Notes:
Content warning for Reid being the worst.
***
The shockwave when Reid launches himself into the oncoming army of wyverns nearly knocks me off of my feet. Three swipes of his blade, quick as lightning and gleaming as bright, wipe out the first five of the dragons with ease. Then, as gravity finally starts to take hold, he anchors his sword firmly in the gut of a wyvern, hanging from the creature as it tries to keep itself aloft.
Using only the absurd strength of his right arm, the Stick Swinger catapults himself further into the air. For a brief instant, I see his sandaled feet make contact with the head of one of the still-living beasts, finding him a foothold amidst the swarm of leather-winged serpents.
And from there, his dance begins.
From dragon to dragon, the First Sword Saint jumps. Sword outstretched, a crimson ribbon trailing in his wake. He cleaves and butchers and maims, tearing through scales, claws, and teeth, as if they were all rice paper. Blood rains from the sky, along with entrails and organs, showering the flames of the forest-fire below with enough liquid to quench the flames.
It's absurd. It's patently ridiculous. There had to be a more optimal way to fight them. Something like this, where he bounces off their heads to gain altitude like a certain red plumber, is completely beyond the pale. This whole scenario feels more like something from an action schlock movie than something from real life.
"...Amazing! Senpai, who is this amazing person? He's fighting that whole army alone like it's nothing!" Mash exclaims.
"...Goddamn showoff." I mutter, rolling my eyes as I walk to where Mordred is sitting in order to apply much-needed healing magic to her leg. "Don't praise him for something stupid like this. Reid's got a trick that extends his sword's range anyway. He's probably just decided on a whim to give himself some extra challenge like 'kill every wyvern without touching the ground'. Honestly, this guy…"
The communicator on my wrist beeps, translucent blue hologram springing to life as the sleep-deprived face of Director Olga Marie Animusphere takes shape. She heaves a sigh that breaks off into a small fit of coughing, before continuing in a raspy voice. "S-so he's a friend of yours Natsuki? That's… a relief. There was a bit of panic on our end when we heard his class, but since the alien planet you visited seems like it was Earth-like for the most part we can probably push it aside for now."
"Oh, you're up already, Director?" I say with a smile.
"I wasn't sleeping! I wasn't sleeping! D-don't make fun of me, you bastard! I'll dock your pay! I'm the Director of Chaldea, so treat me with respect!" She screeches, sounding almost as if her voice box is tearing.
"Well, it's not like I joined for the money in the first place…" I mutter scratching my head. "Still, to answer your question… yeah, he's from the Other World, but I wouldn't say he's a friend or anything. Heck, if he thinks he can get away with it, he might kill me for… being ugly, or something? I can't remember the exact excuse."
Exact terms aside, I still don't know whether the reason he was disgusted enough to kill me was something to do with my innate nature, or if it was about the nonsense Louis was pulling at the time. Deep down, I want to believe it was the latter, but…
"Ugh, so not only do you summon a damn [Foreigner], but it's also one you have a bad history with!? Idiot! I figured out our broadcast wasn't reaching you, but you ought to have known even without me telling you that you shouldn't have thrown in those sketchy lines near the end of the summoning chant!" She groans.
"...That's confirmation, then. Since command didn't tell me to stop, I assumed it was an Astromancy thing. But if you say you were telling me to stop, and it was just that I couldn't hear you…" I turn to Prelati with a sigh. "I think I'm getting the hang of how you work, so let's hear your strangely reasonable excuse for this."
"Haha! You know, a proper Mage would have killed me by this point. You're a Hero to your core, huh? Well, it's not like I dislike that. In fact, I like that quite a bit! That's right, that's right, stay a Hero. I love Heroes the most." He winks at me, ever-present smile growing a bit disconcerting.
"That's nice and all, but it's not the requested reasonable explanation. I'll punch you, you damn brat." I deadpan.
"Right, right… Well, my thought process went something like:" He holds up a finger, acting as if he's about to give a serious lecture - and then, suddenly the Alchemist throws his arms wide with a laugh. "Wouldn't it be fuuuun?~"
My fist lands on the top of his head.
"Ow! Okay, okay, there's a reasonable explanation!" He says. "Look, getting a bunch of legendary heroes to fight against human history is really hard - they're heroes, after all. So our enemy altered their spirit origins and slapped Madness Enhancement onto the lot of them. Make them crazy, make them strong, make them destroy the word. With me so far?"
"...Sure." I sigh.
"Well! You may not be aware of this, but thanks to the writings of a certain coward," he spits with a brief scowl that soon returns to his usual manic grin, "-a lot of Foreigners have been given domain over Madness. So I figured, if we can count on the Planet to give us someone aligned with our goal saving humanity, then why not tweak the ritual and force the summoning of a Foreigner to gain a conceptual advantage over our enemy?"
"Ugh, it's not like I can fault his reasoning…" Olga says. "Poor communication aside, rigging the system like that is a pretty clever move… Except, how did you know a Foreigner would appear? As far as I know, this is the first confirmation that they even have Spirit Origins, let alone summoning them from the Throne of Heroes."
"Hm? Well, I didn't know if a true Foreigner-class Servant would show up, but as for aliens being spiritual entities, that's-"
He's interrupted as Reid lands, knees bent, a few feet away.
"There. How's that, you? Didn't even touch the ground once." He says.
