Fate - Clara Sole

Chapters

Requiem For an Impossible Dream
Act 1 - Re:Birth
Act 1 - Preparations
Act 1 - Treacherous Summoning

Requiem For an Impossible Dream

Before anyone gets their Schwartz Twisted, chillax, I'm only posting this to clear up some processing space in my head for other projects. I'll probably get back to this later but for now this should whet your appetites.

Prologue: Requiem For an Impossible Dream

The Multiverse is, by definition, a collection of hypothetical possible universes that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter and energy, as well as the physical and meta-physical laws, variants and constants that describe them. It goes without saying that there are any number of possible universes out there, one for every decision made or otherwise forgone, be it something as insignificant as which gender or race you were born into, to more complex conundrums such as which shirt to wear or whether or not to drink Chocolate Milk with everything.

The answer to that last one, naturally, was a resounding YES, or at least it was in the opinion of a certain Lord of Chaos, who was currently reclining on what had come to be regarded as ‘His’ couch in the home he shared with his best friend/parole officer, when he wasn’t making a minor pest of himself in order to prevent himself from going insane.

Now don’t get him wrong, there was nothing wrong with indulging in a bit of dementia, the affliction, not the Spirit, (though she certainly knew how to party), now and again. Indeed, he challenged anyone to spend a millennium as a decorative pigeon latrine, completely aware of their surroundings yet incapable of scratching that damned itch in the small of their back, and not go a bit loopy.

It was simply that he’d been there, done that, and had even printed several fashionable Shirts (Tai-Dyed, Naturally) to advertise the fact on multiple occasions. By the end of it he’d simply gotten bored and defaulted back to his typical state of not-quite sanity that could still enjoy driving others to their wits end, a pastime that continued to prove a welcome anathema in the otherwise humdrum his continued existence had sadly become, now that he was burdened by the oh-so-humbling shackles of ‘Friendship’.

“Stupid Writers with their stupid moral lessons…” he stage-muttered, summoning a glass of chocolate milk, which he promptly consumed, chucking the contents over his shoulder, where it promptly began chasing Angel Bunny around the house “Seriously, couldn’t they have pulled some other trick? Like the Reformation spell requiring that I eat it?”

It wouldn’t have worked mind you, as trying to impose order on a being whose very existence was Chaos Incarnate would have the same effect as introducing matter to anti-matter, or the Cutie Mark Crusaders to Power Tools.

“Speaking of which…” he mused, snapping his talons to pause the channel before peering out the window to check on the fillies, having promised to keep an eye on them while Fluttershy and her friends were off in the Crystal Empire for the Princess Summit, a task he surprisingly found to be both entertaining and cathartic, as the trio of fillies made quite the effective trifecta of chaos, and the Unicorn couldn’t even use magic yet!

“Maybe I should take a leaf or two from Celestia’s book…” he mused, idly nibbling on a random page from the Sun Princess’ diary, one of the saucier pages naturally, as he watched Scootaloo lay out her latest ‘sure to earn us our cutie marks (or land us in hospital)’ plan, only to toss the idea aside, knocking Angel Bunny out of mid-air as the rabbit once again attempted a futile show of dominance “Nah, too much effort…”

There was also the fact that if he were to start giving lessons on Chaos Magic, there was no doubt a certain recently ascended Alicorn would turn up, notebooks at the ready to suck all the fun out of it.

Besides, as was the nature of Chaos, it was far more fun for him to simply sit back and watch the resulting fireworks from the trio’s latest scheme. After all, he’d only promised to keep an eye on them so they didn’t hurt themselves, at no point had he promised to keep them from getting into trouble.

“The Hospital, maybe, but certainly not trouble.” He amended, snapping his talons again to resume watching his show once it was confirmed the Crusaders weren’t in any immediate danger “Ooh, I like what Cadence has done with the place.” he mused, pulling on a pair of cardboard 3D glasses to avoid lens flare “Always did feel it could do with a bit of touching up. Hm?”

He paused as he spotted something in the corner of the screen that actually caused him to quirk a brow, namely a group of Unicorns that were watching the proceedings with interest, among their number an admittedly pretty mare with a fiery mane that would’ve had any bacon-lover drooling in appreciation.

However, while the Mare’s presence was to be expected, her attire and apparent lack of animosity towards Twilight were not. If anything, she seemed to be just as decidedly unimpressed with the new Princess as Discord was. No, what truly drew Discord’s attentions were her companions, namely a pigtailed Unicorn Mare, a red-maned stallion with a VERY interesting Cutie Mark, and…a little white Alicorn?

“Oh Zelretch you cheeky Dick-Waffle…” he chuckled, sitting up straighter and snapping his fingers, summoning a fresh bucket of buttered popcorn to snack on as he hit the rewind button on his remote “And it isn’t even my Birthday!”

Canterlot Castle – Several Years Ago.

They say that pride cometh before the fall, and if ever a pony embodied that term it was Sunset Shimmer, one of the elect few to be granted the prestigious honour of not only attending Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but also being personally selected to become the Sun Princess’ Personal Student.

From the moment she’d first walked through those gilded doors at the academy, it was clear to all that Sunset Shimmer would go far, both in terms of her magical acumen and as a pony. It wasn’t simply her raw magical skill, she simply possessed a force of will that few other ponies could match, or indeed handle. Indeed, many a time prior to being selected by the Princess she often wound up showing up her professors, many of whom had to take sabbaticals to recover from the humiliation of being shown up in their chosen field by a mare easily half their age.

However, while no-one could doubt Sunset’s magical prowess, her social skills, while far from lacking, were not the kind Celestia approved of from those closest and dearest to her heart. To put it bluntly, despite Celestia’s many lessons in humility, Sunset’s prodigal power and skill, coupled with the praises of her instructors and position as Celestia’s student, had caused her to become boastful, arrogant and condescending towards anypony who couldn’t measure up to her ridiculously high standards.

In all fairness it wasn’t entirely Sunset’s fault that she was like this. After all, while her rank as Celestia’s Student opened many doors for her, what lurked behind some of those doors was enough to turn the stomach of any decent pony. From the moment she attended her first gala, the young mare had been exposed to more potential suitors and ‘business partners’ looking to cash in on her position than many a mare could expect to meet in a lifetime. This, as you might imagine, led to her becoming jaded on the subject of ‘friendship’, despite it being a key tenant of most of her lessons with Celestia. She grew distrustful of anyone who tried to get close to her, whether they be old classmates or the Canterlot Elite.

But why should she care for the opinions of lesser folk when she had the company of a Goddess? What need had she for friends when every day was spent pushing the bounds of magic further and further under the caring tutelage of her wise mentor? The only Alicorn in existence?

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and for Sunset, her good times ended the day Celestia pulled her aside after a particularly boring seminar on the importance of Friendship to introduce her student to the latest addition to her family, her recently adopted niece, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

Now Sunset was no stranger to members of the Canterlot Elite claiming to be ‘relatives of the Princess’, as Celestia tended to step in to adopt the foals of old family friends that had fallen on hard times or were on the verge of dying out. Prince Blueblood was a prime example of the latter, his family having served the crown for years until his father passed away due to choking on an apple seed.

But while Cadance confessed to having been born in Canterlot, she didn’t have the benefit of being from an ‘old blood family’ that had served the crown for generations, nor had her parents been a part of the Canterlot Military. A good thing too, for if they had Celestia would have had them exiled for abandoning their daughter in the woods simply for being born a Pegasus instead of a Unicorn. Indeed, had things simply ended there, Sunset might have been willing to humor Celestia and at least attempt a friendship with the mare, or at the very least help her find her hooves among the court.

Sadly, any hopes Celestia had of cultivating a friendship between them died a fiery, agonizing death in the face of Sunset’s indignation that Cadance, a self-confessed Pegasus, had not only been adopted as Celestia’s kin, but had managed to ascend to the lofty rank of Alicorn.

It had been a shocking development for the normally confident Sunset Shimmer. And could you honestly blame her? Here she was, the most powerful Unicorn of her generation, the prodigal student of Princess Celestia herself, arguably the closest thing the Sun Princess had to a daughter, and yet some random Pegasus raised by Earth Ponies from the sticks had managed overnight something that, to date, had eluded even the legendary Starswirl the Bearded.

Needless to say, Sunset had made it clear from the outset that she thought very little of the so-called ‘Princess of Love’ and wanted even less to do with her, going out of her way to purposefully avoid the mare, though she limited herself to being excessively formal whenever in Celestia’s presence.

It wasn’t as if Cadence was a bad pony. Indeed, unlike many of Celestia’s adopted family she was actually rather down to earth, no doubt a result of being raised by Earth Ponies, even going so far as to insist she enroll at Canterlot Academy instead of simply waltzing into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, which in Sunset’s opinion had been rather clever of her, as she highly doubted the naïve mare would’ve survived one minute among her former colleagues.

No, the reason Sunset chose to distance herself from Cadence was simply jealousy, plain and simple. And could you honestly blame her? She’d worked her flanks off for years to get where she was, had devoted herself entirely to her studies to impress the Mare she saw as a second mother, only to be shown up by some random mare from the middle of nowhere.

And so, in a rather interesting turn of events, Celestia’s gambit to convince Sunset Shimmer to make friends wound up making her student even more of a recluse, pushing away any and all attempts from her peers to get to know her in favour of bridging the gap she believed had formed between her and the Princess. Desperate to reach out to her disciple before it was too-late, Celestia found herself with no choice but to bend one of her own rules, whilst simultaneously breaking one of the many, MANY rules laid down by Starswirl prior to his disappearance, and unearthed one of her mentor’s magical mirrors.

Normally she would never dream of doing such a thing, not after the falling out that occurred between the two of them due to her abusing his trust, but Celestia remained confident that if anything could get Sunset back on the right track, it would be to see how happy she could be surrounded by the friends she was so sorely lacking.

Alas, however, it seemed Starswirl’s warnings had been well placed, for while whatever Sunset had seen within the depths of the mirror had indeed lit a fire within her, it was a fire that hungered for power, power Celestia did not believe her once erstwhile student was ready to handle in her current state of mind.

Now Celestia had made many mistakes in her lifetime, chief among them the events that culminated in Luna’s fall to the Nightmare and subsequent banishment, but unlike then she recognized the signs for what they were, and she would be damned before she failed Sunset Shimmer as she had her sister.

And so she had sealed the mirror away, hoping that, in time, she could wear down her student’s patience with knowledge. Alas, while Sunset hadn’t inherited Celestia’s desire for companionship, her hunger for knowledge was just as voracious as the Alicorn’s had been during her own tutelage under Starswirl. She was certainly just as stubborn as Celestia dimly recalled her foal-hood self to be, refusing to take a hint, always trying to bring their conversations back to the mirror despite Celestia’s best attempts to distract her.

In this regard, Celestia had to admit that Starswirl had been the better instructor, the old Stallion having possessed the patience of a saint and the knowledge of how to reign in overbearing foals who thought they knew everything just because they possessed both wings and a horn. For Faust’s sake he was able to keep two inexperienced Alicorn Fillies under control, while here Celestia struggled with a single, admittedly brilliant, unicorn.

In the end, after countless days, weeks and months of dodging the issue, Celestia’s millennia spanning patience finally ran thin, the Solar Princess making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that she had no intention of discussing the mirror and whatever Sunset had seen within its crystalline depths until she deemed her student ready. While the look of betrayal and anger in Sunset’s eyes as she laid down her ultimatum had cut her to the core, she knew in her heart that it was for her own good. In time, once she was certain Sunset had matured physically and mentally, she would be more inclined to discuss what her student had seen, but until then she still had some growing up to do.

It was only after the events that followed that she would recall how that very mind-set had cost her another figure close to her heart. But unlike her sister, who was scheduled to return within the next few years, there was no guarantee that she’d ever see Sunset Shimmer again.

Canterlot Archives – Restricted Section.

“If we cannot get past this, your studies end here.” Celestia intoned as she glared imperiously down at her former student “You are welcome to stay in Canterlot, but you are no longer welcome in the castle.”

“This is the biggest mistake you’ll make in your entire life.” Sunset vowed, her pride and anger overpowering the crippling fear and shame that were practically begging her to throw themselves at her mentor’s hooves, to plead for mercy like some scared little foal. Instead she turned on her hooves and marched out, flanked on either side by the two Royal Guard Stallions Celestia had brought with her.

