Chapter Text
A golden-haired man made his way through the darkness of a misty English night, a carefully-wrapped bundle in his hands. Gilgamesh had found himself tragically unable to immaterialize or travel in spirit form after the Grail War, but as soon as he had awakened, he’d known what he would have to do, who he had to find.
Her.
She’d barely even had time to reply to his proposal before her idiot Master made his final command. He recalled the last time he'd seen her, a proud figure in silver and blue, standing alone in a room of flames. She was his; like all the treasures of the earth, she belonged to him. He would find her again. He’d rip apart history to have her.
The remains of the church – a few arches and pillars, overgrown with vines - was eerie in the moonlight. Gilgamesh grunted in disgust. Didn’t the people of this country have any respect for history? His Uruk might be in a shabby state now, but at least his people honored their past.
At the far end of the cemetery, Gilgamesh found what he was seeking. A small rectangle with a cross at the head that bore the inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia.
Rexa Arturia actually, he thought idly, though it didn’t matter. He unwrapped the package very carefully, revealing a battered piece of ancient wood. He’d removed it from the possession of the fools at the Mage’s Association (really, it had been too easy to sneak in), and if the document archived with it was to be believed, the wood had come from the same Round Table on which King Arthur once rested her elbows.
Performing a summoning outside of a Holy Grail War was difficult, but not impossible. If anything could be a catalyst for her summons, surely it was this. If any place could facilitate her manifestation, surely it was here, where her mortal bones were said to rest beneath the soil.
He began to chant the incantation, facilitating the rising of power. Mana crackled like lightning in the air.
It reached a crescendo, and a figure clad in silver armor appeared.
Gilgamesh’s breath hitched. It was…Arturia’s face, certainly, but he could not imagine her ever having that reckless expression, or allowing her hair to grow so wild. He hadn’t imagined, until that moment, that a piece of the Round Table could summon someone other than Arturia.
The figure grinned. “Hey you, are you my Master?”
A voice like Arturia’s, and yet she never would have spoken in such a tone. “Who are you? Arturia…?”
At the sound of the name, something changed in the Servant’s face. In the blink of an eye, she was at Gilgamesh’s throat with a sword.
“What the fuck do you want with Father?” Mordred hissed in his ear.