Erik, after an entire night spent with the great wizard, had long since changed out of his stuffy coat and the armor beneath it. He sat on the floor clad in pale pink shorts small enough that they might as well been underwear, and an electric blue shirt printed with a black skull and lightning bolt on the chest. "My grandma isn't anything like that," he replied, grabbing his own hefty handful of popcorn as he looked over at Merlin.

His eyes went wide as her form changed, and he dropped his snack on the floor, scooting around to face the cartoony beast. "Does that make me Little Red Riding Hood?" As he asked, a thin, red cloth shimmered into view, seeming to solidify as it floated down onto his head. Without touching it, Erik mimed tying the strings into place like the girl had. The corners of the cloth stretched into those strings right between his fingers, and as they solidified as well, two large poofs appeared at the ends.

“Oh, for the love of-”

Mr. Kite took a deep breath and exhaled as much of what he wanted to say to her a few seconds later.

“So not only do you think I’m a child, but a moron as well,” he sighed, lighting another cigarette, “I have no intentions of trying to parade you around in front of our enemies. I was trying to see if I could actually get you to come here, so we could talk. I have a mountain of questions for you and I’m still holding out hope I’m going to like at least one or two of the answers.”

He threw a cautious look over his shoulder.

“And because, confident as I may be in my abilities, I’m pretty sure I’m still nothing before… Whatever she was… I’d feel a hell of a lot safer with you around.”

Mr. Kite was far too sober to be dealing with his servant at the moment. He did what he could with his special cigarettes, but she seemed to grow more irrationally abrasive and needlessly cruel with each of their conversations. His mind had gone to a rather dark place and he couldn’t keep a macabre smile from spreading across his face.

“That is of course assuming you’ll even bother to protect me. Can’t say your attitude towards me thus far has given me any reason to trust you with my life. Hell, I couldn’t even trust you with my flask. Maybe it’d be better that way...”

...Was that a yes?

Mr. Kite decided to assume that the incomprehensible pirate had indeed confirmed she would protect him. If happened was he was mistaken, he’d learn that soon enough.

“It wasn’t about what was in the flask, though it's contents were more expensive than everything in the garage combined,” Mr. Kite shook his head, the whisky had been mourned and moved on from. He reached into his coat and produced the worn, leather bound journal that contained every piece of magical knowledge he possessed. He flipped through it with a melancholic look of nostalgia dancing through his eyes above a warm smile.

“Besides this,” he snapped the journal shut before anyone nearby could get a good look at the secrets it held (or Berserker could turn it into another scrap of paper) and hid it within his coat once again, “that flask was all I had left of the father I can barely remember. That’s why I reacted so violently when you turned it into a map, not because I was some baby crying over his bottle being taken away. But because you’d stolen something precious to me and I couldn’t fathom why.”

Mr. Kite filled his lungs with smoke and sighed it out again. He didn't care anymore, whatever nonsensical reason she had to justify her actions wouldn't bring the flask back. There was no point wasting energy on something you couldn't change.

Instead, he pulled out his phone and began searching for some hint as to Assassin’s possible identity given the few clues he’d gleaned from their encounter. It was more productive to gather information that may help them win than to mope.

French woman.

Demons.

Lightening?

“What was that a map to anyway?” he mumbled absentmindedly as he scoured the internet, “I didn’t think Berserker had the ability to turn things into maps. Or… Not be berserk, come to think of it.”

"Oh, yes, I wonder if he wants any popcorn," Erik replied, missing the way the great wizard looked at him while he searched for his servant. He couldn't see him, but he could still feel his mana through their bond. The simple hood he'd created faded in small specks of light. "Saber? Can you stop being invisible now?"

Adrien Dupont had been coming into the same bakery before work, sitting at the same table, then leaving at the same time for the past five years. He’d found the place to be a perfect little oasis exactly in the middle of his route to the office and, before he knew it, a routine had been established.

His job required constant adaption to new situations and individuals, so he valued the little taste of predictability between his hectic home life, with his second child making the humble little three bedroom a veritable carnival of screeching and bodily fluids, and the office that the bakery gave him.

He’d memorized the script so completely that the lines and cues were second nature to him now.

30-something businessman with prematurely greying hair enters Stage Left.

He approaches the counter and places an order for one blueberry bagel and a small coffee while trying to hide his wedding ring as he flirts with the young woman manning the till.

Grabs a newspaper from a nearby rack while he waits for his order then sits at a table near the window.

Reads his paper while enjoying his breakfast for approximately 15 minutes before tossing his cup and napkins in the nearby trashcan and resuming his commute to work.

This simple routine was the constant in his ever changing life that kept Adrien grounded. Allowed him to sweat the small stuff, so to speak, and keep him sain.

Unfortunately, just as he’d opened his paper on one particular morning, a 50 year old man dressed as if he’d stumbled out of a Renaissance Fair materialized in the corner behind him. Adrien eyed the stranger curiously as he looked around wildly before he found a suitcase under a nearby table.

He watched the odd old man spring at the suitcase then dash out of the bakery, holding it like a leather olympic torch above his head and screaming at the top of his lungs.

“MI REY! I HASTEN TOWARD YOU WITH THINE TREASURE IN HAND! WAIT FOR ME, ERIC! WAIT FOR ME!”

The peculiar man gone, Adrien simply sipped his coffee and went back to his newspaper.

Sweat the small stuff.

A long few moments passed without any sudden appearance, or yelling, or any other sign that the servant had heard him at all. But, when he focused, Erik felt Saber's mana signature moving somewhere in the city. That was good enough. So, he looked at the great wizard once again. "We can't watch another one then?"

