(Takes place a day after Chaldeas Crusaders! Also, small trigger warning i guess... there will be blood! Shed! The man in the mirror nods his- sorry. But seriously, gore warning, this is where we go mature.)

It had been a whole day since the talk with Spike in the corridor and Apple Bloom still felt like her heart had a sword hanging from a thread right above it. She was the oldest of them and had vowed to be responsible for them all, ever since the day she met the other two half-pints she called her best friends and even more so when she first met Spike, back when he didn't even know what the actual sky looked like.

And now look at yourself, putting up a brave face and telling your friend what he wanted to hear from you, just so you could break down in your room. The voice in her head was familiar, it was her own after all. Apple Bloom still had the stains of tears in her eyes, she couldn't help it though, she was still scared of the thought of going back out there, what if they didn't make it back next time? What if Sweetie never wakes up? What if Scootaloo's next? Or Spike?

Not so easy being me huh, lil sis? Applejack's voice echoed in her mind with venom and normally Apple Bloom wouldn't listen, she knew her sister, she would never spit her words like that, but in that state all she could do was hold the picture in her hands closer to herself. Nnope. And there was Big Mac.

Why did Discord have to blow Chaldea up? Why did he have to sabotage her sister and her friends? Group A would have made short work of the situation! Her sister was better with pressure, better with magecraft, she had the family's crest for fuck's sake!

Apple Bloom's eyes shot open with a start as the automatic door opened, she sat up immediately, still clinging to the bed sheets around her, leaving all but her face exposed for air but making sure to have her back turned to the door while she tried to clear the tears away.

"Master... come... your destiny... not... here." The voice was thick and labored, like saying anything brought its owner immense pain, every word was laced with damn near animalistic growling and pained moans. She recognised the voice oh so well and could feel her aching heart clench even harder, a servant who she pitied oh so much, even if he had been a horrible person in life.

Apple Bloom turned around, meeting the intense stare of the man now standing in the middle of her room. The figure was a tall man with short and spiky purple hairs in a chaotic mess, his body was adorned with muscles worthy of a warrior and protected by a suit of golden roman armor with black details around the chest and part of the abdomen and adorned by a long and tattered red cape, but what truly held Apple Bloom's eyes were... well... his very own pair of eyes, from the black sclera to the intense red orbs staring at her very soul. She always felt small when Caligula looked at her that way.

"A-ah'm fine, Caligula. P-please, just leave me aloooo-" She dragged that word with a yelp as the man simply pulled her out of bed like a potato sack, carrying her through the corridors still in her pajamas and wrapped in her sheets like an apple burrito. All she could do was resign to her fate, there was no arguing with this Berserker.

After a mortifying parade through the corridors, where it seemed the Roman Emperor had decided to take the route that ensued that every other servant would see her in that sorry state, like seriously, she could only watch and glare as her very first summoned servant, Cú fucking Chulainn, laughed and pointed at her! Apple Bloom was plopped down on the floor of the... rayshift room.

"Rome... we go... to.. to... uooh!" Caligula took hand to his head, his voice was raspy and strangled and now he looked like he'd been hit with a headache, making him groan. Apple Bloom hated how in pain the Berserker always sounded, it hurt even more whenever she remembered how Nero would look at him during... Septem... wait, he wanted to go back to that singularity? Wasn't it fixed? Then again... Sweetie did go back to Orleans once with the Phantom of the Opera in tow.

"Fine." Apple Bloom got up from the floor but she didn't let go of the sheets, nor the picture hidden beneath them. Da Vinci and the Doctor can deal with the stains later. She thought. I just gotta step in the... th-the... C-Coffin. She stood in front of the metal chamber, a giant cylinder with a glass where she would lay down and have her spiritrons, the thing that basically composed her body and spirit or something like that, she didn't pay a lot of attention to Diamond Tiara's lecture, sue her, and transport her to another point in time.

