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The chat was, in Max's assessment, being somewhat naive.
Several thousand people across multiple merged streams had been following the Matou house situation with great anticipation, and the general consensus seemed to be that dramatic things were about to happen at a rapid pace.
Max was looking at a very old, very extensive archive of ritual documentation.
The dramatic things were going to take a while.
He said as much, then settled in to answer questions while Medea worked, because the alternative was staring at the ceiling while the temperature outside climbed another degree per hour.
[WantingBlood]: Why did Vritra yawn? It yawned and then just stopped. I wanted to see some destruction.
[Impatient]: Max, you've literally just been walking for the last segment. Exotic scenery is nice but there's been no action.
[Lore_Curious]: Wait this is the Matou family's house? Why are we here specifically?
[WantingBlood2]: Rivers. Of. Blood. Please.
Max noted the bloodlust with the mild resignation of a developer who had, in fact, built a game specifically designed to cater to this impulse, and answered the lore questions first.
The Q&A ran through several topics.
How had Marcus died at the very beginning of ranked mode? The answer: Hassan of Serenity. The Assassin of the Hundred Faces sub-variant whose entire body was saturated with lethal toxin — proximity was sufficient for exposure. Getting close without maxed poison resistance was a death sentence. Max had written her behavioral logic himself, and he was quietly proud of it.
How did you keep Lü Bu from betraying you? Two options. First: apply a Madness Enhancement incantation at the time of summoning, burning away enough sanity that the innate passive skill Rebellious Spirit couldn't properly activate. Second, and this was Max's personal solution: forfeit all three Command Seals from the start, and establish an immediate dynamic of complete deference. You're the master. I'm the dog. It was undignified and it worked.
Sexual orientations of various Servants? Pansexuality was well-represented, which the chat found both interesting and immediately applicable to their shipping preferences. Ashiya Douman received a universally poor evaluation. The phrasing "cunning zero" appeared in the chat so many times it might as well have been official terminology.
And the most complicated question — how many Artorias exist in total?
Max knew the answer for current content. He was less certain about future content, because game development had a way of producing unexpected decisions, and if someone down the line decided that the tenth anniversary warranted asset reuse — a classic fusion character, a starting pose that referenced the chicken feet stance — who was he to say that wouldn't happen.
He gave a conservative answer and moved on.
Maverick and Chen Ge were not having a peaceful waiting period.
The chat had identified this and was enjoying it.
[Encouragement]: GO MAVERICK. My absolute favorite Streamer. Show those doubters what you're made of!
[AlsoEncouragement]: CHEN GE, you cannot be a big streamer without COURAGE. Show your spirit! Don't let Maverick beat you!
The encouragement was, in both cases, directed at making the two of them do something inadvisable. This was standard chat behavior and both streamers knew it.
The backstory, for those who'd missed it:
After Vritra's dragon breath had scattered the six-person group in all directions, Max and Medea had peeled off to handle their irregular operations. Maverick's trio — himself, Chen Ge, and Astolfo — had lost contact with Lily in the chaos.
"She'll be fine," Chen Ge had said, with the confidence of someone who'd watched Lily handle herself in a fight. "Her instincts are better than ours. She'll find us."
Maverick had wanted to use a Command Seal to recall her. Chen Ge had talked him out of it. The logic was sound — Servants had magical perception, Lily would locate them eventually — and Maverick had reluctantly agreed.
Which left the question of what to do in the meantime.
Chen Ge, who approached problems with the systematic energy of someone who had actually done his homework, had a proposal: find the other Masters still active in Fuyuki and consolidate. More firepower against Vritra, fewer flanks to watch for ambushes. Mutual benefit.
Maverick had agreed immediately.
Astolfo had contributed by announcing that Wuai had memorized the scent of the people they'd met earlier and could find them.
Wuai, who had not agreed to this, said nothing.
And so, after some coaxing and a seating arrangement that Chen Ge had engineered in a way that could only be described as deliberate, the three of them were back in the air over Fuyuki.
The seating arrangement, specifically: Astolfo in the middle. Maverick in front.
As the altitude increased and the second sun's heat pressed down from above, Maverick became aware of something warm and insistent at his back.
[ChenGeTriumphs]: Chen Ge moves in three dimensions.
[MaverickFace]: Maverick's expression RIGHT NOW.
[AstolfoInnocent]: Astolfo doesn't even know what he's doing. He just likes people. This is pure chaos with no malice.
[WuaiComment]:Wuai.(I am a hippogriff. I was born in impossible circumstances. I did not deserve this seating arrangement.)
[ChaosMath]: "When three men gather, a mastermind appears." Chen Ge is the mastermind. Chen Ge has always been the mastermind.
After significant rearrangement and a lengthy silence during which nobody looked at anyone else, equilibrium was restored. Maverick had stopped smiling. Chen Ge had started. The sky over Fuyuki was still wrong, the second sun still burning, the harbor still occupied.
Wuai flew on with the resignation of someone who had long since accepted his lot.
Then Astolfo said: "Oh! I just remembered I have a Noble Phantasm for situations like this!"
This was the part where things went sideways.
Because before Maverick or Chen Ge could ask what Noble Phantasm, what situations, or any of the other reasonable follow-up questions, Astolfo had already done it.
The horn at his waist — which had seemed decorative up until this moment — activated.
Maverick experienced the sensation of no longer being on a hippogriff.
He experienced this sensation for several seconds.
Wuai caught him.
Maverick lay on the hippogriff's back and stared at the sky and did not speak.
[MaverickState]: His soul left. You can see it leaving in real time.
[HeartRate]: I don't know if Maverick's hit 200 but mine is close.
[PerspectiveWarning]: I'm never watching a first-person stream again. That was too real.
[WuaiDeserves]: Wuai deserves a vacation. A long one. Paid.
"I'm so sorry," Astolfo said, with complete sincerity. "I completely forgot there was someone sitting in front of me."
"..." said Maverick.
"I'm going to change my pants," said a viewer.
"Same," said several hundred others.
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