FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 78: Trial by Fire

12:04am, Outside an old, abandoned church,

Lancer stood on the edge of the churchyard, a convenient fence separating him from the territory Archer's Master had established around the property. Old and weathered gravestones decorated the path to the stone steeple, and each forgotten name was a reminder of the fate that would await him should he fail. Shivering like a leaf in the wind, he counted his options on the corners of a cross, but soon ran out, as he had only one.

"Goddammit."

How many regrets followed him? How many of them were the results of his own cowardice? How many times had he looked what needed to be done in the eye and turned around?

He had enough haunting him, and being little more than a ghost himself wasn't an excuse enough for his conscience.

"Dammmmmiittt!"

Not giving any more moments for self-criticism, knowing time was of the essence, he leaped up and onto the tip of the iron fence, entering the boundary, and leaped into the air. Swinging back, the head of his rake detached and flew upwards, spinning in a plume of fire to create a small sun against the black sky. Bringing it down with a defiant squeal, Heaven's Nine-Tooth Rake carved through the stone and brick like butter, leaving what remained to collapse inward: all that remained was half the front wall and a massive gaping hole in what was once the roof.

"Get out here, ya bastard!"

...

Across the way, facing the back of the church, Saber, Chrysaor, crouched low on the upward slope, watching the one small window for any signs of movement. His heart beat furiously in his chest, and he briefly questioned the cruelty of binding Spirits like himself to such biological pains even after death, but such was the cost of his own poor planning, and for that he had no one to blame but himself.

A squeal ran out from the other side of the church, and then a small sun appeared in the sky.

The signal.

His brother, Pegasus, was the fastest creature alive. He had no reason to believe he had inherited the same talent, but, in this moment, he desperately hoped that some quirk in the Throne of Heroes would grant him that mercy.

Like a coiled spring his tense body released with a burst of splashing blue energy from his calves, allowing his Mana Burst to propel him forward as much as it could; accelerating the mana flow of his body for whatever bonus it gave. Becoming a blur of blue and gold, he cleared the several yards in a second, leaping forward and curling into a ball so that he burst through the window back-first and flipped onto three points atop a wooden floor.

He scanned his surroundings for anything at all and made enough progress to realize he was in a kitchen-

-Before red-orange lights danced across the floors and walls with dangerous precision.

"Damn it all."

...

"Archer. There's two. Get here now."

'On my way.'

His Servant alerted, he marched to the lockers opposite his workbench, swinging them open with a ferocity he had never shown in polite company. In front of him was his pride and joy, a prototype he'd never tested beyond his lab. Normally, such a field test would fill him with the closest thing to delight that he was capable of experiencing, but his impatience kept him far from his usual state of mind.

A reasonable man would have spent his mental energy pondering on the identity and abilities of the Servants in front of him, but he was not a reasonable man: he was a logical one. The identities were obvious to him: it was Lancer and Saber. Rider, Berserker, and Caster weren't possibilities, and Assassin wouldn't have gotten caught. What bothered him wasn't the question of danger or identity, those seemed settled to him: what troubled his mind was motivation. What was it that Saber had to gain? Why go so far out of the way for his enemy? Why violate the truce for such a petty concern? Unless he had no intention of joining the truce to begin with?