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Let me tell you a cold, hard truth about the Holy Grail War.
It isn't a war of magic. It's not about having the strongest Servant or the most Command Spells or even the most powerful Noble Phantasms.
It's a war of information.
The more you know about your opponent, the higher your win rate climbs. Knowledge is ammunition. Intel is armor. Understanding your enemy's capabilities, limitations, and patterns is worth more than raw power ninety percent of the time.
And right now? This matchup was fundamentally asymmetrical.
Maverick and Daisy looked like a proper team of two Masters working in tandem—but in reality, they were essentially sharing one set of mediocre equipment between them, splitting resources that should have gone to a single properly-equipped combatant. Worse, they knew absolutely nothing about Viper's capabilities, his Mystic Code's parameters, or his fighting style.
Viper, on the other hand, had done his homework like a goddamn PhD candidate.
He'd watched streams. Analyzed footage. Studied patterns. He knew Maverick's loadout, his tactics, his preferred engagement ranges. He'd come prepared.
After diving into the dense woods, Maverick immediately moved with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd survived multiple eliminations. He handed both of his backup pistols to Daisy—doubling her firepower while keeping his signature Thompson Contender for himself. Then he pulled a smoke grenade from his belt, yanked the pin, and hurled it deep into the forest, the canister arcing through the darkness before landing with a muffled thunk and beginning to spew thick gray smoke.
The classic misdirection play: make your enemy think you're retreating further into the woods when you're actually camping the entrance.
Maverick grabbed Daisy and pulled her behind a massive oak tree right at the forest's edge—one on the left side, one on the right. The classic ambush formation.
"Maverick, you genius," Daisy whispered, her voice barely audible over the hiss of the distant smoke grenade. "A direct feint. He'll think we ran deeper."
Down in the chat, the viewers were catching on to the play.
[Tactics]: Throwing smoke deep to fake a retreat, but actually camping the entrance like a dirty FPS rat? That's filthy. I love it.
[Scared]: Since when are Maverick and Daisy this competent? This sudden coordination is genuinely unsettling.
[Faith]: Playtime is over. Maverick is locking in. I've got 3000 Shark Coins riding on this! Don't let me down!
[Betting]: Taking all bets! Viper vs. Maverick! Who wins?!
The chat was hyped, energy at maximum levels.
Maverick was tense, every muscle coiled like a spring, his breathing controlled and shallow.
His finger rested on the trigger. Waiting. Patient.
But just as Maverick was preparing to spring the trap the moment Viper's silhouette appeared—
A silver flash sliced through the darkness like a blade of moonlight given physical form.
CREEEEAK.
The massive oak tree they were hiding behind—easily three feet in diameter, solid hardwood that had probably stood for decades—didn't just break.
It was sheared in half.
The top portion of the trunk slid off the bottom half with smooth, terrifying grace, like someone had cut through butter instead of wood. The cross-section was mirror-smooth, perfect, showing no splintering or tearing.
Standing in the small clearing at the forest's entrance, bathed in silver moonlight filtering through the canopy, Viper smiled.
A hunter's smile. The smile of someone who'd already caught their prey.
"Did you really think I'd fall for that?" Viper called out casually.
To be fair to game balance, the Moon Spirit Elixir (Volumen Hydrargyrum) had been significantly nerfed from its original lore version for PvP purposes. The canonical version was an absurdly overpowered autonomous defense system capable of complex threat detection, environmental analysis, and even serving tea to its owner while simultaneously defending against multiple simultaneous attacks.
In this game? It had been simplified considerably.
It was essentially a pool of programmable liquid mercury—magical, responsive, deadly. It could attack and defend based on the Master's conscious will and intent, morphing into any shape its wielder could imagine. But it was fundamentally limited by one critical weakness: the Master's own perception.
If Viper couldn't see you, the mercury couldn't target you accurately.
Simple rule. Clean limitation.
But Viper didn't need to see them specifically. He just needed to eliminate their hiding spots.
"Why bother with searching games?" Viper laughed, his voice carrying an edge of dark amusement. "Let's just simplify the battlefield."
The silver liquid extended outward from his position, stretching impossibly far, reforming into a massive, curved scythe-blade at least twenty feet across.
Then he swept it horizontally in a wide, devastating arc.
SWISH.
Every single tree in a twenty-foot radius was felled instantly—not broken, not cracked, but cut with surgical precision. Ancient oaks, dense pines, thick undergrowth—all of it came crashing down simultaneously in a deafening cascade of wood and leaves.
There was nowhere left to hide. The entrance to the forest had become an open killing field.
Down in the chat, reactions split immediately.
[Fanboy]: VIPER! VIPER! VIPER! THAT is high-level gameplay! That's BIG BRAIN ENERGY!
[Hater]: Your whole family is high-level gameplay, you bandwagoning loser.
[Hope]: Don't celebrate yet, idiots! Maverick is the KING of elimination fights! He always comes back!
