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Nicole

All at once, the key that had been keeping Nicole prisoner broke, shattered at the hands of the robot. As she felt the limitless mana under her command fade away to virtually nothing, she realized... she felt tired. Really tired.

It may have had something to do with the blood flowing out of the gaping wound in her neck, courtesy of said robot.

"M-m-monster." She choked out, her voice ragged and somewhat muffled. "I u-used to think you were like m-me... but you're a real mon-nster. I hope y-you burn for everything."

Nick

Under the influence of Mad Enhancement, Nick screamed incoherently at his opponent, as blood began to drip from his mouth onto the ground. He was still a corpse, not a perfect servant, and his body could not maintain the strain of mad enhancement or powerful enchantments for long.

It was time, then. There was no more holding back. Grimacing, he hastily backed away and deactivated mad enhancement, as the blood flow volume increased, and he staggered to his knees.

"It's been... F-f-fun, Co-dy." he tried to say, but his voice quavered and shook. He looked 'small.

"But it's o-over now." Heh, it is for me, at least. Maybe he'll get lucky...wouldn't that be something?

UNDEAD RECKONING!

The name of Nick's Noble Phantasm echoed across the hillside, as the ground around him began to vibrate, from a sudden, tremendous amount of heat. Cody and Bacon were forced to jump back.

Nick's skin glowed a deep, true red. Then it melted away.
His muscles, flesh, and organs, suddenly exposed, immediately began to blacken, the color of pitch. They, too, crumbled away, leaving only a human skeleton.

Nick's skeleton, the third layer, glowed a pure white, brighter than the snow, and more blinding than the sun.

The white skeleton charged, heedless of any external stimuli, towards Cody, was was by now several meters away.

((Undead Reckoning: Anti-Unit, EX, Based on both Berserker and Assassin skills
The user's life is sacrificed, and their body destroyed, their form becoming a skeleton. The skeleton lingers for exactly one minute before dying, or until it touches a living human (not servant), whichever comes first. If the skeleton touches said human, they will also die once the timer runs out. Note that the skeleton does not have any of the 10 standard human senses, and instead must track its target through mana signature alone (meaning the user must be very familiar with the target's magic.) Can be used by any Berserker/Assassin double-summon, but this combination is extremely rare (in fact, Nick is the first) and the spell extremely situational, so it is expected that such a noble phantasm will only be used once every eternity or so.))

Nicole

Left with no time to turn, and with a need to defend against both the explosive projectiles and the deadly halberd, Nicole took what seemed to be the only option -- she summoned a forcefield of her own. Throwing her hands up into the air, she brought into being a blood-red octagon in front of her and braced herself, prepared to weather the attacks.

Nicholas Hemingway, Assassin/Berserker of Hearts

...Huh. Well that's annoying as hell. I may as well end this. It's been fun, Cody, but it's over for you now.

"Let me show you..." This time, rather than taunting, the voice was menacing, and each consonant pronounced with a hard edge. "What it means to be... a servant." Nick deactivated his Presence Concealment, and appeared before Cody.

"Mad Enhancement."

A red hue began to envelop Nick's body, and his eyes again began to glow. Any semblance of life had receded from them.

He lunged forward, without a sound, too fast to follow, and was immediately met with the combat drone. However, unlike most Berserkers, Nick was also an Assassin, and he had once been a mage.

Deftly kicking aside the gattling turret as it began to fire, the spray of bullets went wide, allowing Nick to brace his free palm against the side of the machine.

After a second of it furiously attempting to right itself, the drone finally stilled, as smoke began to curl out from around the machine. With a shudder, purple flames began to consume the machine from the inside out.

Nick turned to Roger Bacon, already holding two daggers in each hand, and lunged forward.

Muramasa

Fighting with multiple blades against a single-blade opponent, especially when she had already been faster, put Muramasa in an advantageous position, as her former teacher struggled to deflect all the strikes and still find openings to attack. It wasn't long before Muramasa managed to deal a particularly debilitating blow, sinking one of her blades deeply into the side of his abdomen, but still he continued to fight.

Nicholas Hemingway, Assassin/Berserker of Hearts

Nick chuckled. "Nice toy, that." He gestured towards the gun. "Let me show you one of mine."

Nick bent into a low crouch, and drew a half-dozen sharpened daggers, tips dripping with purple venom.

"Ever fought an assassin before?"

With that, he vanished entirely from view. A second later, his image appeared in the air, several meters to the right, for a fraction of a second, sending two of the blades whizzing. As quickly as he had become visible, he faded into his Presence Concealment skill once more.

Nicole

Despite the heightened adrenaline of the moment, Nicole stopped to gape. Wha... Since when had she been that powerful?!

The momentary shock was soon replaced by a sense of urgency, as her key began to vibrate intensely. At last, it had found a worthy target, upon which it could unleash its vast magical ordnance.

A glowing, spiralling figure eerily similar to Maria's massive drill materialized before Nicole, spinning wildly. Upon contact, the sharpened force-field Madeline had created exploded into a multitude of razor-sharp, luminescent shards, which began to rain down onto the combatants below.

The drill followed through, picking up speed as it made its way towards Madeline.

Nicholas Hemingway, Berserker/Assassin of Hearts

Nick smirked at Cody's bravado. The pretentious kid hadn't changed one bit. Shoot first, ask questions later, was it?

The summoned stone golem in front of him stepped aside after taking the bullet, moving completely fluidly despite its rigidity. It hadn't even taken a quarter of the usual summoning time to erect it. So this is the power of the Sanctum Key... No corpses, no incantations, no messiness; just pure unbridled power.

He had created Nicole, given her life, given her power far beyond that of her old body and the ability to command a deadly servant. Now, at last, he was repaid. She lent him power, infinitely greater than that which he had accumulated in life. She granted him a second chance. He certainly wouldn't waste it.

