Writefagging 06: King Arthur

Jump 06: King Arthur
+100CP The French
+200CP The Knight
+300CP Excalibur
+300CP Dragon’s Bride
-400CP Half-Blood (Nymph)
-100CP Star Blessed (Lepus)
-300CP Dragon’s Soul
-100CP Knight
Combat Skill (Free)
-100CP Prince Charming (Discount)
-200CP Morning Hope/Evening Despair (Discount)
-300CP The Colored Man (Discount)
Standard Weapon (Free)
Armor (Free)
-100CP Recommendation to King Arthur’s Court
-150CP Dragon Lair
-50CP Gold Coins
-100CP Party Call (Kindred)

Kindred:
Drop-In (Free)
Natural Disease Immunity (Free)
Books of the Arthurian Legend (Free)
-100CP Castle Kindred (Discount)
-200CP Enchanted (Import to Lamb’s Bow)

My name is Ashton. Why am I wearing heavy armor? Why does my hair smell so nice? Is that a blueberry?

Yes, it is. Apparently, I am partially a nymph. How is that even possible. I'm a man. Whatever, no use in understanding it. Magic tends to beat to its own tempo anyways. Because of that, now my hair is down to at least my chest and a grass green color, with intermittent vines circled through with small berries adorning it. In one sense I was completely used to it thanks to having a lifetime worth of memories of being in such a state, but at the same time, I was cursing whatever fate brought me to be in such a way.

Speaking of backstory, apparently I hadn't had the nicest one growing up here. Mom had left when I was around seven, her family had caught up to her location and she ended up having to flee for having consorted with a human. Thankfully, Dad had been spared their wrath. Speaking of dad, did I mention he’s a noble? Well he was. Then he died from a bandit raid. Thankfully I had become a squire to Sir Wolf so I had been able to avoid the same fate. I’ll give you two guesses as to who that was.

You guessed wrong, it was just a generic person with the last name Wolf. Unfortunately for him, he died in battle shortly before it was time for me to become a fully fledged knight. He was a good man, I have to say. He deserved better and certainly was an excellent teacher. Eventually, I served for a year under the retainer of Kindred’s Keep (If you can’t figure this one out then you need better reading glasses) before assuming the full title of knight. After that, I was sent on my way towards Camelot with a recommendation to the Round Table.

Yes, I am a bit annoyed now to have indirectly served the Kindred. Granted, it wasn’t them really, considering that somehow they’ve had a retainer to look over a castle they did even know belonged to them until now, but it was sort of annoying. Whatever, they didn’t have a hand in it anyway. They better have not had, anyways. Could have saved me a lot of headache otherwise.

You know what’s a good slap in the face? Realizing the times you’re in. One thing to arrive in Camelot, right? Big hoo hah, the place looks fantastic and the people are nice. People kind of look at you because you’re wearing armor and have decided that your hair is now a personal garden and you look like your legs might decide to take root any moment. Oh, did I mention that?

Treant...is sort of dead. But not. He lives on inside me? How to explain it. The whole idea about Parasites back in Skullgirls was supposed to be that they were symbiotic with hosts. I’m assuming that somehow meant that when I moved on to this world, he completely merged with me. To be honest, I miss him a little. He didn’t talk much, but he was a good conversation. Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to bring him back.

Meanwhile, I have freaking bark tree legs. Most of the time they look normal, which is nice, but they turn instantly back to bark when it’s needed. Which would be nice, except for the fact that they’re useless if I’m wearing shoes and tend to destroy pants. Have you ever seen a knight in a skirt or kilt?

These guys have. Want to know why? That’s not King Arthur.

Artoria freaking Pendragon, god bless her soul. I’m in the Fate universe. While I’m at it, might as well go stab myself a few hundred times. This will suck. Would you like to know why?

Artoria Pendragon is apparently my sister. Yeah, take a moment to figure out what kind of strange magic happened to cause a child with three people and you’ll have your head running in circles for decades.

Ever introduce yourself as a long lost sibling to someone? It’s a bit odd. Sure, I had all the proof, but think of it this way. A figure that could probably belong to a young teenager steps into the room after being announced and gives you proof that they are your sibling and brother. Now, the throne isn’t an issue since you’ve already ascended. What’s confusing though, is a couple of things. One, they look like they could probably be your sister as well. Two, one of your Knights of the Round Table just picked what looked like fresh fruit of their hair and started eating it without them noticing. Three…

Three, I’m shorter than Artoria. 0.5 inches. Five feet exactly, If you’re wondering.

