I laughed as I watched King Arturia struggle to take down the Epic Assassin Spirit blocking her path from saving her master. This was the coup de grace of my preparations. The defenses of the Temple were all deactivated and hidden, allowing Archer EMIYA to sneak through in his effort to rescue the kidnapped Shirou.
Got to love a protagonist who is completely helpless and carries a magic treasure of incredible quality we could yoink and transfer to Wanda. The Sheath of King Arturia, Avalon, boosted healing to an incredible degree, allowing the bearer to survive anything as long as the heart and head are intact. Quite handy for the squishiest member of our team.
Archer in the show would go on to save Shirou with little problem, but here Jack was lying in wait for his paradoxical ass. She'd subdue him, allowing Medea to shank him with Rule Breaker - her noble phantasm - and transfer his contract to Linda. Quite the deadly ranged force.
The defeated looking man emerged from the temple, obviously killing his past self had failed to blot him from existence and we all emerged from the woodwork, quite literally because of concealment magic and subdued Saber so she could get the same treatment but with Wanda as her new master.
We'd later kill Assassin and use his body to summon a True Assassin, but for now I cracked out the Horn of Party Hardy so we could celebrate a job well done. No sooner had the drinking begun when a voice sounded out from above that put my quad somewhere in my throat.
"How very timely of you mongrels to begin the festivities, you must have known that this king was coming to bring you a gift." Gilgamesh shouted from atop his flying throne, Vimana.
Then he yeeted a chained up Berserker Heracles at us.
Ahh crapbaskets.
The chains around Heracles became loose and he took them up in one hand and his stone sword in the other. How to describe fighting a mother fucker who can nullify any attack below the B rank of Fate's damage system, self rezzes a dozen times, and is so much more physically powerful than me that my usual, beat him with your wrestling strategy is completely out the window.
Think Lizard Brain, think.
"Gae Bolg!" I heard Lancer shout as his spear immediately appeared in Medea's bosom. Rewriting causality to guarantee the hit.
I burned a command seal to give Rider the instant cast of Bellerophon and she turned into a beam of light that obliterated Lancer before he retrieved his spear and then wheeled about to stomp Berserker to death until her strength gave out.
The man self revived and smashed Assassin into paste before Arturia could move in to engage him. Wanda used a command seal to quick cast Excalibur to take more of the berserker's lives from the pool, Bellerophon and Excalibur both striking hard enough to deplete multiple health bars.
Linda and Archer were trying to pin down Gilgamesh with the help of Jack's biotics and the man laughed uproariously as he fired his treasures at them and blocked their attacks with summoned shields all while sitting on his throne and shouting sexual obscenities at Saber. He really wanted to stuff her throat with more meat that she could swallow.
Watch out lad, she is part dragon. You might lose your most valuable treasure.
I coated myself - armor and all - in RcCells and activated Reinforcement. I went in hot with the Hammer of Might to smash Heracles with everything I got. His fucking head exploded, surprising me, and that surprise got me clipped in the head with his stone sword on the quick rez.
It is a testament to my broken levels of tankyness that my head held together and I only needed a few minutes to clear out the catastrophic brain damage his attack inflicted.
Wanda queued up another use of Excalibur to drop a few more lives from the guy while my head spun, but then I saw something that had to be a hallucination as it looked like the big guy managed to wade through the river of sword light and grab Arturia's head in his super meaty hand.
"NO, you fucking mongrel! I command you to stop!" Gilgamesh shouted.
But Berserker don't stop, Berserker don't know meaning of stop, but Berserker know crush.
And crush he did.
I feel some professional envy from the ease and devastation of that head crush.
Oh hey, maybe he has come to sign my head crushers T-Shirt.
NO he has come to Hulk smash.
I have never been on the receiving end of this maneuver, and let me tell you that I am happy that the Krogan blood rage completely cuts off pain. I heard the sounds of my bones snapping, but never felt them.
All of a sudden the ride came to the end and I saw my lovely wife, Jack, with her ebony blade stabbed into Heracles's back and out his clavicle, then I saw Linda and Archer eat shit without her support.
