[I didn't want to write Jeanne's response until Artoria responds, which isn't going to happen in the time where I can write a long response afterwards. I'm bolding stuff I consider important, which isn't much tbh, I guess just the stuff that could somehow affect you guys. Here's ???'s POV of her and Ruler's conversation and the stuff that went on afterwards.]
So he calls himself Cagli-uhhh… Cagi-? Cabinappa? Hearing the confusion in my thoughts my Liz, who is adorably standing behind my shoulder, tells me to have him repeat it. "Could you repeat that for us? Mr… Cabin?"
"Not even close. As I said before, my name is Cagliostro." (C)
"Got it, Cagliotso!" I reply with confidence. Afterwards my Liz says marker to me telepathically, so I add on, "my Liz was wondering if she could borrow a marker Mr Caglitotoro."
Caglimomo sighs turning towards my Liz and says "Good choice." Then seemingly out of nowhere he produces a brand-less permanent marker and passes it to my Liz. She then telepathically says to me hand, so I show her my hand and she starts writing a word on it.
"It says Ca-gli-o-stro?" Before I can ask why she wrote that, my Liz says in my head Name. Italy. "Oh, so that's his name?! Huh, what have I been saying until now?" I look away from the writing and try to repeat it to myself Cagliostro. Caglimokona. Caglioplue. Cagliotaromaru. Cagligekota. Cagliosonic. Caglikyubey. Caglicerberus. Caglitetsuya#2. Cagliohawk. Wait a minute… that last one didn't sound right! As I realize I made a single mistake on my last repetition of the name, I get frustrated, and declare, "Italian names are hard!" In my mind my Liz tells me, no you're just crazy.
Before I can think of a rebuttal for my Liz, Cagli tells us, holding up his right arm covered in command seals "As you could probably guess, in the last war I was the Ruler class. You can call me Ruler for now, but at least try to remember my name before Jeanne returns. Follow me." The two of us feel a bit skeptical of his explanation, but follow him nonetheless.
We walk to his colosseum, on the inside rests a large TV connected through wires to dozens of mysterious objects [read- game consoles], many of which look like misshapen boxes. I don't know what it could be, so I begin extending my hairs, the smallest barely perceptible ones moving towards the boxes to destroy them, and I protectively step in front of my Liz. Ruler moves and in a moment is holding the threads of hair that I'd sent towards the boxes. I'm shocked, but meanwhile my Liz has walked around me and is looking around in awe. In my mind she says They're games. They're harmless. Impressive set-up. Compliment. "So… these are games? Liz says she finds your set up impressive, you… have our compliments." I nod my head with supportive confidence.
"Thank you, but that's not what I brought you here for," Ruler turns around, and the screens turn on showing images of various events with incredible detail. "This is Neverland Overdrive. Though it may not be its original purpose, I'm able to display events from both the past and present here, with a function I call SNITV. For instance, this is my birth." All but one of the screens move back behind the center one. On the screen appears the Empire State Building, a bright light appears followed by a boy whose command seal covered arm holds a book.
He takes a moment to get his bearings, then we seem to skip forward a little where he looks down. We can see a large man wreaking havoc on the street with a man laughing maniacally behind him, they must be a servant and master, they seem like fun people. The boy sighs, writes in his book, and the servant begins glowing. He then leaps down from atop the building while the nearby people are still blinded, the servant grabs a knife from a nearby store, upon charging it with magic it slits its own throats and begins stabbing itself all over its body. By the time the master could see again his servant was dead, having brutalized itself, on the floor. The boy took the knife from the corpse and immediately severed the confused screaming master's arm, I can't help but compliment his tastes in my head, then he stabbed through the man's throat, cutting through his spine. Badass!
As the video displays the boy returning up the building, Ruler says "It only took 10 minutes before I was forced to deal with a servant breaking the rules."
"You looked… smaller" (?)
