[Doctor Gabriel]

Saber let out a heroic cackle.

“But you are mistaken, Mi Maestro!” he declared throwing his arms out to either side and tossing head back to let the midmorning sun illuminate his crazed, wizened face, “Any residence of the Greatest Knight of All Time and his Humble Lord could not be anything but a fortress! I dare say it would be more appropriate to call it a castle-No! A Palace, fit for Mi Honrado Rey!”

His point made, Saber gallantly began to match in the direction indicated by his Master. As he strode he turned his head back to Erik, an inquisitive gleam in his dementia riddled eyes.

“By the by,” the mad knight inquired, “Regarding the inn we are departing. What exactly separates it from all other Westerns, thereby making it the Best?”

[Gallagher]

"Nothing does," Erik replied, taking long strides to keep up with his servant's enthusiastic pace. The way the knight held himself was interesting to watch. He wasn't sure who Don Quixote was in life, but for all accounts, he seemed like quite the hero. "It's called the best because that boosts its ego."

[Doctor Gabriel]

“Fascinating!” Saber declared louder than necessary, stroking his pointed, grey goatee, “And rather sad all at once. Tis no small tragedy one that feels the need to add superfluity to his identity in hopes of feeling whole.”

Don Quixote kept to his gallant geit, unaware of the profound irony in the sentiment that had just escaped his lips.

Then without warning, Saber’s eyes nearly lept from their sockets in awe.

“Dios mío…” he whispered, “ Mi Rey! Is that one of those… Automobiles that the people of this time ride in place of stallions?”

[Gallagher]

Erik blinked at Saber's back, then let his focus shift to what had caught the servant's attention. "People don't call them automobiles anymore. They're motor cars... or just cars. If you pay someone else to drive it, it's a cab. And if it's made to carry a lot of things, it's a truck." His steps stalled for a second or two before he turned down another street, not bothering to warn Saber of his change in direction. "Either way, it's faster to walk in places like this."

[Doctor Gabriel]

Saber didn’t hear him. By the time Erik had finished his
sentence, the brave knight was standing proudly in the middle of the road.

The little old woman in the Honda Civic only barely hit the brakes in time to avoid smashing into the bizarre gentleman in a full suit of poorly made platemail. She squinted over the dashboard at the strange fellow and jumped a little as he slammed his palms onto the hood.

“Madam!” he bellowed, trying to insure she would hear him from within her metal box, “My master and I are a on mission of grave import! I beseech thee, let us join you down this stone pathway toward our noble goal!”

The woman who seemed even older than the aged knight before her blinked for a few seconds.

“Excusez-moi?”

[Gallagher]

He glanced back when he heard his servant's booming voice, but the sight of the mad man destroying vehicles, disrupting traffic, and yelling at innocent bystanders wasn't enough to make him diverge from his new path. Only one of them had to find the right place, after all.

"I think it's going to rain."

[Poggio]

Here lies a nuisance dedicated to sanity… The modern thought broke the Pirate mid stride in the new era. Mary relaxed, closed her eyes, and breathed in the area around her. There was salt in the air. But far from the sea. This wasn’t Jamaica and she… women could choose to wear pants and not get lashings? A voice broke her out of her reprieve frantically demanding her attention. She answered it first with the sharpened steel aimed to maim, but it simply turned more into bemused smirk twitching, threatening to spill over into laughter. This was the man she was to serve during the war?

“See? See that ye be nothing m’re then a babe still swaddlin' thou're moth'rs tits?.” She turned her weapon to the broad side of the blade and tapped against the little man. “puteth that hence” Inhaling the mucus lodged in her nostrils, she formed them into spit and shot it at the baby, Boy-Annie’s feet with heavy distain. “I 'ave no needs f’r cabinbabes”

“Who are ye?” The blade drew away from the man she was to call Captain. Not that such a babe could ever fill those boots. But looks alone did not atone for men and their actions. “And-” The humor in the smirk was lost “'n wha' do ye wants wit' me loot?... The Grail?”

[Suzerain of Sheol]

"Hmmm..." Merlin is deep in thought atop the bell-tower of Notre Dame des Doms, gazing across the expanse of the city below. "I guess this is going to be a close-quarters Grail War, huh HG? Not exactly a lot of room for cat-and-mouse here. Oh, you're still not answering me? I guesssss that's okay, you have work and all." She sighs.

"And speaking of cramped..." Merlin shoves at the statue of the Virgin currently sharing space with her on the summit of the tower, her gilded robes shining blindingly in the midday sun. The statue teeters at the press of her ultra-human strength.

"Oh Gods!" the great wizard yelps, frantically wrapping her arms around the Blessed Mother and attempting to hold her still. "Okay... okay Mare, there's plenty of room for the both of us up here. You can share the spotlight for a minute."