[Realist]: Cope harder. Viper is built different.
As their cover collapsed around them in slow motion, Maverick and Daisy moved.
No hesitation. Pure combat instinct.
They spun out from behind the falling timber, both pivoting in opposite directions to split Viper's attention, and opened fire simultaneously.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Muzzle flashes lit up the night like strobes, the gunfire echoing through the forest.
But Viper was ready. He'd anticipated the exact angle of their counterattack.
The massive scythe-blade dissolved instantly into liquid form, then reformed with liquid speed into two separate tower shields—large, thick, positioned perfectly to catch both lines of fire.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the hardened mercury surfaces.
Viper didn't stand there posing like some pompous mage from a fantasy novel. He lacked the refined elegance of someone like Lord El-Melloi II—this wasn't about style points or looking cool. This was survival.
Instead, he executed a combat roll to his left, staying low, keeping mobile, drawing the sawed-off shotgun Drake had given him before she'd faded away—her final gift to him.
BOOM!
The shotgun roared, buckshot spreading in a cone.
Most of it missed. But stray pellets caught Daisy in her right shoulder, punching through fabric and flesh.
"Ah!" Daisy stumbled backward, her suppressing fire faltering for a critical split second as pain shot through her arm.
That gap—that single moment of broken rhythm—was all Viper needed.
A tendril of mercury shot out from the main defensive mass like a striking cobra, elongating, sharpening, forming into a whip-like blade aimed straight for Maverick's exposed head.
Maverick saw it coming. Barely.
He ducked under the swing with millimeters to spare, feeling the displaced air ruffle his hair, then pushed off the ground with explosive leg strength.
"Close combat!" Maverick shouted, activating his magic circuits. "Time Alter: Double Accel!"
His entire body blurred forward, the world around him slowing to half-speed as his personal time accelerated. He closed the twenty-foot gap in less than a second, knife already drawn, aiming for Viper's throat.
"Smart play," Viper sneered, already backpedaling. "But I'm not stupid enough to let you close the distance that easily."
Viper knew about the Origin Bullet—that infamous mage-killer round loaded in Maverick's Thompson Contender. If that projectile hit him, his Magic Circuits would short-circuit catastrophically, and his mercury would become just... regular mercury. Dead weight.
So Viper played it safe. Defensive. Patient.
He kept the mercury wall positioned directly between them, a living barrier constantly shifting to block Maverick's line of sight to his actual body position. Forcing him to guess. Making him hesitate. He wanted to bait out that Origin Bullet, make Maverick waste it on the mercury shield, then go aggressive.
But Maverick didn't take the bait.
He kept moving laterally, weaving between the fallen trees, using the terrain, never stopping long enough to give Viper a clean shot or a predictable pattern.
Viper's frown deepened. He's too fast. Time Alter is a cheat code.
The mercury suddenly transformed into spider silk—thin, incredibly strong strands that shot out and latched onto a distant tree trunk. Viper yanked hard, retracting the silk, pulling himself backward in a rapid retreat just as Maverick's combat knife slashed through the air where his throat had been a fraction of a second earlier.
"How's your arm, Daisy?" Maverick yelled without looking back, his eyes locked on Viper's new position.
"Right arm is broken!" Daisy gritted her teeth, pressing her left hand against the bleeding shoulder wound, trying to stanch the blood flow. "I can only shoot one-handed now! Can we even win this?!"
"Yes," Maverick said immediately, no hesitation in his voice. His eyes were still scanning Viper's position, calculating angles and distances. "But we only get one shot at this. One play. Do you trust me?"
"Are you kidding me right now?" Daisy scoffed despite the pain, checking her remaining ammunition with her functioning hand. "We've been through hell together, Maverick. Literally multiple hells. My life is yours. What's the plan?"
Maverick smiled—a rare, genuine smile that actually reached his eyes.
He leaned close and whispered the plan in rapid, urgent sentences.
Daisy's eyes widened. Then she smiled too, though hers was slightly unhinged.
"That's insane."
"I know."
"...Let's do it."
Three seconds later, they charged.
It was a suicide run by any tactical analysis. Daisy, burning her own precious magical energy to activate Double Accel, took point position. Maverick followed directly behind her in a straight line, using her smaller frame as a human shield to hide his silhouette and gun position from Viper's line of sight.
They charged directly at him. No weaving. No cover. Just a straight sprint.
"Coming right at me?!" Viper actually laughed, unable to believe they'd do something so tactically suicidal. "That's bold! But stupid!"
The mercury reformed instantly—flowing like living metal—into a long, wickedly serrated spear, multiple barbed edges designed to catch and tear flesh. Viper braced himself and thrust it forward with both hands' worth of mental control, aiming to skewer both of them like a kabob.
Daisy didn't dodge. Didn't weave. Didn't slow down.