‘She never even intended to hear me out.’ She growled, glaring heatedly at the normally taciturn stallions, who simply returned her glare with equal venom, as if they were looking down on the scum of Equestria instead of a mare who had more power in her horn than they would ever possess in their entire lives. A mare that, had she not let her pride get in the way, could have been their next Princess.

There was no doubt in Sunset Shimmer’s mind that she was the most powerful Unicorn in Canterlot, if not all of Equestria. While Cadence had the advantage of being an Alicorn, her Pegasus origins meant her control over magic was even weaker than a newborn filly’s. This had done little to soothe Sunset’s ego however, and so when the chance arose for her to close the gap, to learn how to ascend to Alicorn-hood, she had leapt at it, confident that between her skills and Celestia’s guidance, she would finally achieve her destiny.

Instead, her Mentor had betrayed her, lied and avoided the issue before outright denying her access to the knowledge she needed to make that next step, and now seeing fit to cast her aside for the ‘crime’ of refusing to dance to her tune for a second longer.

It went without saying that she wasn’t about to take this lying down. Make no mistake, the only reason she had gone along quietly was to give the Stallions escorting her a belated sense of security, as anyone who’d lived in Canterlot for any amount of time knew that the Royal Guard were essentially there to look pretty. And could you blame them? Celestia had ruled over Equestria for well over a thousand years and in that time no other country had ever so much as sneered in their general direction. And why would they? Only an idiot would purposefully make an enemy of the immortal demi-goddess who controlled the cycle of the sun and moon.

Now the Wonderbolts, those she might have taken seriously, as only the best of the best were accepted to even try out for the squad. But as it stood the two Pegasus Stallions assigned to escort her out of the castle were most likely from the countless failures who just couldn’t cut it and figured guarding the palace was a cushy job. Sadly, it seemed they had forgotten a key fact about their supposed escort, one that Sunset was all too willing to remind them of as they drew close to the room she recalled the mirror being stored in.

And the remedial lesson for the day is: Never send a Pegasus to guard a Unicorn, especially when that Unicorn is Sunset Shimmer.

‘You’d think Celestia would’ve known better.’ She scoffed, glaring down at the concussed forms of the Stallions in disgust ‘Or did she simply think so little of me that she thought these overblown bookends would be enough to keep me in line?’

If even one of the guards had been a unicorn he might have put up more of a fight, or at the very least tried to get a flare spell off before she took him down. The fact Celestia hadn’t deemed her enough of a threat to warrant such concern simply proved to Sunset that her former mentor was underestimating her.

‘Yet another mistake she’ll live to regret.’ Sunset vowed, turning her back on the downed guards in favour of striding towards the source of her dilemma and supposed answer to all of her problems, namely Starswirl’s Crystal Mirror.

A part of her wanted to smash the damned thing, partly for ruining her reputation with the Princess, and partially to spite the mare by destroying one of the few relics from her old friend. However, that part of her was greatly overshadowed by her desire to delve deeper into the vision she’d seen within, to learn the secrets that would grant her the power needed to ascend, to claim the power and status that were rightfully hers.

While she hadn't learnt much beyond the bare basics before Celestia’s arrival, she’d learnt enough to know that the portal seemed to rely on the phases of the moon, an odd trait given Celestia’s preference for the sun, and would only activate once every thirty moons, or once every two and a half years, give or take. She obviously couldn’t sneak the damn thing out of the castle, and while it wouldn’t be hard to sneak back in over the next two years given the ineptitude of the Guard, there was no guarantee that Celestia would leave the mirror in the same place once Sunset left.

In other words, this was the only chance Sunset had to use the mirror, and it just so happened to be a Full Moon tonight.

‘Just you wait.’ She preened, smirking confidently to herself eve as she heard the familiar dainty hoofsteps of her mentor drawing closer to the chamber ‘When I come back with the power I deserve, I’ll make you regret the day you cast me out!’

And with nary a look back, Sunset Shimmer turned to face her destiny, gathered all the strength she could into her hind legs and launched herself towards the mirror, closing her eyes instinctively as she neared the glass surface, only to gasp in surprise when instead of slamming into it her hooves passed through as if diving into a pool of ice-cold water.

At that moment, an explosion of colour caught the corner of her eye, the former student of Celestia turning as if in slow motion to gape at the rainbow-colored shockwave that was bearing down on Canterlot Castle, her eyes widening in alarm as she sensed the sheer magical power of the field just before her head was consumed by the portal.

What happened next, Sunset still isn’t sure to this day, but if pressed to recall anything about her passage through the mirror portal, the only thing she could confidently recall was the mind-numbing pain before everything went white.

Ground Zero - Fuyuki - 1994

He had no idea how long he’d been walking. Hell, he didn’t even know to where he was walking, as most of the familiar landmarks of the city had been long-since consumed by the flames that had seemingly erupted out of nowhere to claim the lives of his friends and family. Every now and again he’d hear a scream for help, a plea for assistance, a desperate cry to some higher power to save a loved one or themselves. He blotted them out, covered his ears and forced his gaze to look ever forward to the cool darkness that lurked tantalizingly at the end of the Hell the world had become, squashing down the sickening feeling of joy he felt at being the only one in this hell to have retained his human form.

Had it been mere luck? Had his house simply been far enough away from the epicenter of whatever caused this inferno that he’d been able to escape the worst of it? No, if that had been the case then he would hardly have been alone, if that had truly been the case, he wouldn’t be the only one alive right now.

I lived on, so I have to keep living.

Such was the thought that drove him ever onwards, the forced him to put one foot in front of the other, to block out the screams of the dying that begged him to save them, the smell of roasting flesh and burning fat that sought to suffocate him along with the smoke, and the intense heat of the flames that even now reached out hungrily for his form so that they could burn brighter for longer.

He held no delusions of being rescued. It was a miracle in and of itself that he’d survived this long, when so many other more qualified individuals, men and women with lives and families of their own to care for, had been snuffed out so easily. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he struggled, it was impossible for him to escape this Crimson Hell. This might have been a morbid thought for a seven-year-old boy, but that was simply how iron-clad his situation was, even a child could understand it.

And so, whether it was from exhaustion or from the lack of oxygen in the air, the boy fell to the ground even as the flames themselves began to die down, his eyes gazing emptily up into the cloudy sky overhead.

‘That’s good…’ a part of him mused distantly as he reached out for the sky, knowing in his heart he’d be long dead before the first raindrop fell, a fact which came as something of a relief, as then he would no longer have to feel such intense pain ‘Let the rain wash it all away…’

And so, gazing up into the sky, having lost everything without gaining anything in return, the boy known as Shirou let his hand fall, only for another, larger and yet more slender, to suddenly latch onto it, the boys vision once again filled with flames.

‘No…Not flames…’ he realized, his conscious slowly slipping as he gazed into the terrified face of the girl looking down at him, her sooty, tear-stained face framed by locks of hair as brilliant as the rising sun ‘An angel…’

The first thing Sunset Shimmer could feel as she slowly returned to consciousness was heat, not the comforting warmth of Celestia’s sun, or the stifling heat of the Saddle Arabian Desert, but something not unlike the one time she’d accompanied Celestia to the Dragonlands on a diplomatic mission, which was basically to remind Dragonlord Torch precisely why any Dragons that sought to set up hordes in Equestrian Territory were to ensure they didn’t lay a claw on Celestia’s Little Ponies. And to his credit, Torch was rather respectable for a Dragon. Oh he was a brute, make no mistake, but when your culture essentially dictated that might made right, being the biggest and baddest brute kind of came with the title of being Dragonlord.

That being said, all the muscles in the world weren’t worth a damn thing if a smaller, weaker contender could get the drop on you, and Torch hadn’t lasted as long as he had by being stupid, which is precisely what opposing Celestia would have been. It didn’t matter how tough you are, not even an Alicorn could survive having the SUN dropped on them, though considering how similar this current heat felt to how she imagined it, perhaps she’d have to revise that statement after she passed through the portal…wait…!

“I passed through the portal!” she exclaimed, or tried to at least, barely managing to get the first word out before devolving into a coughing fit due to the intense cloud of smoke in the air, dropping down to the ground and attempting to cover her mouth with her hooves as she’d been taught, only to freeze as she felt something soft and claw-like beat her to it, her eyes widening as she recoiled in alarm, only to blink as the limb retreated with her hoof.

“What in the world…?” she stammered, attempting to rotate her hoof, only for the strange, paw-like appendage to turn in response, the blunt, claw-like appendages twitching at her merest thought “Don’t tell me-!”

Turning her eyes downward, she found herself gaping not at the well-toned, in her personal opinion, equine body she was so familiar with and more than a little proud of, she found herself gazing down at something that resembled a sickly primate, all long limbs and torso with nary a patch of fur save for a around her pelvic area. For Faust’s sake she didn’t even have her Cutie Mark!

“What…is this…?” she stammered, pawing at her body with her new appendages, hands she believed the Minotaurs called them, her horror slowly reaching its apex when she reached up to her forehead only to find her horn missing “No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no this can’t be happening!” she shrieked, gripping her mane, the only part of her to remain unchanged, between her newfound fingers as she settled into a full-blown panic attack “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! I was supposed to become powerful! I was supposed to become a Princess!”

Was this Celestia’s plan all along? Did her mentor purposefully let her stumble onto the mirror, knowing she’d take the chance to seize her destiny, only to cast her away in a world where she couldn’t use her magic? A world where, from the looks of it, everything appeared to be on fire?

No, that made no sense whatsoever. If Celestia had simply wanted to banish Sunset there were plenty of ways she could’ve done so without jeopardizing the lives of her guards. True, Sunset had never intended to hurt the stallions any more than she had, but it still was highly unlikely Celestia was behind any of this.

‘Calm down…’ She urged herself, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to calm down only to choke once more on the smoke-filled air, covering her mouth once more with her new appendages as she lowered her head as she’d been taught to try and avoid suffocation ‘Let’s just focus on getting out of here first!’

And so she started crawling, awkwardly at first due to her unfamiliar limbs, but thankfully her new hands made grasping the heated soil a lot easier than her hooves could have ever hoped to do. A part of her, the proud part that resented Celestia and blamed her for everything, raged at the indignity of her being forced to crawl on her belly through dirt and debris, while the more rational part of her, the part she had ignored in her quest for power, promptly told her ego to shut the buck up and let her focus on getting out of this mess she’d gotten herself into.

‘Maybe I should have seen that psychiatrist…’ she mused distantly, only to push the thought out of her mind as she crested a ridge, her eyes widening in horror as the sheer scope of her situation was laid out before her.

It was, put simply, a nightmare. From what little she could see, she was in a city of some sort, not unlike Manehattan if the skyscrapers were any indication, though even from this distance she could see these buildings were far worthier of the name than their Equestrian counterparts. But what held her attention was not the towering buildings and flashing lights of the city, but rather the dying hellscape, like a scene from Tartarus, that she was apparently standing at the center of.

“Sweet Celestia…” she breathed, her anger at her mentor temporarily forgotten as she found herself gazing out at the flaming ruin of what had to have once been a more rural part of the city, before someone had apparently decided to burn it all to the ground “What…what happened here?”

Whatever happened, there was no denying that Magic had played a role, as even without her horn Sunset could feel the sheer amount of Magical Energy in the air, though admittedly she’d never felt anything so malignant, or foul, even during the few times Celestia had demonstrated ‘Dark Magic’ to her. Whether that had more to do with Celestia’s inherent ‘Goodness’, Sunset was uncertain, what she did know, however, that whatever caused this mess, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

‘All the more reason to get out of here.’ She reasoned, reaching out to grasp a nearby rock, only to stiffen as she spotted movement down below, gripping the rock tightly, weighing it’s effectiveness as a weapon in her mind only blink as a figure with a similar structure to her current form staggered out of the smoke, it’s smaller stature denoting it as a child.

‘A survivor?’ she marveled, sighing in relief as she let the rock drop ‘If that kid survived there must be others…maybe things are looking up-!’

“Hey!” she called out, cursing as her voice cracked halfway due to the heat and smoke, clearing her throat before attempting again “Hey! Kid! Over here!”

