"Awe, and there is goes. The first battle of the Grail War, and we missed it!"

Ness looked around nervously. He knew there was nobody here who could hear Saber, otherwise the place would be swarming with security guards. Still, being next to somebody this loud was intimidating.

"Don't worry Saber." Ness said. "I'm sure you'll get your chance."

Saber tisked. "Of course I will. But if we'd come here earlier, I would have had my chance at the first battle, instead of at this crowded airport."

It took a few moments for what he said to sink in. "What!?" Ness yelped, garnering him many strange looks from the passer-by.

"An enemy Servant is near." Saber explained. "His power… his power is a rival to mine. I can feel his manly spirit from here."

Ness looked around hurriedly. As a Master, he would be able to see Servants where others wouldn't. It shouldn't be too hard looking for a fictional character in an airport. They tended to stand out. Like Saber.

"It's a pity we're in an airport." Saber muttered. "Now I'll have to chase him out before I can truly kick his –"

"Hello."

Ness started.

A small Hawaiian girl was standing next to him. They were about the same height. Ness thought she was rather pretty. Behind her, stood a man who looked like he'd been run over by a monster truck, and kept himself going on coffee alone. He wore the total geek ensemble; rumbled white shirt, faded brown pants, thick nerdy glasses.

"Oh ho." Saber said, looking admiringly at the man.

"You have a cool Servant." The girl said, holding out her hand. "I'm Lilo."

Ness realized that Lilo had Command Spells on her hand.

"Uh… Ness." Ness said.

He shook her hand. Weren't they supposed to be fighting by now?

"Do you want to team up?" Lilo asked.

Ness blinked. "What?"

"Of course we would!" Saber said, laughing. "Two men with manly spirits such as ours are sure to win this war!"

"Wait a minute!" Ness said. "We don't know anything about them! And if they're as powerful as you say they are, why would they want to team up."

Lilo frowned. "This is Engineer." She said, pointing to her Servant. "And I just wanted to be polite and make friends. You're being rude!"

Ness stared at her. Then he rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry." He mumbled. "I didn't mean to be rude. I mean, I want to be friends, but this is a war…"

"That's good!" Lilo held his hand. "I want to be friends too! Engineer says he can get us a hotel. Do you want to come?"

Ness blushed. He liked the idea of making friends with Lilo. "Yes." He said. "I'd like that!"

"John!"

Caster finished teleporting Protector and John back to their H.Q. in Rose's house. Lalonde was glad to see John alive, even if he'd been rather stupid to jump into a full-fledged war like that. Still, the important thing was that he was unharmed.

"Hey Rose." John said, exchanging a secret handshake of awesomeness with his friend.

"Greetings filthy mortal." Caster said loftily to Protector.

"How's it going arrogant fop?" Protector asked, with a friendly tone despite his words.

"So how goes it on the frontlines?" Rose asked.

"It goes well." John said with a smile. "I made some new friends."

"How does it feel to know that your Master fought better than you did?" Caster murmured.

"Feels like my Master trusts me to save him." Protector fired back.

"Are you sure it's wise to bring others into our little group?" Rose asked John. She had her doubts. After all, three of their new 'teammates' had an assassin in their employ, and tried to hurt Ben when he was separate from his Servant.

"Yeah." John nodded. "It was crazy out there today. I think that maybe I was thinking about this as just a game. But now I think… you know… maybe we could do some good with this war."

Rose frowned. "We still haven't figured out what to wish for."

"No but…" John waved his hand in the air. "There might be more people like Wesley out there. I don't want anybody to die during this war. As a team we can protect them."

Rose raised a spock-like eyebrow, but couldn't keep the smile off of her face. "Of course." She said. "That's why you're our leader."

"I'm not your leader." John protested. "I'm your friend. There's a difference."

"And statements like that are why you're our leader." Rose said. She sat down at her computer. "Does my fearless comrade have any orders?"

"I think I got most of the fight down with my camera-pen." John said, handing the pen to Rose. "Give it to Dave and Jane. I want to know who Berserker is, and I want to know what the most epic way to defeat him would be."

Protector started playing a game with Caster. The game was called 'quit poking me you stupid peasant'.