Long story short, we got it worked out. Morgan wasn’t very happy though. Hmm, wonder why. Regardless, I’ll have to deal with her when it comes down to it. Newfound family or not, ultimately she is a traitor. The issue is, first I’ll need to find evidence.

Fast forward a couple months later and I’m getting laughed at by the Wizard Merlin as he divines the stars for any sort of odd blips in my personage. Why he wanted to do such a thing I’m not sure, but alright. Oh, did I mention that he thought I was a servant girl? Apparently, he had looked at me from the back earlier and had asked out for me to fetch myself. These guys really aren’t helping my confidence.

Some good old fashioned bloodshed would help with that. Not yet though, now isn’t the time.

(Aren’t these urges sort of creepy? I feel like they’re getting to be. Ah well.)

Holy Christ on a bike stuff is up with me. I’m a half Nymph, that was pretty obvious based off of my appearance. Speaking of which, is that a flower growing in my hair? Oh hell no. Ignoring that, apparently I also have some sort of minor blessing from the Lepus constellation, the rabbit. How to use that I’m not sure, but it sounds interesting. What he said next though piqued my attention the most. The soul of a Dragon, huh? Well I’ll be. Better keep that one close to the chest. People might start trying to put me on my own throne with something like that. Thanks, but I’d prefer to stay how I am at the moment.

The first few years were rather peaceful, or at least as peaceful as it could be after the fall of Rome and the various nonsense that happens around here on a daily basis. Mordred had yet to show any strange behaviors, so I could hopefully put that whole mess on the back burner until later. Unfortunately I couldn’t just have the Kindred spy on Morgan for me, seeing as ultimately they aren’t just my mooks. They’re people too, they have their own lives. Huh, that was strange. I used to think of them as a sort of entity and now it’s feeling more and more like they’ve become more human. Granted, they actually were one for a short amount of time but I’m speaking in the sense of how they interact with others. Now I can sometimes find them interacting with others in the city when I go out for a stroll. I’ve found that Wolf has striked up a liking to one of the local butchers and Lamb is currently ‘working’ as an apprentice to a local healer. How quaint. Not that they need any money, but still.

While I’m certainly not the most popular knight in the kingdom, it certainly does feel weird to get recognized once in awhile. It’s one thing to perform out on the stage every day and sometimes bump into a fan, but it seems that this occupation afforded a different kind of respect. I’m glad to say that none of them were afraid of me, per se, just affording respect as they felt it was due. I guess that made me a knight of the people? Better not to get into semantics.

My fourth year was where things started picking up. After being sent out by the King to go fetch Merlin after he had gone out towards what would be considered modern day France for some reagents I ended up ‘insulting’ a local warlord after I clearly told them that no, they could not have the head of one of the most famous wizards of all time because he picked a daisy off their property. Nevermind the fact that he could have just incinerated the lot of them and be done with it. Now though? Those guys have it out for me. Every time, whenever I’m out on a stroll suddenly it's an arrow rain followed by a plague of insults. At this point I’m kind of annoying that rumors about me don’t spread, because then they’d realize that I can just kick down their shoddily made defenses and walk away. At least if they met me on open ground I’d have the satisfaction of punching them in the face.

That’d be fine and dandy if that was all that happened, but I’m not that kind of fortunate person. See, I had gone to visit the Lady of Lake just for some advice on my heritage, but it turned out she had a ‘gift’ for me.

Ahahaha, that’s no gift. It’s a curse.

‘Fool.’ That was the sound of my head being slapped over the head by a decent amount of holy metal.

Seems that getting an Excalibur runs in the family, because now I have one too. It’s not even like Gawain’s, in that it’s a sister sword. Somehow it’s the exact same sword, but from another reality. The Lady mentioned something about a dimensional rift? I don’t understand Fate shenanigans. Even so, this thing was sentient and quite possibly could be even more annoying than it’s counterpart from the Soul Eater manga. Hmm, wish I had reread that one, it was a good read. Speaking of which, why was I not stocking up my warehouse with things I wanted instead of just random weapons and Sesame Street memorabilia? There’s a good idea.