If the child heard her, he gave no response, Sunset’s frustration slowly getting the better of her as she grabbed the rock once more, intending to hurl it to grab the kid’s attention, only to freeze as he toppled over and lay prone on his back. “No-!” she gasped, the rock dropping from nerveless fingers as she rose instinctively to her feet, only to curse as her new legs, unused to balancing her weight, sent her toppling headfirst over the edge and down the slope, eliciting a plethora of colorful curses she’d picked up over the course of her studies, most of them aimed solely at her former teacher, until she finally came to a halt at the bottom.

Right on top of a spike of metal.

“Buck-!” she swore through clenched teeth, gripping her left side where the pole had punched through her skin, though thankfully it appeared to have missed her kidney. As an added plus, the impact of the blow had apparently snapped the metal off the main piece of rubble, so at the very least Sunset didn’t have to worry about bleeding out if she tried to remove it, choosing instead to drag herself the rest of the way towards the youth with her free hand.

“C’mon, stay with me kid…” she hissed through clenched teeth, grasping his hand as it fell, peering into his eyes desperately only to curse as they began to close “Dammit! Hey! Is anybody out there?! We need help-!”

The sound of rubble shifting drew her attention, the former unicorn turning slightly in time to see a tall figure stumbling towards them through the smoke, revealing itself to be an adult male, at least she assumed it was a male, of the same species as the child, clad in a black suit and coat that were just as stained with soot and dirt as his hands and face, which was set in a mask of joyous disbelief as he staggered towards them “Hey! Over here!”

“You’re alive…” the Stallion, or whatever they called males here, croaked in a dialect not dissimilar to Neighponese, tears of joy streaming from his haunted black eyes as he fell to his knees beside the pair, clasping his hands over theirs as if to confirm they weren’t a hallucination “Both of you…you’re both alive-!”

“Not for long at this rate…” Sunset countered in Neighponese, clenching her teeth as she clamped her hand over her flank, drawing the male’s attention to her unwanted piercing “The kid’s in worse condition than I am, we gotta get him to a doctor fast.”

“The nearest hospital is too far away…” he countered, earning a curse from Sunset that he ignored in favor of releasing their hands and bringing his own to his chest, Sunset’s eyes widening in shock as a golden glow began to form between them.

‘That’s…Magic!’ she exclaimed, looking on in stunned wonderment as the golden particles of light streamed from his body, forming an exquisite golden scabbard that hovered in the air between them ‘These people can use magic!’

Now it should be noted that, while Ponies were the most accomplished users of Magic in her world, that wasn’t to say they were the only ones capable of wielding it, they were simply the only species that had completely integrated Magic into their way of life, to the point that, as far as Unicorns and Pegasi were concerned, it was almost impossible for them to do anything without it. It was for this reason that Earth Pony settlements set such high regard for doing things the ‘Old Fashioned Way’, relying on their natural born talents and ingenuity rather than the quick and easy methods their more magically inclined cousins preferred.

However, while Magic was not mutually exclusive to Equestria or Pony-kind, those races capable of tapping into it typically expressed some form of trait. Setting aside Unicorns and Pegasi, whose Magic typically manifested in their Horns and Wings respectively, and Dragons, whose very Lungs acted as Mana-Generators, which is why their flame possessed magical properties, those without an obvious Magical Focus, like Earth Ponies, Minotaurs or Diamond Dogs, tended to exhibit superior Physical Prowess compared to other races, traits that Sunset certainly hadn’t felt during her brief time in this new body. And yet here she was, looking on in amazement as the raggedy looking stranger placed both hands over the child’s chest, the Golden Scabbard once again dissolving into motes of light that seeped into his body within moments.

“It’s done…” the older male gasped, looking exhausted by whatever it was he’d done, though his eyes still shone with the same unbridled joy he’d displayed the moment he’d laid eyes on them as the child’s breathing resumed as normal “He’ll live, thank God.”

“That was Magic, wasn’t it?” Sunset demanded, the former unicorn torn between wonderment and desperation, for if it was possible for this creature to learn how to use Magic, then maybe, just maybe, she could turn this all around “Where did you learn to do that?”

“I’ll explain later,” the stranger countered dismissively, cutting off Sunset’s protests by pulling off his coat and using it to cover her up “Right now I need to get you two to a hospital,” he instructed, reaching down to pick up the child before glancing down at her in concern “can you walk?”

“I… I don’t know.” Sunset confessed, hoping that he’d assume her lack of ability was due to the metal spike in her abdomen rather than unfamiliarity with walking, only to flush as he reached down and scooped her into his arms bridal-style along with the child “H-Hey! Wait a second-!” she stammered as he took off down the rubble “At least tell me your name first!”

“My name?” the stranger repeated, only to blink as he realized how this situation might have appeared to an outsider “Ah forgive me,” he chuckled, offering Sunset a smile so tender, so joyous, that there was no doubt in Sunset’s mind that he considered her survival to be a blessing he didn’t deserve “My name is Emiya Kiritsugu…and I am a Magus.”

Author's Note

I'll leave off there for now, as I simply wanted to get this idea off my brain so I could focus on other projects.

As some of you might have guessed, this is yet another in my 'Alternate Worlds to Send Sunset Shimmer to', in this case, our beloved Bacon-Pone has landed in the Nasuverse, post the events of Fate/Zero.

Won't be going into to much detail, but needless to say the upcoming Grail War in Ten Years is going to be a little different.

Act 1 - Re:Birth

Act 1 – Re:Birth.

Shinjuku.

A city of countless desires that only truly shone in the darkness of night, where Gluttony and Lust bring forth avariciousness, violence, cajolery and a hunger for Fame and Glory so great that men and women alike would gladly sell their bodies and souls for a taste.

In this city where sinners Laughed and were likewise laughed at, where the innocent were devoured and in turn devoured others, where honor is traded like coin for momentary pleasures, a ritual was taking place that would have dire consequences on the world.

“Open, Oh Gate of Heaven! Bless us and bestow miracles upon us!"

Silence was the only response to Sagara Hyouma’s proclamation, the aspiring Summoner gazing reverently at the bloody summoning circle he’d painted on the roof of his apartment building, only to sigh as the glittering lights flickered out within seconds, leaving it as empty as his earlier attempts.

"This isn’t working…’ he sighed, slumping in disappointment as he reached into his coat and pulled out a cigarette, lighting one up and taking a long drag to calm his nerves.

As a Magus, Sagara was hardly the kind of person you would normally never expect to be allowed to participate in such a prestigious ritual as the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, considered by many to be the ultimate proving grounds for Magi, a Free-For-All battle to the death between Seven ‘Masters’ and their ‘Servants, Heroic Spirits summoned to do battle for the chance to claim that most sacred of prizes, the Legendary Holy Grail.

Well, to be fair, it wasn’t the actual Holy Grail, but beggars can’t be choosers and who was Sagara to contradict the people who had essentially created a nigh-omnipotent wish-granting device, only to literally put it on a plinth and challenge the world to come and claim it for themselves?

And besides, it wasn’t as if they had any say in the matter, for the only requirements for qualifying as a Master was that the participant had to possess a wish that could be granted by the grail, so in a sense, it could be said that the Grail itself had deemed Sagara worthy of participation.

Still, dubious qualifications aside, the fact remained that, as a Magus, Sagara Hyouma was decidedly second-rate, and that was being extremely generous. To make matters worse, the impossibility of his situation was only further compounded by the fact his clan's Magecraft was decidedly ill-suited for combat.

However, while this point of view might have been true in the Dark Ages, where wars were typically decided through tactics, might of arms or superior numbers, in more modern times it was often the more cunning foe who triumphed in the end, and the Sagara Family had gotten very good at being sneaky, to the point they bore the title of ‘Rat’ with pride.

Needed information to bury a political rival? The Sagara would dig up all the dirt you needed to thoroughly destroy both their lives and their careers. Wanted to grease the wheels of a particularly lucrative business deal? Pay them enough and they’d have the bastards signing away everything they owned just to get some semblance of privacy back.

So yeah, in the eyes of Magus Society, Sagara Hyouma was a second-rate rat, scavenging for scraps in the gutter. But so far as Shinjuku was concerned he was the King of Rats, having earned the title on the corpses of those unfortunate enough to cross his path, whether that involved interfering in his client’s best interests, or simply because he needed their lifeblood to compensate for his lack of talent, as was the case tonight.

It was for this reason in particular that Sagara was purposefully attempting to summon an Assassin type Servant. Well, that and the fact he highly doubted any of the other classes, bar possibly Caster, would ever consent to working with him even if he possessed the ability to bring out their full potential, and there was no way in hell he would willingly summon Berserker.

However, in order to avoid the trademark flaw of the Assassin class, namely that the Servants summoned always tended to be some variation of Hassan IL-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain who was the origin of the word Assassin, he had used his resources to acquire the catalyst needed to summon a specific Heroic Spirit, arguably the most infamous Serial Killer of all time.

Some might consider it oxymoronic to refer to a Serial Killer as a ‘Hero’, but when you really got down to it were any of the so-called ‘True Heroes’ any different? As a wise man once said, 'everyone is the Hero of their own story', and at the end of the day a ‘Hero’ is simply another word for ‘Killer’, the only difference being how they are recorded by history.

Of course, he challenged you to find anyone who considered Jack The Ripper a ‘Hero’, but in all honesty he didn’t care what the bastard called himself so long as he was able to summon him.

‘Why isn’t this working?’ he sighed, scratching his head irritably whilst eyeing the blades he’d spent a mint to purchase, namely Jack the Ripper’s actual tools of death. So far as catalysts went, these should be tailor-made catalyst for summoning the Devil of Whitechapel, yet no matter how many times he performed the ritual, it always seemed to fail at the last second ‘Dammit, am I missing something?’

It wasn’t as if his lack of talent as a Magus was an issue, after all, according to his research the Grail itself was the one doing all the heavy lifting. All he, as the Master, was required to do at this juncture was act as a beacon of sorts, the actual summoning should’ve been pretty much automatic by that point.

“Maybe just putting the knives in the center isn’t enough…” he deduced, his devious little mind sparking with ingenuity as he considered the problem from another angle.

When you got right down to it, Jack the Ripper was a relatively ‘young’ legend, only about two-hundred years old at best, and to make matters worse the villain had never been caught, so there wasn’t even any concrete evidence that he’d existed aside from the knives.

With that in mind, perhaps the ritual needed a little something extra to bind the Legend to the Ritual, an act of violence to confirm that these were, in fact, concrete evidence of Jack’s existence. And what could possibly be more fitting than to wet the Ripper’s blades with the blood of a whore?

The problem here, however, was that while Sagara was the ‘King of Rats’ in Shinjuku, that didn’t necessarily mean he could do as he pleased. For one thing, he was hardly the only Magus in Shinjuku, nor was he the most affluent, and those who did hold said distinction all had ties to the older crime families, both indirectly and directly.

Now normally they wouldn't have given Sagara a second glance, as they were usually preoccupied with testing each other’s defenses, which is just the way Sagara liked it. However, nothing would unite them faster than some ‘young punk’ trying to nab a slice of their prostitution rackets

It was for this reason that, despite his talents being tailor made for the role, Sagara hadn’t branched out into prostitution, as he really didn’t need the headache that would result from such an act. By the same logic, he couldn’t just grab some random call-girl off the street without performing a background check, as odds were good doing so would come back to bite him in the ass, especially if the Ritual Failed again.

Fortunately for Sagara, he wouldn’t have to look far to find his sacrificial lamb, indeed, he had the perfect candidate waiting for him back at his penthouse, didn’t he?

In all honesty he’d only kept her around as a cover and source of additional funding, masquerading as her ‘boyfriend’ in order to ward off any suspicions from his rivals early on in his career, occasionally making use of her ‘other talents’ in order to take the edge off, as all things considered she still had one killer bod.

However, while she’d been kind of cute in her own vapid way, in the end he’d grown tired of her, to the point he’d actually been considering having her off herself just so he could move on to greener pastures, so in hindsight this killed two birds with one stone.

“It’s not like she has any other uses.” He scoffed, tucking the knives inside his coat and incinerating the summoning circle with his discarded cigarette butt before making for the rooftop door. In the space of a few seconds, his eyes had already shifted from the cold calculating eyes of Sagara Hyouma, King of Rats, to the warm, innocent eyes of ‘Hikaru’, an up-and-coming night-club host, just another face in the City of Cravings, as indistinguishable from the next as a blank slate.

So you can probably imagine his surprise when, upon opening the door to the rooftop staircase, he was met with the business end of a fire-arm, the look of dumbstruck confusion lasting all of a second before the Magnum Round punched through his skull, decorating the abandoned rooftop with the contents of his sick little mind.

