THG: 3.1 Don Texas (Patreon)

Preface

THG's in a weird place for me. It's fun to write, but I've written enough that I've used up all my knowledge of Fate lore so I'm actually not sure where to take this. Still, here it is, brought to you by my very first commissioner.

Don Texas 3.1

John Soprano

“Boss? Can you come out here?” I heard Luke call from the kitchen. I’d left him to baste the chicken kabobs with a yuzu-based yakitori sauce someone online recommended to me while I checked on the smokers out back.

It’d been a few weeks since I erased Leviathan. Things had settled down as much as could be expected. I had more bourbon than I knew what to do with. Recipes for “grandmother’s mac ‘n’ cheese” and every other homestyle dish I could think of flooded in from grateful civilians. Apparently, it had been a mistake to say those were welcome online. Sorting through them alone was a challenge, but I was loath to part with any recipe without examining them; my pride as a chef would not allow it.

There were even bounties placed upon the endbringer by various governments and foundations around the globe. Seeing how I had zero use for that kind of wealth, I kicked it all to Kurt and told him to distribute the wealth in a way that most benefited the world. It probably went into keeping the economy afloat or kickstarting maritime trade rather than directly to endbringer victims, but I figured that was as good a use for the money as any.

I walked back into my restaurant. “Yeah, Luke? What’s up?”

My most reliable minion was relegated to a corner of the kitchen, his hands futilely reaching for the grill. Space expanded as he walked, keeping him in place. He looked over at me and made a strangling motion towards the little king.

“I told you, Vista! That chicken’s not ready yet! Take one off the cooling rack!” he cried as the smug blonde pulled one of the spits out of the fire. She was dressed in her costume and was busily picking through my kitchen like a pack of hyenas.

“It’s brown and toasty. Of course it’s ready,” Missy said. She loaded up an aluminum serving tray with the kabob. It stood like a sword plunged atop a hill of mac, cornbread, slaw, and sausages. She looked over at me and sniffed dismissively in that way only a tween could. “You need a new line cook; this one’s faulty.”

“Must not murder a Ward... Must not murder a Ward... Must not murder a Ward…” Luke muttered under his breath. If he focused any harder, he might achieve enlightenment with that mantra.

I plucked the spit from her tray. “Luke’s right, brat. It’s undercooked.”

“But it’s brown,” she pouted.

“Because we’re using a new glaze. It’s made with yuzu.”

“What’s that?”

“Yuzu is a type of citrus; think of it like a Japanese orange, though it’s also pretty common in Korea.”

“Shouldn’t it be orange then?”

“Not if the sugar caramelizes. That’s why this fire is kept lower than before. Fruit-based sauces have a lot of sugar so if the fire is too hot, the exterior will char black long before the interior is cooked through.”

“Oh… Wait, is that how you make caramel? Just burn sugar a bunch?”

“Kinda.” I plucked one of the other kabob sticks, resized black keys because Ea was too thick for diced chicken. This one had been set aside on a rack next to the grill. “It’s also why letting your meat rest for a minute before you serve it to guests is important. The time off the fire will let the meat’s internal temperature balance out with the external and finish cooking. Like this one, this one’s done.”

“But I wanted one straight off the fire,” she pouted. It was nice to see her act her age for once.

“Again, not cooked through. Now let my line cook get back to his job, you little gremlin.”

“Fine,” she huffed. Space sprung back into place like a stretched rubber band. “He’s still mean.”

“And you’re still a midget,” Luke grunted.

“See? Mean.”

I poked her forehead and shooed her out of the kitchen. “If you asked nicely, he would have told you everything I did.”

“Still mean. What happened to being king anyway? When do I get a court? And I’m not talking about Clock being my jester.”

Seeing how I hadn’t had lunch yet, I figured I may as well and grabbed a plate for myself before claiming a table in the dining area. Smoked chorizo, cornbread, collared greens, pickle slaw, and that yuzu chicken was my afternoon meal, washed down with proper Southern sweet tea.

I thought about it. On the one hand, Missy had a long way to go. She was powerful for a cape, but she lacked much of the wisdom and leadership skills necessary for kingship. Leviathan was a trial by fire, in which she showed she did not lack courage, but there was more to ruling than swinging a sword.

On the other hand, a court of idiots with Noble Phantasms led by Vista sounded hilarious. It also aligned with what I had in mind for the First Holy Grill War. All the preparations were made anyway. After seeing that I could in fact deliver on my promise to murder the endbringers and off Scion, Cauldron had been remarkably cooperative.

‘John, please at least pretend to be a responsible human being,’ came my usual minder.

‘I am. How else is Missy to learn leadership skills unless she is put in charge of others?’

‘True…’

“You want to be a king in truth, eh?” I asked her. “What would the PRT say?”