In other news, she was able to help me access some of my latent abilities. While some of them are useless, such as changing the growth rate and type of fruit in my hair (but strangely enough I still cannot pull off vegetables), things such as seeing natural energy are pretty important in a setting where things like that tend to be doom bringers. Also, apparently I can jump really high now. Lepus isn’t the greatest constellation to receive a blessing from, but any is better than none.

A month later I had ended up bumping into a poor woman on the road back to Camelot. Her name was Hyledd and she ended up being a good conversation once we had decided to travel together since we were heading in the same direction. She was a rather nice woman, although she seemed a little clueless about certain things. Did you know that she had never tasted a grape before? It was a totally random thought, but I ended up growing a small bushel for her when I had a private minute before gifting it to her. After that our friendship blossomed so that when we finally parted at a crossroads it was with bittersweet feelings. She was a nice woman, but I was certain that was the end of her.

Three months later I’m running for my life as I’m being chased through the forest. Above me is a large dragon, roaring as it tried to blast away the thick trees I was using as cover. Really, why are these things so fast? I could probably outrun an automobile at this pace, it was only acute perception of my surroundings that was keeping me from going splat on the forest floor after a humiliating trip. The acrid scent of acid filled my lungs and made me cough as yet another piece of the forest was dissolved. A thick mist rolled in as an aftereffect, slightly clouding my area of awareness. Come on luck, don’t hold out on me now…

Luck didn’t like me. The forest ended and suddenly I was faced with a great open plain, the sound of descending wingbeats interrupting my thoughts. Great, how am I supposed to beat this thing? I doubt that even the Duskblade could penetrate its thick scales and I had a feeling that things like blunt force wouldn’t work. Even so, I readied myself for battle. The dragon landed heavily in front of me. I swear, this was some sort of boss battle thing. Then,

“Hey there Ashton, my berry bushel~” The dragon crooned. “Ready to come back to my hoard with me?”

Excuse me. What. Turns out that Hyledd is an ancient dragon, hailing from the desert. Not only that, she wants me in her private collection as her private fruit stand. On one side, she was ultimately a good natured spirit and was mostly just playing around. She didn’t go after me while I was in Camelot, though sometimes she would sneak in and I would wake up in the morning with my head mysteriously lighter, Lamb laughing in a corner. The Kindred seemed to get along with Hyledd pretty well, which brought along more humiliation to my situation. I think I caught Bedivere chuckling once in my direction when she was around, which means he knows too most likely. How much of the Round Table does I do not wish to find out nor will I put any effort into. Whoever said that having a Dragon’s soul is a good thing should be shot.

One day while I was busy pruning myself (otherwise I’d get my face covered in foliage) a man dressed in heavy armor came up to me and challenged me to a duel. Okay...sure? I mean, Artoria was okay with it. Not sure why, but somehow the guy had this odd delusion that he would become famous for defeating an Excalibur wielder. I mean, he’s not wrong, but me of all people? Mine doesn’t even let me wield it. Speaking of which…

“Fool! Trying to wield me without having attended last night’s three-hour recitation!" Another bonk on the head and I dodged as a bastard sword almost cut me through. Of course the one weapon the public saw as my “signature” would choose to be unhelpful at this time. While I could easily pull out a knife from my sleeve and end this, it, unfortunately, wasn’t that simple. One, that would be against a knight’s honor. Two, I’m not sure I want to kill this guy. He seems earnest.

“I will chase you until the ends of the earth! Ashton!” Another swing almost took my arm as I rolled. Picking up a defensive stance, I exhaled.

“So be it.” If he truly intended to kill me or die trying, I would grant his wish. I won’t pretend that I didn’t savor this moment. The pose looks ridiculous, but it helps with the flow of the Ki inside your body. Also, it helps with the drama. A single eye turned black.

“Sei Dou Goitsu.”

Wham. Suddenly a battle of swords had been bested by an unarmed man. Sometimes I forget how strong people can get when they use this technique, right now I’m looking at the other side of the street through a hole where the guy’s stomach used to be. I knelt near to him.