There were still a lot of snacks left, and even though Erik wasn't entirely sure where they all came from, he didn't mind bringing them all downstairs and setting them on the first nice table he saw. On the third trip downstairs, he saw an older man standing by the table. He blinked, but didn't stop walking, his attention turning down when he reached the table so he could set the snacks out nicely with the others.

There was no question what the man was. Any mage would know an Executor on sight, regardless of what they looked like. This man, however, was showing his position in every article he wore and the very way he held himself. He didn't belong there, the Executor with no mana that Erik could discern. The bounded field was still in place, there was no mistaking Ruler's mana at work. "Merlin will come down soon, if you're looking for her."

He frowned and looked up at the question. "Oh." Erik didn't know what to think of the man's expression, so he just went back to arranging snacks. "There's going to be too many people here for any quiet prayer, but if you're going to stay, I'm sure the Lord's company will still be with you."

"You aren't a mage." He turned to face the man, leaning with his leg against the side of the long table. "You have no mana of your own, beyond what Od any person would have. Only the objects on your person have any hint of magic. Why are you here?"

This was a dangerous man. One that Erik wouldn't want to meet again. But then, he had always been told not to trust people from the Church, an Executor the least of all. "I don't want the Holy Grail," he said, unchanged by either the man's countenance or tone. "Do you want something to drink?"

Saber sprinted toward his master’s presence like it was the Grail itself.

He sped past the tourists surrounding Palais des Papes who gawked at the old man in the suit of armor, screaming with a suitcase above his head.

Past the women talking by the motorcycle.

Past the young man in the golden coat who reeked of blood.

Into the church proper, paying no mind to the diseased and bleeding man overhead.

He raced through the archways and corridors until he finally reached the room where his King awaited him and slammed the suitcase onto the table, sending junk food and beverages flying. Some delicious debris careened straight into the faces of the nearby individuals Erik was conversing with.

Panting, Saber dropped to one knee before his Master and bowed his head.

“Mi Rey! I come bearing your forgotten treasures, I hope their retrieval pleases you!”

He lifted his head beaming up at Erik, eyes gleaming with tears of joy that his King had called for him and brow glistening with sweat. It was only then that he noticed that there were others in the room.

In an instant he was standing in front of Erik, hand at the hilt of a lance that wasn’t there on his belt, and a cocky smile splitting his lips.

“Be these Brothers In Arms or Villains seeking your demise, Master?”

“Wine,” Mr. Kite corrected dismissively, stuffing his phone back into his pocket and finally making his way toward the shift in Ruler’s Barrier he’d just sensed, “Not grog. I knew you were uncultured, but I thought you at least had enough common sense to know the difference between a fine Pinot Noir and common swill, ya goddamn philistine.”

The more Berserker spoke, the easier it became to simply ignore her. He was quickly becoming accustomed and desensitized to her particular brand of defiant harassment, thanks in no small part to his special trail mix of narcotics.

Besides, he had been much too focused on the other nearby Masters to pay enough attention to her smug taunts in the first place. He’s been absent mindedly tapping and swiping the same picture of an old girlfriend for the better part of an hour, all the while surveying the area through the corners of his eyes.

Most them weren’t exactly hard to spot, though he had jumped higher than he’d liked to have admitted when the elderly gentleman in armor made from scrap metal came barreling past him, screaming at the top of his lungs. The two women who were chatting by the nearby motorcycle dissuaded his fear that he would be the only one under the age of 50 participating in this Grail War, one even seemed not much older than he was. The younger of the two had rode in with what seemed to be a college student; a Fine Arts Major, judging by all the brushes, paint stains, and what he suspected, though they were too far away for him to see it clearly, was that famous picture of the four armed naked guy Leonardo Da’vinci had drawn.

Wish I’d stumbled upon one of them first instead of Grumpy McOldAsShit. Looks like they’re being being downright civil to one another.

He could vaguely sense the presence of a few other spirits close by, but considering that they weren’t as easy to spot as Sir Demencia of the Renaissance Fair Table back there, he couldn’t pick them out of the crowd.

Nonchalantly, he reached into the folds of his dandelion yellow double breasted trench coat as he wandered the Papal Palace’s winding corridors. His fingers drew one of the many razor’s he’d stitched into its lining and nimbly slit one of the blood packs hidden within. The motion was subtle enough to be mistaken for a man checking to make sure he’d remembered his keys and was accomplished in the blink of an eye.

“Irrefragabilles Juggernaut Coagulation…” he whispered, coaxing the pint of his own blood to life. The crimson ichor slid through the sliver he’d made in its plastic prison and snaked it’s way over his back before dripping down the nape of his neck under his shirt collar. He effortlessly commanded each cell with the mana he’d infused the substance with, willing the blood to paint every inch of his body without leaving so much as a drop on his clothes. The iron within condensed and spread out across each contour of his form as it hardened into skintight armor that covered every inch of him besides his visible extremities. He left the joints thinner and more flexible than the rest of the full body scab he’d just made for himself so he would be able to move naturally.

There’s no telling how much longer this whole, “Play nice, kiddies!” shtick is going to last. Hopefully none of them brought any heavy artillery.

“I know you’re not a big fan of following orders,” Mr. Kite spoke to his servant once the spell had been cast and he neared the secluded meeting place, “But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on things outside while I mingle with the folks that’ll be trying to kill us before the end of the day.”

With that said, he opened the door to the room where Avignon’s Holy Grail War would finally begin.