Fate/Heroes - Chapter 9

Gray left the hotel shortly after his meeting with Talia al Ghul. Staying in the territory of the League of Shadows wasn’t a good option for anybody. Even someone some with metahuman level abilities like Gray.

Taking his bag of money he headed out to the airport on the outskirts of Gotham, waiting patiently for the arrival of the blood money.

He had spent several thousand dollars at the hotel, mainly gorging himself on food and seeing how much liquor it took to get himself intoxicated.

After drinking over a dozen straight glasses of bourbon, Gray finally felt a little dizzy but the feeling passed quickly and he returned to his room, a bemused expression on his face.

“I can’t get drunk. I guess this is how Barry Allen feels….”.

Achilles possessed a similar speed to when Barry Allen first obtains his speed. He could cross several miles in the blink of an eye without using his chariot, yet their was an invisible force acting upon Gray whenever he reached the speed limit Achilles reached in his prime.

It was as if his body was about to get shoved through a small tube, and he resisted this feeling with the immense strength Achilles Class Card had on his constitution.

‘I wasn’t going nearly as fast as the Flash needed to use the Speed Force. The rules in this universe are completely different to both the one that the Class Cards came from as well as my own. Exotic materials and foreign elements exist here that don’t anywhere else. Hell, Kyptonite was just an idea before I was sent here’.

Gray sighed as he sat in a nearby tree.

Despite getting to the airport several hours before the allotted time for the money shipment, there were dozens of guards, each with machine guns guarding the surrounding area.

It didn’t seem like the Falcone Crime Family didn’t want to take any chances with this one.

Gray waited and waited as the sun slowly dipped over the horizon. The long shadows cast by the setting sun provided a perfect scenery for Gray to snooze to. As he thought about using his other Class Cards in the near future.

‘Lancer and Caster would agree. So would Gunner. Saber, Alter Ego, Saver and Berserker refuse to be used under any circumstances. Assassin for some reason accepted my call today, and Archer, Avenger and Ruler don’t even answer me….. I guess that only leaves Shielder…..’.

Closing his eyes and reaching out into his soul, Gray connected with the lone card without any form of weaponry. Carrying only a single shield into combat, donning thick armor as the figure stalked the battlefield.

“Install…. Shielder…..”.

A minor flash in the forests surrounding the airport went unnoticed by the armed guards and Gray’s attire changed instantly. Becoming something similar to Achilles’, yet completely different.

Being clad in silver armor with blue highlights, it was similar to Achilles in design, yet was much thicker and tougher than the Greek Hero. A massive diamond shaped shield appeared on Gray’s arm, its size wider than himself and taller than his six foot figure.

It was crafted from celestial silver and covered in the hide of seven giant oxes. The hides themselves could block blows from swords and spears and deflect countless arrows. It had become both a Noble Phantasm and a Conceptual Weapon after the Heroic Spirit who it belonged to reached the Throne of Heroes.

It was the shield of Ajax The Great. One of the many Heroes from the Trojan War.

It was Rho Aias.

“….. Damn….. the memories of Ajax…. their amazing…..”.

“Ajax! He killed himself!”.

Gray looked down and the phantom image of a sword piercing his stomach crossed over with his current vision.

The regret…. the shame…. the dishonor…. everything that Ajax felt in his final moments flowed into Gray in an instant. How he acted when he found out that Odysseus was to claim Achilles armor after he died…. the rage he felt when he found this out….. the famous pose he created when he was contemplating his own suicide…..

It was horrible.

A cool calming sensation flowed out of the Shielder Class Card and my ragged breathing slowly regained its normal pace.

Despite having all of his memories flow into him, the strongest memories, specifically, the ones with intense emotions powering them were the ones that were the most prevalent. It was the same with Achilles in when exposed to Penthesilea and Ajax when he was contemplating his final moments.

Feelings of suicide that never even crossed the mind of Gray in his previous life was a little bit of a shock to the twenty year old. Such intense emotional instability was such a foreign experience to the young man, even with several lifetimes worth of experiences behind him,

He gave a wry smile.

“The Greeks really do have the worst endings. Rider died after being shot with countless arrows and Shielder killed himself. Even Archer was inadvertently killed by his wife….”.

He looked up at the large cargo plane flying over head, sending a warm wind to gust through the forest, completely unknown to the planes occupants of the danger beneath them.

A bubbling dėsɨrė for battle was slowly rising up from with Gray’s body. Under the effects of Ajax’ Class Card, a sudden need to burst onto the battlefield and terrorize his enemies came forth, which was suppressed by his own dėsɨrė not to kill his opponents.

“I do not kill Shielder. Rider was perfectly fine with not killing his opponents at the docks, why can’t you?”.

A strange hot feeling coursed through his body, emanating from the Shielder Class Card.

“I know that you want to fight, all you Greeks are the same. Think about it like this, these are just mortals with absolutely no combat prowess whatsoever. Without their guns their completely useless. They’re not worth it”.

The strange hot feeling was doused somewhat by Gray’s words, and the battle hungry feeling faded, if only a little bit.

The twenty year old Pseudo-Servant sighed.

Lancer was easy to reason with, and was quite the talker once you got to know her, while Caster was just an extremely cute girl who adored her “master”.

Rider and Shielder were battle hungry idiots whose best ideas were formed during combat. Saber was unresponsive as was Saver and Alter Ego.

Gunner didn’t care while Assassin only wanted to even talk to Gray when Talia was around. Ruler was one of the weirdest people he had ever met and Avenger was even crazier than Berserker in battle. She was an unstoppable Demon King from the Sixth Heaven after all.

Gray stepped out from the cover of the forest and onto the runway. His massive shield caught the eye of the criminals instantly and was immediately yelled out although he completely ignored what they were saying.

His eyes glowed a radiant pink, the same color as a certain seven petaled flower.

“Let’s have some fun with this, shall we?”.