She shrugged and swallowed a fat piece of cornbread. “They’re being all wishy-washy. They’re making merchandise for my sword and stuff and there have been talks about getting me a new dress that matches Caliburn’s colors, but they’re still being sticks in the mud about me actually using the sword to go fight crime.

“They’ve also been cutting down on Wards patrols. Miss Militia said that’s because crime’s died down a bunch and Wards can afford to be children again. More Youth Guard people, too. It’s bullshit.”

“Yes, proportional force is indeed a fundamental principle of law enforcement. I suspect most criminals are not equipped to handle your magical girl sparkle. Besides, fewer kids getting shot at sounds like the kind of thing any responsible adult should be supporting,” I replied, clearly not providing the sympathy she’d wanted.

“Oh, shut up, you. And really? You’re going to lecture me about proportional force? You’re the most broken, overpowered person in the world!”

“You have no idea. And yet, I’ve killed no one because I have a good handle on what I can and cannot do to a normal cape. You are experienced for a ward,” I allowed, “but I suspect the PRT still doesn’t want you to swing a WMD around every time there’s a problem. It’s probably not even about the Youth Guard, just common sense.”

“See? That’s the problem! They know I can but don’t want me to because I’m young,” she complained. “Everything is about image with them.”

“So you want more experience? Or maybe you’re ready to give up Caliburn so you can age a few years?”

“No! Caliburn’s my baby,” she cried, cradling the sword to her chest. “We’re besties. Partners. You can’t take her back.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I assured her, ignoring the fact that she’d decided to gender her sword. “I’m not going to take back something I’ve gifted unless you want me to.”

“Which is why I want a court for myself. If I had a cape team to lead, then I could get experience, make decisions, and become a real king.”

“How wise of you. Does that mean you want help quitting the Wards?”

“No, they’re great. I just.. I guess I want something of my own, you know?”

I nodded. “That’s good. Putting aside all other qualities, ambition is the core trait that defines great kings.”

“Exactly!”

“It’s also the trait that defines tyrants and fools.”

“I won’t be a tyrant. I’m going to be a great leader and protect this city one day,” she spoke with a resolve that did not belong on a twelve year old.

“Good, those are good eyes. Now, you do realize that a court is something a king must build by herself? The Round did not follow Artoria simply because she demanded it; they followed because they shared her vision.”

“I need people to recruit first…”

“I think you’re getting it backwards actually. The vision comes before the army. Power without purpose is meaningless.”

“I do have a vision. I want to protect this city, get rid of all the gangs.”

“Hmm, very well. I’ll help you find someone.”

“Really?” she perked up adorably, green eyes shining like emeralds.

“Yup. I did promise a First Holy Grill War, and your request does happen to align neatly with my plans.”

“Sweet! I’m going to have my own knight!”

“We’ll see.”

Done eating, I put the tray back for Oliver to wash and motioned for us to exit the store.

Vista pointed at Francis and Noelle. “What’s with the hello kitty doll anyway? Is she actually alive?”

“Yup. She used to be a Case-53. Well, not really, but close enough. She couldn’t control her body very well so I stuffed her into a doll. Francis is her boyfriend.”

“And the shirt?”

“It’s funny.”

“You’re a jerk, John.”

“Yup. Anyway, it’s a long story.”

“PHO says they’re villains.”

“Were. Now they’re my adorable minions, right, Francis?” I said, raising my voice a bit so my greeters could hear.

“Get fucked, Texas,” he shot back, flipping me off.

X

Outside, I traced a longbow, matte black and made of a material that had yet to be discovered in the present day. Or, that was the way it was in Shirou’s world. Whether such a material had been discovered earlier by happenstance due to a tinker, who could say?

I plucked the string a few times. This was the signature weapon of Archer, Counter Guardian EMIYA, a mundane bow from the modern era that could even fire Noble Phantasms. With it, he’d held his own against Servants far with more established legends than he.

“Ooh, that thing’s taller than me,” Vista squealed. She held out her hand insistently. “Gimme. I wanna try pulling it.”

I looked down at her, a smile tugging at my lips. I saw no harm in it. “Sure, but don’t hurt yourself. Its draw weight is… considerable.”

“Psh, I’ve been working out, you know. Sword practice is great exercise.” She scoffed and flexed her biceps adorably.

“It is, but archery uses very different muscle groups, your chest and back more than your arms. And, that bow isn’t something a normal person can draw, no matter how strong they are.”

She tugged at the string, but failed to so much as bend the arms. “Ooh, is it like Caliburn? Wait, what legend has a bow only the destined hero can draw?”

“One or two come to mind, but that’s not why. This bow just has a ridiculously high draw weight. You would need to be at least as strong as, say, Victoria Dallon to even think about using this in a fight.”