I sigh. "I was thinking you were going to do something cool since you had actually drawn your sword this time, but in the end you just goofed around like always. I guess it'd be hard to use an impaled dragon as a handhold if you were using chopsticks, but…"
"Huh? Course I could do it, you. I can do anything. Just didn't want to, see? Cuttin' fools down with chopsticks is one thing, but stabbin' stuff with em… that's for little kids, you. 'S bad manners, stabbin' with chopsticks." He explains in his usual condescending manner. "In any case… Hey, you. Hottie with the shield, I'm talkin' to ya."
"E-eh!?" Mash says, blushing and pointing to herself. "U-um, are you talking-?"
"Course I'm talkin' to ya, you. Who the hell else would I be talkin' to, you?" Reid rolls his eyes. "Get over here so I can touch your tits, you. Got a good five minutes til' that big one gets here, so hurry up."
"Eh." Mash does her best impression of a deer in the headlights of a car. "Um, did you just say-?"
"Said I wanna touch your boobs, you. Come here so I can do it."
"Oi, leave her alone, bastard!" Mordred calls out from her seat leaning against the boulder in the clearing's center. "Who the hell taught you to talk to girls?"
"Huh? I'll get to you later, you. Just wait your turn, armor girl." He says.
"Who the hell are you calling a girl!?" she protests.
"What, want me to make you a-?" He begins to say yet another unforgivably crude line, only to get interrupted.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅--!"
With a fierce roar, the remaining burned-out trees on the north side of the clearing are uprooted and sent scattering around from the sheer force of the dragon's arrival. I barely dive to the ground in time to avoid having my head smashed off.
The Evil Dragon Fafnir smashes into the ground like a meteor, the green symbol on its chest burning like an alien star. Dirt and stone sprays through the air, and the hurricane conjured from its impact tears at my skin.
Blue flame smolders in his jaws, and then pours forth with such speed and force that it more closely resembles a laser beam than a jet of flame. And as the fire shoots from his jaws-!
"The hell's that supposed to be, you?"
Reid's blade flashes in a bright arc, blue glinting off his steel. An impossible strike, so perfect that I feel as though my sense of sight will be cleft from my brain. A blow that cleaves space and time, creating a black void in its wake that swallows up Fafnir's fire breath as if it never existed.
"What's with that, you?" Reid scoffs, approaching the Dragon. "Makin' fun of me, you? Don't wear costumes on the battlefield, you."
A claw falls on him like the hammer of a god, and his blade crashes against it, like an impossible bladed anvil.
"Uh, mister Stick Swinger! His scales make him pretty much invincible, so-!" Prelati starts to advise.
"Huh!? This crap, some kind of invincible armor? What, you stupid as well as ugly, you?" He scowls in response as his blade wipes another gout of flame from existence. "Just gotta cut the armor off, dumbass. In other words..."
He grins, tearing the eyepatch from his eye.
"Take that stupid thing off, you."
His sword slides effortlessly through Fafnir, and the Evil Dragon shatters.
***
Fafnir melts - scales, flesh and bone, sliding off, transforming into gold coins and gemstones.
The Evil Dragon disintegrates into a hill of treasure, and at the peak of that mountain of gold, a short, fat, balding man with a beard stands stark naked, in total shock.
"He severed the curse!?" Prelati exclaims. "That's…!"
That's right. It was mentioned before. The Evil Dragon Fafnir had once been a normal Dwarf, whose phenomenal greed had transformed his body into that of a dragon. But for Reid, who was able to sever the connection of my Cor Leonis back in the Watchtower, something like that must have been easy pickings, huh?
"The hell's this, you? Wearing money as armor, is that some kind of stupid metaphor, you?" Reid says with a laugh, picking up a handful of coins and letting them pour out of his fingers.
"You… don't touch.. my goooold!" The Dwarf howls, coins flying to his limbs, becoming scales and muscle once more. He scrambles towards Reid, fire pouring from his jaws, and-!
A splatter of red dye covers the pile of coins.
"That's just gross, you. Put some damn clothes on before running at a guy, you. You'll make people twitchy otherwise, you." Reid mutters to the corpse.
Slowly, as the wind blows, corpse and gold alike slowly dissolve into blackish-purple powder.
"Eh? The money disappeared too?" Mordred mutters. "What happened to 'you can't take it with you', huh?"
I chuckle. "Well, with the big threat out of the way-"
"Nah, that ain't it, you. The big one… just got here, young fish." Reid mutters.
"What do you-?" I start.
"This reading-!" Olga yells. "Enemy Servant, two kilometers out!"
Red and black bolts of light - no, arrows! - tear through what's left of the northern treeline, and once more I find myself thrown by Mordred so I can land and take cover behind Mash's shield.
Light as though hundreds of stars are being born fills the clearing as the Stick Swinger's weapon clashes with the onslaught of projectiles. At some point, reid starts laughing like a maniac.
"What's this! What's this, what's this, what's this! Who the hell is this guy!? Gettin' fired up here, you! Better be as good with a blade as you are with a bow, you! Hurry up and run out of arrows so we can fight like men, you!"
The arrows suddenly stop.
In the distance, I hear a faint response, a cry of pure agonized rage.
"Aaaarrrhhhhhh!" increasing in volume. Growing closer, and closer, until-!
A hole in space breaches the smoke and flames surrounding us. A hole in space, in the vague shape of a human form. A slanted red line glowing where his eyes should be, barely visible through the black fog pouring from his form. And gripped in each hand, covered in a spiderweb of glowing red lines-!
"Are those cannons!?" I shriek.
"Aaaahhhhhhh!!!" Roars the monster that I can only assume to be a Berserker, and hell takes shape in what remains of the once-tranquil forest clearing.