Third-person POV
Castor and Pollux were wandering through the facility with nothing much to do. Of all the Servants under Wodine's command, they were the only ones with nothing to do at the moment.
Atlas was in the Fantasy Tree fulfilling his duty, from which he had been summoned. Odysseus was monitoring Atlantis, identifying new Servants summoned from around the world. Caenis was preparing to travel to the Russian Lostbelt, and Dante... well, he was doing Dante things.
The two brothers entered a room filled with tools and Greek technology. More specifically, forgotten remnants of gods and titans that no one used, since they weren't very useful.
When half of the Olympians fell, Hephaestus, the god of the forge, was among them, but Zeus, knowing the importance of his divinity, kept him hidden, fusing him with the titan Prometheus to maintain Olympus.
But an entity without consciousness cannot create anything new or creative, so using this ability is nothing more than a waste. Hence, one of the reasons for this Lostbelt's decline.
These resources were used to make basic machines, were wasted, or simply left unused.
But by chance, there was a Servant who could use these remnants and create something useful, since he did it purely out of selfishness and personal gain. But because it also benefited Olympus, they let him act without any problem.
In the room, Dante could be seen wearing only trousers, forging a weapon using Ares's remains.
In Dante's legend, his minor, one-sided enmity with Hephaestus was a well-known fact. And since he couldn't use the weapons or objects created by the god, he had no choice but to create them himself, with Zeus's help, allowing him to use something similar to a forge to avoid passing through the domain of the god of fire.
This translates to the ability to create A+ rank objects, but only for the Caster class and when used in conjunction with alchemy, or more specifically, the Alchemy Devil Fruit.
Therefore, the Servant facing the two brothers is no longer an Avenger but a Caster.
From the forge emerged a knife, a military-style one, with grooves technically designed to stop and break enemy blades, but no one knew why virtually no human possessed the skill or precision to make a sword or other knife fit precisely into those grooves.
But since Dante possessed both, along with the ability to see the future, he could put it to use.
"What brings you here, brats?" Dante asked, looking at the two brothers.
"Kirschtaria wants you to go find him; he has news about the current situation," Pollux explained.
"And hurry," Castor added, sounding rather grumpy.
With that, both brothers left the room, leaving Dante alone.
He watched them go, then grabbed a bucket of water and threw it into the forge fire, extinguishing it.
"It's the day, isn't it? I wonder what Wodien wants with me," Dante said, setting his tools aside.
...
"An entertaining meeting between old friends," Dante said, entering Kirschtaria's room without knocking.
Inside, the aforementioned man sat without his coat, drinking water, looking somewhat tired.
"A little," he declared, taking another sip of his water, slightly surprising Dante with his master's demeanor.
"Are you tired of using your leadership style?" the servant asked, now beside his master.
"Somewhat, plus I now have a new problem in my research," Wodine commented, looking at the papers on his desk. "Thanks to your intervention, I was able to fix the spatial problem in my research, which involves moving from geometric planes to quaternions to octanions, but now, with the addition of the new variables, I've had to make radical changes to some formulas and algorithms, reaching a dead end. Not to mention, I have to hurry now, since they've started moving."
With that said, he took another sip from his cup but realized it was empty, so he set it aside.
"Move? Do you mean the savior of the world or the disciples of the alien god?" Dante asked.
"I mean Chaldea; it's currently known to be near the Russian Lostbelt, so Kadoc will have to face them, but, to be honest, I don't have much faith in him," he admitted, getting up to check his documents.
"So you want me to intercept them and make them disappear?" the blond-haired servant questioned.
"Not for now. I'm interested in seeing what they're doing in the Russian Lostbelt; there I can gather information about them and get a rough idea of their strength and resources. Before I can plan anything, I need you to resolve the crisis down there," Wodine explained.
"Is there a crisis in Atlatis?" Dante asked, since, as far as he remembered of the plot, nothing like that had ever happened.
"That's right. Initially, two disciples of the alien god had been brought here to purge the large number of Servants summoned in the Lostbelt, but a problem arose," he said, showing him a piece of paper.
Dante took it and then looked at Kirschtaria.
"Grand Servant, that's the problem," he said, reading the first part.
"That's only half the problem. Keep reading," Wodine instructed him.
The Servant decided to let him read on.
