Chapter Text
As Mordred stared down Arthur's lance, chest heaving, blood trickling in the seams and cracks of the armor, Mordred wondered if standing on Hell's fog just below Londinium's sky was the closest to Heaven the knight would ever get.
It was an absurd thought. Heaven and Hell didn't exist. The Throne was the closest thing Earth had to a "Heaven," and, well, Mordred already had that one in the bag. (Big whoop.) But as the Knight of Rebellion gazed into the empty black void of Arthur's helmet, the notion that despite everything Arthur had done, despite how she'd treated Mordred, despite how much blood and sweat and tears and how many times the knight had nearly died saving her kingdom, despite how much Mordred had loved Arthur before Camlann, despite everything...
Arthur would be let into Heaven.
And Mordred would be sent plummeting to the depths of Hell without a second thought.
The clouds beneath Mordred's feet, sewn into a platform by the weave of Tesla's magic—he had refused to call it magic, babbling on about DC or whatever, but Mordred didn't care—buckled as Arthur slammed Rhongomyniad into Mordred over and over again. Mordred could feel ribs snapping in half, blood erupting from the knight's mouth.
Electricity slipped between the cracks, snaking up Mordred's legs and singing the skin, but the knight could barely feel it as Arthur tossed her son to the side. Mordred sailed through the air like a ragdoll, limbs bending and twisting at unnatural angles as the full weight of the knight's armor crashed into Mash with monumental force.
Shieldy didn't flinch. She just continued her charge as if she'd barely noticed four hundred-odd pounds of muscle and steel colliding into her at full force, meeting Rhongomyniad head-on with her shield without budging an inch as Arthur reared back and plunged it towards Mordred once again.
Digging Clarent into the clouds, Mordred slowed the immense momentum of the armor, just barely keeping the knight from careening over the edge of the fog and into the streets below. Mordred's muscles screamed to move, to fight, to do anything but
all Mordred could do
was
lie
still.
Mordred's ears rang, the knight's hearing already muffled by Secret of Pedigree and the clangor of battle. In the corners of Mordred's red-tinged vision, restricted to slits by the helmet, a shadow, two shadows, no, just one, jabbed her arm at Arthur and wait, no, there was the second shadow leaping high into the air to descend on the king with sword arm extended, and the first pelted towards Mordred.
"Mordred! Mordred! C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon," Ritsuka muttered to herself as she knelt by Mordred, desperately tugging the knight upward as the black coat that barely fit across her shoulders billowed wildly in the wind. "Ugh, curse my weak nerd arms!"
Growling, Mordred shook her off, leaning on Clarent... and collapsed once more, vomiting blood all over Ritsuka's orange tunic. "Shit." Mordred wiped Secret of Pedigree's mouthguard, but only spat up more blood. "Go help Shieldy. I'm done."
"NO! No you aren't. We... we still have a fight to win!" This time, Mordred didn't have the strength to push Ritsuka away as she struggled to pull Mordred to the knight's feet. "You do not get to die, got that? You are my friend and my friends do not have the privilege of dying !" Mordred doubted that Ritsuka even knew what she was doing, but the knight could feel the power of the Command Spell flowing through bone, sinew, muscle, and blood, healing and knitting together and twisting and untwisting until-
It wasn't enough. Not by a country mile. Mordred could stand now, but the armor was the only thing that kept the knight locked against gravity's pull. But that didn't matter. Like Ritsuka said, they still had a fight to win, and there was no way the knight was letting Ritsuka's strength go to waste. So Mordred stepped forward, the chant's syllables hissing through Secret of Pedigree's faceplate. "This is the evil sword..."
This was going to hurt like Hell, and it would tear the knight apart body and soul.
Just what Mordred deserved.
Mordred raised Clarent, the red flare of the devil's lightning carving through Tesla's artificial storm as it sheathed the sword in its light. "That destroyed my father- huh?"
Two dainty hands, so tiny compared to Mordred's gauntleted paws, clamped onto Clarent's hilt. "Together," Ritsuka said, face deathly pale as she trembled with fear.
"What?!" For the first time in a long, long time, Mordred flinched. "The hell do you think you're doing? I don't need your help to-"
"Yes, you do, idiot!" Yeesh. Ritsuka's face was scarier than Lancelot when she was angry. "There's no way you can handle your Noble Phantasm in your condition. I've seen what it does to you when you aren't almost dead." Biting her lip, Ritsuka looked away. "But Clarent is our one shot at defeating Arthur. I might be just a human and this might not help at all and I might get blown to pieces because of this and... despite all of that, I can still share your burden. We do this together. "
One Command Spell left. But there was no way Mordred was letting Ritsuka take Clarent's bloody toll. Limbs even heavier, the knight shook back and forth. "Get- off me-"
" No! I won't let you do this alone! "
No Command Spells left.
The compulsion forced the words through Mordred's mouth as Ritsuka and the knight's eyes squeezed shut. "Clarent!"
Ritsuka joined in the chant, taking a great, heaving breath as she prepared herself. "Blood!"
"Arthur!"
A thunderclap.
A beacon of shining red, cutting through the fog, bringing with it the roar of revolution.
Two voices, joined as one.
The ashes of a steed crumbling to dust.
Metal cracking, breaking.
The quiet of a storm passing.
Then, a single shard of metal, falling, settling among the clouds. A yellow eye, glaring out with pure hatred.
