A Berserk Heart 4.2 (Patreon)

Things were not going well. Chaldea had been attacked. She didn't know by who, or why, though she could make some guesses on that second option. Lev was probably dead and she did not want to dwell on that right now, the incredibly important master candidates were all in critical condition and she was somehow stuck in Singularity F with multiple servants and undead gunning for her and her companions lives.

Yet, why then was there a smile on Olga's face? Despite the sheer bad manners and indignation she should have felt of it all, being hoisted over the shoulder of her newest companion like a sack worked in her favour. It hid the smile on her face from her companions.

And let her watch their back of course!

Because, despite all the bad things that happened. She could still see hope for this going all right. In fact, Olga was certain things were going to work out perfectly.

That was because;

Herakles, that was what he said correct? Faeran had all the power of Herakles at his disposal! Who in history could even be mentioned in the same breadth as the demi-god son of Zeus? She could list maybe five at most in all of history that could be spoken of in the same vein as a hero as powerful as Herakles!

With Faeran on her side, everything could be salvaged! 'The only problem of course is how to rayshift him back from here, he seems to have come from another reality entirely.' Olga mused. How, she wasn't sure, all she could figure out from his explanation was that it had to do with overpowered his families magecraft with the divine power of Herakles.

But, in that sense him contracting with Mash was perfect. Because Mash came from Chaldea through rayshifting herself, it should be possible to target Faeran to bring him back to Chaldea as well. After all, the bond between a servant and master went beyond space and time thanks to the Throne of Heroes and the command seals. The same very reason why they needed servants to deal with the singularities in the first place.

So thanks to the contract between Faeran and Mash it would be possible to bring him back with them once they dealt with the Singularity! 'And whoever attacked us will rue the day!' she vowed. They might have thought themselves brave when attacking them because they only had Da Vinci as a servant, but she'd see how brave they were now that she had someone with the power of Herakles assisting her!

"So where exactly are we going?" Ritsuka spoke up from where he was slung over Mash's shoulder, and doing his level best to hide any embarrassment over the fact he was being carried around like a sack of potatoes by a girl two years younger than him, "We've been running around for like fifteen minutes now, it feels like we're going in a circle."

He still wasn't exactly sure why they were running exactly. He understood that servants seemed to be incredibly powerful, but with Mash and Faeran, it was two on one right? So they should have the advantage, right?

Instead, all they'd been doing was rushing through the destroyed streets with Mash and Faeran ploughing through any of those weird skeleton things that attacked them as if they were made of paper mache.

But as little as he knew, even he knew of Herakles, or well, Hercules was what he knew of him name wise. If Faeran was as strong as Herakles, shouldn't he be so absurdly strong nobody wanted to mess with him?

"Master, I'm kind of wondering the same thing, it feels like we've been running in circles right now." Mash agreed with him looking over at Faeran.

"Ah, no faith huh?" Faeran chuckled. The shield wielding servant froze up for a second and quickly tried to apologise, but he waved her off, "Don't worry, I get it." and he did, but there was something specifically he was searching for and it was hard to navigate within this wreck of a city.

It was much different from the Fuyuki he knew.

"I'm trying to find the church," he explained, "It should work as a decent base as any and if I'm right, the body of the overseer of the war should be there."

Olga perked up on his shoulder and twisted her head to look back at him, "Ah, so that's it!" the white haired magus exclaimed, eyes going wide with realisation.

"What?" Ritsuka gave them a blank look, not following. Damnit, he really wished he at least had a few days to go over the basics before all this happened at least then he wouldn't feel like as much of a useless weight dragging them down and he might have been able to contribute somehow!

"The overseer of the war will have a bunch of command seals on him," Faeran grinned at him, "And since he'll be dead here as well and they don't disappear on death they'll be up for grabs and I don't need to explain how useful those are do I?"

"Ah, that's what you're doing?" Ritsuka gasped, understanding. As they had been fleeing from the pursuing servant, his companions had did their best to fill him in on what was going on and some of the basics of his situation and the command seals were one of those things that were explained to him.