“You fought well, but you were blinded by your greed for fame. In doing so, you lost sight of your true goal.” I’m talking out my ass, but it’s both for the audience watching as it is for myself.

“Lamb.” The two were watching from a nearby pillar. “Can you exempt him, this once?”

“We do not hold that same level of authority, here in another world,” Wolf responded. “However, we shall heed you this time. Hurry up and heal him, Lamb. I want to chase!” The two were currently in their human form, but the addition of their masks was enough to give off the vibe to others in the vicinity to scatter. I did as well, after checking to make sure that they were doing well with treatment. I suppose it was good of Lamb to have studied medical science back in Skullgirls. Odd choice, but whatever.

My issues aside, let’s get the plot over with. With the addition of Hyledd, who was more than willing to help me out in exchange for hanging out at her place for a week (which ended up becoming two because she was insistent on it) I was able to obtain evidence on Morgan’s treachery before bringing it to Artoria’s attention before talking to her on Mordred’s identity. She was banished, and while things with Mordred didn’t happen as smoothly as I had hoped, while she wasn’t yet recognized as the legitimate successor of the throne (yet, I had hoped) I feel like Artoria opened up to her a little more, which is a lot coming from a person who isn’t technically human anymore. Regardless, I liked to spoil my newfound niece whenever I could, which looked quite odd around the Table to those who didn’t know.

I never found out what happened with the affair between Guinevere and Lancelot, but apparently, that matter was handled privately. Ultimately, that sort of thing isn’t my business so I left that alone. I hope they were happy with themselves by the end.

I couldn’t stop it, however. Mordred was now no longer against the King, so Morgan got to work on her magic. I still don’t know the specifics, but now there was a second Mordred. An Alter version, I think. It was wearing black and apparently bleached its hair, so I’m assuming that. Either that, or it was edgy. One of the two.

Ignoring that bit, it didn’t end well. Nothing did. Tell me, have you ever lost someone who was important to you? Now imagine that it happened right in front of your eyes, twice. Three times. A thousand.

A kingdom torn apart after a false Mordred had taken the place of the original. The battle of Camlann had still occurred, somehow. Artoria lay mortally mortally wounded just as in the stories and my niece lay lifeless on the ground, her vitality sapped away by her false counterpart. All around me were broken swords and shields, all that was left of once brave and valiant soldiers. Off in the distance I could swear I almost heard the soft laughter of a twisted being, born only for the destruction of another. Created by a being who was so clouded by vengeance that they forcibly devoted others to serving their own goals.

I remember the heat of the setting sun on my back as I knelt, exhausted. Even so, I couldn’t just stand there. I must pick up the pieces. Time to end this, where Artoria could not.

I was vaguely aware of the world around me as it seemed to glow a brilliant orange. Excalibur was oddly silent as I drew it from the sheath. It drew out a long sigh.

“I suppose this is it, friend.” It was oddly somber. “Do not despair, we shall meet again, one day.” From the setting sun, a blinding light hit the tip of the blade as the world around began to glow. Countless lights, rising from the ground, meeting my blade. Was this what it really meant? To bear all the hopes of all soldiers in one's hands? It felt heavy, but not overbearingly so. In that moment, it wasn’t just me holding the weapon. It was all of those who sought to aid the legacy of King Arthur of Camelot.

Mordred Alter laughed. “Mother told me you would attempt such a thing.” She drew her Clarent, the blade beginning to swirl with a malicious energy. “Trample that down then…”

“The torrent of life shines…” The blade began to shine even brighter.

“This for sure will be the wicked blade that destroys my father!” She tightened her grip.

“All the lights in the sky line up, one by one!” Reaching up to the sky as an indestructible pillar, ready to be swung down.

“CLARENT BLOOD ARTHUR!”

“EXCALIBUR!”

The twin beams lit up the sky of Britain. The earth trembled and shook as ever so slowly the crimson blade was cut in two by the righteous light of the holy sword. The false creation slain. Yet, when only I stood, no sense of victory was left. All I could do was hold the bodies of the fallen and weep bitter tears. This was no victory. I could have saved them. Should have figured out how.

Lamb says I’ll see them again. I wonder how she’s so certain of it.

The land is gold now, not orange. I’m fading away again. Everyone…

Will I see you again?