few seconds as the light dissipates.
And then Heracles erupts out of the ground, smashing into Mordred, the knight's blade barely deflecting the hit.
"He dug a hole!?" Mash exclaims.
His back is charred, a cylindrical cross section having been carved out of his shoulder blades when Clarent plowed a trench into the street. But overall, he's unharmed, and seemingly unfazed.
What the hell was that!? It seemed like he had fallen for it, but then-!
The steam. The same thing happened when he weaved through my [Invisible Providence]. He breathed out a cloud of steam.
No, more importantly, he had to have breathed in first!
He's blind, so obviously-!
"He's tracking us by smell!" I exclaim. That's probably what set him off in the first place - He smelled the Witch on me, just like the Mabeasts back in Lugnica.
"▂▂▃▃▅▅----" Heracles roars - the same roar that preceded his increase in speed and subsequent dismemberment of Mordred last time. Is it a Noble Phantasm?
No, focus. To have smelled me from the forest… his sense of smell must be ridiculously potent. But that just means he's more sensitive, right?
"Let's try this, then! I can use [Return by-!" I yell, and I feel a cold hand grasp my heart as the Witch prevents me from sharing my secret. But that's exactly what I want. With her presence, the scent on me will have intensified.
"Senpai/Master!?" Mash and Hanam cry out as I double over. But I grin at them, and they ease up a bit. This ought to seal the deal.
Mordred's nose twitches, and his eyes flick to me for a moment - so he can smell it too, huh?
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
But most importantly, Heracles visibly recoils, grabbing at his face and flailing his blade wildly, thoroughly disoriented.
Like a bloodhound that just got a faceful of cayenne pepper.
Mordred sees his opening, and weaves past Berserker's guard, a burst of red lightning erupting from his feet as he does so - a flash of steel, a spray of blood, and the right arm of Heracles is sent flying away.
He retaliates with a snap of his teeth aimed at the knight's head, but the knight ducks, dodging the attack - and then, he plunges Clarent up, past Berserker's open mouth, and out the other side of his skull.
For a moment, I think it might be over, but then the giant backhands Mordred, sending the knight skipping across the ground.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
Heracles pulls the sword from his mouth, splattering blood and grey matter on the ground - but he remains standing. He grips it by the blade, and I see him inhale through his nose.
And then, he hurls the sword at me. Mash is already in position to block it, but it doesn't reach her.
Barely noticed, a pebble clatters to the ground in front of us, and then it glows with blue light, a magic circle appearing on the ground. Clarent bounces off the wall of the circle and clatters to the ground inside it.
"Algiz." calls out a voice I've never heard before, but Hanam looks noticeably shocked.
Berserker hurls himself at us, but he's repelled by another magic circle, as more and more of the things appear around him. There's a similar pebble in the center of each one - how long has he been setting this up!?
"Ehwaz." continues the hooded, blue-cloaked man as he hops down from his perch on the roof of a nearby building. "Sowilo, mannaz, fehu."
The magic circles flare red, merging together into a single shape. The man that I can only assume to be Caster grins as he strolls up to the circle, and taps his wooden staff to the edge of it. "Ansuz." Three lines appear in the center of the oversized circle, in the shape of a sort of bent looking letter 'F'.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
In the circle, Berserker continues to flail around, hammering at the barrier - and under the force of his fist, cracks start to appear in the magic wall.
The blue-cloaked man gives a low whistle. "Man, if he still had both arms, he'd probably break free before I could trigger the thing."
On the other side of the circle, Mordred extracts himself from an abandoned bar and scowls at Caster. "I had him."
Caster chuckles. "Oh sure, give him another few hours of bleeding and he'd be down. But he revived himself from death a few too many times during the war for my liking! Let's just be thorough about this, yeah?"
"Fine," the Saber grumbles.
"An offering to the great god of wisdom - [Ochd Deug Odin]!" He yells.
And then, the whole circle erupts into a column of purple flames. In the center, I can barely make out the silhouette of Heracles as he crumbled into ash. Caster doesn't relax for an instant - but finally the blaze dies down leaving only charred ground. A few seconds later, the man finally drops his guard and lets out a bark of laughter.
"Whew! Glad that's over! Saber, Assassin, you guys are looking more sane than normal. And as for you two, welcome to Fuyuki, I guess." He lowers his hood, revealing a youthful face, blue hair, and red eyes. "Servant Caster, Cu Chulainn. Nice to meet you guys."
***
Notes:
Ochd Deug Odin is Caster Cu's OTHER Noble Phantasm that he never uses in FGO for some reason. But it is canon!