A Few Moments Earlier...
In a single motion, Chrysaor swept his Master off her feet and, carrying her in his arms, rushed forward , leaped onto the bow and took another jump into the open air, leaving Aaron alone.
He performed a quick inventory. His rifle was loaded and ready to go. He had a black metal box which had held his rifle, ammo, and several grenades for both flashing and fragging. But... that wasn't enough. A quick snipe on Archer's Master might earn a small victory, but that was far from guaranteed and even further from a win. Servants needed their Masters, true, but the Berserker below him showed with all certainty that these heroes weren't some kind of lightbulb that went dim the second it was separated from its power source. Berserker wasn't the only proof either...
His own ship. The fleet that Rider left behind. They were still aloft. Rider had explained already that they responded to Divinity on board, but if Aaron's was still flying high, then there must have been some energy left within them, some little bit of Rider's own will and power that lingered on after he himself had disappeared.
-And he was Rider's Master.
It was only a hunch, but his mage's mind went aflutter with theories and conjectures valid enough, believable enough, that he chose to spend what little, valuable time he had on his experiment.
He crouched low and thrust his palm against the deck. He, paradoxically, rushed to calm his mind, to reach out to whatever core lay at the center of the Phantasm, the link that connected it to Rider, the fuel that created the liminal space below deck where all sorts of supplies and items seemed to be stored. Through the hard grip of his focus, static slipped through his fingers, seeming to reach like winter branches into the structure of the ship, running the length of that metallic wood like power through copper wire until-
A connection.
A wicked grin cracked into his face. He stabbed his will into that core, piercing it, inhabiting it, like a parasite upon its host. It was only a moment later that he felt the deck rise and turn underneath him. As that core became his own, his probing found new crevices to inhabit, and those familiar cannons released from the ship's side, rising and falling, moving to the motions of his own mind. Magical feedback surged into him, before falling back into the ship and then rising again like the rolling of the tide. He and this ship- this small gift his Servant left behind- were becoming a single entity, and the mystic pathways inscribed into the wood flowed so seamlessly with the mana from his body that they were becoming nothing more than extensions of his own magical circuits.
...
Archer looked up from the battle to see the ship that Saber had formerly ridden rise above him and deploy its cannons.
"Caster," He manifested his bow in his hands and began to pull back on the string, "We have a small problem."
A smirk made its way through his illusory appearance, though he never took his eyes off Saber and Berserker's brawl.
"No, my friend. I believe you have a small problem."
The future flashed in Archer's Mind's Eye, and he made a swift heel-turn towards the cannons, pulling his bowstring fully back and manifesting a black arrow as bolts of golden energy let loose from the barrel, two at once. Archer matched its speed in releasing his own bolt, which split into two avian shadows that burst into black fire against the bursts of light, splashing out into sparks of white, gold, orange and black. Neither side gave way, Archer's hands moving in a blur of flame and darkness, the speed of his fingers rivaling even Rider at his peak, each movement bringing another flurry to block the onslaught from above; his Mind's Eye working overtime to ensure he hit every incoming bolt with pinpoint accuracy. His eyes narrowed, and thoughts managed to skirt their way around his sharp focus.
'What's his plan, exactly? He's likely to run out of mana before long. Could this be a distraction?'
His Master marched up to him, shouting to be heard over the booming of magical explosions, "Archer! What's the plan?"
He debated insisting on Caster's help. The only other thing he could think of was attempting to maneuver his own ship into a firing position, which should force the renegade Master into a corner before destroying both him and that corner in one fell swoop, but he wasn't sure he had the necessary focus and control to fire his bow and steer the ship at once. It would be easier, he reasoned, to fully abandon ship along with his Master, dodge through the air and kill the pest himself. But then, should he really abandon his second Master? Could he count on a third?
-ding-ding-da-ding-
A metal clinging rang through his inhuman ears.
"Archer! Look out!"
...
