27Disclaimer- I don't own anything otherwise i would have made Vlad even better given he is one of my favorites or i would have had Seig merge with him instead bet that would make thing interesting.
Preparations for War
Shirou knelt before the altar as he planned how to deal with the Great Grail War while feeding false information to the other masters minus Kairi who had declined from joining him for acting on his own as an ally. That incident had left him slightly worried given he hadn't been able to figure out who Saber was but ultimately it hadn't changed much of his plans for the moment he just had to keep an eye out for them if they try to double cross him.
No his current problems were Rider, Archer, and Berserker who while they might be on the same side they didn't really like him so he couldn't send them out to deal with this wars Ruler. Thankfully Lancer was willing to answer to him and was preparing to head out soon while the other three scouted out Trifas for the time being. He hadn't wanted to send Berserker originally but the man had insisted to the point if he challenged him to a fist fight saying if he could survive longer than Grendel than he would stay behind. Shirou had declined but had asked that he stay back and only act if the others ran into trouble which to his surprise Berserker agreed to.
Other than that he had Caster helping Assassin with preparing for their true base of operations in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon though he will probably need to go check on them given Caster's habit of annoying his servant.
Shirou tilted his head when he felt on of Assassins doves land on his shoulder and raised an eyebrow before getting up and heading for where Assassin was while the dove took flight to return to its master. Making his way outside to the courtyard he found Assassin sitting at one of the benches while Caster was nowhere in sight. Heading over to her Shirou watched as her face formed a frown and her eyes narrowed at the dove perched on her hand before taking a seat next to her.
"Problems it take it." Was all he said as he looked over the courtyard while waiting for her to respond.
"Maybe, maybe not my doves felt powerful magic in Bucharest though they weren't able to find the source though the Black faction has sent a servant most likely Rider to investigate it from what they saw." Assassin said to him as she turned to gauge he reaction to the news.
Shirou for his part raised an eyebrow before his face returned to its normal passive look as he considered what could have caused that kind of reaction from the Black faction though nothing jumped to mind before he gave his answer.
"Send a dove to follow the servant if you haven't already while I'll contact Archer maybe she would be willing to go and see what's going on and maybe take out the enemy servant if she gets the chance." Assassin nodded as the two sat there for a bit before Shirou got up and excused himself to return to his preparations.
Darnic frowned at the information he was reading while he went to the throne room where Lancer was at while he pondered the information they had received from Bucharest. Firstly there was the massive spike in magical energy that they had be able to faintly detect from Tifras though that it had been able to reach them at all said how big it had been. Shortly after that Sagara had contacted them to inform them of summoning Assassin and that he would be arriving within a day so they chalked it up to a powerful servant being summoned before presence concealment kicked in and waited for him. The problem was that Sagara never showed up at the time he was suppose to and that all attempts to contact him have failed leading him and several others to think his servant killed him yet when they checked the grail and have found no servants have been defeated yet so Assassin had to have contracted someone given that there was a lack of dead bodies being found.
Darnic was brought out of his thoughts when ha felt a hand on his shoulder stop him from moving and looked up to see a man standing at five foot nine with long brown hair, and pale skin. He wore a white robe with some red lines over half of his copper colored armor while one shoulder looked like a dragon with its mouth open and a spike coming out of it mouth while the gauntlet looked like a small shield was merged with it.
"Saint George my apologies I didn't see you there." Darnic said as he gave a small but polite nod of his head to the servant homunculus who had stopped him from running into said man.
"No harm done but if I may ask what has you so deep in thought." Darnic frowned at the reminder of the situation in Bucharest and gave the servant a run over of what they knew and what his suspected. George nodded and fell into step behind him as they entered the Throne room and headed over to Lancer who watched them while taking a drink from his glass every now and then.
Upon arriving at the throne Darnic once he had Lancers full attention gave the report he had received along with his theories for what may have happened in Bucharest before waiting for his servant to decide what do do next.
"While having Assassin is not needed leaving them unattended or even being recruited to the Red faction is not an option we will need to send someone to either acquire Assassin or deal with them in they prove too dangerous to handle." Lancer declared after thinking over the information he had been given.
"I can go and check it out and make it back quickly should anything go wrong while I'm gone." George said as he stepped forward causing Lancer to turn and look at him before nodding in acceptance. George nodded back and made his way out of the Throne room while both master and servant watched him go.
"He seemed pretty quick to offer his service in this though that might just be so he can get away from Celenike given his legend and her magecraft." Darnic said when George was out the door causing Lancer to chuckle slightly before they go into planning their next move.
Inside the catacombs of Trifas Kairi, the Red factions master of Saber prepared a poison dagger with hydra venom while Saber watched and chatted with him to pass the time when Kairi suddenly stopped causing Saber to stiffen and bring out her sword.
"Saber looks like we have company something just set off my detection alarm and given the amount of energy I felt its a servant." Was all Kairi said while he finished preparing his dagger while silently thankful that this didn't happen earlier or he would be in a lot more trouble given he was playing with hydra venom.
Saber grinned as her armor appeared on her as she moved to the main entrance where she felt a familiar servant was approaching from. Quicker than Kairi would have liked the door was opened and a girl with blonde hair though the front near her face was green along with her eyes. She wore a green and black dress with a golden emblem on the front and if he was seeing things corrected she had cats tail and ears though no noticeable weapon on her.
"Saber I see that thou is well." Was all the green clad Neko girl Kairi dubbed her in his head said while she looked around before settling on Saber again.