Merlin crouches on the edge of the pinnacle, maintaining a precarious balance as she searches the city. "I know what your thinking," she addresses to the statue, "And I will have you know I am NOT fat, we just all can't be starving, subjugated Judean peasants! So I enjoy a cookie or six once in a while! I'm in great shape! Just look at me!"

She turns to gesture emphatically at the dispassionate statue, and promptly slips off the edge, having to catch herself with a curtain of air-mana to avoid plummeting into the square below. The great wizard regains her perch with perfect dignity.

"Judgmental bitch," she mutters. "Now let's see... we have one, two, Gods they're close by, three, four, there's five and six, with six Servants as well... but where is the seventh??"

Extending her clairvoyance out of Avignon proper, she quickly pinpoints the laggards. She contemplates using another Command Seal to tell them to hurry up before deciding that she could do with the walk.

And not because of the three strawberry-cream crêpes she had before coming up here. Crêpes are gross. She wouldn't do that.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

The old man looks like an old man, save that, unlike some other servants, perhaps, Leonardo Da Vinci looks like the spitting image of himself from every modern reproduction of every Renaissance image. The greatest painter would make excellent self portraits.

Rider likewise looks at his Master; her pony-tail, headband; canvas jacket.

"A magic cup. I suppose there are more foolish things to wage war over." He gets out of his chair by the window. Everything about him is long and flowing, from his grey beard and hair to his rich coloured clothes. He drops his brush into a leather pouch at his side, almost swallowed in his robes. "I assume it is the magic you desire, not the cup? There is no shortage of vessels to delight if the latter were so. I could save us the trouble and make some, myself."

Rider tilts his head a little as if listening to something.

"We are summoned, yes? The overseer would have us convene. Shall we go?"

He smiles slightly, reaching up to adjust the cap on his head. It remains crooked.

[Doctor Gabriel]

Before long, Saber had successfully backed up traffic almost all the way to Avignon’s airport. The locals and travelers just trying to make it into the city didn’t appreciate his noble quest and had decided to voice their displeasure with a belligerent cacophony of honking.

Don Quixote, being a man out of time and with quite aged ears to begin with, could not bare the deafening blare and was forced to clasp his hands to his ears in a desperate attempt to block out the horrendous noise.

Had Erik been paying attention at the instant, he might have seen the way his servant twitched momentarily and the bolt of madness that shot through his eyes.

“What foul trickery is this…?” Saber muttered his face downcast, his shoulders slumped, and almost his entire being giving off the aura of a victim of deceit and betrayal.

Then the Mad Knight, in a true show of his title, threw his head back and cackled louder and more proudly than he had ever done so since his summoning.

“We’ve been duped, Mi Rey!” Don Quixote announced, jabbering his finger in accusation at the old woman behind the steering wheel, “This is no motorcar! It’s something far, far more senesister!”

The old Spaniard’s eyes were agleam with crazed delusion and an impossibly wide grin threatened to tear the corners of his mouth. Before the knight’s eyes, the vehicle shifted and condensed, twisted and expanded. Fists followed by sinuous arms of pure muscle erupted and stretched forth from the front hubcaps, cloven feet and legs strong enough to kick through stone followed from the back. The entire body slowly lifted itself up, revealing the jaggedly contorted torso of a warrior underneath as the headlights shrunk into fiery, hate filled eyes on what was once a grill, but now had become the unmistakable visage of a raging bull.

“Behold, Erik!” Don Quixote declared, gesturing grandly just above the still very ordinary car, “Our foe’s true form: The Minotaur, bastard son of King Minos and The Cretan Bull!”

Saber extended his hands to his sides and, in a flash of incandescent violet, a battered old shield materialized in his left hand, accompanied by a rusty lance missing its tip in his right. He pointed the decrepit weapon at the Carbeast defiantly, eyes ever crazed like those of a rabid dog.

“But worry not, Master!” Don Quixote bellowed heroically, “For on my honor, I shall slay this wretched beast in your name and save this humble village!”

His oath sworn, Don Quixote let out a mad roar as he drove his pathetic excuse for a lance into the license plate of the Civic. The old woman behind the wheel screamed, threw open the door and hobbled away down the road cursing in French.

Don Quixote let out a victorious cackle and raised his lance to the sky in celebration.

“Another foe slain by the great and honorable Don Quixote de La Mancha! Worry not, Mi Rey! You are safe now!” Saber declared loudly as panicked commuters leapt from their vehicles and fled from the car killing lunatic as the sound of sirens grew in the distance.

[Doctor Gabriel]

Mr. Kite blinked bulging eyes at the suddenly distressingly coherent woman.

Well, maybe not coherent… But certainly more in control of her faculties than the blubbering headcase in front of me a moment ago…

I seriously hope I don’t have to flash my dick at her every time she gets like that…

He eventually gave up shock for a defeated sigh and slumped into the nearest, cushiest armchair.

“Wonderful…” he spat sarcastically as he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and let it with a gold zippo, “First she’s a raging lunatic and now she’s a smart ass. A week’s worth of blood and this is what I get in return.”