"Uses a bow, special arrows, 100% accuracy, female, appearance: black hair, not very tall, sophisticated attire, one red eye and the other…" Dante trailed off at the end of his sentence.
He looked at his Master, who returned his gaze without much enthusiasm.
...
On one of the islands of Atlantis, a woman sat in an artificial fortress, gazing at the sky—more specifically, at the Sniper-Type Interstellar Combat Vessel orbiting in space.
"Aren't you going to rest?" a man's voice asked, walking toward her.
"The time for rest is over. It can attack at any moment, and I'm currently the only one who can intercept that machine's arrows consecutively," the dark-haired woman replied, looking to the side.
An older man, around 30 or 40 years old, stood beside the woman, looking up at the sky.
"How things have changed, and you've grown quite a bit too, Libra," the swordsman said.
"Time passes, Uncle Bemus, but..." At that moment, Libra looked back at the machine goddess in the sky. "It's annoying having to deal with family, or just with those who look like them."
...
"A fortress," Dante declared, examining the images Wodine was showing him, one by one. "Some Servant, or perhaps more than one, must have created the structure; knowing this, if one looks carefully, one can find remnants of Greek entities; it shouldn't be too difficult to create something decent."
"The situation is this," Kirschtaria began to explain. "Most of the Servants are here. Neither Odysseus nor the Apostles can enter the place; once they reach the island, they are riddled with a virtually endless number of arrows."
At that moment, he began to show more photos, in which several Servants appeared.
"Jason, Orion, Heracles, Medea, Atalanta, Francis Drake, Marie Antoinette, Hohenheim, and Asterios—these are some of those we have managed to identify from the many hidden in the fortress, who, as we understand it, call themselves 'The Rebellion,' obviously guided at the moment by the Grand Servant summoned this time, Libra," the only Master in the room spoke.
Dante stared thoughtfully at a photograph that was clearly of his daughter. In it, she was drawing her bow and intercepting one of Artemis's attacks.
She had clearly been summoned by the world, as she possessed the characteristics and abilities to face the machine gods. If they were other gods, perhaps the situation would be different, but being machines, combined with her special bow, her Haki, her Devil Fruit, and her magic—all of which combined with her innate talent as an archer and hunter—she was clearly a candidate for Grand Archer.
In this case, a large part of Orion's story was originally intertwined with Artemis, but since I ended up being the goddess's lover, and that demigod ended up marrying Dante's daughter, his legend faded into the background, with Libra herself becoming the central figure.
Therefore, the one chosen this time to take the position would be her, not Poseidon's son.
I imagine he could have been a candidate, either because Libra was more suitable or because he didn't take the position; it ended up being Libra.
"So, what's the point of telling me all this?" Dante asked Wodine.
"I don't think Kadoc will achieve his goal, and it's quite possible he'll try to get here as quickly as possible, and with so many Servants in the Lostbelt, it could be a major problem if they arrive in this condition," he said, putting away the photos he had left on the table.
"I see," said the only Servant in the room, now understanding what his master wanted him to do.
"You don't need to kill them all, just reduce their population enough so they don't cause us problems in the future," Kirschtaria commented.
"I'll see what I can do," said Dante, stretching a little to leave the room, leaving Wodine alone to continue his investigation.
...
"Since you plan to enter that fortress, I imagine you'll be riddled with bullets when you get inside," Kiss-shot remarked, watching Dante preparing his creations for his departure.
"I'll leave planning to the cautious and arrogant like Odysseus; I'm just going to act; that's what I'm good at," the Greek hero argued, eyeing his pistol crafted from the remains of Greek gods. It had the structure of a revolver, but it didn't use bullets, instead using another object to fire.
"So you plan to commit suicide on that island then?" Kiss-shot questioned.
"Who said I was going to the fortress or that island?" The vampire was speechless. "My mission is to reduce the number of Servants in the Lostbelt, but that isn't the only place where Servants are."
"There are more in the surrounding area," she concluded, snapping her fingers.
"Exactly, the world is constantly summoning Servants, and only a few have the ability to go to that place; some can go alone, but others have to go in a group," Dante explained, putting the two pistols in his pockets.
"But do you plan to attack the fortress or not?" Kiss-shot asked.
