Dark Side of the Moon

Forest heard Henry pick up and answered, "Yeah, it's Forest.  I've got an issue.  A really nasty issue and someone with an actual medical degree would be bloody useful."

******

"You have a sister?" Lancer asked, blinking slowly.  He sighed and said, "His loss then.  However, you don't seem overly happy."

Forest winched as Karna drug Lucas by the head.  She pulled an elastic band from her pocket and used it to tie her hair back, securing it in a sloppy yet serviceable bun.  "Karna, dragging him by the head isn't really . . . Never mind."

She opened the door to the infirmary, eyed Lucas, and said, "I really have no idea how his regeneration works, of if he can even take any anesthesia."

Gabriel said, "I'll get an apple."

"Good idea, he was going on about them," she said as Gabe vanished into the shadows.

******

Lancer smiled and said, "Its not the first pass towards me that I wasn't interested in.  I was just happy to see you, Lass, even though it was odd to see you without your would-be hero.  I have a feeling that things happened differently in your War than in mine."

Gabriel shrugged and replied, "I am what I am.  I do not try to deny and hide my nature.  To thine own self be true.  So if that makes me a passive-aggressive bastard, then that is what I am."

Then he turned back to Archer, who was making a good attempt at calming his godmother down.

******

"At this point he wouldn't even feel it.  His nerves might have shut down due to all that injury," Forest said with a shake of her head.  "Why the hell would he come here though?  He was being a giant git when I met him."

"As for your new guest, Forest, do you want him removed from this place?" asked Karna.

Forest bit her lip and said, "I'm wondering why the bloody hell he's even here."

"Hell, I'm not sure he's even breathing."

Gabriel cleared his throat and said, "Maybe he needed protection from whatever beat him into an inch of his supernatural life.  It's not a secret that Law Unto Herself offers aid to those who need it.  Even if they have complete disregard to prized personal possessions."

Forest leaned forward, not moving too far away from Archer because he was still holding her by the wrist.  His grip wasn't as tight as it had been when he stopped the punch, but she wasn't going to shake away something putting warmth in that chill that never seemed to go away.  She peered at Lucas and said, "Well, he's just mostly dead . . . I wonder if he and that Wynn-like bitch got into it again."

"Someone like Mommy Dearest, my stomach churns at the very thought," Gabriel said with a long-suffering sigh.

Forest gritted her teeth and said, "Now that's who I'd really like to bugger up."

*****

Lancer tilted his head and asked, "Sweet?  Well, I think that can be arranged."

He walked over to the bar and the bartender straightened up, his eyes brightening at the Celtic warrior standing in front of him.

Lancer said, "I'd like to start a tab.  Put it under 'Ulster'.  Start us off with something sweet for the young lass and Harp for me."

The bartender's eyes narrowed at Rin ever so slightly before he started to construct the beverages.

Welcome!

Name: Artura Pendragon, but you can call her “Saber”
Race: Human/Dragon Reactor/Former Servant
Age: Physically about seventeen, she “Died” in her late twenties-early thirties.
Height: 5’2
Weight: 115
Eyes: Emerald Green
Hair: Blond
Appearance:  
Saber is a petite young woman who appears to be in her late teens.  Since she has been allowed to age, she has longer hair than previously seen in FSN.   She is radiantly beautiful, drawing the attention of almost all of those around her.  Despite being petite, she has a regal bearing that makes her seem taller than she actually is.

She has developed slightly from her FSN appearance, but she’s still a slim girl.  Working with Archer and Rin has also caused her to develop more muscle tone than previously seen in her CGs.   She prefers to wear jeans, T-shirts, peasant blouses, sturdy boots, practical sneakers, or shorter skirts that she can move in if she has to dress up.  She generally dresses in blues, whites, or earthen tones.  She’s also taken to wearing purple from time to time because a friend of her pointed out that she really has the coloring for it. 
Scale: Servant
Strength: A (If Prana Burst is active.  If not, she's a D on Human scale.)
Agility: B
Speed: B+
Magic Resistance: A
Magic Ability: A- Prana burst, everything else she’s an E.  Due to her Dragon Furnace, she produces absurd amounts of prana.  If she applied herself, she’d be an absurd magus, but she prefers to use her Magic Core to enhance her fighting abilities.
Other Abilities:
Riding: B – She can pretty much ride anything that’s not a phantasmal beast.
Instinct:A
Noble Phantasms:
Excalibur Anti-Fortress A++ (In her current form she can get off three Excaliblasts without needing  a chance to “recharge”).
Invisible Air Anti-Unit C
Avalon EX (It also keeps her from aging now that its activated again and gives her regenerative abilities).
Origin: Read the FSN and Zero for the background.

During the Fifth Holy Grail War, Saber was taken by Matou Sakura and darkened with the corruption of the Grail to fight for her new Master.  During the ending battle, she was defeated by the combined efforts of Emiya Shirou and Rider.  Shirou killed her, as Saber had wished, and Saber thought the story would end there.

Ilya had a different idea though.

