I grin as I look out over our army, marching towards the Holy City.
"An impressive spectacle, eh, Galahad?"
He just nods non-committally, still looking at me as if he's worried I'll vanish the moment he takes his eyes off me. He's been doing that ever since… things happened. Shrine-related things.
Notthinkingaboutit, notthinkingaboutit, nothinkingaboutit.
In any case, the Holy City is now within our field of view. We're getting close, and-
Arash gives us the warning signal, and I turn to Galahad.
"Prepare to block a shot from the Holy Lance."
He nods. "Our glorious homeland, that which heals all wounds, LORD CAMELOT!"
The walls of the shining city rise, and the light of the World's End breaks against them, the shining glare of their clash blotting out the Sun.
And then the glare fades, leaving us all half-blind, and shaken by the realization of how close to death we just came.
"Continue to advance!" I roar. "We don't stop until the Holy City has fallen!"
The rest of the army nods shakily, commanders pulling themselves together and barking orders at their men.
Good. I
can't fail. Not yet, at least.
"So." Galahad looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "You never actually told us just how you planned to deal with Gawain. Just said that you knew how to get him out of the way. Since we're, you know, about to go toe-to-toe with him, I was wondering if you'd drop the theatricality and just
tell me what you're planning."
Another deflection hangs on the tip of my tongue, but I catch myself. It's Galahad, he's saved my life more times than I can count, he deserves a straight answer. "I'm going to talk him down."
"Gawain." Galahad looks at me incredulously. "You're going to talk
Gawain down."
"Same situation as Lancelot. He's too strong to fight head-on without any victory being pyrrhic. Thus, we have to at least
try to woo him over to our side."
The new servants I summoned in to replace Cu, Siegfried, and Mata Hari (who we sent back to Chaldea the nonlethal way, to my great irritation) were all handpicked specifically for the fight against the Lion King. If we go up against Gawain, it could leave us fatally unprepared for the fight against the false Arthur.
And I can talk him down. I
know that I can. Lancelot, Mata Hari, and Bedivere all pegged him as following out of loyalty alone but disliking the Lion King's actions.
Thus, he can be swayed. He can be won over. I can't fail here. I can't.
"Trust me. He'll come around. Especially when I tell him what I figured out about the Lion King."
"You're not even going to tell me this mysterious discovery of yours, are you? You're just going to find a reason to bail on this conversation, so it's more dramatic when you pull it out of your ass," Galahad says, half amused and half exasperated.
"Well, I
was going to tell you, but you just gave me an excellent idea!"
"Yeah, sure I did, you freaking drama queen."
"You know you love it."
"I most certainly do
not." He rolls his eyes. "And there's no way I'm letting you talk to Gawain alone. If you're doing this, then I'm going with you."
"I didn't doubt that for a second."
---
We march on through two more shots of from Rhongomyniad, Lord Camelot's walls unbreakable.
And then, finally, we come to the Holy City's gates. The Holy City's surprisingly under-garrisoned gates. I don't see a single Selection Knight, and there are only two soldiers on the walls.
Right then. "Galahad, have you got the white flag?"
"Yes, although I still think this will be a disaster."
"You always think that." I grin, then add over the mental link, '
Besides, Serenity and Scaevola will be following via stealth. Worst comes to worst, and parley breaks down, I give them the signal and Serenity gives Gawain some sugar, hopefully ending the whole fight before it starts.'
Galahad frowns as begin making our way towards Gawain, flag of parley fluttering in the breeze. '
Why would giving our enemy a sweetener end the fight?'
I can't help it. I start laughing, at least until Galahad lightly punches me in the arm. Lightly by
his standards, at least. I still lose feeling in it for a few seconds.
'
You're an ass.'
'
True.'
'
So are you going to tell me?'
'
Giving someone sugar is also a euphemism for kissing.'
'
Oh. Gross.'
And then Gawain calls out to us, "That's close enough!"
"Sir Gawain." I nod respectfully, looking him over. "We've come to talk."
He looks like shit. In spite of the fact that Servants need no sleep, he still has dark rings beneath his eyes. But more than his apparent exhaustion, he looks… haunted. Like his very
soul has worn thin.
"I doubt my king will offer any concessions," he says, trying for polite refusal and only managing 'completely dead inside.' "I think she might just blast you with the Holy Lance and then tell the survivors to go home, honestly. That's what she usually does, nowadays."
"Sir Gawain, are you… all right?" Galahad asks, looking worried. "You don't seem your usual self."
"I don't feel my usual self," Gawain says bitterly. "But I keep my word. It's the only honorable thing I have left."
"We came to parley with you, actually," I interject, trying to steer this conversation back on track. "Will you turn back? It's not too late to do the right thing and stand against the Lion King."
I see it for a moment, a split-second look of hope, of longing.
And then he shuts it away.
"I've come too far to turn back now, Master of Chaldea. And I've done too much to ever deserve redemption." He shakes his head sadly. "Return to your army. I will face you as a Knight of the Lion King. It's all I deserve, in the end."
Right then, time to break out my rhetorical trump card. I smile and, as I turn away, launch my payload. "Very well, then, Sir Gawain. I suppose it's only natural for a son to side with his mother."
He bites. "But-King Arthur is not my mother!" He looks legitimately confused at the thought.
Galahad's already giving me his get-it-over-with look, so I happily comply. "Hm? I thought it was obvious. The Lion King isn't King Arthur. She's Morgan la Fey."
"What." Galahad says, utterly deadpan. Gawain, for his part, is gaping like a fish.
"What, did you really believe that noble and chivalrous Arthur would order women and children killed, merely for the crime of not living up to his standards? Did you believe that generous and beneficent Arthur, who never failed to reward his knights for their loyalty, would treat his best and brightest followers like mere cannon fodder? Did you really think that pious Arthur, beloved by God, would be so blasphemous as to raze the holiest city on Earth and declare himself a god?"
"But- that doesn't make sense!" Gawain finally says, his tone in stark contrast to the hope beginning to creep across his face. "The Lion King has Rhongomyniad, the Sacred Lance! It would accept no master but Arthur!"
"Really?" I deliver my trump card. "And did you ever see Arthur
use said lance?"
"No."
"Really, what's more likely: That Arthur secretly had a reusable
nuke in lance form that he, for some reason, never used, or that Morgan used her magecraft to create something that would give her an edge? Because I get the feeling that the ability to turn any town you don't like into a smoking crater might've come in handy during your war against the Saxons." I only have circumstantial evidence, of course. But Gawain
wants to believe me. He
wants to believe that the monster he feels like he's been trapped into following isn't the king he so deeply admired. I did too. It's why I came up with the theory in the first place.
"I… I was wrong." Gawain says it like it's the most beautiful sentence he's ever heard. He's crying now, the tears streaming down his cheeks. "I was wrong. I failed my king. Oh, thank God! I can atone! I can atone!"
I walk up to him and offer my hand. "Will you join us?"
"Yes!" He takes my hand and I help pull him to his feet. "Stand back! I'll make an opening for you!"
Galahad and I both make a strategic withdrawal while Gawain fires up Excalibur Galatine.
"Do you really believe it?" Galahad asks once we're out of Gawain's earshot. "What you told him?"
"I want to. So did he. Sometimes, that's more important than if something's true."
He gives me a look. "I don't think I'll ever really understand you, Flynn." He turns to where the fires of the Sun burn away the walls of the Holy City. "But thank you."
"What's that for?"
"For helping him. Even if it was for your own benefit."
"No problem." And with that said, I give our army the signal, and the invasion begins.