She was displeased with the display of rebellion despite being a pirate. The boy still had not made any moves to complete her simple request, and even her crew would not walk about so shamelessly. As he talked, Mary moved about her newest confines. So simple. Too domestic… no fortification, no arms… We need a ship.

The Merchants water held no interest to her. She held the vessel aloft and produced her own flask of potent liquor. With an ecstatic upturn of her lips, she set about alchemizing the liquor of ages into the glass bottle.

The pirate let the silence straight before answering Mr Kite,“ A Babe that doesnât know how t' playeth games. ye get wha' ye ask f’r. She turned a similar vicious grin into her partner and crime. “Berserk’r” Her free fingers snatched her trifold off her head and mockingly she bowed at the so called master. “leadeth the way” She licked her lips ready to taste the new hedonism and swim in its treasures.

"Merlin," Erik repeated, crumbs from the woman's hand sticking to the chocolate and fruit on his own when they shook hands. For the first time in what felt like weeks, the man smiled. "Yes, actually, my brother—" Before Erik could finish his sentence, however, his servant burst into the bakery He only blinked as he was swept into an embrace, the remainder of his bread sent tumbling to the floor. And just as fast as Saber had ruined his meal, the man had turned away from Erik. "Oh... what about a militia?"

Mr. Kite eyed his Servant suspiciously. He wasn’t sure if her last comment had been an insult or simply agreement. Either way, he was fairly confident that he should find the way she’d bowed insulting.

“Okay, listen,” he said rising reluctantly from the armchair’s soft embrace and heading toward the long forgotten garage’s back door,

(The only door now that he’d sealed the sliding grate that opened into the street shut right after he’d finished making the place livable.)

“I realize that technically speaking, I’m essentially at best a newborn and at worst a fetus in your eyes, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop with the whole babe shtick. I won’t pretend I’ve seen nearly as much shit as you have, but I promise; not nearly as green as you seem to think.”

Mr. Kite donned a dark, woollen pea coat and held open the door for his Servant with a weary tilt of his that said, “Let’s go.”

“I’m not asking you to respect me,” he elaborated, flashing Berserker his first genuine smile since her summoning, “I’m just hoping you’ll pretend to. Or at least promote me from Cabin Boy to Swabbie or somethin’.”

“Monsieur!”

The booming voice snaps Saber’s attention from the delicious looking confectionary the young woman is praising with such enthusiasm.

The militia of men in blue with their funny hats had surrendered the bakery and set up some kind of chest high barricade. One of them seemed to be speaking into a metallic horn of plenty that enlarged his voice to that of a giant.

“S'il vous plaît sortir avec vos mains au-dessus de votre tête!”

Don Quixote’s eyes narrowed.

“My word…” he snapped to action looking around wildly and finally grabbing one of the tables nearby, scaring the daylights out of the couple who’d been using it and tossing their deserts to the floor. His lance would not enough for this task.

“The fiends mean to storm this humble shop!” the Mad Knight declared, blissfully unaware of what a policeman or barricade was, “Worry not, humble gentry! I, the great Don Quixote de La Mancha, shall defend this establishment till my dying breathe!”

Oathe sworn, once again, our noble hero bashed through the door to the bakery holding the table like a battering ram and screamed his battle cry at the top of his withered old lungs.

“DESPAIR AND REPENT, PICAROS! IN THE NAME OF MY LORD ERIK, I SHALL LAY WASTE TO YOUR VILLAINOUS BAND OF VILE VIPERS!”

"You really shouldn't ruin everyone's-" Even if Saber had been paying attention to him, it was far too late for any comment to have helped. Dishes were shattered wherever they had flown, and were soon joined by splinters of wood large and small. "-meals." Erik glanced down and brushed off a particularly large piece of wood that had, thankfully, gotten stuck in the tightly woven armor under his coat and not his arm. "It's rather rude. I don't think Jasper would like this at all."

Mary laughed. It boisterously invited onlookers into the privacy of the shop. The mirth continued on her lips was her eyes trailed along the features of Mr Kite. Gentle fingertips, posed to tease the boy, call him a babe, but they paused every so slightly gracing the rounds of the un-haired chin. The ambition, false bravado, and need to be… bold. Her heart beat for another, that was so uncanny and eerily similar. A small growl came out of her lips. Her mind was oft fogged by the very liquid poison that was proverbially said to always be with her character. Slowly, black locks shook in tune with denial with the boys last words. The pirate dropped the bottle in her grasp and walked out the door.

She inhaled the modern air. With magic and an exhale, Mary cloaked herself in modern attire that spoke of rebels. She dusted the gunpowder off her leather checking out the shadows of the narrow roadways. Their position within the battle field was horrendous. She could feel at least two other servants close to the grail, and one she could not pin point. The pirate twisted away from the smell of seasalt. There was a time and a place for wants and needs. A pirate was more than treasure. Battles, friends, enemies. Greed had a price. Mary strolled towards the palace on the hill.

Mr. Kite didn’t like daylight.