"I had a slight growth spurt." As Ruler replies the screen shows him glowing in front of a shocked man holding a spear, when it stops he's taller, older, and more muscular. Liz telepathically calls that Lancer The winner. I wonder if that would happen if I started magically glowing? I telepathically ask Liz, Liz, can you make me glow? I might get older too! Liz shakes her head to me. "I'm sure the two of you have also been wondering how I stuck around after the war." I start shaking my head no, but when I realize my Liz is nodding vigorously and repeating yes in my mind, I quickly change my answer.
The screen displays Ruler again, this time he seems panicked, but he's holding two books this time. He first writes in one, then he begins glowing with both books, and the second book changes greatly. "That's Preylati's spell book, my infinite source of magic. It allows me to maintain both my existence and this world's existence eternally, and was necessary to defeat the Saver of my war. He was a man who I panicked and killed due to unfortunate circumstances. I believe you've seen him briefly." He must be talking about Oldie!
"Anyways, I'll show you who killed you now." I cover my Liz's eyes. On the screen appeared 'Lancer'. A feeling of dread rushes over me as I imagine him killing my Liz, but I hold back my trembling. After destroying the Birdhouse he jumped to the roof of a building, transforming. "That's Kirioth, aka 'Beast'." I shudder He was a beast? Aren't those guys super duper dangerous? Helping him probably wouldn't be good for the health of this world's arms, good job past me.
"Scary… I made the right choice though." (?)
"You most certainly did, after all…" the image on the screen displays Ruler killing Beast. It was easy. Even after Beast took his true form. He literally looked like he had more trouble with the cooking process afterwards. When he started butchering Beast, I uncovered my Liz's eyes. As I'd expected, watching her murderer mutilated, butchered, cooked and eaten alive was soothing for her. If only there had been a bit more screaming though…
Telepathically my Liz said to me Is that clone? Was tasty? So I asked Ruler, "how did he taste? We're both curious. I've never tried eating someone I killed, and my Liz has never tried cannibalism. Or would we have to ask that… clone?"
"Sensory, actually. And that's not exactly cannibalism, he was more Beast than human after all. Anyways, he tasted quite good, though that was partially because I chose seasonings that go well with beast meat, and partially because his meat was quite high quality. Don't expect just anyone or anything you kill to taste good." A bit of a disappointing answer, my Liz looks disheartened as well.
"Then I guess we won't try eating someone when we go back. Unless you're willing to teach us how to tell if someone's got quality meat. And the proper method of seasoning, of course." I'm quite hopeful as I suggest this, though Liz is a little panicked calling out in my head Wait! Question! too far! Not good! Stop! Bad!
"How about no." I feel dejected after hearing his response. Alright, but my opinion of him, which had skyrocketed after watching him beat and eat Beast, dropped a little.
"Now onto the next of your questions, you can watch the war from here." The screen changes to Jeanne drenched in blood as she moves a corpse. I gasp as my hand goes to my mouth, so pretty! Jeanne definitely looks good in blood red, my Liz looks a bit jealous but can't help agreeing. Luckily she hasn't realized where we're viewing yet. In Ruler's Hand a remote is created, "use this to control it, there are buttons for each servant and master, although we already have a screen set up per for each, as well as one showing a map of their locations." 15 more screens appear, excluding the map, each one shows a different servant or master.
For the servants there's Jeanne, Saber taking care of Helena in her butler clothes, Caster escorting a bunch of church people somewhere and surprisingly not fanboying over Jeanne, a cool guy talking on the phone and speeding in a nice car as police fail to chase him down (I saw him earlier on my way home, I think he's Rider), a friendly seeming silent man feeding penguins human flesh [Berserker], a tired looking man talking about how he'd kill his master if it weren't for the command seals [Archer], an old man walking around and an old lady with faded command seals [Old Lancer], and Oldie. For the masters there's Helena teasing Saber, a girl I don't recognize talking to an eccentric looking man who's trying to force her to take a break [Rani], a sentient asshole that took over its owner's body and is now hitting on women [notShinji], a boring looking old man pulling a crying boy away from a fun penguin that bit his hand off [John], a sleeping girl who is either being escorted by or kidnapped by Caster [Chloe], a timid young woman on the phone with someone asking them to break fewer traffic laws [Caroline], and the old lady with the faded command seals [MissMoreTsundereThanOwari].