"That will be later; I'll meet with Odysseus afterward to inform him about the situation, since all the information Wodine has comes from him, not to mention that Libra will immediately feel apprehensive as soon as I approach, so I'd prefer to keep my current situation a secret for her; that way she won't know when I'll appear and won't be able to act appropriately," Dante explained his thoughts.
Now ready to depart, the demon approached Kiss-shot and opened his arms, resting his chest on her shoulder in front of her.
The vampire, without thinking, raised her hand and plunged it into his heart, so that in the next second Dante vomited a mouthful of blood.
In the next second, Kiss-shot, using her sorceress ability and touching Dante's Saint Graph, began to force a class change in him.
This is possible because she can use a very subtle form of third-level magic, allowing her to touch people's souls, just as Dante can use second-level magic, albeit in a very basic way, seeing multiple possibilities of parallel worlds without needing Haki or the all-seeing Eyes of God. However, neither of them can do much more than that.
After a few minutes, Kiss-shot removed her hand from Dante's body, allowing him to regenerate rapidly. The vampire didn't hesitate for a second and began licking his hand as if it were a lollipop.
"Delicious," she said; she was in ecstasy.
"And painful," Dante complained, pulling down his shirt and adjusting his clothes. He raised his hand, and a very particular scythe appeared in it. "It's been a while."
The weapon he held was none other than a pure bone scythe, demonstrating that he was no longer a caster but an assassin.
"With this, they won't be able to sense me anymore, giving me a great advantage when I begin my hunt," the demon said proudly, slashing through the wall, and a portal appeared. "I don't plan to be long."
"Good luck," Kiss-shot said, waving one hand as she continued licking the other.
Dante simply nodded and jumped through the portal, which led him to Atlantis.
...
Outside the fortress, night had already fallen. A darkness enveloped the island, leaving places where even a trained eye could see nothing but darkness. But to Libra, those places were no clearer than if the sun itself were shining.
Thanks to her divine eye, inherited from an Egyptian god, she possessed great clairvoyance. However, lacking divine power, she couldn't use it to its full extent, but it allowed her to see all the island's riches without missing a thing.
But she wasn't overseeing the island. Instead, she was in a tent, watching several heroes from different cultures, eras, and backgrounds discuss what they should do next.
Inside were Jason, Bartholomew Roberts, Agamemnon, Leonidas, Hijikata Toshizō, and, of course, herself.
"Since we don't have to worry about food or rest, there's no problem bringing more Servants to the fortress. The more personnel we have, the better prepared we'll be when we attack the enemy Servants and force our way into Olympus," Jason insisted, trying to use his logic.
"But that doesn't solve the problem of those two, or the machine goddess orbiting around us and constantly targeting us," Toshizou argued, looking at the Argonaut.
"I still maintain that we have to attack them where they are and eliminate them," Agamemnon said firmly.
"Have you already forgotten where they're hiding?" Roberts asked incredulously, pointing to a specific location on the map. "In the Sanctuary of Astraea. We should be grateful she's remaining neutral, but if we attack where she lives, she'll most likely join the machine gods."
"Not to mention that both of them have the coordination and power to kill us; if we fight them, even if we eliminate them, it's very likely that only a few of us will survive," Leonidas's voice came through.
"That only means we need stronger warriors on our side," Agamemnon concluded, turning his gaze to Libra, who sat deep in thought. "You know where Achilles is, right?"
At his question, the only woman present opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on one of the heroes of the Iliad.
"I have an idea of where he might be, but that's not the point," she said, looking at Jason. "When we found him, he didn't want to join either me or Jason's group; currently, he wanders aimlessly through Atlantis; no one could convince him."
Jason could only stick out his tongue.
"If only Patroclus or Briseis or even Peleus were here, I could convince Achilles to join us," Jason complained.
"Peleus is dead, Patroclus never appeared, and I don't think Briseis will be summoned anytime soon," Leonidas said, looking at Libra. "How much time is left?"
"One hour. At that time, the goddess Artemis can attack again, and at that time, Odysseus, Chiron, and those other two can resume their siege of our fortress. So, it's best to end this meeting and prepare for the next skirmish."
As the Rebellion prepared for the enemy attack, a group of six Servants could be seen resting somewhere in the distance, waiting for daybreak to resume their journey to the fortress.
What none of them knew was that red eyes were watching them, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.