‘Bulls-eye.’ Sunset mused grimly, exhaling softly as she finished checking the corpse to ensure it wasn’t about to get up before holstering her piece and kneeling next to it and opening the attaché case she’d brought with her.

It had been ten years since that day in Fuyuki City. Ten Years since she was carried out of that hell by Emiya Kiritsugu, the self-proclaimed Magus who had taken her into his home and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, introduced her to the World of Magecraft.

It hadn’t been a smooth introduction mind you. Indeed, Kiritsugu had gone to great lengths to avoid discussing Magecraft at all, but Sunset was nothing if not determined, and unlike Celestia Kiritsugu hadn’t had a millennium to reinforce his patience and was further handicapped due to having to fend off two over-eager redheads instead of just one.

In the end, the man had simply given in and set about instructing his charges to the best of his ability, which admittedly wasn’t all that great, though despite his claims Sunset suspected it had more to do with his failing health than his lack of skill.

While Kiritsugu might not have been the most knowledgeable of Teachers, having only ever invested in the more practical forms of Magecraft, there was no denying that his ability to use Magecraft had been rapidly declining since that day in the rubble, to the point that, five years down the line, he hadn’t even been able to use any at all.

Fortunately for Sunset, she’d already gotten a firm grasp of the basics by that point, enough so that she’d begun experimenting on her own, trying to reverse engineer familiar spells from home, only to be met with decidedly mixed-to-negative results due to the different rules regarding Magic in this universe.

To put it simply, Equestria had it easy, as not only was the air rich with ambient Mana, there wasn’t a force actively acting to suppress any attempts at subverting the so-called ‘Natural Order’, though considering the Equestrian stance on ‘normal’, that really wasn’t saying much.

Case in point, even before the founding of Equestria, it was almost unheard of for animals to fend for themselves, or for the weather to go un-managed, or for crops to flourish unless they had someone watching over them, even in communities where ponies were the minority.

Earth, on the other hand, was the exact opposite, with nature essentially doing as it pleased and taking considerable umbrage if anyone attempted to control it, or at least that had been the case for the past few millennia.

From what little Sunset had been able to gather on the subject, there had been a point when Earth had resembled Equestria, albeit considerably bloodier. This period was collectively referred to as the ‘Age of Gods’ or ‘Age of Myth’, a time when Higher Beings controlled aspects of the world, Phantasmal Species like Dragons, Unicorns and Pegasi roamed freely and Mages could perform feats of Magic that would turn even Celestia’s head.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, though she used the term ‘Good’ lightly, as from what little she’d seen most of the ‘Gods’ were self-entitled jerks who cared little for Humanity despite relying on them for their survival.

Regardless, by the time 700 BC rolled around, the so-called ‘Age of Gods’ ended, giving way to the short-lived ‘Age of Fairies’ before the sudden explosion of the Human Population kick-started the Age of Man, driving the Phantasmal Species to the Reverse Side of the World, as their very existence was a direct contrast to the new Laws of Physics this age had wrought.

It was almost ironic, really, that the one trait that Earth seemed to share with her homeland was that, at the end of the day, it followed the law of the most prosperous species on it’s surface.

Back home, this was undoubtedly the Ponies, who in local terms would follow the Laws of Magic, but here the Dominant Species was Mankind, whose natural curiosity drove them to tear-apart the unknown to make it understandable, thus giving rise to the Laws of Physics.

Unfortunately, without the Gods to manage the aspects of the world, something had to fill the gap to ensure mankind didn’t wind up killing themselves with their inherent stupidity. Thus, the Counter Force was born, a pair of Safety Devices formed by the World to defend against extinction.

One of these forces, Gaia, represented the Planet’s desire to survive, and would ensure that survival by suppressing anything that subverted the Natural Laws of The World, which with the coming of the Age of Man, included Magic.

Now that wasn’t to say that Magic had completely died out, but there was no denying that the Mages of today were a far-cry from the Mages of the Age of Gods.

Heck, even the definition of ‘Magic’ had changed over time, to the point there were only five so called ‘True Magics’ recognized by practitioners across the globe, with everything else being referred to as ‘mere’ Magecraft, which was just as vulnerable to being extinguished by the Will of The World as any other Physical Law.

To Sunset’s knowledge, the only place in all of Equestria which resembled Earth in any fashion was the Everfree Forest, supposedly the site of Celestia’s Original castle before Canterlot had been built, where the forest had been so rich with magic it had literally gained a form of sapience to the point it actively targeted anything that tried to use Magic within its boundaries, which included the sky directly overhead, so even Pegasi weren’t entirely safe.

While Gaia was not as direct in it’s attempts to curb Humanity’s stupidity, there was no denying the similarity between the Spirit of The World and the Spirit of The Everfree, to the point Sunset almost found it morbidly comforting. Almost being the key word.

‘Really should’ve seen that Psychiatrist…’ she mused, shaking her head to rid it of such morbid thoughts from her head in order to focus on the long, messy process of retrieving Sagara’s Magic Crest before it degraded with his life-force.

“Link, Start.” She intoned, a solar flare going off behind her eyeballs, a warm heat spreading through her body as glowing emerald lines spread out from her hands to Sagara’s corpse, forming complex circuit-like patterns on his flesh.

The Lifeblood of any Magus, Magic Circuits were what allowed mere mortals to combine their life-force, or Od, with the ambient Mana of the environment and convert it into Prana, the magical energy needed to perform Magecraft in this world.

While the number of Magical Circuits a person was born with were typically decided at birth, it is possible to change that number artificially through a number of methods, and one of those Methods involved the development of a Thaumaturgical Crest.

Considered to be the most valuable treasure of Magi, each crest contained the accumulated Thaumaturgical knowledge of each Family Head, a literal Arcane Archive of every spell they had ever mastered or researched, passed down to their heirs to ensure their teachings would live on and guarded by their descendants with a zeal that bordered on fanatical.

What truly made Magic Crests so valuable, however, was that the longer the lineage, the more powerful the Crest would become, the spells stored within growing increasingly more stable with each passing generation, to the point the heir simply had to activate the crest to perform a Spell with the proficiency of a Master, even if he’d never studied it prior to receiving the Crest.

As an added plus, the Crest could also reinforce the bearer’s own spell-casting and in some cases could keep them alive for as long as their Magical Energy lasted. It was for this reason that Magical Crests were highly valued, fetching a high-price from certain unscrupulous figures who wanted a fast way to improve their own social standing.

While the Sagara Clan were hardly the most influential of Magi, even a third-rate Crest could still net a tidy sum from the Association, if only for the difficulty in obtaining it in the first place.

Even between willing participants, the act of transferring a Crest was a risky procedure akin to organ transplantation, with the rate of success dependent on the compatibility of the circuits to their new host, to the point many a Magus Lineage had died out simply because none of their offspring were compatible with the Family Crest.

Needless to say, while the vast majority of the established lineages opted to obtain ‘genetic uniformity’ via inbreeding, citing that any ensuing genetic defects could be corrected with Magecraft, most of the more level-headed ones opted to instead transfer their crest slowly over the course of the recipient’s childhood, in order to better allow their body to acclimate to the changes.

However, there was window of opportunity where the rate of a successful transfer skyrocketed, and that was when the current crest-bearer died or suffered a fatal wound while there was still Magic in their body.

In such an instance, the Magic Crest would act of its own accord to preserve the body long enough for it to be transferred to a new host, with older more powerful crests even managing to keep their hosts alive just long enough to perform the transfer themselves, in some cases literally altering itself to ensure it survived the transfer to the new host.

Normally this tactic would have at least resulted in some of the data stored within the crest being corrupted or lost despite the best efforts of those involved. It was therefore fortunate, and more than a little ironic, that Sunset’s inherent Sorcery Trait rendered such a concern null and void.

‘Not that the Sagara Clan had anything really worth protecting.’ She scoffed, shaking her head at how easy it was to circumvent the man’s defenses. A more experienced Magi would have had layers upon layers of Bounded Fields between them and any possible intruders, Sagara hadn’t even thought to hire a mundane bodyguard to stand outside the door.

‘Still, no point looking a gift-horse in the mouth,” she mused as the transfer finished, pausing briefly to frisk the corpse for more material valuables, quickly discovering the knives in their leather wrappings.

“Come to mama.” She mused, re-wrapping the artifacts and tucking them into the hidden compartment of her attaché case, along with what few other valuables she could find, before rising to her feet, drawing a glowing sigil in the air with her free hand, looking on impassively as Sagara’s corpse promptly burst into flames.

In a matter of minutes there would be nothing left of the King of Rats save ashes on the wind and a scorch mark on the rooftop. That being said, while forensics would be hard-pressed to tie Sunset to the Murder, the less time she spent hanging around the crime-scene the better.

And so once she was absolutely certain she’d retrieved anything that might connect her to the murder, the former Unicorn promptly turned on her heel and vanished with an audible crack, reappearing in a back-alley at the foot of the building, one hand pressed against the wall as a wave of vertigo washed over her.

‘Dammit, keep it together Sunset…’ she grit out, pressing her back against the wall so she could set the case down before reaching into her coat for her pack of cigarettes, just one of the many less-savory traits she’d inherited from Kiritsugu over the course of her apprenticeship, sighing in relief as she lit the cancer-stick with a snap of her fingers, taking a long, satisfying drag to settle herself before pulling out a disposable phone and dialed up her employer.

“Job’s done.” She reported, taking another drag as she waited for their response “Yeah I got the crest too. Nothing really valuable from my first glance but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

“Indeed.” her contact mused, his tone carrying an undertone of distaste, as the theft of another Magus’ Crest was considered one of the worst crimes in Magus Society, unless of course it was claimed by right of conquest, which was simply a fancy way for the more established families to get away with murdering a lesser Magus whose research interested them “I trust you left no witnesses?”

“If by witnesses you mean ‘did anyone see me kill him’ then no.” she confirmed, “Someone probably noticed the fire on the roof though, what with all the monitoring devices they have these days.”

“Far be it from me to question your…methods…” her contact groused, his tone making it clear he’d like nothing more than to comment on her methods “But surely there was a more efficient way of disposing of his corpse?”

“I could’ve burnt the whole building down with him?” Sunset quipped, chuckling to herself as the man choked on the other end “Calm your tits Waver, I’m just yanking your chain. Besides, given how many toes he managed to step on, by this time next week the police will simply assume Sagara got taken out by one of his business rivals in a turf war.”

“That’s not the issue here!” her contact, Waver, snapped, though his tone implied he wasn’t so much angry with her as he was with himself for letting her get to him, as if he really should have known better, which in hindsight he really should have “And how many times have I told you not to address me as such?”

“I’ll start calling you by your title when you stop getting a hair up your ass about the ‘II’.” Sunset scoffed, chuckling to herself as the man cursed on the end of the line “More importantly, do you need me for anything else? Or can I call in a few vacation days?”

“So far as I’m aware there are no other pending issues that require your attention.” Waver groused, though his tone lacked any real resentment “Since you’re already in Japan, I suppose you’ll be stopping by to visit your brother?”

“Now that’d be telling.” Sunset chuckled, only to yelp as a sudden burning sensation on the back of her hand forced her to drop her phone “Shit! What the hell-?!” she swore, looking on in alarm as lines began to appear on the back of her hand, her eyes widening as it formed a familiar shape, one that she hadn’t seen in over ten years “That’s-!”

“Hikaru-?!” the sound of Waver calling out her alias snapped through her shock long enough to reach down to reclaim her discarded phone from the alley floor “What’s wrong? Were you attacked?!”

“I don’t know…” Sunset countered, her expression grim even as she used her afflicted hand to reach into her coat, the comforting weight of her handgun as she drew it from its holster doing wonders to settle her nerves as she pressed her back into a corner, the better to watch both entrances to the alley “The back of my hand started burning…and now there’s this weird mark.”

“Are you absolutely certain?” Waver demanded, the sudden intensity in his voice making it clear that he wasn’t messing around “Does your hand feel numb? Can you sense any form of malignant energy from the markings?”

“It burned like hell a few seconds ago but yeah, it’s kind of numb now.” Sunset confirmed, glancing at the symbol on the back of her hand with one eye while keeping an eye on her surroundings “Sagara’s crest doesn’t appear to have any serious curses recorded in it either, certainly nothing that would activate after his death. It just looks like an intricate tattoo.”