That's odd "Where's Lancer?"
Ruler zooms the image of the old man into one of the penguins' stomach, giving a tutorial in the process, "these are the motions used to zoom in or move the screen around. And here's Lancer and his master." In the penguins' stomachs are various bones and the pieces of a spear, a broadsword, and a gate. "It was a one-sided slaughter, even against a servant using three Noble Phantasms, and four currids." Ruler shakes his head in disappointment. I click a button on the remote that says 'INFO'
[I just threw this in for sh!ts and giggles, it should have no bearing on the game.] Information on the penguins shows up Name: Blessed Penguins; Classification: Divine Beast; Description: Penguins revived and blessed by numerous gods, each one possesses power on par with a powerful servant. Possessing an incredible growth rate, each of their parameters and abilities will match the highest stat of the strongest being or weapon they've eaten, they gain the abilities of any being or weapon they've eaten. WARNING: do not provoke under any circumstances.; Abilities: Skill and Parameter Upgrading (EX), Grow Up Grow (EX), Melt Virus (EX), Affections of the Goddess (EX, not Orion's), Animal Dialogue (EX), Human Dialogue (EX), At the Boundary (EX), Aptitude for Slaughter (body, EX), Battle Continuation (EX), Imperial Privelege (EX), Primordial Runes (EX), Advanced Academic Magical Knowledge (EX), Summoning (EX), Knowledge of Magical Traps (EX), Servant Physiology (EX), Magic Circuits of the Grail (Temporary, EX), Blessings of the Goddess (EX), Magic Resistance (EX), Discerning Eyes (EX), Divinity (only A+ cause anything higher isn't possible without being a literal god it seems), Divine Protection (EX), Double Class (EX, but still does nothing), Familiar Creation (EX), High-Speed Incantation (EX), Human Anatomy Understanding (EX), Charisma (EX, Healing Negation (EX), Healing Magic (EX), Illusionism (EX), Infinite Magical Energy Supply (EX), Magecraft (EX), Monstrous Strength (EX), Natural Monster (EX), Protection from Andraste (EX), Self-Modification (EX), Strategy (EX), Flight (EX), Speed buff, All Parameters Ranked EX, Telepathic Communication (EX), Sense Sharing (EX), The abilities of "Azrael, Magna Voluisse Magnum, and Gate of Skye assimilated into their bodies and ranked up to EX, Making Blah Question his Sanity (EX), Bathtub Flip (EX).
[Everyone's going to the zoo to fight, so don't provoke the penguins or you'll all be massacred and four penguins will win the holy grail war. Also these are all the skills Fab's group and random people at the zoo had in any way shape or form, the abilities my description of the penguins and their achievements so far would naturally give, and the abilities of a pair of Blahster's flight shoes, but all ranked up to EX by the penguins' ability. Why did I do this? For no reason. At all.]
"Who's Blah?" I ask.
"He was the last war's Caster, I still can't figure out what he has to do with penguins." Even Ruler is stumped, this must be a tough one. "That's besides the point though, I see you found the info button, as you can see there are also rewind, fast forward, pause, and play buttons. They let you look at past events, move back towards the present, stop at a specific moment or play the feed from the current position, just like on any other TV."
My Liz says something to me, so I tell Ruler, "I don't think normal TVs let you see the past. Is your information on the modern day incomplete?"
He just chuckles a little and says, "there's an infinitely respawing supply of lizards in the basement." In a moment my Liz is sprinting towards the stairs. I reluctantly follow her.
