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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - WildbowFate/stay night & Related FandomsFate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (Anime 2014)
Characters:
Cú Chulainn | LancerTaylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOA
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2023-11-19Updated:2026-08-08Words:70,172Chapters:22/?Comments:390Kudos:1,408Bookmarks:566Hits:50,259
Hebert's Hound
TheCandyManCant
Chapter 16: 16
Chapter Text
Taylor stabbed forward with Cletiné. Lancer moved his head to the side, avoiding the strike as he closed the distance towards her. Taylor tried to get her guard up, but Lancer was too fast. Taylor grunted as Lancer's foot kicked into her reinforced stomach. Taylor flew several feet before hitting the ground and rolling back to her feet.
"Gotta be faster, master!" Lancer said, cheery.
Taylor scowled at him as she spun Cletiné into a ready position. "Chatty today, aren't you?" Spears appeared in the air around her, traced from her magecraft.
Lancer easily sidestepped the barrage of false spears, dancing between them. He caught the last one and crushed it in his fist, shattering it into motes of energy. "You sound upset. Is this about what happened at the rig, master? I thought we talked about this already."
"You made us look like complete idiots!" Taylor said angrily, stabbing forward with Cletiné, following up with a slash as Lancer dodged.
"On the contrary, I made us look capable and witty!"
"PHO thinks you're a complete joke, and they're calling me stupid by association!"
Lancer shook his head, a disapproving frown on his face. "You really shouldn't let the opinions of strangers affect your perception of yourself, master. Heads up!"
Taylor's eyes widened as Lancer raised his hands out at his sides. Runes flashed into the air, scattering into balls of fire that launched towards her.
Taylor leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding the first attack. She released Cletiné into the air, letting it spin and dance in front of her to scatter the second fireball.
"Was Mouse Protector too fast for you to hurl fire at her, or am I just special?" Taylor asked angrily.
"I most assuredly could have used fire against the noble mouseketeer, but such was not milady's challenge."
"Don't even start with the stupid old-timey english speak! I never want to hear that again."
"But, master, it was so much fun! All these heroes take themselves way too seriously. Mouse Protector was a breath of fresh air. You should dodge."
Taylor yelped as the ground beneath her splintered. A large vine rose from the ground, lashing towards her. Taylor hastily traced a spear to bat the vine away as she fled from several others that rose around her. Cletiné spun through the air around her, protecting her from the ones she missed.
Taylor grunted as one of the vines landed a lucky hit on her shoulder. "You've been mentioning Mouse Protector a lot since you fought her. Here I thought all the courtship BS was just hot air."
"You brought her up, master," Lancer said with a raised eyebrow. "As for your insinuation, we just met. As I said, I found her company enjoyable, and she can certainly handle herself in a fight. If our relationship progresses further it will do so with time, not because the denizens of the internet drew a bunch of tasteless pictures of the two of us with woefully inaccurate bodily proportions. Incoming."
Taylor sucked in a surprised breath as Lancer reared his arm back, launching Gae Bolg towards her. Taylor traced a spear at her side, shooting it forward to pull her out of the spear's path as Cletiné intercepted Gae Bolg and knocked it away in the other direction. Lancer raised his arm and Gae Bolg zipped back into his waiting hand, summoned by the rune on his forearm.
"We never got a chance to talk about my observations from your fight with the nazis." Lancer said happily. "Problem the first! It seems I've done you a disservice, master. You've spent so much time sparring with me that you're too used to fighting in close quarters. When you couldn't get close to Rune, you floundered as you tried to think of a way to attack her. Don't beat yourself up about it though. That's the fault of my poor teaching. I should have put a stronger emphasis on engaging targets at range, so we're doing that now. Incoming!"
Taylor rolled backwards to avoid more fireballs launched from Lancer's runes, flying as fast as cars. Cletiné blocked several of them, but Taylor was forced to dodge the rest. Each fireball exploded as it impacted the ground. One detonated at Taylor's feet before she could dodge, blasting her back through the air. Her reinforcement protected her from any serious damage, but it still hurt really bad.
"Come on, master! Fire back! You're not going to beat me by running around." Lancer said.
Taylor let out a frustrated shout as she picked herself up. Spears traced into the air around her, each of them firing towards Lacner.
Lancer sighed, lifting his toes and gently tapping the ground. The floor of the warehouse erupted as thick, twisting roots rose from the ground to intercept Taylor's spears. They ineffectually impacted the roots and scattered into nothing.
"That's problem the second!" Lancer called. "I am seriously impressed with how good you've become with tracing spears, but it's becoming a crutch, master. When the spears didn't work against Rune, you just tried more spears. You didn't stop to think about trapping her with a rune or firing back at her with runes. Again, this is mostly my fault. I'm a lousy mentor and I want you to be the best spearman alive in the modern day, capable of beating even some legends from before. You're getting close to that arbitrary goal I set for you, but we really need to shore up your weaknesses. Like how you insist on using spears made of paper mache when you could light stuff on fire."
"But I've only used runes to attack with Cletiné!" Taylor yelled, frustrated.
Lancer scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "That's also my fault. I got so excited with how you were progressing that I focused all of our attention on it. That was a disservice to you. You have a magic core, master. It's time we really started using it. Now come on! You can see the runes I'm using to cast these spells at you. Hurl one back at me!" Lancer waved his hand through the air. A slew of runes painted the air in front of him before scattering into even more fireballs.
Taylor dove to the side, narrowly avoiding more explosions. Cletiné zipped through the air in front of her to intercept another two fireballs.
"This is problem the third, master!" Lancer called. "When Rune started hurling projectiles at you, you just kept running away and you relied too much on Cletiné to protect you. Cletiné is a great Noble Phantasm, but it can't save you from everything. It's not even supposed to be defensive. You get bonus points for using it in creative ways, but you need to try something different. Throw up some shields, master! You've got plenty of mana."