“So what are you going to do with it? Are you going to snipe Kaiser through like fifty buildings?”

“No, and a child really shouldn’t be that bloodthirsty.” I rummaged around in my pocket and pulled out several slips of paper. “Cauldron. Doors to candidates.”

Portals opened in the sky, six windows that peered at six individuals from afar. Miles away, really, so far that no normal person could possibly see them. No matter, that was part of the fun. 

Then, six swords appeared before me, each identical. I placed a letter on each one as they began to twist in on themselves until they created barbed spirals, snagging the letters within their coils. Each sword-turned-arrow radiated an aura of bloodlust, like a baying hunting dog eager to be let off its leash.

We were drawing attention now, but I’d grown accustomed to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if my restaurant alone upheld a sizable portion of Brockton Bay’s tourism industry.

“Candidates? Like for your Holy Grill War?”

“Yup,” I drawled, notching the first arrow.

“Wait, didn’t you say there would be seven? How come I only see six windows?”

“Because Mars is one. I can’t give away Excalibur Galatine without including the Sundancer after all. Gawain was called the Knight of the Sun and if she had a more combative personality, I wouldn’t have even bothered with this contest. I’d have just handed over Galatine to her and called it a day.”

“I doubt Mars will want to participate in whatever tournament you have planned,” Missy said reasonably. She’d gotten to know the older girl a lot better over the past few weeks and knew Mars was having a blast living a normal life. She hadn’t asked for Karna’s armor even once, not even to show off or snap a picture.

“I know, but this won’t be that kind of tournament. I’m not interested in their fighting abilities.”

“What are you testing then?”

“The only skill that I care about, duh.”

“Hitting little girls with bamboo swords isn’t a skill.”

“Child abuse absolutely is a skill,” I snarked back.

“You’re a terrible person,” she pouted. “Fine, cooking!”

I nodded proudly. She knew me so well. “Yup. Wanna judge?”

That made Missy crack up. “Hahaha, you’re going to give away a WMD in a cooking contest! Are you trying to give Director Piggot a stroke?”

“So you don’t want to judge?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m in.”

“That’s what I thought. Besides, look at the skylines. Excluding Mars, only one person from Brockton Bay has been chosen.”

“Where are you shooting anyway?”

“Besides here? Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, Atlanta, and New Haven. They’re mostly in New England this time,” I replied. “Seek out your prey, oh Hound of Red Plains. Hrunting!”

I loosed my first arrow. The air trembled in spite of the protections around my restaurant. A Noble Phantasm traveling at mach one would do that. It was an order of magnitude slower than Archer’s mach ten, but I wanted contestants, not corpses.

Missy closed her eyes and ducked behind me. Even with her power, the pressure she felt was almost enough to knock her off her feet.

“Wait, isn’t that the Rig?” Missy shouted. “You can’t shoot that!”

“Of course I can. I’m pretty sure Gallant’s there getting his armor repaired,” I replied with a shit-eating grin. The way Missy went pasty white was positively glorious.

X

Amy Dallon

Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye. I would have said that the city recovered quickly, but there had been nothing to recover from. Leviathan showed up. Kingma-Don Texas clubbed the Citykiller to death with his rotisserie spit. And that was that.

Even now, after vocal confirmations from the Triumvirate, Dragon, and numerous other sources, there were naysayers who doubted the videos. It wasn’t out of malice or trollishness, at least most of them, just sheer incredulity. They couldn’t believe that an endbringer, one of the greatest enemies of humanity, had died so easily. No matter how many videos they received from various angles, they found the truth hard to process.

I didn’t blame them. I was there and I still had trouble wrapping my mind around the sheer bullshit I saw. The sky burned red, like the Rapture had come early. Crimson lightning tore through the heavens, as if there was some primordial force ready to twist the very fabric of existence apart.

The incantation he said shouldn’t have been audible in the storm, but it was. I doubted anyone would forget the words that marked Leviathan’s death anytime soon. An endbringer battle in which the endbringer made up the sole casualty was unthinkable.

So was it any wonder that Brockton Bay’s villains became awfully quiet?

Lung was gone, off to the Birdcage. So was Bakuda. Oni Lee was but one man and the files never suggested him to be an ambitious sort. Coil had supposedly been taken care of by whoever “hat lady” was. Or maybe Don Texas? No one was quite sure about that even after the fact. And the Merchants? They were as forgettable as they were cancerous.

Under any other circumstance, this would have been the ideal time for the Empire to make a push for the rest of the city. And yet, that push didn’t happen. Despite being the sole major gang left in Brockton Bay, they’d wisely kept their heads down. No posturing, no race crimes, not even one idiotic speech about the coming reich or whatever.