Having Archer’s “Soul” inside of the Einzbern homunculus, Ilya gained a perspective that she hadn’t been able to before.  Shirou dying after a manly fistfight with Kotomine and Rin incapacitated from  having Sakura shiv her, Ilya made a gamble and approached Sakura while in the Dress of Heaven.  Sakura was still full of prana due to eating most of the War’s Servants while all Ilya had was Archer.

Archer’s soul inside of her would have been enough to keep Shirou’s soul from dying and going back to the Akashic root, but Ilya wanted more than that.

She wanted both Onii-chans to find “their happy ending” and told Sakura this.   Sacrificing herself, Ilya, backed up by Sakura, was able to bring both Shirou and Archer back to life, and as a “gift” to Archer, Ilya also brought back Archer’s first regret at not becoming a hero:  Saber.

Saber awoke, alive again and no longer a Servant, still dressed in the Alter armor.  Dazed and confused as the cavern began to crumble around them, she was going to stay to end her life again.  She did not believe she deserved a second chance, but Archer, reborn himself, pulled her to her feet and demanded that she come with him.

Confused and conflicted with her second chance, Saber became vastly depressed with her realizations of when she had been corrupted about her life.  She also understood that she could not change the past no matter how much she wanted to.  Both Rin and Archer told her about alternate realities and that changing something in the “past” would just create another reality.  It would not change the course of history that she desperately wanted to change.

She lived with the Emiya house with Shirou, Sakura, and Rider, sort of middling along and “existing”.  Archer, who’s Ilya’s parting words were him to save the first person he couldn’t decided that Saber needed help of a different sort.  Through the other, they were both able to repair themselves and become strong once again.

Their relationship wasn’t romantic (Archer somehow ended up with Rider, much to Saber’s chagrin, she thought Rin was a better match for him), but they were close.  Calling them friends wouldn’t be quite right, but the two of them had the partnership and relationship that they should have had in the beginning.    Saber worked for Archer in his shop as his assistant, learning to make her keep in this strange, modern world while helping guard Fuyuki in Rin’s absence while she studied in London.

She found herself in Nexus after fighting Gilgamesh (she wasn’t quite sure how he survived, but he became a powerful CEO of a multi-international company called Golden Rule) after the King had proclaimed that both Saber and Archer were his.  One moment she was driving Gilgamesh back with Archer backing her up, and the next she found herself in an alley with a vampire driven mad by her scent.  She defended herself with Excalibur, not the blast, but beheading the vampire.

To make her way, she was drafted by the local police force to help deal with the supernatural threat.

Weakness: With Avalon, Saber is almost invulnerable unless the strike is instantly fatal.   If Avalon can be taken away from her, she can be killed with more mundane means.   Being hungry.

Likes: Archer, Rin, Emiya Shirou, Well prepared food (she will even admit she has gotten spoiled to Archer, Rin, Shirou, and Sakura’s cooking), the color blue, nicely tailored suits, stuffed animals, lions and other cats, video games (Taiga got her into WoW), Taiga, sparring, swordsmanship, chivalry, honor, Diramuid, Iri (she still thinks of her friend from time to time).  Gambling. Being able to admit that being a woman means she can still be strong.

Dislikes: Gilgamesh.  Rider (“That woman is a harlot and Archer can do much better than her.”). Dishonest tactics. People who are overly clever.  Dishonesty.  Dishonor.  People who cheat. People who underestimate her because of her gender. Badly prepared food. Being hungry.  Fussy dress clothing.

A Karna, Gabriel, and Archer shopping trip to a hipster grocery store must happen.

"Excuse me, but you seem to be occupying my way."

Before Gabriel could turn or reply, he was being lifted out of the way.  The door to his godmother's room was opened and the white haired man walked in.  Even though Gabriel knew nothing explicit was going on, the door had been closed.  He straightened the lapels of his robe as he walked into the bedroom.

"Forest, how can you call your kitchen a kitchen without red lentils? If you are storing them somewhere outside the kitchen, please inform me."

The flash in Forest's indigo eyes was one Gabriel was all too familiar with.  Yet, other than sitting up, the eternal teenage girl made no movements.  Gabriel cleared his throat and said, "It is considered rude to enter someone's bedchambers without permission.  It is even in more bad taste to move someone out of the way without asking first.  Especially to ask about something as inane as red lintels."

A smile flickered over his Godmother's features before she looked at Gabriel and asked, "How long have you been out there?"

"Since I heard the rather loud crash, but since things were going so well I decided not to interfere,"  Gabriel said with a smile and shrug of his own.

Forest sighed and said, "Okay, this isn't Hakuno's Archer.  Other reality and all of that.  Not to mention he smells like magic so don't go presuming I'm some homewrecker.  You've done enough of that tonight anyway."  Then she looked at Gabriel and asked, "Red lintels?"

"I don't use them in my cooking so no, we don't have any.  It's more of an Eastern flare and I'm obviously more Western in the kitchen," Gabriel answered with a smile, "However, if you want red lintels, there is a Whole Foods Market not even five miles from here."

******

Ash smiled at Ellen and said, "That's expected for fledglings.  You'll be exhausted by the time the sun rises.  I have an extra bedroom where you can sleep the day."