The sun hurt his eyes and all the people about were too noisy. All the same, he walked with the Biker Chick toward where he guessed he was supposed to go. Before heading out she’d done some hokus pokus spirit nonsense to change into something that didn’t so loudly proclaim, “I’M A PIRATE! BRING ME YOUR WENCHES AND BOOTY!”

Simply thinking the word booty made him restless.

6 months…

6 long, lonely months…

It was difficult to cope with doing the things he did and knowing the things he knew without a reliable carnal release. But he doubted he’d be able to relieve that urge with his new roommate around. The Canadian Public school system and the extra bits he’d gleaned from the locals with his ring made him confident enough in his French to be able to entice a fair young french girl and-

Mr. Kite shook his head vigorously.

What the hell was he thinking?

He’d just entered a goddamn war. This was no time to let his second head do the thinking.

He turned toward his Servant instead, desperate to get his mind off the subject.

“So what are you?” he asked in as polite a manner he could manage, “Rider? Archer? I didn’t think Pirate was a Class in this fuckery.”

The end of the street was populated by markets stalls, vehicles and morning haze that warmed the world in a soft illuminated glow. She watched the black rivers diverge into smaller streams around the land dwellings. Her steps continued northeast. Although there was the continuous music of the waves of people surrounding them, she could hear Mr Kite seeking answers from her.

Each time the man opened his mouth it only seem to serve more towards her point. He was just a babe, barely on the cusp of understanding what it meant to be an adult. She responded with a grunt.

Eventually their steps lead them to behind the Palace of Avignon. It was only then that she allowed her lips to broaden, and one side to curve slightly upwards. Nested in the bosom of greenery loomed the fortitude of the grail. The pirate started to close the gap between her and the prize. Her excited steps stalled at the threshold of the doors. The morning personal eyed them suspiciously. Drawing in a breath she changed direction away from the grand entrance and walked instead just beyond the tendrils of power centralizing behind the gargantuan stone facade.

It didn't look as if he'd be able to buy something else to eat here, with all of the confusion and fright. When he heard Saber's voice next to him, Erik turned towards it as if he could, in fact, see the man. He couldn't, but it was polite. "You shouldn't go around fighting things outside of the war. It's not going to get us very far, and some of them are probably nice people."

Mr. Kite could tell she was thinking the word babe and that knowledge brought a scowl to his face. He’d worked with enough lowlifes and scumbags to get an idea of what went on inside their heads. Irritation building with every second spent with this woman, he plopped himself down on the curb.

He looked down at the intricate crimson crest emblazoned on his right hand.

I could do it.

One little Command Seal and I could make her treat me with even a hint of goddamn respect.

I could make her treat me, if not like her Master, at least like a fucking equal.

What’s one little absolute order compared to having to put up with the condescending aura seeping from every pore of this greasy cunt’s being for this entire ordeal?

He shot a bitter glance at his new partner in crime then sighed bitterly, took a swig from a golden flask hidden in his coat pocket, and lit another cigarette.

Bitch ain’t worth it. Although…

Mr. Kite turned back toward her with rather bored eyes, his typical mask of courtesy and charisma tucked away after obviously only making her impression of him worse.

“Would you mind cutting yourself for me?”

Had Don Quixote’s face been visible at the moment, anyone who saw it would think he looked like a scolded puppy.

“I… I beg your forgiveness, Mi Rey,” he choked out in a confused and pained voice, “I believed them cut throat blaggards… I shall refrain from engaging in any other battles without your specific order…”

Saber’s formless self shrunk with the weight of his shame. He’d dishonored his king and what’s more he nearly harmed apparent innocents in the process. A knight was meant to be a gleaming champion of his lord’s rule and protect innocents, not attack them. He’d never felt like such a failure in his life.

“You’ll… still allow me to serve you, won’t you Master?” he asked in a meak and desperate tone.

"Is there a zoo around here?" Erik asked the great wizard, but upon hearing his servant's voice again, he blinked and looked in that direction once more. "Oh. Yes. I don't think refraining from any other battles is a good idea. I might not be able to give you an order if I'm attacked. Maybe just..." Just what, however, Erik never said. He looked to Merlin. "Before the zoo, we're supposed to find the house we're staying in, and attend a meeting. Do you know the way to either?"

Mary turned to address her master only to see the sullen convex shape of a man slumped with a golden flask perched against his lips. He turned and spoke, but she didn't hear him across the length of the courtyard. She waited until he was about to take another long drink before plucking the gold piece from his fingers. When the metal didn't warm and meld to her touch, she saw through its glamour. It wasn't worth the weight of the slop that sloshed around inside. Whether or not it was important didn't factor into her brain. She was holding it hostage until she could have his attention.

The Pirate stepped off the curve onto the stream of growing tourist. She crouched a distance away from Mr. Kite, making sure she could level her gaze with hers. She spoke with tone was not of anger, but of a person speaking to a friend.

“Hark, 'n Listen closeth ye sullen child.”She paused only to switch the flask into another hand keeping it away from Mr. Kite.” Ye choose gre’d.Ye choose t' fight, 'n ye choose Berserk’r-” She brought the flask to her nose, but when the smell did not suit her taste, Mary tipped the rest of the liquid onto the ground letting it bleed on to the cobblestones.