It had been the quietest two weeks the city had seen in a long time. The hospital saw its usual share of idiots, but these were the people who injured themselves doing yardwork or DIY projects, maybe a bar fight or two. The victims of gang fights and forced overdoses were gone, and for one, simple reason:

Kaiser had been there too.

So had most of the Empire. That included Krieg and the twins. Following their hilariously ill-fated recruitment attempt, they were picked up by the PRT but had been released to provide extra manpower when Leviathan attacked.

The Empire had turned up en masse to defend the city, only to receive the single biggest wakeup call possible. Sure, they had their full roster now, but that roster didn’t even matter anymore because we all knew who held the biggest stick in the city. The hilarious part of it all was that it was almost definitely unintentional on Don Texas’ part.

And yet, for us regular capes, power was a language all its own and the message had been heard loud and clear. The city belonged to him now. Whatever crown Kaiser claimed, he was a mouse tiptoeing around a tiger.

It was our good fortune then that our new overlord was heroic. Oh, he claimed neutrality, and the PRT was reluctant to bother him without a very good reason, but his leanings were obvious to all. The ocean-cleaving sword on Vista’s hip was evidence enough.

When push came to shove, the heroes had backup even an endbringer couldn’t match. The Brockton Bay Protectorate had never been in a stronger position, not even before the days of the Marquis.

I was happy. I was thrilled, even, but this new security came with a cost, one I wasn’t sure I could personally bear.

“Hello, Amy, how are you today?” asked a nondescript Asian woman. Doctor Yamada, I knew, came highly recommended.

She’d been assigned to Brockton Bay permanently and everyone, young and old, was required to see her for a psychological screening. As PRT-affiliated independent heroes, we had to “set a good example” according to mom.

After the initial screening, several capes, mostly the Wards, were identified as being especially stressed and needing further counseling. I got roped in because I was technically a medical professional and therefore someone who worked in an extremely high-stress environment.

“I don’t need therapy,” I said, ignoring the loud voice screaming in my head that yes, I fucking did, probably more than anyone else in the city. But… But I couldn’t tell anyone. Just the thought of someone finding out how I felt about Vicky paralyzed me.

“Would you care for a drink? I have tea, coffee, and sparkling water if you prefer,” she said, ignoring what I said with a calm, kindly smile. “Please, take a seat.”

I sat. I just needed to wait out the hour. “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I can tell, remember?”

“I agree. I’m sure you’ve forgotten more about diseases and maladies than I’ve ever learned. Now, Amy, can I call you that? I know some of my patients prefer to go by their cape names even if I’m privileged to know their secret identities.”

“Amy’s fine.”

“Great. Amy, this isn’t about what is and is not wrong with you-”

“Because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Because we will only ever talk about what you’re comfortable with,” she corrected gently. “This isn’t about me psychoanalyzing you, trying to fit your personality and history into some cookie-cutter mold so I can diagnose you with this or that.”

“Then why am I here?” I huffed. “I should be working at the hospital, not sitting here doing nothing.”

“We are here because you have a very stressful job. It’s good to talk about it, don’t you think?”

“Not me. I’m fine.”

“Amy, do you know what a therapist does?” she asked.

“They figure out what’s wrong with your head and give you antidepressants,” I snarked. That was mostly what I saw them do at the hospital.

“Sometimes, that’s true. But the most important thing that all therapists should do, is to build trust. That’s all. Often, simply having a safe place to talk is more important.”

“I guess…”

“Can we do that? Just talk? It could be about anything at all.”

“Fine…” She was dangerously good at this. I could imagine her with a batch of freshly baked cookies and a pitcher of lemonade.

“Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Not really.”

“Hmm, alright then, how about what’s been happening these past few weeks. Please, tell me about how you’ve been celebrating.”

“Well, I…”

Author’s Note

Funny, Hrunting does not seem to have a range limit so long as the wielder doesn’t stop hunting the target. 

If it wasn’t obvious, empowering the Youth Guard, scaling back the Wards’ more combat-related patrols, and permanently assigning Yamada to Brockton is all just a smokescreen to get Amy into therapy in a way that doesn’t single her out. Contessa is very sneaky like that.

Fanon likes to make her out to be a blunt sledgehammer who can only solve her problems through bullets and John Wick-style ass-kicking, but that’s flat out slander. I maintain that though Cauldron has its “briefs on head” moments, Contessa especially isn’t stupid, simply playing a rigged hand.

Animal Fact: Nepidae, more commonly called “water scorpions,” are a type of freshwater insect that live in ponds. They are called that because they have two exaggerated forelimbs they use to capture prey, and a long, thin needle that extends out of their rears.

That needle is not a stinger. That is actually a siphon, by which it breathes while submerged underwater, not unlike a snorkel. So yes, nature does in fact have several species that snorkel through their assholes.