Despite her epic, GAR entrance, Archer was exceedingly unenthusiastic to fight Heracles head on. The last time she did that, Archer got ragdolled trying to stall Berserker in order for her younger self to escape Illya's castle (and hump Saber).

The mere thought of that grail war summoning made her die a little inside.

But this summoning however...

Archer twitched as she fiercely staved off the oncoming aneurysm.

(5 minutes ago)

Archer grunted when she was sent crash landing into the destroyed city of Fuyuki, the fall causing her long hair to whiplash across her face.

...Long hair that Archer didn't remember having.

Archer spat out the strands in her mouth before groping her chest, her expression twisting into one of dread as she came to a horrifying realization.

She too, was missing the 'bone of her sword'.

A note poofed into existence, slowly drifting down before Archer caught it with her hand.

EMIYA,

If you and your younger self don't succeed in saving humanity, you're staying like this forever.

~Zelretch

"What the fuc-"

Never before in all her man slaving under Alaya had Archer been bereft the 'Excalibur' of her pelvic region. The only 'noble phantasm' she legitimately treasured above all else had been snatched away, now replaced with two chest mounds and an extra hole.

On top of that, she felt a distinct magical pathway between Emiya Shirou and herself, indicating she was the idiot's servant now.

There literally did not exist a pair of more incompatible individuals. They were like 'dog' and 'cat', or 'Lancer' and 'living', they just couldn't co-exist. In any other situation, Archer would have just lopped the head off her younger self and be done with it.

However, there were just some things that could not be compromised, her 'Excalibur' topping the list.

She was going to take it back, even if it meant saving the entirety of humanity as the servant of her younger self.

Speaking of her younger self...

Archer glared at Shirou, who was still standing near the riverbank.

"Seriously? Berserker? Out of literally anybody you could have antagonized, you chose Heracles?"

Shirou was about to say something, but Berserker at that moment decided to lunge forwards, roaring as he brought his axe sword down upon Archer.

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Battle 1/1

Silver, bolded text shimmered in the air, signaling the beginning of the battle between Archer and Heracles.

Or at least, that's what Shirou figured it meant. She was still trying to wrap her head around this whole game interface thing.

Shirou stared at the various texts and symbols that hovered in the air in front of her.

BERSERKER SERVANT Lvl 10 Heracles HP: 10,512

ARCHER SERVANT Lvl 10 EMIYA HP: 2,568

Enemies Remaining: 1/1

Battle Menu

Master Skills

Yeah, Shirou had no idea what she was looking at here. She cursed her lack of video game experience. Instead of playing video games like normal teenagers in their adolescence, Shirou was too busy cleaning archery dojos and failing high jumps, something that had come to bite her in the ass.

But perhaps…

Shutting her eyes, Shirou concentrated as she sifted through an amalgam of different memories that spanned over a thousand timelines. Surely, there had to be at least one Shirou that had experienced these types of games, right?

…

Nevermind. While there was indeed one Shirou Emiya that did play games, the games he played consisted of only eroge.

"Shit."

"While you standing there uselessly doesn't surprise me, I'm going to need you to stop doing that." A voice suddenly rang out inside her head

"What the-" Shirou whipped her head towards Archer, who was busy pelting Berserker with a flurry of arrows, "You can talk in my brain?"

"Now that you're my... master," Archer seemed to be somewhat strained when she said that word, "We can communicate through a mental link."

"When was that a thing?"

"It's always been a thing, you just never did it before due to your sheer incompetence-"

Archer was cut off when Berserker rocketed forward, nimbly twisting his body around before executing a spin kick that launched the red servant into a building.

The building caved in and the HP bar above Archer's head dropped to 1,954.

...

"You okay?" Shirou asked through their newly established telepathic communication.

Archer responded to her question by coughing out a glob of blood.

...

"I can't beat Berserker on my own." Archer grunted mentally after a few moments, having regained her bearings, "We need to run."

"Uh, where?"

"If the information that Zelretch put into our heads is correct, then this a singularity, a major disruption in history meant to destabilize Human Order Foundations. Since we saw Heracles, we can assume that we're in the middle of a Grail War inside Fuyuki." Archer explained "And judging from the surroundings, the only thing could probably cause a singularity during this time period is the-"

"Holy Grail." Shirou realized. The corrupted one.

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Shirou huffed as she sprinted down the Big Bridge of Fuyuki.

The plan was relatively simple.

Archer would lead Berserker towards the east side of Fuyuki, while Shirou and Fou would run in the opposite direction towards Ryuudou temple. Once enough time had passed, Shirou would use a command seal to teleport Archer to her side, losing Heracles and giving them time to hopefully deal with the cause of Singularity.