“But that’s not possible…” Waver protested, seemingly talking to himself “It’s far too early, it’s barely been a decade since the last time-!” As if remembering she was there he cleared his throat “Change of plans, I want you on the first plane back to London, no arguments.”

“What’s going on Waver?” Sunset demanded, more than a little unsettled by his shift in tone, as there were very few times he would actually go so far as to give her an order “Do you know something?”

“Far more than I’d like and less than I probably should.” Waver confessed cryptically, his tone decidedly grim “I won’t say anymore until you’re back, but if my suspicions are true we might have a War on our hands.”

Author's Note

And I'll just leave off there.

For those of you wondering, Sagara Hyouma was the original master for Assassin of Black from Fate/Apocrypha, which takes place in an alternate Timeline that diverges from canon due to the events of the 3rd Grail War.

While this story has little to no ties to Apocrypha, I needed a sacrificial lamb for Sunset's debut and Sagara was almost tailor-made for the role.

And yes, before anyone asks, Sunset's presence means Kiritsugu actually took Shirou's magical training seriously this time around, so he already has his circuits active.

What this also means for the plot I won't get into here, but suffice to say don't expect Shirou to be his old 'People Die If They're Killed' Self. He fully accepts he's walking into.

Act 1 - Preparations

Act 1 – Preparations.

Most people, upon meeting Chas Chandler, would assume he was just a likeable fifty-something London Cabbie who knew the streets of his hometown like the back of his hand, better even, but other than that would otherwise assume there was nothing else to him.

They, like countless others not in the know, would be entirely wrong, as there was more to Chas Chandler than one would first assume. For starters, his name wasn’t actually ‘Chas’, and good luck to anyone who tried getting him to reveal his real name who wasn’t his wife, his priest, or in possession of a warrant, badge or no badge.

For another, for a simple London Cabbie, Chas had experienced more than his fair-share of run-ins with the Supernatural 'Moonlit World', but then that was often the case when your best mate was a Bloody Demon Hunter. And yes, that was what he preferred to be known as.

With all that being said, it should go without saying that Chas was more than used to carrying those of a, for lack of a better word, ‘Magical’ Persuasion in the back seat of his Cab, enough so that he knew better than to try hike up the cab fare by taking the more scenic routes to their destination unless they purposefully instructed him to deviate from the direct path out of paranoia, or, as was the current case, when they instructed him to take them straight to their current destination.

“'ere you go luv’, the British Museum.” he called out, snapping the sleeping beauty in the back seat out of her doze, having slept through the entire trip from Heathrow airport “That’ll be Thirty Quid.”

“Keep the change.” the redhead grumbled, suppressing a jaw-cracking yawn with one hand even as she handed Chas a crisp fifty-pound note over, glaring pointedly at the rain that was pummeling the windows.

“You wanna stick about for a bit till it eases off a bit luv?” Chas offered, feeling a bit charitable in the face of her generosity, as in all honesty he wouldn’t put a dog out in that weather and the woman looked like she’d had a rough flight as it was, if the bags under her eyes were any indication.

“I’ll be fine, thanks for your concern.” she assured him, offering him a grateful smile that suited her far better than the scowl ever had even as she pulled the collar of her trench coat up and stepped out into the downpour, Chas looking on as she made her way up the stairs, noting with detached interest how the rain seemed to stop a few inches from actually touching her, leaving her perfectly dry as she vanished through the doors to the Museum.

‘Huh, wonder if John knows a spell like that?’ he wondered, recalling the many times the chain-smoking Liverpudlian had complained about being caught in a downpour that left the backseat of the cab damp for days, before shrugging offhandedly and taking off.

“Be it ever so humble…” Sunset recited with a sigh of relief as she dropped the spell keeping out the rain the moment the massive doors slammed shut behind her, only to scoff halfway through, as if there was any world less appropriate to describe the grandeur that was the Clock Tower, it was ‘humble’.

To the outside world there wasn’t anything particularly notable about this particular wing of the British Museum, indeed, to the uninitiated this Wing officially didn’t exist, which made it the perfect location for the current headquarters of the Mages’ Association, the self-proclaimed ‘breeding ground for aspiring tyrants who sought to make their mark on the world’, or simply The Clock Tower for short.

While the various Thaumaturgical Societies typically did their own thing, there was no denying that the Clock Tower ran the show, at least so far as the Western World was concerned. While there were certainly older organizations that refused to join for various reasons, given the general disdain Western Magi had for their Eastern cousins it was generally accepted that nothing of value could possible exist outside the Association’s walls.

Indeed, as far as Western Magi were concerned, the Clock Tower held as much importance as the Vatican did for Christianity, having produced countless First-Class Magi from as early back as the birth of ‘England’.

In short, at least as far as Sunset was concerned, it was simply a more lethal version of what Sunset had been forced to endure at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, both prior to and long after she’d been accepted as the Princess’ Personal Student and had to deal with the Canterlot Upper-Crust.

Seriously, the only difference between Magi from ‘Established Families’ and the average Canterlotian was that the former didn’t walk around with their noses in the air all day, if only out of an innate sense of self-preservation, and that shows of one-upmanship at the Clock Tower could prove fatal for both parties if the loser was from a superior clan with strong ties.

‘The old me wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.’ She mused as she passed by a group of female students, unable to help smirking with a hint of her old pride as she caught them marveling at her hair, only to curse as someone bumped into her as she rounded a corner “Hey! Watch where you’re going!”

“Ow~! Sorry about that!” a familiar voice groaned, Sunset internally rolling her eyes as the speaker, a blonde twenty-something year-old, blinked up at her in surprise “Ah! How’s it going, Hikaru-Bancho?”

“Just Hikaru will do, Flat.” Sunset sighed, reaching down to help the younger Magus to his feet, marveling once again how spry he was. “Last I checked Waver was your master, if anything you should be calling him boss, not me.”

“Well, Professor El-Melloi is pretty cool.” The teen, Flat, agreed with a smile as he set about picking up his books “But I don’t think it’d be right to treat the Great Big Ben London Star like a Gang Leader.”

‘I don’t recall becoming a Gang Leader either.’ Sunset noted to herself even as she scoffed at the blonde's title for his Master, knowing from experience that nothing could send the normally unflappable man into a rage.

Born the heir of the Escardos Family of magi, Flat had been deemed a prodigy, at least in terms of Magecraft from a young age even prior to arriving at the Clock Tower. Even Sunset would freely admit that, when it came to picking up spells on the fly, Flat was easily her superior.

Back in the old days, she probably would have resented the innocent-faced blonde, seeing his innate talent as a threat to her own standing, as was sadly the case with many of his peers and lecturers at the Clock Tower. However, even if she hadn't mellowed out over the past decade, she'd have quickly gotten over her enmity due to one simple fact:

While a Genius at Magecraft, when it came to Common Sense, Flat Escardos was absolutely hopeless.

It was almost jarring to see how such a talented person could be so ignorant of the myriad social ques that even the most introverted Magi managed to retain. As it were the only reason he hadn’t violated the First Law, namely revealing the existence of Magic to the public, was out of a desire to avoid upsetting his Master, the only person to have accepted him.

And as it just so happened, Flat's Master just so happened to be the person Sunset was here to see, the redhead shaking her head with a sigh as she knelt down to help the blonde clean up “You need some help carrying these? I’m heading to Waver’s anyway so I don’t mind helping out.”

“Ah! As expected of Hikaru-Bancho!” Flat exclaimed, beaming up at her with a smile so innocent you’d be hard pressed to believe this was the same kid who turned an entire school of Thaumaturgy on it’s head simply by ‘looking at it from a different point of view’ “Always looking out for your subordinates, but never willing to admit you’re doing so, right?”

“Whatever.” Sunset sighed, knowing better than to argue with the boy, as once Flat got an idea into his head the only way to remove it would be to erase his memory and prevent him from encountering what put it there in the first place.

While she highly doubted Waver would care one way or the other if she erased his apprentice’s mind, Faust only knew the man had been forced to do so himself more than once, it would only prove a waste in the long run, as there would be no preventing her running into Flat down the line, given how closely she worked with his Master.

“I’m back, Professor Velvet!” Flat cried out, the twenty-something year-old bursting into the man's office with the exuberance of a toddler, complete with innocent, eager to please smile “And I brought Hikaru-Bancho with me!”

“So it would appear.” Said Master noted dryly, his expression hovering somewhere between annoyance and resignation, clearly having grown used to his apprentice's antics, as he turned away from the window he’d been peering out of “Thank you Flat, I’ll take it from here. Why don’t you get us some tea from the kitchens?”

“Sure thing, Professor Velvet!” Flat chirped, dropping his stack of books on a chair like they were dime-store novels instead of priceless arcane texts before racing out the hall, eager to please the only person in the world who believed in him “Later, Hikaru-Bancho! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“A very short list to be certain.” Waver sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation as the boy disappeared down the hall before turning to regard Sunset “I was unaware that you’d started your own faction, Hikaru-san, though if you’re willing enough to consider Flat among their number, I wouldn’t be averse to giving my support.”

“Nice try Waver.” Sunset scoffed, sinking down into an armchair and pulling out a cigarette, turning down his offer of a match in favor of lighting it with a snap of her fingers “The kid mistook the pronunciation of my surname as ‘Bancho’ instead of ‘Bansho’ and somehow got it into his head that I had an army of bikers at my beck and call.” She shot him an amused look “Though I suppose I got off easy compared to you, Mr. Great Big Ben London Star.”

“Indeed.” Waver grimaced, the Magus known as Lord El-Melloi II opting to instead take a long drag on his cigar before moving around his desk to take a seat in front of her, placing it aside in an ashtray “Can I see the marks?”

“Knock yourself out.” Sunset offered, reaching down to remove her gloves, revealing the crimson markings on the back of her right hand for him to see, quirking a brow as she noticed Waver’s eyes widen imperceptibly despite his best efforts at maintaining a calm façade “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

“My apologies.” Waver offered, though truth be told he didn’t sound very apologetic whatsoever “It’s just been so long since I’ve last seen them that they brought back memories…both good and bad.” He sighed as he sat back in his chair “Tell me, Hikaru, how familiar are you with the Fuyuki Grail War?”

Sunset stiffened, her eyes narrowing as a flash of pain erupted from her side, her free hand reaching down to rest over the scar from when she’d been impaled on by rebar ten years prior “Intimately.”

The Fuyuki Holy Grail War was, in no uncertain terms, the biggest Cluster Fuck in the history of the Mages Association, a prime example of both the inherent stupidity of mankind and the paranoid nature of Magi, at least so far as Sunset, Waver, and the late Emiya Kiritsugu’s were concerned.

To summarize, it all started because the Einzberns, a clan of prodigious Alchemists that specialized in Homunculi, lost the secrets of the Third True Magic because the Family Head at the time was either too stupid or too paranoid to leave instructions behind for his descendants in the event of his death.

Refusing to accept the loss of their birthright, in the 1800's the Einzberns teamed up with the Tohsaka Clan in Fuyuki and Makiri Zolgen to reverse engineer the Grand Servant Ritual used by the Counter Force to summon Seven Heroic Spirits with the intention of Sacrificing them to literally force open a passage to Akasha to reclaim the lost Third Magic.

Needless to say, the fact there had been Four Grail Wars to date, each ending more catastrophically than the last, should be all the explanation you needed to comprehend just how badly the Einzberns screwed up. Hell, according to Kiritsugu by the Third War they had long since forgotten their original purpose and were simply obsessed with ‘Winning’.

Now Sunset would freely admit that she'd made mistakes. Hell, the only reason she was even here was arguably thanks to one of her greatest mistakes, but even the mare she once was could have held her head high as she derided the Einzberns for how catastrophically they'd screwed up.

Seriously, how bad do you have to screw up that you not only forget your original goals entirely, but you manage to turn what should have been a cut-and-dry ritual sacrifice into a bloody free for all that, to date, had almost wiped an entire city off the map no less than four times?

And that wasn't even factoring in the fact the Einzbern had, in their lust for victory, unwittingly corrupted their own ritual by summoning the literal embodiment of All The World's Evil, turning the once Nigh-Omnipotent Wish Granting Machine into a Malicious, Nigh-Omnipotent Monkey's Paw that could still grant wishes, but only in a way that screwed humanity the most.