"Oh come on, Cody. Stop glaring at me, man, you'll go cross-eyed. Here I am, back from the goddamn land of the dead, all so you can have a dramatic character-ddevelopy final battle because I'm generous, and you don't even spare a second before you try to shoot me?"

Sabers of Hearts

As the lightning maelstrom descended towards the contingent of shadowy warriors, a much more ancient and malevolent force shook the sky, not by any summoned wind, but by an overflow of sheer arcane might. As one, the lightning spells fizzled out, as if they'd all at once attempted to retreat from a foe they suddenly realized they could hot defeat.

"Ha! Who needs Magic Resistance when I rule Magic Itself?! Onward, Sabers; Charge forth without fear!" Nicole's high-pitched and magically amplified voice echoed down from above.

William Conzette, Archer of Hearts

As Kirin expected, Will did not initially reply to his words, only stoically marching forward. As Kirin began his attack, however, Will seemed to slow down. His eyes were clouded in a red aura, but with each strike dealt to him, the aura seemed to recede.

"K-Kirin!" He tried to call, choked for words, as the powerful magecraft began to tear through his summoned body. Nicole didn't care enough to reverse the damage.

Will finally reached his quarry, collapsing across the ground at Kirin's feet, his clothing mangled but a glowing red heart still pulsing across his chest.

"Th-thank you." Will sobbed, the last words he ever spoke.

The heart pulsed one last time before Will's body lit up, a blinding hue somewhere between red and white, and a powerful detonation hid Kirin and Hera from view.

Maria

Maria was stoic, seemingly unfazed by the sudden appearance and disappearance of the strange dog.

She cocked her head to the side, eyeing Anne questioningly.

Without warning, beams of glowing mana speared outward from her box, before converging on Anne like heat-seeking missiles.

Avery, Lancer of Hearts

Scowling with rage, Avery turned and lashed out with both weapons simultaneously. Robin adeptly dodged the first one but the second clipped him in the knee, causing him to collapse painfully. Avery stood, stronger than any normal human, unaffected by his fall, and prepared to deal a crushing blow to his prone foe.

Muramasa

Muramasa finally broke awY from the heated combat with her former master, sinking into a low, cat-like crouch. At a thought, six more blades appeared before her, and she lunged with the intention of plunging them all into him at once.

Nicole

"Give it up, monster. Only another key-bearer can hope to match me now, and your master seems very intent on not using his. Die then, crawling in the muck, outmatched and impotent!" A multi-elemental beam with a meter-long radius, containing spells from the books of fire, lightning, and earth, speared towards Madeline, summoned without a single incantation.

Nicole

A summoned wind, powerful enough to push away even the freshly fallen snow, expanded centrally from Nicole's figure, pushing Madeline back and exposing a circle of brown dirt beneath the snow. Her eyes stared forward, not at any particular person, but merely ahead.

"Enough." Seemingly a multitude of voices were emitted at once from her mouth, each a slightly different cadence, but all high and clear. She spoke like a church choir, only in a much harder tone.

The command seemed to infiltrate the snow around her, as it arose into a cylindrical barrier around her, and hardened immensely.

"Muramasa Senji. You have served me well. As your Master, I command you: Don the moniker of Saber of Hearts and vanquish all who stand before you."

The command seal, backed by an incalculable quantity of pure magical energy, seemed to overwhelm the servant, as if she had received a command from Ruler himself. Expression darkening, she lunged forward, slashing her blade with renewed vigor and beheading two of his summoned assistants in a single strike.

The ice wall surrounding Nicole shattered, and the enchanted shards shot towards Madeline in unison.

Nicole

Nicole hung back, watching each group of combatants with interest. These armored beings wen't enough of a worry that she would waste any of the corpses on them; the swordsmiths had done a good job of cleaning up most of them anyhow.

That strange cube-girl's Lancer had joined the fight, and seemed to be holding up against Avenger. Nicole would surely like to talk to that girl again sometime. She'd seemed interesting.

Anne and Cody were being pretty useless overall. Still, Nicole looked forward to talking to them soon... how long would it take them to figure out what she was?

The Spade Lancer's ex-master was... even more useless, really. Ignore him.

That one boy with the sword, the club non-master -- he'd been doing a pretty good job of dispatching the summoned soldiers. He wasn't a terrible fighter, she supposed.

Even now, he was off by the Oshiro and the weird girl, stabbing a warrior who wielded... wait. That sword. HIS sword.

Even before she'd made a conscious effort to, Nicole had covered three-quarters of the distance between them.

In two more seconds, Nicole closed the gap between them, and dove on top of the ancient blade as if shielding it with her body.

Muramasa

As the spearman began to engage the girl, Muramasa turned to survey the remains of her legion.

There wasn't much.

But there, close enough that she could count the individual scratches on his sword, was the man she hated most in all the world, battling a half dozen shades at once, surrounded with a glowing white aura. Masamune.

Roaring in rage, Muramasa charged forward, intent on driving her blade into his ribcage.

Muramasa

The Red Berserker charged forward, seemingly uncaring as the vast majority of her army had been torn to shreds by Avenger's own horde. It didn't matter. All losses were acceptable losses if they gave her a chance to hurt that girl.

Muramasa, in fact, didn't seem to think twice about cutting through some of her own men in an effort to reach Avenger, and even one of Masamune's summons, Kinju.

In a fraction of a second, Muramasa's sword arm was drawn back in preparation for a strike. An even smaller fraction later, the blade had collided with the remains of The Wing of Icarus at Avenger's side. The wings may have stopped a deep wound, but Avenger still found herself thrown backwards by the force and ferocity of the attack.