They could be used to give a specific order to a servant that went beyond the normal rules of 'magecraft'. Why there were rules to magic he could barely grasp, but he understood the gist of how powerful the command seals were. they could be used in all manner of things from teleporting a servant to the master, healing them, making them stronger for a limited amount of time.

Or beyond even that the last thing Faeran had specifically mentioned in regards to them that he seemed to be a big fan of. They could be used as magic circuits as well, each one of them having the same capacity and output as the holders own inborn magic circuits.

'Seems he's catching on.' Faeran nodded to himself. Ritsuka was new to it all, but he was pretty sharp and he had to commend him for holding up so well in this situation despite being little more than a civilian just thrown into all of this.

Either way, he had a rough general idea of where the church was located in Fuyuki and he hadn't just been leading them on a wild goose chase.

He was trying to give the servant chasing them the slip while inching bit by bit closer to the bridge that led to the other side of Fuyuki City. It wasn't just the church he was aiming for after all.

If he was lucky, at the bottom of the bay around the bridge there should be something very useful for him. But, with a servant hounding them, he couldn't exactly spend the time to look for it. Especially since his magecraft wasn't really the best for searching for something over a wide space.

As it was, whoever this servant was, they were quite simply too fast to give the slip so easily.

While they hadn't full on attacked yet, they'd followed behind them without losing them once and seemed to have no trouble doing so.

'How annoying.' Faeran rolled his eyes. Well, at the very least he was sure it wasn't Emiya. He would have launched some pot shots at their backs knowing him.

Plus Emiya wouldn't have chased them. He would have been better off getting a vantage point and following them all with his eyes using his Clairvoyance skill.

That guy had no need to chase after them. He could snipe them from three kilometres away if he wanted.

He clicked his tongue. "There's no point leading them on this merry chase anymore huh?" he groused in annoyance.

"Are we engaging Master?" Mash looked to him sharply, hiding her trepidation.

There was no way she could hold up to a servant in a full battle. She didn't even know the name of her Noble Phantasm.

"Aye," Faeran nodded, skidding to a stop and forcing Mash to do the same, "May as well, I'm getting annoyed running." he said, gentle lowering Olga to the ground.

His servant did the same lowering Ritsuka down from her shoulder and calling her shield back to her hands in a flash of blue light. "Orders, Master?" she asked.

He pointed at Olga and then Ritsuka, "You guard these two, I'll take point with the enemy servant." he ordered

"Just you?" Ritsuka gave him a wide eyed look, "Shouldn't you team up together, won't that be easier?"

"Maybe, it depends on who it is," Faeran shrugged, "But, it's more important she guard you two I'm thinking. the pair of you are kinda squishy compared to servants."

"You didn't have to word it like that," Olga huffed crossing her arms, "But regrettably, he is correct, Fujimaru we will be of little help in a battle against servants."

"Damnit, I don't like this!" Ritsuka growled, clenching his fists. He didn't even have a contract with any of them so he couldn't supply them with his own energy to have someone actually make use of it.

"Don't worry about it mate, you're completely new to all this, once we get some time I'll teach you a few tricks right?" Faeran promised.

It wasn't really his responsibility, but he felt for him. And if he was in the same boat, he'd appreciate someone doing the same for him. And while teaching magecraft wasn't something that could really be done at all quickly.

He did have an idea for a work around. It was possible for instance to imbue the instructions and knowledge of a spell into magic circuits. That was the whole point of a Magic Crest passed down in magi families, a library of spells they learned and perfected over their life time.

He could just do that, except with a command seal and swap it with one of Ritsuka's own command seals and problem solved. It would take a little while to imbue the knowledge, but he knew the process, any magi family heir that inherited their families crest would.

Though he wouldn't pass on specific family magic, basic spells such as Structural Analysis, Reinforcement and such, the creation of simple bounded fields and the like would be fine and give Ritsuka the competency of a basic magus on the spot which would help Faeran in the long run as well.