Needless to say, Sunset wasn't too chuffed to find out she'd been signed up for the sequel.

“Judging by your reaction to them, I’m guessing these are Command Seals?” she mused, her eyes glancing to the red markings in the shape of her Cutie Mark that currently adorned the back of her hand with mixed feelings.

On the one hand it was kind of nostalgic to see the symbol of her special talent after so long. On the other hand, a part of her couldn't help but feel sickened that it would be marred by what the Seals represented.

“Indeed, and their appearance on your body marks you as a designated Master for the Fifth War.” Waver confirmed as he took a calming drag on his cigar “What troubles me is the timing. It’s barely been a decade since the last War, the Grail shouldn’t have amassed the Mana necessary for it to start selecting Masters just yet.”

“Maybe it’s because nobody actually made a wish last time.” Sunset proposed, earning a quirked brow from Waver as he gestured for her to elaborate “Remember my report? Kiritsugu technically won the Fourth War but had Saber destroy the Grail because it had been ‘corrupted’. Maybe the Grail simply held onto the stored energy and used it to manifest early?”

“Possible, but not likely.” Waver countered with a frown “If Emiya Kiritsugu was the Master of Saber as he claimed, then I doubt anything could have survived a direct hit from her Noble Phantasm, especially if the Grail had been corrupted as claimed in your report. I think it’s far more likely that his subsequent attempt to destroy the leylines inadvertently accelerated the process.”

“You’d know best I suppose.” Sunset conceded, recalling how Waver had been a participant during the previous Grail War. Indeed, it was precisely because he’d survived that hell that Sunset had initially sought the man out during her initial visit to the Clock Tower, partially to get answers and partially to take out her frustrations on another survivor.

However, when it became clear that Lord El-Melloi II had played no part in creating the hell-on-earth Kiritsugu had found her in, she’d quickly changed tracks and used his connections to have Kiritsugu’s report on the ritual published in an attempt to have it dismantled.

Needless to say, their attempts had failed dismally, for while Waver had earned a reputation among the Clock Tower as one of the premier Magical Instructors, even earning the prestigious title of Lord El-Melloi II, it was a hollow title with next to no influence, as most of his predecessor’s assets had been lost with his death, a fact Waver was constantly reminded off by his ‘beloved younger sister’ and current heir of the defunct Archibald Clan, Reines Archisorte.

It certainly didn’t help that the Founding Families, particularly the Einzberns, stoutly opposed any and all attempts to have outside parties interfere with the ritual, the Einzbern even going so far as to threaten to use their political clout with the association to crush the Archibald faction that Waver had spent so long trying to restore.

Faced with such opposition, Waver had been forced to capitulate to their demands, though that didn’t mean he’d given up entirely. No, instead he’d opted for a more indirect approach, employing Sunset and various other 'Freelancers' to track down possible relics that could potentially be used to summon ‘High Class’ Servants before they could fall into the hands of less scrupulous Magi, many of whom Sunset was more than happy to take out of the picture permanently.

And now here she was, ten years later and considerably wiser, with three Command Seals on the back of her hand in a mocking reminder of everything she had lost that day so long ago. It was almost as if the Grail were mocking her, which was highly likely considering what little Kiritsugu managed to tell her of his interaction with the spirit of the corrupted chalice.

“So, what do we do?” She asked, snapping Waver out of his thoughts “Don’t look at me like that, we knew there’d be another Grail War eventually, the schedule’s just been moved up is all.”

“True, though I’d hoped we’d have had a bit more time to build up our resources for the next one.” Waver admitted with a sigh, recalling the hell he’d endured during the Fourth Grail War due to his Servant’s exuberant personality “For one thing, aside from the Founding Families and yourself, we have no idea who the other three Masters could be.” He then promptly sighed before glaring at the door “How long do you intend to loiter outside, Flat Escardos?”

“Ah! Sorry Professor!” Flat exclaimed, looking decidedly unapologetic as he stepped into the office with a tray of doubtlessly cold Earl Grey held in both hands “I know you don’t like it when I eavesdrop but I just couldn’t help myself!”

“It’s precisely because of that you’ll never graduate beyond apprentice, you imbecile.” Waver remonstrated, shifting into ‘Lecture Mode’ as he turned to glare at his apprentice with a decidedly sour expression “Haven’t I told you countless times that eavesdropping on a Magus is paramount to slitting your own throat?”

“But it’s the Holy Grail War Professor!” Flat exclaimed, his eyes shining with youthful exuberance as he waved his arms “A once in a lifetime event that only the chosen can participate in! I’d give anything to be chosen as a Master-!”

“Would you shut up!” Waver snapped, silencing his apprentice with a well-placed flick to the forehead that sent the twenty-something year old sprawling “For fuck’s sake! How many times to I have to bloody tell you not to go around yelling at the top of your lungs, you cretin!” he took a breath to calm himself “For starters, where did you even hear about the Grail War?”

It was a valid question, for neither Sunset or Waver had referred to the Grail War by it’s full title during their conversation, at least not at any point Flat could have heard them, and while the existence of the Grail Wars was hardly Top-Secret, it wasn’t something a mere apprentice like Flat could find out about it.

Indeed, given his reputation and lack of common sense, Sunset wouldn't be at all surprised that the various departments, in a rare showing of uniformity brought on by self-preservation, had placed a Gag-Order on discussing the Grail War anywhere Flat might overhear it, under penalty of a Sealing Designation.

“Oh, the other day some of the Professors were holding a council meeting in one of the basement lecture halls, right?” Flat explained with a grin, completely missing Wavers look of shock, as this was clearly the first time he’d heard anything of the sort “You know that famous puppet master, Mr. Rohngall? That was the first time I actually saw him in the flesh-!”

“Why-The-Fuck-Were-You-At-That Meeting-?!” Waver demanded between clenched teeth as he gripped Flat’s face as if he hoped to crush it with his bare hands, his normally composed features stretched into a mask of fury, though whether this was due to his exclusion in said meeting or Flat's presence was anyone's guess.

“I think the better question here is, why weren’t you invited to the meeting, Waver.” Sunset pointed out, earning a sharp look from the man as he released his flailing apprentice with a grunt “What were they talking about, Flat?”

“Well apparently they managed to find two other Magi that had been selected as Masters.” Flat revealed, completely unphased by Waver’s attempt on his life, having more than likely grown used to it given his Mentor’s low tolerance for his shenanigans “One of them is Miss Bazette from the Enforcers, the other is Mr. Galliasta from the Alchemy department.”

“Okay, Bazette I could understand, but how the hell did that asshole qualify as a Master?” Sunset demanded, recalling the vain Alchemist from one of the times she accompanied Waver on a job for Reines. Put bluntly, while the man was talented, he was far too arrogant for a Magus from a recently established lineage, especially when you stopped to consider the fact he was literally outshone in almost every single field he prided himself in.

“A talented idiot is the most dangerous kind of idiot.” Waver opined whilst glaring pointedly at the naively grinning Flat “A more pressing concern is the Fraga. Setting aside her own considerable skills as an Enforcer, her lineage is one of the few who retain the ability to employ a Noble Phantasm in this Day and Age.”

“So they’re like Grey.” Sunset mused, referring to Waver’s other apprentice, though considering how that term had become stigmatized due in no small part to Flat, it would perhaps be kinder to refer to her as his assistant “Where is she by the way?”

“Reines took her out shopping for the day.” Waver confessed “Said something about it being a crime that she only has the one outfit, never mind the fact she has several outfits of the exact same make.” He sat back in his chair with a long-suffering sigh “Still, at least we’ve confirmed the identity of two of the remaining Masters. That leaves just one unaccounted for.”

“Ooh! Me! Pick me!” Flat exclaimed, sitting up on the floor and raising his hand in the air like an over-eager foal volunteering to answer a question in class “I wanna participate-!”

“Like hell.” Waver deadpanned, once again silencing his apprentice with a well-placed flick to the forehead that sent him sprawling on his back, smoke actually rising from the point of impact “I’d never permit that no matter how much you crawled and begged, so quit harassing me about this.”

“I won’t be a bother, professor!” Flat insisted, his eyes shining with exuberance as he continued to try and plead his case “I mean, this is why you and Hikaru-Bancho have been gathering relics all this time right? So you could be ready to summon a Hero for the War?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but yeah.” Sunset confessed, as it was hardly a national secret that she and Waver had been going around collecting relics with ties to Heroic Spirits. Hell, the only reason their detractors hadn’t cracked down on them before now was because there were countless of other relics coming in and out of the Association every day, one of the many advantages of having their headquarters situated inside the British Museum.

“So you're saying if I had a portrait of Napoleon, I could summon Napoleon?!” Flat exclaimed, and Sunset was unnerved to see the blonde had actual stars in his eyes “An emperor would be the coolest thing ever!”

“If I were the Heroic Spirit Napoleon, I’d rather have you face the firing squad than make a contract with you!” Waver snapped, only to reign in his temper with a sigh, taking a long drag on his cigar to steel his nerves before regarding his apprentice with a solemn look.

“Tell me, Flat. Why do you even want the Holy Grail anyway?" he asked of his student "You’ve never struck me as the kind to seek out Akasha, and I know for a fact you aren’t so stupid as to believe that wishing on the Grail will finally allow you to Graduate. So why do you wish to participate?”

“It’s because I wan’t to see it!” Flat gushed, earning a snort of amusement from Sunset even as Waver gaped at him in disbelief “I mean, it’s the Holy Grail! Hitler and Gobbles wanted it for the Third Reich! And Shi Huangdi and Nobunaga and Godzilla all looked for it too! If it really exists, I’ve just gotta see what it looks like!”

“…His name was Goebbels, not Gobbles.” Waver corrected the teen calmly even as Sunset fought to keep from bursting out laughing at the look of irritation on the man's face “I don’t know about Nobunaga or Shi Huangdi, but historically and culturally speaking it’s unlikely they ever sought the Grail.”

“You forgot about Godzilla.” Sunset quipped, waving off the murderous glare Waver sent her way in favor of regarding the blonde with a kind smile “He’s got a point though, Flat. Take it from someone who was caught up in the aftermath, the Grail Wars aren’t something anyone should have to take part in. Would you even have it in you to kill another person?”

“Well, no…” Flat admitted, the troubled expression on his face highlighting precisely why Waver refused to let him graduate: The young man simply lacked the intrinsic nature of Magi to accept death as a constant in his life.

To be a Magus was to Walk with Death. It was the first thing that Kiritsugu ever taught Sunset, and it was the tenet that every Magus lived by. It didn’t matter if it came naturally, at the hands of a rival or due to their own experiments backfiring, at the end of the day very few Magi lived to a ripe old age, and even less had the liberty of choosing where they died.

“In that case, the matter is moot.” Waver insisted, waving a hand dismissively “Because even if you refuse to kill for the Grail, your Servant will have no such compunctions. Indeed, as the very nature of the ritual requires that the Servants kill one another, they are likely to kill you for trying to prevent them from achieving their wish.”

“...This is a tricky problem, huh?” Flat sighed, gazing down at the floor solemnly “I really, really want to see the other Heroes...I mean, how cool would it be to befriend a living legend?”

“Kind of bittersweet if you really think about it.” Sunset mused “I mean, at the end of the day they’ll disappear once the ritual is over, right? Kind of hard to befriend them knowing they’re just going to die anyway.”

“Not as hard as you might think…” Waver countered, only to wave a hand dismissively at Sunset’s quirked brow “It’s nothing.” He assured her “More importantly, we need to move fast if we hope to ensure we secure a Servant strong enough to make it to the finals. I don’t suppose your Mentor managed to hold onto the catalyst he used to summon Saber?”

“If he did, he never mentioned it.” Sunset admitted with a shrug, recalling how Kiritsugu would clam up whenever it came to discussing the events of the Fourth Grail War. The only things she’d managed to pry out of him were that he’d been the Master of Saber, and that he’d been acting as the Einzbern’s representative, though he refused to go into details as to why.

“Unfortunate, but not unsurprising.” Waver confessed with a grimace as he rose from his seat and strode over to his desk to pick up a small ebony case from his drawer “More than likely the Einzbern held onto the relic, so there’s a high-probability that they’ll try to summon the same Saber-class Servant. In which case, as far as catalysts are concerned, this would be our best hope of cutting them off at the head.”