At the absolute last possible second—close enough that Maverick could see individual droplets of mercury reflecting moonlight—she jumped.
A massive, mana-boosted leap that sent her sailing completely over Viper's head in a graceful arc, her damaged arm hanging limp but her good hand still gripping the pistol.
Viper's eyes went wide. A distraction?! The whole charge was bait?!
It worked perfectly. The mercury spear missed Daisy entirely—but it caught Maverick square in the gut.
SQUELCH.
The silver blade pierced clean through Maverick's abdomen, the tip erupting from his back in a spray of blood, the serrated edges tearing through muscle and organs.
Blood poured down the shaft in thick streams, steaming slightly in the cool night air.
But Maverick didn't stop.
He gritted his teeth hard enough to crack a molar, grabbed the mercury spear embedded in his gut with his left hand—holding it in place, preventing Viper from retracting it—and raised his right hand.
The Thompson Contender. Loaded with the Origin Bullet. The gun that had killed more mages than plague.
"Gotcha," Maverick wheezed through blood-flecked lips.
Viper's face went pale. His mercury was stuck in Maverick's body. He couldn't retract it fast enough. The liquid metal responded to thought, but physics still existed—it needed time to flow back.
He didn't have time.
BANG!
The Origin Bullet hit Viper directly in his left arm, just above the elbow.
"ARGH!" Viper screamed as his Magic Circuits flared with agonizing intensity and then shorted out in a cascade of internal destruction. His entire arm exploded from the inside out—a mess of shredded flesh, shattered bone, and leaking magical energy that sprayed across the ground.
The pain was indescribable. Blinding. All-consuming.
But Viper was an Avenger. Pain was just fuel.
Without a single moment of hesitation—operating purely on adrenaline and spite—Viper raised the shotgun Drake had given him with his remaining functional hand and aimed it at his own mangled arm, right at the spreading magical necrosis.
BOOM!
He blew his own arm clean off at the shoulder to stop the Origin Bullet's destructive effect from spreading to his heart and brain.
Blood fountained from the stump.
The chat absolutely lost their minds.
[WTF]: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!
[Insane]: HE BLEW OFF HIS OWN ARM?!
[Respect]: That's... that's actually the most hardcore thing I've ever seen.
[Trauma]: I need therapy after watching this.
"I TOLD YOU!" Viper roared, blood spraying from his mouth and stump with each word, his face twisted in pain and fury and absolute determination. "I HAVE RESOLVE!"
The mercury, now freed from Viper's active control due to the massive circuit damage, lost cohesion and splashed to the ground as regular liquid metal.
Maverick collapsed to his knees, both hands pressed against the massive gut wound, blood seeping between his fingers.
But the fight wasn't over.
Not even close.
"Take this, you bastard!"
Daisy landed behind Viper in a crouch, her damaged arm forgotten, adrenaline carrying her through. She raised her pistol with her good hand, aiming directly at the back of his head.
"Feint tactic?" Viper spun around despite the blood loss making him dizzy, his vision tunneling at the edges. "I anticipated it!"
He drew a backup pistol from his belt with his remaining hand—his final weapon.
It was a Mexican Standoff.
Or rather, a "True Man's Cowboy Showdown."
Both guns raised. Both at point-blank range. Both knowing the next second decided everything.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
They unloaded into each other simultaneously, muzzle flashes illuminating both faces in strobing light. Bullets tore through flesh and muscle. Blood misted the air between them like red fog. Neither one retreated even an inch. As long as their heads were still attached, as long as their fingers could still pull triggers, they would keep shooting.
"DIE!"
"FALL!"
Just as they were screaming their final battle cries at each other, emptying their magazines—
A single, loud gunshot echoed from somewhere deep in the darkness.
It wasn't Viper's gun. The acoustic signature was completely different.
It wasn't Daisy's either.
It came from the trees. From the shadows.
BANG!!!
A bullet hole appeared in the exact center of Viper's forehead, perfectly circular, blood welling up around the entry wound.
A second bullet hole appeared in Daisy's left temple at the exact same instant, the timing synchronized to perfection.
They both froze mid-scream, eyes going wide with shock and confusion, their guns still raised.
Then they collapsed to the ground in unison, hitting the dirt within a fraction of a second of each other.
Dead before they finished falling.
Maverick, bleeding out on the ground with a hole through his stomach, looked up weakly through fading vision.
From the shadows of the forest, moving with casual, unhurried steps, a figure emerged from between the trees.
He was blowing smoke from the barrel of a sniper rifle—the iconic gesture of every action movie gunslinger.
It was The Professor.
Still wearing Emiya Kiritsugu's body. Still alive despite everyone thinking he was out of the War.
"Sorry, kids," The Professor sighed, adjusting his glasses with his free hand, his expression genuinely apologetic. "But in a Battle Royale... the patient camper always wins."
He chambered another round.
The bolt action clicked with mechanical finality.
Maverick's vision went black.
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