"Citizen of Rome... do not... fear." Caligula's voice cut through the fog that was forming in her mind, opening her eyes to just how much she was shaking at the idea of going in there. She looked to her side, the Emperor meeting her gaze with an emotionless expression. "Rome will... will... aaaahhh... Rome will...! Protect... you!" That had been the most labored she'd ever seen him talk, his breathing becoming heavier.

Apple Bloom didn't know what made her actually walk into that thing, if it was pity for how in pain he always sounded or security from his words, though she really wanted to believe it to be the latter.

She stepped inside the metal contraption, she had to leave the photo behind though, she didn't want to take it off the frame or risk it being ruined somehow, not to mention how unsure she was that it would even be able to make it with her through the shift.

"Begin Rayshift." The familiar voice of Da Vinci came from a speaker. Of course that dastardly woman had been watching in silence... and at the same time... she knew Da Vinci or the Doctor were needed to complete a Rayshift.

｢RAYSHIFT STARTED.｣

There was a familiar sensation of nausea as Apple Bloom felt herself being transported, her vision was filled by a blue vortex with the sensation of a free fall. I used to be scared by this. Her eyes closed, she "breathed" in to calm herself and as her eyes opened again: her vision was met by open fields and the capital of Nero's Rome just off in the distance.

"Beautiful..." Caligula materialized from spirit form, a handy little trick employed by servants so they wouldn't be seen traveling, though other servants could still sense their presence unless they had a skill to conceal it, like the Assassin-Class Heroic Spiris do. "Nero... Rome... beautiful..." Caligula had a smile on his face, his eyes looking at ease, even if his voice was still raspy and labored, it brought a small smile to her as well.

"The view's truly beauti- huh?" She couldn't help but notice how that smile had become a scowl, then it was followed by a deep and bestial growl from the man. Apple Bloom just wanted to enjoy the sunset and forget her fucking problems for a minute, but she recognised that expression and it didn't take very long for the sounds of loud footsteps to follow. Enemies. It just had to be leftover enemies. "Well... time to battle, Calig-'' And off he went to meet the enemy, she wondered if he even remembered she was there with him. Maybe it would be for the best if he didn't. And she chose, just this once, to ignore the fake voice of Applejack in her head, even if that one hurt.

Apple Bloom ran after her servant, she expected to find some leftover soldiers from the United Roman Empire, the memory of their battle with Romulus followed by a battle with Discord Flauros, their very first Demon God, flooding right back into her mind and making her run even faster now. What if it isn't just a bunch of soldiers? What if Discord wasn't dead at all? What if- what if it was him again?

"Goddess... Goddess...! I shall offer... offer you... Aaaah!" Just as Apple Bloom heard his voice, so too did she hear the sound of bone and flesh being ripped apart, followed by a wail of sheer pain and agony. Caligula had his whole forearm going right through a man's chest, his free hand held the man's still twitching body by the neck.

A normal person would scream or feel sick, but Apple Bloom wasn't normal, she's a magus and on top of that she had witnessed a lot of gruesome scenes as they tumbled through human history. Which made her worse than a regular human right now. Her eyes darted from Caligula to a group of roman citizens tied in ropes, either prisoners of war or... slaves to be. She hated how even though the timeline should be fixing itself now that they had removed the Grail from it, the problems spawned by it and it's user were still plaguing the whole damned place.

"I-is that? E-Emperor Caligula?" The prisoners did, of course, recognize their Emperor who was supposed to be both deceased and, before his defeat by the hands of Nero Claudius's Rome and Chaldea, their enemy, ripping one of his supposed soldiers with his arm, a sadistic smile gracing his features.

"Nope! Just uhhh... one of the... uhh... you know what? You guys should just forget all about this." Apple Bloom was NOT in the mood for coming up with last second lies, so she decided to do the (not) responsible thing and cast a simple sleep spell on the men. It had been sometime since she last used her Magic Circuits for anything that wasn't maintaining her contracted Servants materialized.