It was surprising what grand things could be accomplished with just a little bit of outside perspective. The things that would never occur to Shaw or other typical magi, but did to Faeran was really amazing. Like, with a single command seal he could jump start the rise of an entirely new magus line indebted to my his own as retainers and begin the rise of his own faction.

His eyes narrowed and he turned facing down the street, "Mash get ready!" he snapped out an order.

"Yes Master!" Mash jumped into action, hefting her shield up and stepping in front of Olga and Ritsuka.

As she did, the hard, sharp ringing sound of clanking chains rang out and wrapping around the buildings down the street on both sides were chains that phased into existence like black smoke cutting them off from escaping from either side.

"Chains?" Ritsuka blinked, "Where did they come from?"

A moment later a figure appeared perched atop a set of the chains, "How lamentable, it seems the fresh prey has gotten all tuckered out." a low sensual voice chuckled.

It was a woman. A tall voluptuous woman clad in a dark a skimpy dark cloak that left a deep valley of pale wonderfully formed cleavage, a dark hood hanging over her head.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Faeran groaned in dismay. Despite her absurdly curvaceous body that put even the voluptuous Olga and Mash's own curves to shame, his eyes were locked on to the incredibly long and beautiful violet her spilling from the back of her hood and reaching down to her ankles.

"An unknown pair of masters, and one of them being a servant, how interesting," the servant licked her lips, her topaz coloured gaze eyeing them with a hungry sadistic glee, "This will be fun." she declared, holding out her hand and calling forth a long hook headed scythe.

"As we thought, there's the servant that was chasing us, but I don't see a master anywhere." Mash grimaced.

"This world has already gone mad Mash, who knows if she even has a master anymore!" Olga growled, settling behind Mash and raising her hand up and forming a gun shape with her fingers.

She couldn't do much of anything at all to a servant. But her Gandr could at at least prove a distraction.

Faeran grit his teeth and began walking forward towards the servant perched atop the chains.

"Oh, you're approaching me all on your lonesome?" she grinned down at him, casually twirling her weapon in hand, "Aren't you a brave one? I do so love you hero types. I love it even more when I see the despair in your eyes when you realise you have no chance against me."

"This is so wrong." he spoke through grinding, clenched teeth. He flipped on all his magic circuits at once, the rev of a bus engine flaring in his mind and reinforced himself to the limit, boosting his strength, speed and durability.

There was a fun fact about reinforcement magic. The stronger and more durable the target of it was, the more they could be reinforced. And there wasn't much more durable than one who had God Hand.

He held out his hand and called forth the stone axe sword.

Her eyes narrowed at the weapon in his hand, but she didn't comment on it, "Oh, and what's wrong here?" she asked coyly.

"You," he shook his head sadly, "You shouldn't be like this." he stated confidently. It was the attitude and the hair and eyes. They were wrong.

"And why is that? You think you know me enough boy to claim when there's something wrong with me?" she cocked her head to the side and asked in amusement.

"Definitely," he nodded confidently, "After all, you're my favourite servant, the one I'd aim to summon personally, I'd recognise you anywhere. And I can tell just looking at you that you're wrong. Your eyes are the wrong colour. Your hair has dulled its usually much more vibrant." he declared.

Medusa was his favourite character in all Fate. He loved her the most of any character and always mained her in any games he played and paid the most attention to any of her appearances in the series.

He'd imagined having her as his servant so many times. How, even if he was in that seaweed retards place and had no magic circuits or anything of his own, how he'd have been able to use her to much better use.

Ah, how sad. A person he'd dreamed and imagined meeting before, and it came to this, "You're an an alter aren't you, Medusa?" he sighed sadly.

There wasn't exactly a lot to go on. But that dulled hair colour, the blackened colour scheme and her topaz gaze. It all reminded him keenly of Saber Alter.

She reared back as if struck, "You..." she trailed off, "Who are you?" she shook her head and demanded.

As she did the chains seemed to wind back and then throw her forward through the air towards him at a blinding speed.

He lifted the axe sword and blocked a split moment later as she lashed out with her weapon. The force behind her strike though was so great the ground buckled in underneath him.

"I'm Faeran, your biggest fan." he introduced himself.