Once my Liz reaches the basement she starts telepathically talking to the lizards to gain their trust. Right now she only has simple thoughts, and animals are only capable of simple thoughts, so they get along well. After she gains one of their trust, she sends it upstairs to tell us if anything big happens on the monitors, and then starts gaining a few more's trust. Soon all the nearby lizards are chatting peacefully with her, one crawls onto her hand. She lifts it up, then reaches her hand out as if to pet it, and stabs its front legs with her nails, digging in deeply then crushing its voice box, all while laughing maniacally into my mind. The other lizards can't see it and she's cupping her hand to stop blood spillage. She's clearly experienced in this. Next she pulls out a lighter and starts burning the lizard alive, most of the other lizards can't make the connection. Then she heals it, and repeats the process a few times. I can hear the lizard screaming in agony through my Liz's telepathy. We both feel incredibly relaxed.
After a while, she has me trap the lizards with my hair, and butcher the cooked lizard. She places the lizard's severed head on the floor, and the other lizards go into a panic, she then forcibly starts feeding a piece of the cooked lizard to another lizard. The lizard is put through unimaginable suffering first from the taste, then from eating the lizard. Apparently my Liz's cooked lizard is so terrible it causes pain comparable to being stabbed repeatedly, weak willed people would die from shock, stronger people will fall unconscious I'd beg to be euthanized, few can endure. It was actually used as a last resort torture device in the Birdhouse without her knowing when she was younger. As expected the lizard dies from the pain shortly. After my Liz cooks it, I try eating it. "Delicious!" After hearing my praise my Liz cries in happiness and starts cooking more.
My Liz told me before that she got her nickname when she was younger because Helena came across her talking to a lizard and called her Liz as a joke. Helena screamed and tried to take it back when she saw my Liz start torturing the Lizard, but she just said, "No! It's the nickname you gave me, I'm keeping it." Then she had Helena eat a fried Lizard, Helena was immediately on the ground crying and screaming, once she could make out words she just begged to be released from her suffering I the only way she could imagine how. My Liz carried her back to the Birdhouse, then proceeded to introduce herself as Liz wherever she went to Helena's dismay.
After I think back to that fun story, the lizard we'd sent up starts returning, so my Liz and I head back to watch the screens. Jeanne, Helena, Saber, the safe driving girl, and the workaholic girl are all changing to get into the bath. One of them must be Jeanne's master, the other Rider's, since he's nearby." Sadly Jeanne is washing off the blood on her, but something else catches my attention… Oldie stole the sword! Now our message won't go through. My Liz is too preoccupied with Helena and Jeanne, to notice. I don't point out the theft to my Liz, we can't change it, there's no point in doing anything. For some reason she and Oldie both have nosebleeds, though I don't understand why. We continue watching for a while, the girl that Jeanne says is her master has started measuring the other girls' sizes, they all seem exhausted. My Liz says in my head Helena's growth. Impressive!
We watch for a while more, they have a nice meal, but Jeanne is alerted to an upcoming battle. As they make preparations, I'm glad she'll have more people protecting her, but also jealous of those other servants. I walk away from the screen for a bit leaving my Liz to watch. I then call out to Ruler, when he arrives I ask "From the way you talked to Jeanne and how Oldie is still alive, is it right to assume that those who become your possession will be able to stay after the war? Even in the real world?"
"That's correct," he confirms my thoughts.
"Then would you be willing to make me your possession? I'd need to ask that you let me freely move in the regular world though. I need to be able to watch over my Liz after the war." I wonder how he'll respond.
[This took so long to write. Sorry it's so long. Also it's probably my last POV in this war. Whatever happens with ??? and Ruler might affect next war, (probably not though) if it takes more than three weeks to start (that's how long I'll be away for due to medical issues).]
[I kinda feel bad for doing this with someone else's character, but I'm gonna have to leave Jeanne to either Redgrave or Artoria'. If either of you both don't have strong motive to win I'll leave it to you, if not I'll just leave it to Red anyways. Oh, actually if Monarch's able to do this, that would be great, since I know that he has absolutely no motive to win at this point, though I don't know if he can. Whoever takes over, make sure you keep trying to stop battles and stuff, and if Edwelken asks about Jeanne's "plan" before Owari's back, try to just plot convenience yourself away, but try not to make it seem like Jeanne's trying to avoid him. I'll probably still be watching the war and a few other threads when I can, but might not post much and definitely won't write anything long. G'night, see ya.]