Seeing her opportunity with the giant so occupied, Medusa stabbed both her daggers into the demigod's eyes using her Monstrous Strength ability to get through the God Hand, then she snapped his neck on the revive to bring him down for the last time.
I got up to my feet through the use of healing magic boosting my regeneration to explosive levels and we faced off against Gilgamesh and his endless glowing circles of doom. Me, Jack, Kat, Wanda, and Rider versus a guy who's offensive capabilities are fucking endless.
I threw up an absorption shield that would take the piss out of anything coming from his general direction, spread my wings and shot an endless barrage of ghoul spikes at him, and swung the Hammer of Might at anything in range.
Jack slashed incoming weapons with her sword and its trail of inky destruction and battered anything that got through with all four of her Red Tail Rc tails.
Kat fired off a plasma shotgun with each hand and eight more with her Red Scale Rc tentacles.
Medusa's body grew larger and larger under the influence of her Monstrous Strength trying to push her into becoming the Gorgon. She couldn't under the current Grail system, but she could get closer and closer to that level of power. She battered Gil's attacks with multiple copies of her chain spikes that she could control telepathically.
Wanda brought up the rear, firing an Absorption Cannon over her shoulder right at Gil who blocked it with a shield that was slowly disintegrating.
Even with all the crazy shit coming from our side it still felt like the Charge of the Light Brigade. My Absorption shield striped magical effects like healing inhibitors first, and physical force second, and as we charged the seated asshole on his throne that barely hovered inches above the ground, I took hit after hit despite our efforts and eventually collapsed with a handful of weapons in each of my legs and more everywhere else besides my head.
Jack took point and started back up the shield with lesser effect than mine and was also quickly overwhelmed and replaced by Kat. Kat held point with decreasing efficiency as each off her tentacles were taken out, dropping their shotguns, while I desperately pulled Gil's noble phantasms out of my body.
Gil's faint smile didn't drop even as his shield was disintegrated at which point he took Wanda out with a sword to the chest and Kat ran into his trap card, a series of spears that leapt from the floor in front of him, impaling Kat and the Chains of Heaven came out to bind Rider.
"What other outcome did you mongrels expect?" He laughed as he stood from his chair for the first time, "Hmm. Speak up, worm. This King cannot hear you."
"I said…'' Kat rasped, "You should have aimed for the head."
In a flash of red Kat's tongue extended as a sharp Red Scale Tentacle and drilled the King of Heroes between his perfect eyebrows, a no reflex kill strike.
All of Gilgamesh's treasures aetherialized after his death, allowing me to check on Wanda, who Avalon was taking care of nicely and Kat, who's wounds weren't healing despite the weapons no longer obstructing her.
The bastard used cursed weapons on her.
We kept the peace as Jack and I held her hands.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I've got a cup to destroy." I said quietly after she passed.
"Yeah." Jack nodded.
I made my way down into the caves under the temple and found the golden cup waiting for me and Rider as winners of the Holy Grail War.
"With that much power stored up, it really can grant wishes. It's not the omnipotent object that was promised, but it is pretty close." I told Medusa as we approached, "Or at least it would be if it wasn't rotten to the core after the Third Grail War."
"Master?" Medusa requested clarification.
"Step back." I commanded without the use of a command seal and channeled all my Wishcraft into my hammer with the wish of destroying the Grail. The Hammer erupted into white hot flames and I brought the fury of a demigod wielding a divine relic weapon down on that spiteful cup.
In the heart of the conflagration opened a black portal with a red event horizon and from it emerged a golem in the shape of Angra Mainyu made from the black mud, riding a tidal wave of that wretched filth.
Might have fucked this one up.
"Your power is mine!" the disgusting creature slammed into me and sunk into my skin.
"Master!" Medusa shouted as she ran right in to pull me out of the rising tide of mud.
She failed and we were both pulled into the shit.
I kept waiting for the Krogan powers to kick in and shut off the horrible burning pain throughout my body that threatened to drive me mad, but it never did, and I had to sack up and fight this bastard out of my mind no matter what.
Fortunately, greater beings than him have tried and failed to make me their bitch.