Caligula took his arm out of the dead man's body, his form covered in blood as he lifted the man's guts up in one hand, content with the beautiful offering he just secured for the Goddess, the death of his niece's enemies, for none shall harm Rome, none shall harm Nero. The man's maddened gaze went from his victim right to his companions who seemed to get out of their daze. He measured them first, maybe their armours would make suitable gifts for Nero? Spoils of war like the ones he would show her when she was but a child. Nay, she was way more fond of things with a history to them, those fake romans, his romans, the romans created by a foolish wish for destruction, they aren't worthy to grace her.

"Offer me... your... lives!" More footsteps came from a hill just east of them, reinforcements? Good. Very good. Caligula spared his master a glance, he could see it in her eyes: fear, so much fear, she looked like Nero when she was younger. Nero was scared. He would kill them. He would kill them all.

More incoming. Should i? Could i? Her thoughts were a mess, her eyes darting anywhere and everywhere, they bit off more than they should have, her gaze then fell to her hand, to the red mark in the form of a shield with an apple in the middle.

"Those” Diamond Tiara hit the board with a hand. “are command seals. There are three very powerful spells stored in each one of them that can only be used to affect a Heroic Spirit contracted to you, it can be used to command them to do anything, even break their very own limitations, might be the only thing saving one of you idiots from pissing off your Berserker." Diamond Tiara had been going on and on about these seals, using diagrams and anything at her disposal to get the concept through the skulls of the drags before her, she hated how Discord convinced her to explain to a bunch of subpar magi-wannabes that wouldn't set foot in a singularity if she has her way. Especially the redhead pretending to take notes, fucking bumpkin.

Apple Bloom had been taking notes that time, not really anything useful, mostly venting to a page, but she did pay attention to that lecture at least. Should she use one? Caligula was already running to meet his enemies, alone may she add, what if they were too much for him? He'd die and it would be all her fault! She couldn't let that happen to another person who's been counting on her!

"W-with this command seal..." Her voice was barely above a whisper, she could hear Caligula's screams, both of pain and anger, she knew he was already there, he was already fighting and by the sounds of it? Getting hurt, if she ordered him to retreat he'd be okay, right? He'd come back and heal... but then those soldiers... they would kill the sleeping men in retaliation... and... and... what if it went like London again?

There was another scream, a soldier's, Apple Bloom's eyes left the glowing seals in the back of her hand, finally seeing Caligula completely surrounded, spears embedded in his back, sword wounds in his arms and still he wouldn't back down, even if he could die. And it wasn't just a Berserker thing, she knew every servant was like this... even a Demi one. Her thoughts went straight to Spike as he jumped in front of them and put his shield between them and the devil calling himself King Solomon, not a sliver of fear for his own wellbeing.

We've come too far to just give up and die. The words came back to her in an instant, when she next opened her mouth, wanting to scream at the top of her lungs for a retreat, she was met with a very different sound. "FIIIIGHT!" And the seal responded, a wave of red light flashing from her hand and the lower part of that shield-like "tattoo" becoming a scar in the rough shape of the erased part of the symbol, the surge of mana hitting her servant like a rush of adrenaline, Apple Bloom could even feel her mana usage spiking up as Caligula roared like a monster, stunning his foes.

The sun had already set, the moon was rising faster than Apple Bloom thought it should, like someone was pulling it to the sky with magic. Wait... oh no... oh no. Her eyes went from the sky and back to her servant, noticing the ethereal light emanating from him, a glow pale as the moon.

"The Goddess! So gorgeous... Goddess, Diana... love me, madly..." His voice, labored, sad and excited at the same time, like a man seeing his wife for the first time in years, the glow around him intensified, his eyes were taken by that very same glow as he began to growl and snarl like a wild wolf.

The light of the full moon shone bright as a beacon, reaching down upon the soldiers around the mad Emperor, their eyes taking on that self-same glow as his, their minds being devoid of conscience, their screams growing into maddened roars as the men began jumping on each other's throats with teeth and nails, their souls were bathed in the moon's maddening light.

"Devour my soul, moonlight! Flucticulus... Diaaaaanaaaa!"