Sunset quirked a brow, looking on with interest as Waver set the chest on the table. While it was possible to summon a Heroic Spirit without a catalyst, indeed, according to Kiritsugu doing so often ensured the Master was partnered with their most compatible Servant, using one not only increased the odds of drawing a specific Heroic Spirit, it also improved the chances of summoning them in the strongest possible class.

“I don’t remember retrieving this piece.” She noted, gazing down at the contents of the ebony case, namely a chunk of wood that bore signs of being worked on and gave off an odd sense of heat, as if it had been recently plucked from a fireplace despite lacking any outwards signs of being burnt “What is it?”

"A shard of The Round Table. The very table that served as the rallying point for the Greatest of knights to protect Britain.” Waver revealed with a hint of reverence, sending an annoyed glare at Flat’s impressed whistle only to smirk confidently at Sunset “I don’t know what relic the Einzbern used to summon Saber for the Fourth War, but with this as the catalyst the odds of us summoning a Saber Class should be almost certain even if we fail to summon the same Heroic Spirit, especially if we perform the summoning here, in Britain.”

“That’s Professor Velvet for you!” Flat cheered, gazing at his mentor with star-struck adoration “Just the kind of thing you’d expect from the Great Big Ben London Star!”

“Don’t call me that to my face!” Waver snapped, his confident expression replaced with irritation as he rounded on his disciple “And honestly, why did you have to pick such a ludicrous nickname!? Are you trying to piss me off you cretin?!

“But Miss Reines always seems so happy whenever she says it.” Flat protested, prompting Waver to start strangling the air in an impotent rage, much to Sunset’s amusement “Well, don’t worry you worry Professor! I’ll think up the perfect new nickname for you! How does ‘Magical Miniskirt Professor’ sound?”

“Fuck off and die!”

Author's Note

And we'll leave off there.

As some of you might have guessed, Act 1 Covers the events leading up to Sunset becoming a Master and arriving in Fuyuki, essentially acting as the 'Prologue' much as how Rin's story did in the original Visual Novel and episode 0 of the Anime.

Some of you have probably already guess which Servant Sunset is going to wind up with, but for the sake of those who haven't, please avoid spoilers in the comment's section, alright?

Also, from what little I've seen of the character, it is currently my head-canon that Flat is the Type-Moon universe's answer to Pinkie Pie. Make of that what you will.

Act 1 - Treacherous Summoning

Act 1 – Treacherous Summoning.

Needless to say, once Waver was done trying to Murder his apprentice for the umpteenth time, the three of them made preparations to head out to Glastonbury that very evening to attempt the summoning ritual.

Their reasons for doing so were to avoid any interference from the other candidates, since it was clear they were already working behind their backs to support the other two Masters, to improve the odds of drawing King Arthur as a Saber Class Servant whilst ensuring they summoned him in his best possible condition.

Setting aside the limitations placed on them by their designated Class, there were a number of factors that could affect the overall parameters of a Heroic Spirit. Case in point, while King Arthur would certainly qualify for other Classes, the Saber class was arguably his strongest due in part to his reputation as the ‘Wielder of the Strongest Holy Sword’, and the sheer renown of Excalibur itself.

While the qualifications of their Master could also have an effect on a Servant’s parameters, their reasoning for performing the summoning in Glastonbury instead of Fuyuki was to take advantage of passive boost the summoning would receive from within his own Cultural Sphere.

Put simply, by performing the summoning on British Soil, where the Legend of King Arthur not only originated, but was cherished in the hearts of many, they not only improved their chances of summoning the King of Knights as a Saber class, but even if they messed up and summoned one of the other Knights of the Round, they would still gain a tremendous overall boost in performance than if the summoning was performed in Fuyuki.

Truth be told there was no specific need for them to specifically perform the summoning at Glastonbury, they could have performed the ritual anywhere in Britain, or hell, anywhere within the confines of Europe, and it likely would have had the same effect. However, given how they still didn’t know what catalyst Kiritsugu had used to summon Saber last time, Glastonbury was their best bet if they hoped to beat the Einzberns to the draw.

After all, it was hardly likely that King Arthur could ignore a summoning when it was literally performed on top of his grave, right?

Glastonbury- Midnight.

‘What a beautiful moon’ Sunset marveled, gazing up at Earth’s natural satellite with a whimsical expression as the smoke from her cigarette drifted lazily into the sky ‘I wonder if the moon back home was ever this beautiful?’

It probably had been, back before the Mare-In-The-Moon had taken up residence there, something that had always confused Sunset, as no matter how deeply she dug into the Canterlot Archives she could never find an explanation for just how the Alicorn-shaped blot had appeared, and any attempts at asking Celestia were met with solemn silence.

She grimaced, the thought of Celestia reminding her of how far she’d come from the naive mare that had leapt through a portal seeking ultimate power, only to wind up in a world where what little power she had possessed would’ve earned her the same level of adulation Celestia did, were it not for the fact she couldn’t use even half of it due the Gaia’s interference.

Refusing to get bogged down by old memories, she instead turned her attention to the present, namely the Holy Grail War, and the very real potential that she would soon find herself facing off against six other Magi and their Servants in a free-for-all battle to the death over a proverbial Monkey’s Paw that would only grant their wishes in the most self-destructive way possible.

‘If it were the old me, it would probably have turned me into the second coming of Nightmare Moon.’ She scoffed, recalling her infantile dream of becoming an Alicorn and shuddering at the horrors the Grail would likely have inflicted upon the world through her ‘Faust I was such an entitled brat back then…’

“It’s time.” Waver called out, snapping Sunset out of her thoughts to find him standing off to the side with Flat, the blonde waving at her energetically, his waistcoat covered in the dust he’d used to set up the summoning circle “The Relic is in place, have you memorized the incantation?”

“Is Trimmau still obsessed with terminating John Conner?” Sunset quipped, earning an exasperated sigh from Waver as he glared venomously at Flat, who merely smiled brightly at his mentor, completely unaware of his loathing “Let’s just get this over with.” She mused, finishing off her cigarette with one last drag before scorching the butt to ash and rising to her feet, striding towards the circle where Waver had already placed the shard of the round table “Oddly simply for so grand a ritual.”

“The Grail does most of the heavy lifting.” Waver explained with a proud sniff, as if feeling challenged by her words “The summoning circle simply provides a beacon for the Heroic Spirit to Manifest.”

“Good to know.” She mused, glancing down at her watch to check the time, releasing a sigh as the minute hand finally hit Midnight, the moment her Magical Energy would be at its peak, and thus the best time for her to perform the ritual if she wanted her Servant at their best.

After all, for all their fame and power, at the end of the day Servants were essentially glorified familiars, and as such relied almost entirely on their Masters for the Magical Energy they needed to not only remain corporeal, but also to unleash their Noble Phantasms, the sheer requirements for which, bar certain exceptions, would severely limit what Magecraft said Masters chose to employ in battle.

This, arguably, was the greatest flaw of the Holy Grail War, as it essentially forced the Magi to take a back-seat, forcing them to rely entirely on their Servants for defense, though admittedly the number of spells capable of actually harming a Heroic Spirit were practically non-existent. While prodigies like Waver’s late master, the previous Lord El-Melloi, had devised means of circumventing this limitation, most other Mages would be forced to limit themselves to the most cost-effective of Spells in order to avoid hampering their Servant’s combat potential.

Needless to say, Sunset was not like Most Magi. Setting aside her, in Waver’s own words, frankly impossible Prana reserves for anyone who wasn’t an Einzbern Homunculus or a member of the Barthomeloi Clan, her training with Kiritsugu meant she was more likely to take out the enemy Masters with a Sniper Round from a distance than some overly complicated curse.

‘If Celestia could see me now…’ she scoffed, already imagining the horrified expression on her old mentor’s face at the thought of her using her talents to kill others, only to shake such thoughts from her head and aiming her hand towards the summoning circle, the moon emerging from behind a patch of clouds as she began to chant.

O Elements of Silver and Iron.

O Foundation of Stone and the Archduke of Contracts.

As she chanted, the Mana in the air began to shift, the circle before her lighting up as bolts of lightning rose sporadically into the air in complete defiance of nature, her eyes narrowing as the summoning circle began to glow an ominous red.

Let Rise a Wall against the Alighted Wind.

Let the Four Cardinal Gates close.

Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom Rotate.

At the same time, she felt a dull sense of discomfort as her Magic Circuits, the vessel through which all Magecraft were performed, activated in response to the sudden drain on her prodigious reserves.

Let the vessel be filled. Again. Again. Again. Again.

Let it be filled Five-Fold every turn, only to break asunder with every filling.

Normally such an action without her consent would have been alarming, but thanks to Waver’s instructions beforehand, Sunset was more than ready to accommodate the drain, even going so far as to pump more power into the spell in the hopes of securing their desired Servant.

I hereby declare: My will creates your body…and my fate shall lie in your sword.

If you would heed the beckoning of the Holy Grail, then answer!

By now the circle was practically crackling with crimson lighting, the air around them kicking up to the point Waver and Flat were forced to shield their eyes and back away.

I hereby swear: I shall attain all the Virtues of Heaven.

I shall have dominion over all the Evils of Hell.

A part of her, the more cynical part that still gave her grief over her old arrogance from her days in Equestria, couldn’t help but scoff at that part of the chant. For one thing, given her train of thought before leaping into the mirror, it was far more likely she’d have aimed for the latter of the two as opposed to the former, if only because doing so would’ve been the faster option to obtaining the Ultimate Power she believed she deserved.

From the Seventh Heaven, clad in three words of power,

Come forth from the Ring of Deterrence, O keeper of the balance-!

The moment the last words left her mouth, the raging storm of Mana that had formed in the center of the circle exploded, forcing her to snap her eyes shut to protect her from going blind, Waver’s curse and Flat’s cry of alarm all the indication she needed to confirm they were likewise as afflicted by the flash.

“Did it backfire?” she wondered, only to blink as she sensed a subtle shift in the storm’s intensity, her eyes cracking open as she peered into the dust that had formed in the center of the summoning circle, only to blink at the sight of the armored figure kneeling before her.

There was no denying that the figure before her was a Knight, though their stature was decidedly smaller and their armor more intimidating than she would’ve expected from a national hero. Then again, considering how bloody the history of mankind was compared to Equestria, and the more recent trend of removing the gory details from legends to make them appeal to younger generations, it was highly likely that this was precisely what the Knights of the Round Table wore into battle. It certainly looked formidable enough.

“Be careful, Hikaru.” Waver urged her via telepathy, his expression wary as he pushed Flat behind him to keep the energetic blonde from doing something stupid, like try to shake the Servant’s hand “That isn’t the Saber Servant from the Fourth War.”

‘Story of my life.’ Sunset returned while shaking her head with a sigh, the former Unicorn turning her attention to the kneeling Knight in the summoning circle as he raised his head.

“So you're my Master, then?” the Knight demanded, his voice clear and unclouded as he rose to his feet, his armor clinking with every movement as he regarded Sunset through the grates in his horned helm.

“I am.” Sunset confirmed, nodding her head in greeting before holding up her Command Seals for him to see “Judging by your attire, I’m guessing you’re a Saber-Class?” she asked, glancing at the beautiful longsword the Knight was wielding.

“Isn't it obvious?” the knight scoffed mockingly, resting the blade on his pauldron for all to see “You must have poor eyes and a poorer mind if you see me as a Caster or Assassin. Not that there's anything wrong with an assassin who clangs through the front door wearing a set of armor, but could it be I’ve been summoned by a fool?"

‘Arrogant much?’ Sunset scoffed, wondering what all those romanticists would think if they could hear this. Then again, unlike in Canterlot, the historical knights of Briton were nowhere near as chivalrous as they were depicted “Fool or not, I’m the one with the Command Seals.” She reminded the Knight “I don’t particularly care what you think of me so long as you follow my orders.”

“Hoh? Rather big mouth you’ve got there, Mage.” The Knight noted, though Sunset could tell from the underlying amusement in his tone that he wasn’t overly offended “Perhaps this won’t be so boring after all. You have a name, fire-hair, or shall I give you one?”

“Bansho Hikaru.” Sunset supplied, giving her alias in this world as opposed to her actual name, as Command Seals or not she wasn’t about to trust this thing any further than she could throw it “And would you care to introduce yourself? For that matter, are you doing something to suppress your stats?”

