How I Saved History (Fate/Grand Order SI)

As the clash begins in earnest, it’s every man for himself.

Alexander advances his chariot towards me at a lightning pace, while Saber and Irisviel are attempting a hasty retreat, hampered slightly by the fact that just about everyone not named Alexander is trying to kill them. The golden Archer gestures, and swords shoot out of some sort of glowing golden portals in their direction. A screeching figure in black armor charges at them with a cry of “AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUURRRRRRR!” Even Arash and Cursed Arm are contributing.

I’d be more happy about that if I didn’t have Alexander the Great bearing down on me with two tons of divinely empowered, highly electric beef at the head of his chariot, and a war cry on his lips.

‘Fergus!’

‘No problem, Master,’ he says with a quiet confidence, before thrusting his mighty sword deep into the comforting depths of the Earth. “CALADBOLG!”

The glowing rainbow of energy bursts free, and as it does so, I belatedly realize that firing off an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm in an inhabited city might have been a terrible mistake.

The sheer force of the Noble Phantasm’s initial release shatters the ground, destroying the docks in their entirety, and firing up beams of brilliant energy from the depths. And then, it is over, and I feel my circuits burn.

Where Fergus drove down his blade, a chasm begins, its border marked by jagged concrete. Everything beyond that boundary has fallen into a great rent in the Earth, filled with rubble, and the incoming sea.

‘Arash, did… did that get them?’ I ask hesitantly.

‘No. Rider survived, as did that Black Knight. Saber and her master managed to escape by walking on the water. I know nothing of Lancer’s Master. And Archer is behind you.’

I jump, and then slowly, fearfully, turn to look.

The Golden Archer stands behind us, with ten glowing golden portals pointed my way.

“Your Majesty,” I say, nodding politely.

“An excellent performance, Jester. I had feared before that this farce would lack proper entertainment,” her turns, and the portals close. “But you have remedied that, I think. Ensure that that remains the case.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I say, and then he’s finally out of sight, and I collapse bonelessly to my knees.

Then I hear the wheels of a chariot, and the harsh hooves of oxen, and I turn to Fergus. ‘Time for a tactical retreat, I think. They’ll all be after us after that little performance.’

‘Bah! Let them come!’ he says, even as he hoists me over one shoulder. ‘I’ll take them all on, and win!’

“IONIOI HETAIROI!”

And suddenly, we’re no longer on the shattered remains of the docks. We stand in the middle of a vast desert, beneath a harsh and pounding sun. Only the two of us.

Face to face with Alexander the Great and his army of thousands.

‘I blame you for this.’

‘Yeah, I might have baited the luck-gods a little there.’

‘You got another Caladbolg blast in you?’

‘Not so soon after my first one. I need some time to recharge my batteries. Maybe ten minutes.’

All right. Switching to general channels. ‘Anybody else in here with us?’

It’s a long shot, but, well, it was worth checki-

‘I am, Master,’ Serenity sends via the mental link. ‘I am ready to perform the assassination of Rider on your mark.’

I could kiss her right now if it wouldn’t immediately kill me.

‘Hold off. I’ll set the stage, and sow dissent in the ranks.’

And with that, I return my attention to Alexander, who’s been monologuing about how his Noble Phantasm is fueled by the power of friendship, and how that somehow makes all the war crimes and genocide okay, because they were all in it together, or something. I honestly wasn’t paying attention.

Right then. Time to put those lessons in Greek from Medea to use.

“Mighty Alexander!” I bellow in semi-fluent Attic Greek. Miraculously, everyone in his army seems to hear it, in spite of the considerable distance between us. I suppose it makes sense that the ham’s Reality Marble would magically bolster the acoustics of sufficiently dramatic speeches. “I wish to make a deal!”

“And what bargain would you offer me?” Alexander asks, looking peeved at being interrupted mid-friendship speech.

“While your numbers may be overwhelming, as you can see, my man Saber here has a Noble Phantasm that can even the odds. His mighty sword will split your armies asunder, should things come to blows,” I say, lying shamelessly. “But, even with the odds so firmly in my favor, I find myself intrigued by your claims! Could the army that abandoned your dreams of conquest to march on home truly be so loyal? Even after you left nothing on your deathbed, save ‘To the strongest?’”

“Get to point, before I cut out your tongue,” Alexander snaps.

Ah, absolute monarchs. So easily provoked, so incapable of handling criticism. They make things far too easy for me.

“I propose that this battle be decided not by Saber’s Noble Phantasm, but instead by strength of bonds,” I announce. “If your… ‘friends’ are truly so loyal as you claim, and you such a persuasive conqueror that you can win over all your enemies, than nothing I say will be able to shake their faith in you, and you should be able to easily win over Saber.”

“Very well, then!” Alexander bellows. “It shall be done! I shall go first!”

As he launches into a friendship speech, Fergus raises an eyebrow. ‘I dunno, Master. I am kind of tempted. He definitely seems like a fun guy to stick around with.’

I shoot him a look. ‘Fergus, if you kill me, you die. And beyond that, if you stick with me on this, then I’ll pay for your drinks and serve as your wingman on your next bar crawl.’

‘I’m pretty sure he’d do the same thing for free,’ Fergus notes.