Aaron continued to focus on his connection to the ship. He could feel the bolts even as they left the cannon, and could equally feel each of them run up against another power and fizzle out as his own action was canceled out by an equal and opposite reaction.
With the what remained of his mind, he continued to stretch his mental roots into the ship's core, and as the explored conquered the unexplored, he found that he could sense not only the contours of his own ship, but was now made aware of the two others, as if he had tapped into whatever it was that made these ships the same, singular Noble Phantasm. As the booming of cannons deafened him to the outside world, he primed his mana and fired off a different kind of bolt, seeing if he couldn't extend his will into those other ships as well. What he felt was akin to a cord plugging into an outlet. He couldn't quite slip his will into the core of the thing, but there was a place where he could attach himself. He forced a pulse through this ethereal line and-
-thunk-
His head turned on a swivel, seeing a trapdoor, hitherto invisible, if it existed at all, flung open.
Somewhere, a lightbulb switched on.
He moved the flow of mana from his hands to his feet, then carefully removed his palm from the floor and maintained the connection through the soles of his shoes. He made his way to his munitions box, grabbing a frag grenade, pulling the pin with his teeth and lobbing it towards where he knew the ship to be. He secured the rifle in his arms, counted one, two, three, and then slipped into the square hole, sliding into a space he couldn't perceive.
...
-BANG-
As the smoke cleared, the cannons stopped firing overhead, and Archer and his Master jointly assessed the situation. The fragmentation grenade left a scorch mark on the deck, and the metal fragments had deflected off Archer's Protection From Arrows skill, but his Master wasn't quite so lucky. Small bits of metal stuck out of his bleeding arm, and his clothes were in shreds, but he was otherwise unscathed, the bandages falling from his face to reveal a glowing orange target-like mark on his forehead.
Xander Haq plucked a piece of metal from his forearm and pointed towards the now-silent ship, "I'm fine! Get him before he starts firing again!"
The words were like a cold splash across the Servant's mind, and he immediately launched arrow after arrow at the ship's hull, leaving black marks and forcing the ship backwards, drifting across the skyline as small pieces of metal began to break off from the greater hull.
But something wasn't right. He couldn't think of what else to do at this moment, but something wasn't right.
-thunk-
He turned to face the direction where the sound had come, but was just a second too late.
-CRACKOW-
...
Aaron fell into the trapdoor. He was in total darkness, and although he could see the hole leading back to the deck of his own ship and the stars overhead, everything within the ship's hull, everything around him, including his own hand in front of his face, was encased in total darkness. He reached out into the space, attempting to find the same pathways his mana had been traveling across before, and soon found it, even as the rhythmic sound of explosions against metallic wood made its way through the trapdoor. Touching that ethereal wire and running a current as he had before, a square of light appeared in front of him, and he knew where he would be once he pushed on that door.
He took a deep breath, secured the gun against his shoulder, turned the safety off, and moved his body along that same current, pushing through the door-
It swung open as he approached, his torso exposed to the open air, and his eyes locked onto the back of what he assumed was Archer's Master. The moment he saw that warm body, he raised his rifle and-
-CRACKOW-
He emptied the chamber and-
-CRACKOW-
Once more-
-CRACKOW-
Each shot caused the man to stumble and jerk, but each bullet brought the sound of clanging metal, and though holes appeared in the back of his shirt, no blood followed.
The man, not Shenghuo but one he didn't recognize, turned with rage towards the Master of Rider, halfway out of the trapdoor like a rabbit out of its burrow.
He needed no further invitation. He pulled on the mental rope and disappeared back into the hole, jetting through the dark hold and flying back out on the deck of his own ship, rolling on his back as his rifle dangerously bumped against the wood. He had no time to think. The moment he was back on deck the thrumming of explosions against the hull began again, and he, with his connection, could feel the magic of the ship weakening and sputtering. He had one more attempt.
He dragged the black box towards him, opened one of its containers, removed the remaining four frag grenades, and held them by the pins with one finger apiece.
....