He took a long drag from his death stick and exhaled a large cloud of smoke. Pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the migraine this woman was giving him, he reached under the chair and produced a bottle of uncomfortably expensive looking wine. He pricked his finger on his ring and a crimson talon rose from it’s tip. He plunged the blood needle into the neck of the bottle and with a delicate flick, pulled the cork out and flung it across the garage. He then brought the it to his lips, tipped it vertically, and swallowed greedy gulps of the French wine like a man dying of dehydration might drink from a bottle of water.

“Ignoring the fact that you’re clearly a disrespectful bitch and a violent one at that,” he finally said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, “You can call Mr. Kite. In the very unlikely event that we wind up the bestest of friends, I’ll tell you my actual name. But for now, Mr. Kite or Master will do.”

Mr. Kite alternated between feeding his nicotine and alcohol dependence in between sentences. Eventually, in an attempt at a peace offering, he held out the bottle, now only half full, to the pirate woman.

“As for the Grail,” he began, a wicked gleam twinkling in his eye, “I wouldn’t say I need it as much as I need an excuse to raise Hell… But, if I wind up with an omnipotent wish granting cup in the end, that’s a win-win in my book.”

Mr. Kite suddenly looks toward the ceiling then at the nine out of twelve accurate clocks on the wall.

When the FUCK did last night turn into today?

A little wobbly from the drink, but still perfectly able to function otherwise so far as he could tell, the young man with the golden locks rose from his chair.

"Well shit," he sighed, stamping out the cigarette under his boot and plopping the bottle on a nearby nightstand before his servant could accept or refuse his offer, "I'm not entirely sure how this circus operates, but I'm pretty sure the ringleader wants all us clowns to gather at the centre ring for some kind of stupid meet and greet. Guess we'll have to get to know each other on the way there Miss...?"

[Gallagher]

He'd been walking for some time.

Some time being — Erik pulled an old flip phone from his pocket and flicked it open — ... some time. He'd forgotten to check the time when they left. Or when Saber had wandered off. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that it was well into time for lunch. Obviously, no powerful mage could afford to go around skipping meals and being hungry. So, wobbling and clanking suitcases in tow, he turned into the first place with food he could find: a bakery.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

It had been hard to move through the city without getting distracted -- there were just so many things to see, and clairvoyance just wasn't the same as being up close and personal -- but Merlin is dedicated to her mission and remained focused, now arriving in the southeast outskirts where the seventh master has been dawdling. Thankfully it's been easy to find him, what with his unusually-high mana signature.

The great wizard's eyes light up as she spots the establishment in which he's chosen to take up position. The smell of baked delicacies as she slips inside is overwhelming. Cakes! Pastries! Glazed baguettes! All kinds of savory treats she doesn't know the names of. (Yes, she does.) Does not.

Remembering how these things are supposed to work, Merlin readies her credit card given to her by the Grail (one needs financial clout as Overseer, after all), and grabs a basket to fill. It doesn't take long.

Arriving at the counter, she discovers even more pastries awaiting her. "Oh my Gods... is that a sugared pineapple cake?!?! I'll take two of those, please! No, the whole cakes. Yes, thanks so much! Er, merci! Je t'adore!"

Something is bothering her, though, distracting from the euphoria of anticipation at digging into her haul, something... "Oh, right! Hi!" Such incredible luck to bump into him right here! "Hey! Yes, you, person. Name, name... Erik! Hello! Salutations! Hi! Hi."

[Gallagher]

The change in mana was obvious as soon as the woman walked in. Not that either of the employees could probably tell. Neither felt like a mage, as far as Erik could tell. He was glad he'd already made his purchase with how fast the shelves were emptied. Standing around until she was finished, he picked at his chocolate and raisin bread, his gauntlets getting sticky and stained. "Hello," his tone wasn't nearly as energetic as hers, especially when he had bread stuffed in his cheek, "I don't think we've met."

[Suzerain of Sheol]

"Oh, um," the great wizard gulps down the chunk of doughnut that mysteriously found its way into her mouth. "I'm Merlin!" She extends a crumb-dusted, manicured hand his way. "The greatest mage ever, adviser to the greatest king ever. You've probably heard of me."

She leans in conspiratorially to whisper in his face. "I'm in charge of the Grail War!!!" She makes spooky gestures for emphasis while she says that. Then she giggles.

[Doctor Gabriel]

The bakery’s door slams open as and then slams shut again with Saber panting, his back pressed against it.

“Thank God,” he exclaimed in relief and running to embrace his master, “Upon defeating the foul creature, some strange militia of men in blue began yelling and chasing me!”

He smiles proudly.

“But worry not! They had no hope of catching a humble knight such as myself!” he declares, before noticing the woman with Erik, “Oh! I don’t believed you’ve had the pleasure, Mi Señora!"

He bows far more flamboyantly and deeper than necessary.

“I am Don Quixote de La Mancha and it is a profound pleasure to meet you!”