More fireballs roared through the air towards her. Taylor grit her teeth. She planted her feet and raised her hands. A circular shield of runes appeared in front of her hand. Two fireballs detonated against it, shattering her shield. Taylor was blown backwards with a pained yell.
"Better!" Lancer called. "Put more mana into it next time. You have a magic core, master. Use it!"
More fireballs. Taylor roared in frustration, thrusting both hands forward to erect another shield, pouring far more energy into this one. The shield grew to encompass half of the warehouse. When Lancer's fireballs struck it, the shield barely wavered. Taylor looked up at her shield in confusion. It didn't even feel that taxing for her to maintain this, but it was no-selling Lancer's fireballs that were doing a good job of blowing apart the floor of the warehouse.
"That's more like it!" Lancer called, clapping his hands. The shield of roots around him slowly retracted into the ground as he walked towards her. "That's enough for now. We know what we need to work on, so we'll take a break before we get on with it."
Taylor let her shield fall, sighing tiredly. She crouched down and fell backwards, laying on the ground with her arms out at her sides. She smiled, content, as she closed her eyes. She scowled as she felt something poking her in the side. Half-opening one eye, she saw Lancer sitting cross-legged on the ground next to her, jabbing her with the butt of his spear. It was pokey.
"You can rest later, master. Don't you want to do really cool ranged runecraft training so you can hurl fireballs at irritating flying nazis when the Protectorate inevitably fails to keep Rune in a cage and she comes after you for revenge?"
Taylor let Lancer's not-so-subtle dig at the Protectorate slide. He'd made his stance on the competence of that organization clear. There was no use getting into another argument over it. Plus, tired as she was, Taylor did want to do really cool ranged runecraft training so she could burn Rune's stupid robe when they fought next. Let's see that nazi be all high and mighty when Taylor used actual runes to beat her poser bullshit.
Taylor let out a tired breath, then snapped upright into a sitting position. "Let's get started."
X
It was Saturday. A full week had passed since Taylor got a tour of the rig and met many of the city's heroes. She was still a little sore with Lancer for telling her not to use the power testing facilities, but she understood his concerns about details of her powers leaking, even if he was being paranoid.
As Taylor was getting dressed in her costume at the warehouse, preparing to go out as the hero Cletiné once again, her phone rang.
Taylor was perplexed, staring at the small hunk of plastic and wires as it let out a rhythmic beeping tune.
'Are you going to get that, master?' Lancer asked in her mind. He was astralized right now as he always was when she patrolled. He didn't accompany her physically, but he made sure she was never alone in case something happened. Taylor never said it, but she appreciated it. He cared about her. It had been a long time since someone worried about her like that. Even dad barely wondered about her anymore. She disappeared every night and every weekend to 'see her friends' and he barely acknowledged that she was leaving. It hurt.
Taylor shook her head, banishing the painful line of thought as she answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey, Cletiné! It's Vicky! You know, Glory Girl?" a chipper voice replied.
"Yes, I know. Hello, Glory Girl. Wait, how'd you get my number?" Taylor hadn't told anyone her number.
"I sent myself a text when I had your phone on the roof."
"You had it for five seconds. How did you do that while also programming the phone numbers into it?"
"Because I'm amazing." She sounded very pleased with herself. "Listen, I know you've been patrolling most weekends for a while now. I was going to go out today too. Do you want to patrol together?"
Taylor pursed her lips as she considered the proposition. Last week, Taylor was in a rough spot with Rune. Maybe she could have beat the nazi alone, but Glory Girl showing up took all of the risk out of it. That was a good thing. She was an experienced hero with a strong power. Having her as an ally would be great. It was just…
After the fight, Taylor hadn't enjoyed the way Glory Girl acted. There were three downed villains around them. A chunk of concrete had just crushed a car. Glory Girl acted like all of it was no big deal. She was flippant, typing away on her phone rather than taking things seriously. She'd stolen Taylor's phone without permission like the trio definitely would have tried to several months ago before they slowly lost interest in their campaign. With all of the bad luck they experienced courtesy of Lancer, Sophia and Madison had finally managed to convince Emma to let things go. Emma still snapped at her from time to time, but Taylor couldn't care less at this point.
The point was, Vicky reminded Taylor a little of Emma. She was too outgoing, too sure she was going to get her way. She didn't take things seriously. But maybe all of that was just a bad first impression. Taylor had only really talked to her for a total of maybe twenty minutes. Glory Girl went to the rig with her, but Taylor spent most of her time asking Armsmaster about what being a hero was like. She wasn't overly impressed with his monotone, monosyllabic responses. Maybe Assault would have been a better tour guide.
"Okay," Taylor said, making her decision. It was possible she just hadn't spent enough time around Glory Girl to really get to know her. She'd give her a chance. If she did turn out to be Emma 2.0, Taylor would maintain a professional distance. They'd work together as heroes, but nothing more than that.
"Awesome!" Glory Girl cheered through the phone. "I'll meet you at the PRT HQ. Gallant and Aegis are going to come with us. I'll see you there!"
"Wai–" The line went dead before Taylor could say anything else.
Taylor frowned unhappily down at her phone. Glory Girl didn't tell her there would be two Wards there with them. She wasn't against the idea of patrolling with the Wards, it would be nice to meet more heroes, but she would have appreciated a heads up before she'd agreed.
Taylor sighed. "I guess I'm patrolling with the Wards."
'Don't look so down, master. I'm sure it'll be great!'
Taylor smiled. Lancer was right. She was probably making a mountain out of a molehill. It wouldn't be that bad.
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