The usual suspects were gathered in Dumbledore's office as Neville recounted the first battle of the Grail War. He had a sense of what had happened, and had watched the majority of the fight. But the fight was over before he could return from visiting Katie in the hospital.

"Of course you did the right thing Neville." Hermione said, comforting him. "That little girl could have died."

"And of course, you had her use two command spells." Dumbledore said with a smile. "It is too early to say, but I believe that she will not be a problem in this Grail War any further. We may even attempt to ally with her."

"It's tomorrow, right?" Neville asked. "Tomorrow will be school break and you'll take us all down there?"

"I hope nothing else happens before then." Ron said.

"In a war this massive, who knows?" Dumbledore muttered. "Neville might be called upon again before the day is out."

"In that case." Ginny said. "I'll have my Assassin follow you when you need to go out there. He'll protect you."

"Thanks Ginny." Said Neville. Though it came out more of a sigh than a sentence, weary as he was.

"Where's your Assassin now?" Harry asked.

"He's with Lancer, looking around the castle." Ginny explained. "They can sense when other Servants are near, and they can zero in on Servants within, to about twenty meters. But we already know that there are three Servants Hogwarts, so it's difficult to tell if there are any more Servants."

"We want to find them all before break, yeah?" Ron asked.

"We will need to add to our alliances." Dumbledore explained. "While we still can. I do not want students of Hogwarts fighting if I can help it."

A whisp of smoke passed aimlessly through the corridors of Hogwarts. It stopped for a moment, waiting. It seemed to sniff around.

"And that's when Tracy found out about the magic rats in Hogwarts!" Exclaimed Amy Cahill, coming around a corner with her brother.

The smoke stopped sniffing, and retreated to the ceiling. Slowly, as if not to arouse suspicion that it was not ordinary smoke, it retreated down the hall.

The brother laughed at the sister, and the sister blushed, until out of the corner of her eye the smoke was gone.

"All clear." She said.

Dan breathed a sigh of relief. "You can come out now guys."

Their Servant Engineer came out from the broom closet he was hiding in. "That was way too close." He said with a sneer.

"That was a Servant then?" Dan asked. "How many are in the castle?"

"I don't know." Engineer said. He frowned down at his charge. "More than just me and Berserker though. We can't just keep him in this broom closet. One of them will find him, and there'll be a fight."

The broom closet growled. Inside the closet a huge beast lurked, transformed by the Mad Enhancement into a raging being without thought or conscience.

"We'll have to take our chances." Amy said.

"What are you doing?" Saber asked Yugi.

Yugi was fiddling around with a puzzle box as their plane flew through the sky. "I'm training my mind."

"What for?" Saber asked. "We're not going to beat the enemies by puzzling at them."

"You won't be." Yugi said. "But… puzzles are basically all I'm good at. I want to be able to help out somehow."

Saber thought on this for a moment.

"Don't sell yourself short Master Yugi." Saber said. "I've known you for two days, and even I know that there's more to you than puzzles. You'll do well in this fight."

"I've never walked away from a fight as a winner." Yugi said morosely.

Saber looked at him sympathetically. "But you walked away the greater. Don't fret your puzzles. Don't try to help. All you need to do is keep yourself safe, and that will support me enough."

Yugi frowned, and said nothing. He fiddled aimlessly with the puzzle box, until it clicked open.

Saber struggled for words. "So… hey. What are you gonna wish for if I win?"

Yugi muttered something.

"What?"

"… a friend."

Saber didn't have any words for that. He extended an arm to comfort Yugi… somehow… then thought better of it and pulled away. "I'll grant your wish for you." Saber promised.

Maddie walked through the halls of the Tipton unwary. She really should not have been unwary. Even if she wasn't in the middle of a magical war, this was still the Tipton Hotel, and the Martin twins were still present. All this in mind… she really should have seen the net coming.

She got no warning before a giant of a man leaped out from behind a corner and fired a net out of a bazooka at her. She toppled over immediately.

"Keep your guard up!" Zach called out, and guns seemed to sprout out of the giant's fists.

"Maddie!" Cody yelled.

"What are you two doing?" Maddie asked struggling to get up.

"We're playing in the Grail War." Cody explained.

"Don't tell her that!" Zach slapped him in the back of the head. "She's trying to play mind games with you man!"

