fate/first order derivative

Part II.12

> continue: iteration 28, day 7, early night

> well i don't know why i came here tonight
> i got the feeling that something ain't right

It takes me another minute or two to throw together a playlist with the few tracks I recognize. Which doesn't sound like much, but hey, you try working with a brawl happening like three meters away. Regardless, that gives me a little breathing room.

I look up and check in on how the battle's going. Huh. Surprisingly well so far, actually. Saber seems to be everywhere at once. As I watch, she swings her sword in a wide arc, sending a shockwave through the air that knocks a crowd of golems away like flies. Then she turns and cleaves the construct behind her straight through the neck, taking off its skull and producing a spurt of silver fluid. (So the magical robot soldiers bleed? Wow. That's just excessive.) Shirou seems to be holding his own so far, too. He's dueling with a single opponent right now, his mike stand against the golem's... I dunno, some kind of falchion, maybe. Rin kneels behind Saber's motorcycle, using it as cover while she pelts the mob with Gandr blasts. (I don't see any sign of Kitten. Did she already get scrapped?)

"Rin!" Saber hollers over the noise. "Be careful with that! I gave my word that I would return it intact!"

"Return it where?" Rin shouts back. "Where'd you even get this thing?!"

"The dealership!"

"You bought it?!" The color drains from Shirou's face. As one might expect from the guy likely to get stuck with the bill.

"Of course not!" Saber knocks away a blow from a spear, then whirls in and cuts the wielder down. "I'm test-driving it!"

"That's not how that works, Saber!" Shirou yells. He gets inside the golem's reach and bashes it over the head, sending it reeling back, a big dent in its skull. "That's not how that works at all!"

"Why not? I drove it! And it is clearly being tested!"

I glance over at Gilgamesh. He doesn't look particularly bothered by the sight of his mooks getting shredded. He just sits there with that same goddamn smirk on his face, taking the occasional sip of wine.

So why doesn't Saber just try and blast him with Excalibur already? Oh, wait, duh... we're in the middle of the city. No matter how she angled it, who knows how much collateral damage we'd be looking at? Man... this battle is just a terrible idea for us on every level, isn't it?

> yup
> say hi to our old friend charlie foxtrot

Okay, next order of business. Is there anything -- anything at all -- that I can do to help them from here? I scan the booth. There's a light board on the table to my side. I could try putting on the strobe... but honestly, that seems just as likely to hurt the squad as it might help. Or I could cut the lights altogether -- but same problem, and besides, don't constructs get darkvision as standard?

Otherwise, there's two bigass sound boards, the laptop, a huge power supply/circuit breaker for the amps, and the microphone. I guess it'd be easy enough to create some feedback with the mike -- just turn it on and hold it close to a speaker. But would that even hurt these things? They don't have ears, at least of the obvious fleshy variety.

Which leads me to my other little problem. I look over at the golem standing guard in the booth with me. It stares back.

> examine golem

Sure. It looks to be generally pretty typical of the other armored-type constructs out on the dance floor. No black bouncer t-shirt, though. (Maybe they ran out?) A little over two meters tall. Unlike Kitten, I notice, its skull lacks a jaw. (I guess she must be the exception to the rule, probably an elite unit or a light skirmisher or something.)