Of course, they were being entirely too optimistic, since plans made by Emiya Shirou never work out.

Shirou froze when an oppressive presence manifested right behind her.

"Oh?" A dulcet voice hushedly whispered into Shirou's ear, "What is this? A survivor?"

Shirou instinctively traced Kanshou and Bakuya, whipping around to slice at whoever was behind her. Metal met metal with a loud clash before Shirou flooded her legs with a burst of magical energy to quickly jump away from the unknown assailant. Skidding across the ground, Shirou looked up at the individual who had snuck up behind her.

"...well shit." Shirou muttered, recognizing the servant.

Her appearance was slightly different from what Shirou was used to, but the long purple hair and alluring facial features struck a sense of familiarity in Shirou.

Medusa, the Gorgon from Greek mythology.

"Rider." Shirou said, taking care to avoid looking her directly in the eyes.

Rider raised an eyebrow, before smiling at the red head, amused. With a quick motion, she reached behind her head and pushed out her hair from under her hood. The lengths of purple hair shot out, transforming into metal chain links that wrapped around the surrounding bridge framework, trapping Shirou in a cage of chains.

She then purposefully spun her scythe, letting the bladed edge glint in the light of the surrounding fires.

"Lancer." she corrected

"I have a problem." Shirou stated

"What is it?"

"Rider's here. Except she's a Lancer. And evil."

Archer grimaced at the mental images that Shirou sent her. Fighting Medusa was a pain in the ass. Despite having fought her several times throughout her time as a counter guardian, the feeling of having your blood thickened before turning to stone was always unpleasant. Plus this one was a 'Darkened' version of the servant that was corrupted by the grail. Her personality was reversed towards the orientation of evil, making her even more troublesome.

"Use the command seal-"

A sudden feeling of surprise was transferred over the link.

"Hey, what happened?"

Shirou struggled as she caught Medusa's weapon between the cross of her two blades, trying not to buckle under the strength of the servant.

It seemed that despite the upgrades Zelretch had given her, fighting a servant was still a terribly hard task.

"Archer!" her command seal glowed, "Come to-"

The command was interrupted when an explosion struck the surrounding chains, melting a hole within the metal frame while buffeting both Shirou and Medusa with the force of the blast. Then an armored figure with a shield busted through, slamming into Medusa and knocking her away.

"Master! Are you alright?" the figure called out, standing protectively in front of Shirou.

Shirou's eyes widened.

"Mashed?"

The shield servant blinked before her face flushed in embarrassment.

"Ah sorry. That was a bad joke. Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Mash Kyrielight, Servant Shielder, at your service."

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The reason why it took so long to write this chapter was due to a combination of being lazy, farming FGO, while also being dissatisfied with previous drafts I wrote for this chapter.

I think I am happy with this for now, but after getting some rest and looking at this with fresh eyes, I'll probably make some changes.

If there's anything that's glaring which makes this unreadable, feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to make changes.

There were a couple references and inspirations that I drew from other places.

-In the beginning, I referenced the Fate route in Fate/Stay Night, where Archer sacrificed himself so that Shirou, Saber, and Rin could escape from Illya's castle.

-The game interface Shirou saw is pretty much based on the one in the Fate/Grand Order game, with the exception of NP bars, Command Cards, and other things which I found hard to incorporate. Hopefully this makes it easier to visualize.

There are some things that I used in the story that I am unsure about as to whether it's canon, fanon, or something I just completely made up on my own.

-I made it so that Archer would have memories of her other grail war summonings (she has knowledge of the Fate, UBW, and HF routes and all her other summonings). I don't know if it's exactly like this, but I think there's at least some mention of her about knowing all her previous summonings as a counter guardian and servant.

-The telepathic communication thing wasn't something I remembered seeing in the anime or in the VN (maybe I missed it who knows), but there's an UBW abridged series on Youtube that where they made it so Rin and Archer had telepathy with eachother.

-The powers I make Zelretch use are mostly based on what I've read in fanfiction, so I don't know if he can actually do these things he does in this story.

There shouldn't really be any more mention of him, since I mainly just used him as a plot device to move the story forward.

-Concerning terminology, I'm using 'magical energy' as opposed to 'prana'. I don't remember 'prana' being used before in the visual novel or anime, so I'm just going to stick with 'magical energy' for now.

I think that's about it. If you like this story and feel like becoming a beta reader, feel free to PM, and then we'll hash out the details over discord.

Thanks for reading.

~JamCow