"Oh great." Maddie groaned. "You two are in the war as well."

"No, just me." Cody said with a smile.

"Dude!" Zach slapped him upside the head again.

Maddie sighed. "Listen, guys, we're all friends here, right? I say we team up, give the other guys a taste of Tipton Tower fury, and then backstab each other when we're done. Okay?"

The twins exchanged looks.

"Done." Zach nodded.

"Shake on it." Both twins spat into their palms and held out their hands to shake.

Maddie unthinkingly went to shake them, and toppled over in her net.

Lara Croft sat waiting aboard the plane as her two friends boarded.

"Elena." She said with a smile. "Nathan. So good of you two to join me." She raised her champagne flute to them.

"Lara." Nathan took his own glass. "It's going to be a thrill working with you again."

"It is rather exciting." Lara said. "Magic, a wish. And three world class treasure hunters and their magical servants locked in combat for the prize."

"Is that who this is?" Elena asked, looking at the man behind Lara. He wore a tuxedo, and rested lazily at ease yet somehow ramrod straight at the same time.

"This is my Archer." Lara said with a nod. "What about your two?"

The two Servants shimmered into existence behind Nathan and Elena. "Assassin and Lancer." Nathan said. "It looks like this'll be a good team-up in more ways than one. Two knights, and an Assassin backing them. Do you have a place to stay while we're there?"

"I've bought a lovely little place just outside of town for our visit." Lara said, loftily flaunting her wealth in front of them, just like she always did.

Nathan filled up his champagne flute with beer. "It'll be a pleasure working with you again Lara."

A short while later, Lancer glance out of the window at the other Private Lear jet in the air. "No." He said. "I know one of them. He's a teleporter. And I'm not risking one of the other two being an Archer. I've had some bad luck with those."

Artemis glanced out the window sadly. "A pity." He said. "Well, Butler fly us away then. I'm going to run their jet's I.D., and let's see who we're up against."

Artemis and Lancer watched the plan grow smaller as they flew away. "If we can tell who they are just by their jet, would they not be able to do the same?" Lancer asked.

"My jet is flying under a false I.D." Artemis explained. "Ah, here we go. Lara Croft, famous treasure hunter. I've read some of her work. Last boarded the plane with her butler and two others; a Nathan Drake, and an Elena Fischer."

"Both Masters, I'm sure." Lancer said, stroking his chin.

"I'll run a background check on them too." Artemis said, his fingers already awhirl."

"I think we should abandon the original plan." Lancer said.

Artemis looked over his laptop at Lancer. "I'm listening."

"The plan is good, but at this stage of the war, everybody will have too many alliances for it to work." Lancer explained. "It would be difficult to intercept a Servant on their own, kill him, and take his place. However, if I were to pose as, say, the Mediator?"

Artemis grinned his infamous vampire grin. "Ah, I see. You'll wait outside the perimeter of the next fight, and when he comes you will intercept him, kill him, and take his appearance."

"After getting the information I need to properly imitate him out of him." Lancer nodded.

Artemis held out his hand. "May I just say, it is a pleasure to work alongside somebody as intelligent as I am?"

"Likewise." Said Lancer, shaking hands with the one he considered his only friend in the world.

A sleek man dressed in a full black body suit rode a motorcycle up to an abandoned apartment complex. He got off, and went into the alley behind the apartment. The motorcycle disappeared behind him.

Climbing up the fire escape, the masked man entered into a dimly lit study. Behind the desk, Godot looked up. His eyepiece glowed in the low light. "Did anybody follow you?" He asked.

"Maybe an Assassin." Rider answered. "But I don't think so."

Godot jotted down some calculations onto the paper, glancing occaissionally at the stopwatch in his hand. "Alright… so assuming an average speed over the path I set for you, you can go an average of 200mph?"

Rider nodded.

Godot smiled. "Then I think I have a plan."

A/N: So, here's the aftermath of the last battle and the build-up of the second. I hope you're as excited as I am… the next battle will start after the next chapter.

Some characters I may not have researched as thoroughly as others, so they may be out of character. However, this is what I imagine the friendships will be formed as during this war.

Wars are half-mental after all. There's a lot of planning that goes into them.