Apple Bloom was still stunned, she could only watch as men were turned to hungry beasts, Caligula very much among them and ripping every single one of them to shreds, she couldn't tear her gaze from the slaughter caused by the Emperor's Noble Phantasm, the crystallization of Caligula's legend, his madness, the love of Diana, Roman Goddess of the Moon, infecting his enemies. The power to turn an army against itself. But that was the furthest thing from her mind right now.

Fight. That's what they had been doing all this time, that's what they were forcibly signed up for, that's what they set out to do in the burning ruins of Fuyuki. All it took was one big adversity and she had lost all her fight. She was desperate, she was scared, she wanted to cry and wanted to scream and... she felt a blood soaked hand being placed on her shoulder, staining the white sheets she had still been covered with.

"Citizen of Rome... don't be scared... Rome is... here." Caligula no longer had that glow in his eyes, his expression looked concerned though and the hand on her shoulder slowly went down to her mid-back where it began to push her lightly... and she felt herself walking, silently, as Caligula gently led her away from the battlefield.

They walked for a good ten minutes, Apple Bloom was silent, as for Caligula? His madness did not allow him the comfort of silence, even if he were to want it, even when Diana was high up in the skies, called upon by his Noble Phantasm. And then he stopped her.

"Look..." She hadn't registered any of the path they took, her mind in too much of a daze still, so she did as she was told, her eyes going up to see the full moon shining down upon the capital, a gentle light shining down upon it, no longer taken by that maddening glow. It was a beautiful sight, one that oddly enough... calmed her, if only just a little.

"Rome... beautiful Rome." Apple Bloom nodded in agreement to the Berserker's mumbling. "I protect... Rome." That possibly explained why he wanted to come here in the first place. "You too... are Rome." And she couldn't help the tiny smile, her mind going back to an earlier doubt. "Thanks..." She looked up at the servant beside her, noticing something a little different about his eyes and expression. He was smiling yet his eyes didn't glimmer with the usual madness.

"Listen well, for i won't have long to say this without interference." She was taken aback by how normal he sounded now, his voice still had that thick tone but now it sounded clear and devoid of pain. "I know of the pains you carry. I know of the paths you have taken and where your heart lay. I will allow your tears. I will also allow you to shout. There's nobody else around other than myself." Apple Bloom was still shocked by how eloquent he sounded, was that his Emperor voice? Because she sure as hell couldn't take her attention away from his speech, so much so that she wanted to interrupt him for a moment to bring up Da Vinci, but the woman herself was faster, the tell tale sound of the hologram coming up and... all Apple Bloom could see was interference instead of Da Vinci's bust. And Caligula seemed to smile more at being proven right.

"Even if she manages to fix this, she will think it's me shouting." Caligula's voice sounded calm, soothing and most of all... concerned. There was a small pause, the wind blowing past 'em as Caligula closed his eyes. "Man cannot embrace everything in the world. As I could not embrace everything in Rome, I shall forgive for now. Your tears and even your shouts..."

Something about the way he said it had touched something in her heart and... ah shucks who did she want to fool? She had been wanting to cry and scream the whole goddamned time ever since she came back from London and as such... she just let herself go, she let herself be vulnerable and scream and cry herself a fucking river, clinging not to a stained bed sheet, but to Caligula who, just for that moment, seemed like a bloody good temporary replacement for Big Mac.

"I shall forgive..." His words were barely above a whisper as a tender hand was placed on top of her head, a bloodless hand, as Apple Bloom hugged a Roman Emperor and cried like she was five and apologizing to Applejack for something bad.

Caligula's eyes went up to the moon, a knowing smile gracing his features as he moved his lips, muttering a small thanks to the moon for letting go of her love just this night.

Author's Note

I don't usually like using images for stories... but. I love that craft essence of Caligula using his Noble Phantasm and like hell i wasn't going to use it for a scene based on it. And i guess it works well for further explanation and imagery of how Noble Phantasms work in case of anyone who doesn't know about it. Don't worry though, i don't think i'll make a habit out of the whole image thing.