“Ye be... depress’d. Ye showeth no real heart f’r the grail. Th're art six oth'r classes. six oth'rs who hast m're heart, who will not hesitate t’ murd'r ye.”

At this point she stood up and clinched a fist around the golden flask. With a small amount of magic, the flask transformed into a withered piece of weather worn parchment covered in gunpowder. She let the paper, that now marked a spot in Le Rhone, float down into the man’s lap.

“Thar be an art t' th' Jolly Roger. 'tis m're than a desire f'r treasure. 'tis life. Are ye certain ye wants t' die f’r this Holy Grail??” Her voice never raised beyond her normal speaking tones. “Ye are a child-” she gestured at his whole posture and brooding facade. Children still grow, say for the ones that perish, still full of foolhardy dreams.

There was no point in wasting more mana, or stealing it from a novice that didn’t even know what was going on. Mary backed away from from Mr. Kite shaking her head. She disappeared just as she came, shocking the curious onlookers into thinking a tire had busted, or the palace had a cannon display. A curl of grey dust swept where the woman once stood, dissipating until there was no trace

"Oh," was all that Erik had a chance to say before the woman had him following after her. He glanced back to where he thought that Saber might have been, though it was incredibly hard to tell for sure with only the servant's mana to rely on and the overbearing presence Merlin had in comparison to either of them. "Don't get lost, Saber, or you might miss the snacks." Erik looked to Merlin again when he asked, "Are there any snacks left?"

Mr. Kite’s eye twitched like he was on the verge of having a stroke.

That snobby bitch just poured $30,000, 50 year aged whiskey onto the sidewalk like it was sewer water and turned one of the only two things my father left me into a scrap of paper…

He almost forgot to breathe in the face of the pure audacity and absurdity of what his Servant, the Heroic Spirit He had summoned and He commanded, had just done.

Eventually he sucked in all the air his lungs could accommodate without bursting and expelled it toward the sky in an earsplitting scream of rage that rivaled those of long dead battle crazed barbarians, tearing the map in half with fists clenched so tightly his fingernails almost drew blood from his palms and his knuckles threatened split the strained flesh covering them.

He stood there panting, face still contorted with rage for a moment before noticing the bewildered and terrified tourists and locals gawking at him.

“What the fuck are you all looking at?” he spat with eyes that spoke of eviscerations and maimings to any who dared answer. His tone translated perfectly despite the words being spoken in English. With that he stormed off, tossing the scraps of seemingly worthless paper, that had once been a priceless family heirloom into the gutter like the garbage it now was.

The scream had served to spew forth as much of the seething hatred and contempt that had been on the verge of overpowering him as possible, but there was still enough inside him that he needed to be alone, lest he murder the next person he saw.

Shaking hands pulled a cigarette from his pocket and clumsily lit it. He took a drag so long and deep that it was little more than a the filter in a matter of seconds. He held the smoke in his lungs for an almost inhumanly long time, trying to let every molecule of nicotine from the tobacco and THC from the marijuana he’d hidden among it seep into his body before blowing it out a cloud almost the size of the ones in the sky overhead. He tossed the butt aside and lit a second which enjoyed leisurely this time as he scowled his way through the suffocating corridors of the city.

What does she know about me and what I’ve been through?

Did she ever opened the front door on a cloudy Autumn afternoon to find the uncle that raised her staring at the door from his favorite armchair with the cold, lifeless eyes of man who’d drunk himself to death mere hours before he’d gotten home?

Did she have to give up her dreams of going to college and getting a PhD. in Mythology and Occult Studies because that same uncle only left behind enough money to live off for a month, forcing her to drop out of high school and work five different part time jobs just to keep from starving to death?

Did she spend a year homeless, sleeping on the couches of anyone and everyone that pitied her enough to let her stay the night, even if it meant using herself as payment for the lodging, and sleeping in alleys that reeked of piss and fermented garbage when there were no couches to left to surf?

Did she mold a ragtag handful of outcasts and degenerates into an army and lead a revolution against some of the most corrupt and vile sacks of shit ever to lie, cheat, and kill their way into positions of power in North American history?

…

Was her family brutally murdered by zealots and bigots who were willing to kill every man, woman, and child they could get their merciless hands on because they believed them demons and monsters?

No, that was his life.

Those were his memories.

His suffering and his victories.

Mr. Kite sighed in exasperation, finally calming down.

Why did he want the grail?

Because he wanted, he needed power.

The power to make sure that no one else would have to live a life like that ever again.

“A child she calls me…” he muttered bitterly, pulling out his phone to figure out where the hell he’d wound up and how to get back to his garage so the he could spend the night trying to get drunk enough to erase this whole day from existence, “Whatever child I may have been died along with the rest of my family 20 years ago.”

Erik held tightly to the suitcase in his other hand, clattering and clanking loudly behind him while he kept up with Merlin. She wasn't anything like he'd imagined as a child, but he'd already decided that he was just as fond of her as he was his own servant. Maybe the three of them could all see the zoo. "The cathedral? Isn't that where we're supposed to meet with you?"