Now scene 10, one that I really liked to write.
Time to rape canon.
Enjoy!
Scene 10:
There was no way that Emiya Shirou could win.
Archer was better than him at projection, at reinforcement, at battle analysis. At fighting itself.
Which was a funny thing since he claimed to be Emiya Shirou, too.
While crossing blows he talked, talked with words as painful as the numerous cuts that now covered Shirou's body. He talked about his dream, calling it impossible, calling it fake. A lie.
He explained with words filled with self hate what would wait for him at the end of his crusade to help people. What his borrowed ambitions left him at the end.
Nothing, nothing but death. But the backstabbing of those he saved, as they could not understand him.
And after that, after death, his own ideal would betray him.
In the end he would have nothing but a wasteland and grave-like swords.
And he believed him, because he was losing in the middle of that world. Because, even if everything was alien to him, something in his mind recognized that the owner of that place could not be other than himself, a twisted version of himself.
But even if he was losing he wouldn't surrender. While he was sure that at least he could help someone in any sort of way he wouldn't stop fighting.
And he knew that he could help. He could save people with his still developing skills! He could make their lives better with the ideas that he had in his mind!
With the advice that Chell gave him, with his magic and science holding hands, Emiya Shirou felt that he could save the world itself!
He fought against Archer with all he had, reinforcing his punches until they were able to crack the hero's armour, sending his body safety to Hell. He blocked with hastily made metal plates of the same materials and proprieties that whatever sword was being used against him, and projected his own swords only when his hands were close enough to his enemy that they couldn't be stopped.
He could sympathize with Archer, to who everything had betrayed in the end. But that did not mean that he was going to follow his same destiny.
"You are not anyone to tell me what will happen!" He managed block a longsword, but a katana made a wound in one of his sides " Even if you are Emiya Shirou, you are not me! My destiny and yours will not be the same!"
His falchion penetrated a bit in Archers arm before being destroyed by the same two handed sword that caused a deep cut in his chest.
He wouldn't lose against a selfish bastard that had forgotten his dream, and was trying to cause paradox! Something that could erase all the time, backwards and forwards, for God's sake!
"This is my life, my decisions! I'll make my own rules!"
In his hands the pair of black-white Chinese short swords appeared, using the moment in which Archer sword was disappearing, going for his neck in the only second he would be unarmed.
"YOU FOOL!"
A punch with force of a Heroic Spirit augmented by perfected reinforcement impacted in his face, showing him that the opening had not been something random.
Archer face deformed in a image of pure anger and rage as he let aside his swords and started a uninterrupted chain of hits in Shirou's face.
"While Emiya Shirou walks the path of the hero he will always end the same! There is no hope at the end of that way!"
Under the blows and the screams Shirou's concentration broke, and with it the reinforcement that encompassed his skin.
"You are empty, Emiya Shirou! You have nothing worthwhile to call truly yours! Only the borrowed will of a dead man!"
The next punch made him fell to the floor and see stars. Archer observed him with a face of hate and disgust, and then he drew one of the swords that waited in the ground around him.
"Nothing changes every time I get summoned. The same skills, the same wills, the same ideals, they are always the same."
He readied his sword, preparing the last blow.
"They are the lemons that life gave us. Now stay still, Emiya Shirou, because it's time that I make lemonade."
Something exploded in Shirous mind.
Archer's was right, in the fire he had lost all. He became a void that needed the will of someone else to be filled, and saving people was simply so beautiful. He had accepted Emiya Kirutsugu will with a smile.
But that was not the only one that now filled him.
And that other new part of him would never accept Archer's words. They seemed unnatural to it. It forced him to move even if his body couldn't, filling him with a rage that made Archer's appear like a joke.
He roared.
"DON'T MAKE LEMONADE!"
Before the Counter Guardian could bring the weapon down he was in his feet again, face to face with Archer, and delivered a very hard headbutt to him. Enough to make the man step back, even if not reinforcement had been used.
The world itself trembled at the words. The gears that floated in the horizon behind Shirou started to slow down.
"What...!?"
"IF YOU DON'T WANT THE LEMONS, MAKE LIFE TAKE THEM BACK!"
He reinforced his fist until it overloaded. Blades poked out of his skin but Shirou seemed to not mind as he used that to punch Archer in the face.
The fake hero stagged back, his face bleeding copiously from the last hit. He scowled. Deciding that he had taken enough from that punk, he made swords rain over him.
"GET MAD!"
Shirou projected a very big and dense metallic plate in the air using it to block the torrent of weapons.
"I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS, WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?!"
The words flowed out of his mouth like he was possessed. The words of a man that he heard many times in his dreams.
"What are you doing?! How are you doing this?!" Archer couldn't prevent a exclamation of surprise as the weapons in the air above Shirou just vanished. This was his reality. That shouldn't be happening!
"DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER!"
Cave Johnson had been a lot of things, a genius, a seller, a monster... But above all things he was a leader, a man with a great will. The will to overcame any difficulties that he faced, the will that made his scientists search manners of ignoring the laws of reality each time that they blocked the path towards his goals.
"MAKE LIFE RUE THAT DAY THAT IT THOUGHT IT COULD GIVE EMIYA SHIROU LEMONS!"
But in the end he had been a normal man. He could not remake the world at his image when he saw fit.
But Emiya Shirou, the one that now carried his words, his will to overcome everything, could.
And Archer stared incredulously as part of his world changed under his eyes.
"DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!"
He had nearly no prana left, but it wasn't important right now.
This was not any kind spell. And it would never be even near the aria that he would use to call his inner world. But here, in a place where the World had been negated already, the words containing the dying will of a man mixed into his soul with the borrowed ideal of his father, and they were enough.
If this was a matter of wills, Emiya Shirou's shined like a sun.
"I'M THE MAN THAT IS GOING TO BURN YOUR WORLD DOWN!"
And reality broke into two in the middle of them.
The cogwheels from the air behind him stopped and fell, behind them a myriad of more tiny and interconnected gears and hydraulic mechanisms could be seen covering the whole horizon, smoking and sparking, without letting any piece of the sky be seen. They moved fast and crazily, accompanied by the mechanical noises of a thousand machines working frenetically over steel.
This was the realization of his skills, dreams and will. Those 'lemons' that Archer hated that much.
"WITH THE LEMONS!"
The earth under Emiya Shirou feet changed into a smooth surface of concrete. The grave like swords melted in the air, to be replaced with perfectly ordered ones in a grid distribution. Every blade that he could see into Archer's world was remade for him in the crazy, marvelous and impossible factory behind him, then placed near him to be used.
And Shirou did exactly that. He reached for the first sword he had within reach with his not bladed hand and charged against Archer. His twisted future self responded in kind, ignoring his surprise by what the fuck had happened, and made his favored short swords appear before charging against the fast coming form of Shirou.
Above them the swords that rained from the air in Archer's side were stopped as machinery that replaced the sky in Shirou's became louder and started to spit the same ones.
The endless steel forge versus the infinite metal factory.
No matter where both of them looked, there were Unlimited Blade Works waiting to be drawn.
They crossed blades and fist in another shower of sparks.
"I'M GOING TO DISCOVER HOW TO PROJECT A COMBUSTIBLE LEMON THAT BURNS YOU WORLD DOWN!"
Shirou didn't care anymore how better than him Archer was in every aspect, he only cared about making him swallow every word he said before.
His future self had said that he couldn't save people, that he couldn't fight Servants alone. But you know where he would be if he followed the rules?
Dead. Dead and Chell-less.