‘But if he did, you’d be left competing with him for attention. Do you really fancy your odds against that much charisma?” I nod at Alexander, who’s in the middle of a fiery speech about a trip to the beach or something, I don’t really care what he’s saying, only that he’s utterly impossible to ignore. ‘I, on the other hand, am both eloquent enough to talk you up, and pathetic enough that I won’t draw attention away from you.’

‘Fair enough,’ Fergus acknowledges. ‘I guess I’m sticking with you, then.’

“So, noble Saber! What say you? Will you join me, and seek out new glory? Or will you follow the cowardly cur whose sharpest blade is his tongue, and die in ignominy?”

Fergus shrugs. “Yeah, I’m still with him.”

And while Alexander is still trying to process that, for once, turning up the charisma didn’t get him what he wanted, I step up to the plate.

“HELLENES!” I bellow, and every eye lands on me. “Macedonians! Athenians! SPARTANS!” That gets a cheer. “And all you myriad sons of the city-states that dot your sea-swept land of TEN THOUSAND SHIPS! WHY DO YOU FOLLOW THIS MAN?”

Dead silence. Alright, it’s a tough crowd, but that was just my opening pitch.

“You followed Alexander!” I proclaim, pointing at the man himself. “He promised you riches and glory beyond your wildest imaginings! And you won them!” That gets a cheer. “All the world knows that! You won them in Persia, and in Egypt, and in India!” A louder cheer. “And while each and every one of you brave soldiers was out fighting for Alexander, half a world away, ANOTHER MAN WAS FUCKING YOUR WIFE!”

Dead. Silence. The whiplash has them, now. They’re off balance, disoriented. I press the advantage.

“And you were not there to catch them!” I crow, as I continue to press upon that misogynistic paranoia festering away in the backs of their minds. “You were not there to end that philandering coward’s life, as the justice of men and gods demanded! YOU WERE NOT THERE!”

I begin to pace, gesturing wildly with my hands. “YOU WERE NOT THERE! You were not there while thieves plundered your property! You were not there while your slave and your neighbors ripped your sons limb from little limb! YOU WERE NOT THERE! AND WHYYYYYYYYYY WOULD THAT BE, YOU ASK?”

I round on Alexander and point accusingly at him. “Because of HIM! Because he lured you away, on a war of conquest that would never end! And you knew it! You knew you would never see your homes again when he forced you to marry Persians and set your good Greek wives aside! You knew it when he killed Cleitus!”

Alexander winces at that. “And when you finally stood up to him, WHAT DID HE DO?”

The once uniform ranks are now far more divided, angry mutterings now audible, as ephemeral loyalties and dreams are pitted against half-formed fears and old grievances, and found wanting.

“HE LED YOU HOME THROUGH A DESERT, LIKE A CHILD THROWING A TANTRUM!” I shout, looking about wildly at the ranks. “HE TRIED TO KILL EVERY! SINGLE! ONE! OF! YOU! And THEN, HE HAD THE GALL TO DIE ON YOU! YOUR DEEDS HAD ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING! HE ACHIEVED NOTHING! HE STRANDED YOU HALF A WORLD AWAY FROM HOME, JUST SO THE HISTORY BOOKS WOULD REMEMBER HIM!”

Alexander looks like he’s about five more words away from making an appeal to force, so I decide to wrap things up. “HELLENES! WHY DO YOU FOLLOW THIS MAN?” ‘Serenity, now!’

He charges, while his army dissolves into a riot behind him, discipline forgotten as each man made his choice between loyalty and hate. And then…

“Zabaniya.”

Four slender fingers drift across his bicep, and a delicate mouth smiles beneath a skull-shaped mask. And then, she is gone, leaping from the chariot and vanishing into the dust cloud behind it. It matters not where she goes. She has sealed his fate.

His master yelps at the unexpected passenger, but Rider charges onwards. Straight towards me, while his army falls apart behind him.

“Saber, by the power of my Command Spell, STOP THAT CHARIOT!”

“AS YOU COMMAND!” Fergus roars, and then, he does something unexpected. He jumps.

In all honesty, I thought he would just use his Noble Phantasm, but that works too.

The son of Roich hits the chariot head on, his mighty blade smashing through the oxen’s’ yokes and splintering the front of the driver’s platform and sending both of the chariot’s occupants tumbling forwards.

Rider rises. His master doesn’t.

He looks me in the eye. “You cowardly Sophist! YOU HAVE ROUSED MY WRATH! YOU WILL DIE KNOWING THE RAGE OF ISKANDAR! TO ME! TO ME, MY ARMIES! TO ME, MY COMRADES!”

There is no answer. The venom of my tongue has turned them against one another, and deafened them to their commander’s call, even as Serenity’s touch slowly kills him.

Still, he lunges, roaring, ever louder, “TO ME! TO ME!”

Fergus meets him as he charges, and the dust flies beneath their feet, as their blades flash in the harsh sunlight, and the world breaks apart into blue flame about them.

Until at last, Alexander falls, sweat pouring from his skin, and blood leaking from his eyes and his ears.

“So. I am forsaken.” And so saying, he perishes.

I look at Fergus. Fergus looks at me. I hear a groan from Rider’s Master.

“Bar crawl?” he asks hopefully.

“Sure. Grab the kid, we can use him for a sympathy ploy.”