CHAPTER 2.10 -RED REBEL RESCUE

"Heads up! Clarent..!"

A humanoid figure descended from the sky.

"BLOOD ARTHUR!" the figure shouted.

A bright red light illuminated the night as a beam of red light descended, obliterating most of the Verg Gae Bolg spears and forcing Mockery to dodge, breaking their focus on maintaining their Noble Phantasms. Gradually, the numerous spears began to dissipate.

With a resounding crack, the figure slammed into the ground, creating a sizable crater upon impact. Rising from the ground, a young blonde girl with a spiky ponytail smirked playfully at Mockery. It was Mordred.

"You're late, girlie," Cu grunted.

"And you look like shit," Mordred snapped back.

Mordred then observed Mockery closely, taking note of the gaping hole in their chest, the numerous wounds, and the severed burn on their left side caused by her Noble Phantasm. She couldn't help but notice the striking similarity between Mockery and Cu.

Glancing back at Cu, she asked, "Is he your lost twin brother or something?"

"As if. The bastard just morphed and imitated me. The worst part is he somehow copied my fighting style and we have similar Noble Phantasms."

"Heh, got beaten by a mere copy."

"I'm not... Shut up!"

Turning her attention back to Mockery, Mordred raised her sword and declared, "Well, I don't know what the hell you are, but... I'm joining this party!"

She hurled her sword at Mockery, who managed to block it, but before they could react, Mordred rushed at them with incredible speed and threw a powerful punch that collided with their face, resulting in a resounding crack. In one swift motion, she retrieved the sword she had initially thrown and delivered a slashing attack.

Mockery could barely raise their spear to block, but the sheer force behind Mordred's strike lifted their body and sent them hurtling to the side. They quickly regained their footing and evaded as Mordred pursued, leaping and delivering an overhead slash towards the ground. Mockery swiftly moved aside, narrowly escaping the devastating impact.

BOOOM

The ground shook as Mordred's attack landed, narrowly missing Mockery. Her sword became lodged in the ground, but she didn't bother retrieving it. Instead, she released her grip and unleashed a series of powerful punches, concluding with a forceful front kick to Mockery's gut, sending them skidding away.

The situation was dire for Mockery. They looked up to see Cu approaching, and facing a two-on-one fight in their current condition was impossible. To make matters worse, their damaged body prevented them from absorbing and copying the data of the new servant.

"You're not so tough. I guess this mutt is just that weak," Mordred taunted.

"I've already weakened him, thank you very much," Cu annoyingly retorted. "Hey, shadowy bastard, ready for round two?"

Cu readied his spear, and Mordred followed suit, gripping her sword tightly. Mockery knew when to retreat, and so, they did the only sensible thing. They melted their body into black mud, dispersing and seeping through the ground.

They ran away.

...

Mordred felt disappointed. The shadow bastard had fled shortly after her arrival. While she wouldn't label herself as a battle maniac, she had her own personal reasons for wanting to pummel the bastard.

Glancing at the worn-out mutt and the rubble of the abandoned factory, Mordred quickly assessed the situation. Bastard was strong. She had even caught a glimpse of the shadowy bastard's Noble Phantasm, a terrifying power for sure, but not something she couldn't handle by herself.

"You sure don't have any sense of subtlety, huh?" Mordred commented, surveying the destruction.

"Oh, shut up. I'm not the one who released a bright beam of light from the sky!" Cu retorted. "I bet everyone in the city noticed it."

Mordred hissed in response.

She had urgently requested Medea's help to teleport her right above the battlefield, aiming for a surprise attack. However, in hindsight, using her Noble Phantasm at that exact moment may not have been her wisest decision.

"So, did the Overseer send you alone here?" Cu inquired.

"Yeah, got a problem with that?" Mordred replied.

Cu pondered for a moment. "Actually, yes. We have numerous servants working together right now. It would be strange to send just one servant as reinforcement."

"It's not like I couldn't handle the shadowy bastard alone," Cu continued, "but if I were the Overseer, I would send as many servants as possible to easily outnumber him."

Mordred frowned. "I guess you haven't heard the news."

"What news?" Cu asked.

"Your battle here is not the only one," Mordred dropped a bombshell.

"There have been numerous battles with similar shadow entities throughout this city alone," she explained. "Yours was just the loudest so far, and our available forces are spread thin."

"Damn, that's bad," Cu muttered.

"Our scouts have also discovered that the shadow entities are slowly encroaching neighboring cities," Mordred growled.

As brash and hot-headed as she was, Mordred remained a knight at heart. The knowledge that someone innocent being killed every night at the hands of those bastards left a bitter taste in her mouth. She had even come across the butchered corpses of children, which only further infuriated her.

But there was another problem.

"That shadow was definitely weird," she muttered.

"Huh? Why?" Cu inquired, overhearing her muttering.

"It copied you. No other shadow entity prior to this has done that. They always took the form of either a formless shadow or a beast," she explained. "And they were never as strong. That shadow earlier possessed a Noble Phantasm, for God's sake."

The implications of this revelation were horrifying, to say the least. Both Cu and Mordred silently agreed that this new information needed to be conveyed to the Overseer and spread throughout their ranks.

Those shadow bastards were evolving.

...

In an abandoned mansion notorious for being haunted, a shadow sat upon one of the sofas. A smaller shadow appeared from the ground before it assimilated with the former one. One of their other selves returned.

The shadow hummed.

The shadow,Servant's Mockery, the very first one, felt intrigued.

Their creator had tasked them with harvesting magical energy, prompting them to split themselves into many different other selves for more efficient work. Usually, their other selves were mindless or animalistic in nature, diligently carrying out their duties. However, on occasion, these mindless selves displayed a surprising degree of intelligence later on.

Everything had been going smoothly until this afternoon when most of their mindless selves were killed in action. They were massacred, and some who managed to escape reported being hunted by a "strong human." Due to their limited mental capacity, they couldn't provide further details.

It was unfortunate that they couldn't establish contact with their other selves to warn them after splitting apart.

Then, one of their other selves, the more intelligent one, returned with concerning yet promising news.

There were servants in the city, leading them to assume that the "strong human" their mindless selves encountered were also servants. This raised concerns since servants weren't supposed to be summoned outside of the Holy Grail War.

However, there was a silver lining. Their other selves had successfully managed to copy the Saint Graph data of one servant from their encounter, Cu Chulainn.

This development altered their plans slightly. It seemed that the time had come to mock the servants.