Mordred grinned, the satisfaction of finally putting a dent in Arthur's armor momentarily outweighing the blinding pain. "Up... yours... old man."
Momentarily being the key word. Mordred fell to one knee, the knight's teeth nearly sawing straight through tongue being the only thing that kept Mordred from screaming. Clarent extracted its toll, pure lightning, purer than anything magic or science or even the sky could produce, burned away all of the knight's nerves.
It didn't hurt as much as it usually did, though. Mordred should've been torn apart in the state the knight was in, so why-
Ritsuka!
Mordred collapsed Secret of Pedigree, staggering over to where Ritsuka laid. She didn't even have the strength to yell, instead curling up into a ball and whimpering as red light surged through her veins. Her hands and forearms were completely blackened. "I-"
Before Mordred could so much as think of a single word to say, the clang of steel on steel pierced straight through the knight's thoughts. A cross-shaped shadow covered Ritsuka and Mordred, held up by a tiny figure that seemed insignificant against the force the unsaddled Arthur and Rhongomyniad brought to bear against her shield: Mash.
Mash stared at Mordred, expression grim and... furious. Mordred had never seen the girl so pissed. She nodded, once, and Mordred knew what to do.
The Knight of Rebellion's body was past pain. There was only duty left within Mordred's mind. Gauntlet almost welded to the hilt of Clarent, Mordred stood up, teeth grit. The knight and Mash had only a few seconds; despite Shieldy's determination, Arthur was pushing her back inch by inch. But if Mordred struck now, there was no way the knight's armor would stop another blow from Rhongomyniad. So how-
"May the Royal Family's lily be eternal.
"Fleur de Lys!"
A soft blue glow bathing the arena.
Lily buds, falling, unfolding.
Descending to the clouds, blade shining, dancing.
A single golden eye turned towards a gentle cerulean radiance, cupped in the embrace of a giant flower,
entranced.
Chevalier d'Eon darted forward, expression the picture of serenity as—he? She? Mordred wasn't sure now that the knight dimly thought of it—struck out at Arthur, rapier up and down and down and left and right and left and forward and back and back and forward and up and- Mordred could barely keep track.
And the knight didn't need to. Muscles burning with the emptiness that came after pain, Mordred jumped and planted a foot onto the back of Arthur's head while she was effortlessly fended off d'Eon's endless flurry of blows, only a few of the other Saber's strikes snaking through the king's guard. What was left of Arthur's helm exploded into shards. Yelling incoherently, Mordred pushed and pushed and pushed, arms singing with pain, Clarent flying and cutting and carving and cleaving the air in half and Arthur's armor into pieces as Mordred put every ounce of anger and hatred and betrayal and longing and love and fury that the knight had into each blow, hammering, blows swinging wide enough to chip Mash's armor, hammering, cuts screeching through cloud hard enough to cut d'Eon's hairs as the dragoon intensified their own assault hammering the gap, until Mordred kicked off of Arthur's torso, tossing Clarent deep into the king's gut with a wet squelch and the burning ozone of lightning, dove, drove it deeper, deeper in with one more kick, ripped it through father's gut, what happened, what was Mordred doing, no, no she deserved it, Arthur deserved every iota of vengeance, and
Mordred felt Rhongomyniad drive through the knight's armor
and
in
to
the
heart.
"Thrust and feast.
"Thirteen fangs.
"Rhongomyniad."
A storm. A red cyclone.
A true wild hunt, a hurricane of blood and death and fear.
Of justice, twisted.
Of lives, lost.
Of a world, folded neatly in half.
Mordred flew back.
Mash staggered. Shield spent for d'Eon. Collapsed next to Ritsuka and Mordred.
d'Eon glared. Cold as ice. Merciful as a guillotine. And charged. Duck under one thrust. Spin out of the way of another. Parry a swipe. Miscalculate. Get blown back. Redouble, slide under guard. Erupt , jump up, kick off of chestplate, dive in a dragoon's charge, pierce with a blade of light. Slash left, slice right, thrust once, twice, three times, aim for the jugular and miss. They slid back, feinted low, jumped again at Arthur's thrust, running along the length of Rhongomyniad, slice off more of Arthur's armor. Nose is bloodied by a punch. Sent rocketing back.
Regain feet. Deep breath. In, out.
Arthur took a deep breath. In, out.
And move . Rhongomyniad was a blur, seeming to wield Arthur instead of the other way around as it stormed forward in a torrent of stabs and thrusts and spears. And yet Chevalier d'Eon avoided each blow, dancing as if they were waltzing in a court ballroom rather than in a Grand Battle for the restoration of humanity.
One and two and three and-
Strike.
One and two and three and-
Strike, strike.
One and two and three and-
Strike, strike, strike.
One and two and three and-
Each blow carves away Arthur's protection, bit by bit.
One and two and three and-
Until, finally.
One and two and three and-
Three thrusts. They barely seemed to hit, at first glance. Then d'Eon jumped back, flicking their blade free of gore, and blood poured forth from every inch of Arthur's torso.
And the great king of kings, uniter of Britain, wielder of Excalibur, holder of Rhongomyniad, leader of the Wild Hunt, fell.
Mordred stared Arthur in the eyes as she died. The madness faded. Her lips parted to mouth six syllables before Arthur, great king of kings, uniter of Britain, wielder of Excalibur, holder of Rhongomyniad, and father, dissolved.