Aside from the Command Seals, one of the many benefits accorded to Masters by the Grail was the ability to ascertain the overall parameters of the Servants, both their own and those of their opponents, at a glance. While more in-depth information, such as their abilities and Noble Phantasms, would require more in-depth research, at the very least they could see how their own Servant stacked up compared to their opponents, so as to better pick their fights.

Yet for some reason, the only thing Sunset could see whenever she tried to examine Saber was the mental equivalent of an , which meant one of two things. Either Saber possessed a passive skill that concealed their stats from view, or it had something to do with their Noble Phantasm.

“Ah, it’s most likely this.” The Knight admitted, tapping an armored knuckle against his helm for emphasis, Sunset’s brow quirking as the metal split and shifted like something out of a transformers movie, the entire helm merging with the rest of the armor, revealing a youthful face set with a confident smirk and framed by wild golden hair tied up in a ponytail.

“My name is Mordred!” Saber boldly declared, resting her, for indeed there was no denying she was a girl no matter how you looked at it, armored gauntlets on the pommel of her sword “The One True Heir to the King of Knights, Arthur Pendragon!”

‘Fuck my life…’ Waver swore, suppressing the urge to rip his hair out as the Servant finished her declaration ‘Of all the Knights the relic could have summoned, why did it have to be that one?’

Sir Mordred, the Knight of Treachery, the bastard child of Arthur Pendragon, the Once and Future King of Knights, and his older half-sister, Morgan Le Fay, the Witch Queen of Albion and arch-nemesis of Merlin. While there was no denying his, her rather, position as a Knight of the Round Table, indeed, you could even go so far to say she was arguably the most infamous member of that legendary order, the fact remained she hadn’t earned her title as the Knight of Treachery for nothing.

Hell, according to the legends her very conception was, in itself, an act of betrayal, although in Arthur’s defense, the King of Knights had not done so knowingly. While the details behind her betrayal were sparse, indeed for all intents and purposes Mordred’s loyalty to Arthur had originally been second to none, serving without question as an ideal knight, even going so far as to arrest Queen Guinevere, as ironic as that sounded, for 'dallying' with Sir Lancelot.

In the end, however, Mordred had betrayed her sire, instigating a rebellion during Arthur’s expedition to Rome, placing herself on the throne only to meet her death on the fields of Calmlann, struck down by the King of Knights mere moments before landing the blow that took Arthur's life.

Simply put, so far as Waver Velvet was concerned, out of all of the Knights that could have been summoned by the fragment of the Round Table, Sunset had drawn the absolute worst card possible.

‘Perhaps it’s because we used a fragment of the Round Table as a catalyst?’ he pondered, glancing towards the shard with a frown. After all, while it could be argued that Sir Lancelot and Guinevere’s infidelity sowed the seeds of Camelot’s downfall, it was Mordred who was arguably the most famous for bringing an end to the legend of the King of Knights.

‘Still, at the very least we’ve ensured that Excalibur is out of the game.’ He mused, taking a drag on his cigar as Hikaru and Mordred continued to shoot the breeze ‘And as the Knight who slew King Arthur, Mordred’s parameters should be just as good, if not superior, to her father…mother?’. He scowled as he tried to wrap his brain around how to best refer to Mordred’s sire, only to give up as it began to give him a headache.

“Fucking Merlin…” he swore, a sentiment that had, ironically, been almost universally shared amongst the residents of Camelot, deciding to set the matter aside for now, instead turning his attention to Flat, who was beaming at Saber with unparalleled glee “And what’re you so happy about?”

“It’s Mordred Professor!” Flat exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in jubilation like the excitable man-child he was “One of the actual Knights of the Round Table! The Greatest Knights to ever exist!”

“Yes, yes, it is.” Waver sighed, noting out the corner of his eye that Mordred was listening and seemed to be preening slightly at the praise his disciple was heaping at her feet, though she seemed oddly annoyed when he mentioned the Round Table.

“This is so cool!” Flat cheered excitedly, practically dancing as he pumped his fists in elation “I always wanted to meet a hero of legend and here’s one in the flesh! And she’s a girl too-!”

It was testament to Waver’s experience in dealing with Servants that all it took was Hikaru crying out ‘Saber!’ for him realize something was wrong, the Clock Tower Lord cursing as he threw up a magical barrier just in time to save Flat from being bifurcated by a gleaming silver longsword, wielded by a suddenly enraged Saber.

“Stand down, Saber!” Hikaru commanded, holding up her hand so the Servant could see her Command Seals when Saber refused to capitulate “I said stand down! Don’t make me use one of these for no good reason!”

“Tch-!” Saber cursed, and for a moment Waver feared she was going to refuse, only to sigh in relief as the Knight of Treachery drew back her sword, letting it rest over her shoulder “You, Blondie.” She barked out, glaring down at the shocked form of Flat “The next time you call me a woman, I won’t be able to restrain myself. Understand?”

‘That was her showing restraint?’ Waver deadpanned, sighing in exasperation as Flat, rather than being cowed, simply started showering praise on how fast the Servant was whilst asking all manner of questions about how she stacked up to the other Knights of the Round ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, if she’s anything like her ‘Father’, she probably could’ve killed both of us before Hikaru could call out.’

“Enough!” Mordred snapped, clearly having had enough of Flat’s questioning, though she thankfully refrained from lashing out with her sword again “Don’t dare to presume that I was of the same caliber as the rest of the Round Table! As the one true heir of the King of Knights, none of them could hold a candle to me!

“But…if that’s true then why did you rebel?” Flat wondered, earning a glare from the Servant, though it soon faded when she detected nothing but innocent confusion in his eyes “I mean, he was your father, right? Why would you want to betray him?”

“He gave me no choice.” Mordred replied bitterly, turning her face away in anger “I served my King loyally and without question…no-one loved him more than I…” she clenched her armored fist “But Father…would not accept me. No matter how hard I fought, no matter how many of his enemies I slayed, no matter how many traitors I brought to justice, nothing was ever good enough for him.”

‘Sounds about par for the course for the legend.’ Waver mused warily. Oh there was no denying he didn’t trust the Servant before him any further than he could throw her, but it was still interesting to hear things from the perspective of one of the participants of the story.

“Despite his blood coursing through my veins, Father never saw me as anything but a servant…” Saber continued, the coldness of her tone a stark contrast to the burning anger in her eyes and the trembling of her body, a clear sign of her barely suppressed rage “after everything I’d done, he refused to see me as anything other than the son of that witch!”

“Mordred’s mother was Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s older half-sister.” Waver explained to Hikaru at her quirked brow, wincing slightly as Saber shot him a glare at the mention of her name “According to legend she enchanted the King to conceive Mordred for the sole purpose of destroying Camelot.”

“Hah! Is that what they say about her?” Mordred scoffed with a self-mocking sneer “Well I guess I can’t blame them for thinking that, she certainly didn’t earn herself any favors down the line, but it was I who instigated the rebellion, not her. She’d have been perfectly happy with me sitting on the throne.” Her eyes narrowed in contempt “but after father refused to accept me, I decided to teach him a little lesson, to drive home just how worthless his reign truly was!”

‘She’s just like how I used to be.’ Sunset realized, the former Unicorn gazing at the Knight of Treachery as she finished her proclamation. Though their circumstances might differ, in the end both Sunset and Mordred had sought nothing but approval from the most important people in their life, to claim what they believed to be rightfully theirs, only to be denied, cast out and in turn forced to betray them out of spite.

“I see…” Waver mused, snapping the former Unicorn out of her thoughts to see him eyeing the Knight of Treachery calculatingly “Going by that logic, should I presume you seek the Holy Grail in order to become King?”

“Don’t insult me, Mage.” Mordred scoffed imperiously “Even if I were to ascend to the throne using the Grail, my Father would never truly acknowledge it.” Her eyes narrowed in determination “No, my wish is far simpler, I seek to undergo the same trial the King of Knights once did and challenge the Sword of Selection.”

“In order to become King of Britain, Arthur had to draw the holy sword, Caliburn, from a stone.” Waver explained for Sunset’s benefit “The sword was enchanted by Merlin so only the ‘Rightful King’ could draw it.”

“Sounds sketchy to me.” Sunset opined, having read up on Merlin during her time as a Student in the Clock Tower, partially out of a desire to learn more about the ‘Most famous Wizard of all time’, and partially to see how he stacked up to what she recalled of Starswirl the Bearded “I mean, wasn’t Merlin famous for being a trickster?” she asked, earning a nod of confirmation from Saber “Then Isn’t it entirely possible he enchanted the sword so nobody but Arthur could draw it?”

“That’s…certainly not implausible, given what we know of his history with Arthur.” Waver conceded uncertainly “It is said Merlin played a direct role in Arthur’s conception, and while Vortigern was the one who hammered the sword into the Anvil in the first place, Merlin was supposedly the one who prepared the sword beforehand.”

“So there’s a good chance the selection was rigged from the onset.” Sunset posed, turning to regard Saber, who was looking between the pair with a troubled expression “Even knowing that, do you still want to try and contest it?”

In a sense, Mordred’s situation was far more daunting than Sunset’s had ever been. After all, the very fact that Cadance, a Pegasus, had managed to become an Alicorn was living proof that it was possible for Sunset to do the same.

However, even if Merlin hadn’t rigged the election, there was no guarantee that Mordred would be able to draw Caliburn from the stone when countless others had tried, and failed, to do the same. For her to have gone through so much to earn her father’s approval, only to be denied at the last moment…Sunset couldn’t imagine a more heartbreaking scenario if she tried.

“Of course I do!” the Knight of Treachery proclaimed, shocking the assembled Magi with her unwavering determination as she clenched her fist “After all, if Father only became King because of Merlin’s mischief, then that just proves he wasn’t suited to be king!”

“And if you fail to draw the sword?” Sunset queried, though honestly, she already predicted what the Servant’s answer would be, given how similar she was to her old self.

“That won’t happen.” Mordred scoffed, puffed out her chest with pride as she grinned confidently at the redhead “Given my pedigree, there’s no way the Sword will refuse me!”

‘Well she’s certainly confident, I’ll give her that much.’ Sunset scoffed, earning a glare from the Servant at the assumed mockery while Flat proceeded to gush on the sidelines ‘Heck, if confidence were all it took to be King I wouldn’t be surprised if she could pull it off…however-’

“You should give up on the Grail.” Sunset opined, holding up a hand as Saber opened her mouth to protest “I’m not saying I’m saying you can’t do it, heck, as someone whose been in your shoes, I can respect you for wanting to find a legitimate way to prove yourself worthy.”

Faust only knew the old Sunset Shimmer hadn’t. Seriously, what the hell had she been thinking, breaking into the forbidden archives and then expecting Celestia to capitulate to her demands? Mordred might be arrogant, but her reasons for seeking to challenge the sword had less to do with succeeding King Arthur, and more to prove to her father that she was, indeed, worthy of bearing his name.

“Then what is the problem?” Mordred demanded, though her annoyance was a far cry better than her earlier anger “If you’re worried that I’ll keep the wish for myself-!”

“I wouldn’t wish on that thing even if it could make all my dreams come true.” Sunset spat, reigning in her temper as she fought down the memories of that night from ten years’ prior “Look, there’s something you need to know about the Grail…about this entire farce of a war really.”

Saber frowned, and for a moment Sunset feared she was going to be stubborn, only for the Knight of Treachery to lower her sword, resting both hands on the pommel as she took a seat on a nearby boulder.

“Explain, yourself, Master.”

Author's Note

And so Mo-chan finally shows up on the scene! Admittedly, I considered going with another KOTR, but in the end Mordred just seemed to click with Sunset's backstory.

In a sense, Mordred is what Sunset 'COULD' have been if she hadn't wizened up or met the Humane 5 and Twilight, albeit slightly less bitter about being denied her birthright.

Sadly, this will likely be the last we see of Waver and Flat for some time, since Waver's duties at the clock tower prevent him from travelling as he pleases and Flat...well, the least said about flat the better.

And if you're wondering what changes will be wrought from Sunset summoning Mo-chan, we'll be moving to Fuyuki soon enough, so look forward to that!

Also, for those of you wondering, Sunset's name in this world is Banshou Hikaru, which explains why Flat calls her 'Hikaru Bancho' (Basically Gang-Boss Hikaru).

As such, whenever it's talking from anyone else's perspective, she will be referred to as 'Hikaru', but when done from her perspective, she will be 'Sunset'.