Fate/Alternative Order

Chapter: 8 Moving Onward

Heavy breathing. Aching muscles. Every time the holy sword brought down the hammer of wrath onto the shield, her whole body quivered like a newborn animal.

"Guh!"

"Tch!"

Caster clicks his tongue. Flaming branches grow from the ground and cluster around the black knight who completely cut them to pieces without any effort. She swings her sword at Caster with one arm, a crescent of black energy of mana expelled out of it, heading toward him. Mashu got in the position again, raising her shield to prevent it from reaching her ally. It clashed. She grits her teeth, feeling the strong vibration from the impact and the following explosion.

"This isn't looking great, despite the fight being 2 on 1, we should have the advantage but the contrary is happening instead," Olga tried to bite her nail in frustration but her suit prevent her from doing so. Gudako, after the motivational words she had spilled to Mashu, refuse to give up and make it into a hollow promise.

"Caster! Engulf Saber in a sphere of fire!" startled from the unexpected command from his Master, he did as he was told without questioning what her plan was.

"Aye Madam! One hot oven coming right up!" he faced his staff toward Saber's direction as runes started surfacing in a circle around the knight. The fire burst out from the runes afterward and trap her in a blazing dome of inferno, preventing her from escaping in any direction. Saber looks around, trying to figure out what their plan is.

"Are they trying to burn out the oxygen within this dome of fire? Foolish Master, a Servant can survive in the toughest condition. This one isn't enough to cripple me, though, the rising temperature is annoying on its own. My armor does less to prevent me from roasting alive," she dismisses her armor, leaving her in a black dress to prevent further overheating. Having enough of their powerless attempt, she let out a mana burst, blasting away the fire.

Nevertheless, she wasn't expecting a stone to be thrown at her out of nowhere, which then burst into a blinding light from the rune engraved on it. Raising her free arm in an attempt to regain some sense of sight by sheltering the light, unfortunately, ended in her getting bashed by Mashu's shield, hard. Taking advantage of her blinded enemy Mashu take a mad sprint, leaving a small crater on the starting point and giving Saber her best shield bash so far. Saber got sent flying, skipping a few times before hitting on a wall, crumbling debris falling onto her and creating a dust cloud.

"Did she do it?" Gudako asks nervously, that was the first time she had taken a proper role as a Master and it was very unnerving. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, like what if Saber just had high fire resistance and walk through them unexpectedly. Her traps wouldn't have worked since she would have seen it coming. She just hoped that blow was all it needs to end her.

Out of the cloud of dirt came a stream of black energy that went past Mashu and straight to Caster who didn't see it coming.

A direct hit

He was sent back in the same fashion that Saber did but much worse and more violent.

"Caster!" both Gudako and Mashu shout out in concern for his health. But regrettably, for them, they don't have time to worry for him as a largely reserved mana burst out, dispelling the cloud revealing Saber with an unamused expression.

"Disappointing, truly disappointing. If that is all you have, then you have wasted enough of my time," she holds her sword tightly and got into a stance, her sword beside her hip, engulfed in a dense amount of black mana creating a shape of a sword.

"That's a Noble Phantasm, this is bad. Caster is out cold and Mashu can barely block her normal energy blast. We must retreat and run!" Olga panicked, not believing that Mashu could do anything against King Arthur's Noble Phantasm. Hearing that Mashu cursed herself mentally, her director is right, there is no way she can win at this rate. And she hates it.