"Archer nice to see you to and you remember me as well I figured I was the only one." Saber said as she laughed though she hadn't put her blade away it wasn't pointed at Archer at the moment so they were being friendly at the moment.
"Thou was not the only to remember Thy self as well as Beowulf are here with our memories intact as well." Archer said while Saber's helm removed itself and settled into her armor while Archer moved closer to them as a large man entered behind her.
"Well looks like a reunion, all we need now is Master and EMIYA than we would have the entertainment and food covered." the large man Beowulf from what he heard said making the other two blush before glaring at him while shooting the other with smaller glares.
Kairi for his part had no idea what was going on the fact that Saber knew them was odd given that he was positive she would have never met Beowulf or a Nekomata during her time yet they were acting like they had known each other for a while though he really wanted to know who the hell EMIYA was if just by just saying their name caused Mordred to blush of all things.
"Shut up you over sized brute that has nothing to do with you." Saber said while Archer glare promised bloody murder for the Berserker is he didn't shut up. Beowulf still having some survival instincts quit teasing them while the other two composed themselves. Once all three had calmed down Archer turned to Saber with a serious look on her face as she spoke.
"Berserker and thy have come to offer an alliance with thou and thou's master as we do not trust Shirou's word nore his claims to be acting on the other masters behalf." Kairi blinked while Saber raised an eyebrow at them before shrugging and turned to look at him while saying.
"Sure the more the merrier I say were going to need all the help we can get." Kairi for his part just sighed as his servant declared that causing Beowulf to laugh out loud before returning to his work while re planning his next move with two more servants to call on for the time being while ignoring the sudden bickering going on between Saber an Archer while Berserker laughed even louder.
Ritsuka sighed as he settled into the chair by the desk in the apartment as he planned his next coarse of action. He had already concluded he was cut off from reinforcements from Chaldea when he had tried to summon Mash and nothing happened combined with the communication block meant he was on his own for the most part. Still given the information he had this was the Great Holy Grail War and for him to be here something must have gone wrong if this Zelretch needed him and his people to deal with it.
Turning over to the map of Trifas he had found in one of the tourist shops he was able to get a rough idea for the other city though he was sure he would need to update his map when he got there as he tried to remember when and where all the major points in the war happened from what the other servants had told him back in Chaldea. He did wonder though what altered Jackie's memory of the war cause while she has some memories from what she said parts were missing and none of them knew why.
EMIYA had a theory that since Jackie had been summoned by the people in this war and not Chaldea the Grail might have altered her memory so as to avoid any cheating so to speak. They had asked him about his theory which got him to explain that during the Fifth Grail War he had been summoned by Rin Tonska while his past self was a master in the war and although he knew what had happened whenever he had been summoned parts of his memory went missing. El-Melloi ll reminded him that the Grail had been corrupted by Angra Mainyu so that might have been the cause as well but given that he wasn't supposed to be summoned in the Third Grail War in this world meant that it was most likely the grail itself.
Still though the best time for them to make their opening would be when Siegfried and Karna went for Ruler Jeanne and hopefully gain more allies though he really didn't want to keep Ruler nearby unless they got lucky and she had her memories as well. Otherwise Ritsuka was positive that Jeanne and Jackie would end up gutting her and if he remembered correctly Ruler in this war was more like Mash only that Jeanne was more often than not in control.
Sighing Ritsuka got up and made his way to the fridge to grab a water bottle when he felt a hand grab his shirts collar and yanked him across the room and into a different and thankfully empty apartment before he was tossed onto the bed. From there he was treated to the wonderful sigh of Jeanne wearing some very skimpy night clothes while lust burned in her eyes and he knew he was going to be sore tomorrow but couldn't bring himself to care.
Jeanne looked up as the truck drove down the road and looked around in confusion. She had felt something change and for once the foreboding feeling she had been feeling since her summoning was lifted slightly though she couldn't figure out why. Still it brought a smile to her face as she began to hum a hymn as the truck continued on to Bucharest. She would have to find another way to Tirfas but so far the journey had be pleasant though she was sure that would change when she got to the War.
Still she had time and thanks to Laeticia she was learning about all the new things that people had made over the years and enjoyed her new found skill in reading to pass the time as the city drew closer.
And the poll speaks for itself so both have their memories back and a show for the headache I'm going to give Emyia later not that I hate the guy but its Shirou if he wasn't having love problems than something is wrong to the point Zelretch needs to step in and fix it.
And on that note I will settle Ritsuka's paring in this story right now and yes he has a harem in the form of Jeanne alter Artoria alter and though she wont appear in this story Tamamo. that said they just as often end up in bed with each other as they do with Ritsuka given they are both possessive and competitive so it would make things interesting on all sides.
other than that and the two who will be fighting for Shirou the parings for the most part are cannon minus R Jeanne since I'm removing Sieg mostly for plot reasons as I do like the guy just couldn't fit him in sadly I might try and rescue him later but not sure how that would go.
As for George here as the Rider of Black I did that for three main reasons, 1 I needed someone on the inside of the Black faction for Ritsuka and while Astolfo would be willing he/she would most likely get caught so no. 2 Given that the master of Rider for the Black faction is in fact a witch George willing to both betray and possibly kill her is at an all time high given his legend so if he was caught in a bad situation with her the others wouldn't go strait to traitor and more of it was bound to happen at some point. 3 George was originally meant to be the Rider of Red but they cut him out since one of the main points to the story was the different ideologies between R Shirou and R Jeanne and they didn't want to throw in a third saint.