Morphin' Fate

Shadow Crystal Mage gave me the idea for this - although several of his rules have been tweaked or ignored - and Corrupto Ingrato (aka IAmNotCreativeEnough over at TvTropes) helped me iron out choices for some of the Servants. Despite our occasional disagreements, he's actually a pretty cool guy. Go check out his fics and review them when you're done here.

Hi IANCE! waves at him from across the 'net

As Kariya Matou's stomach voided itself, pale worms fell onto the ground.

Despite his body's constant attempts to betray him with painful convulsions, Kariya managed to perfectly draw the summoning glyph and grit out the incantation.

Once the dust cleared, he found himself standing before, what he thought was, at first glance, a tall woman wearing fearsome insectoid armor, complete with antennae and compound eyes on her helmet.

Zouken leered at his wayward son. "Even with the catalyst I provided, you could not call the Servant I meant you to. Truly, Kariya, are there no limits to your failure? Place her under the spell of Mad Enhancement and begone. Do not return until at least one enemy Servant is dead."

Gritting his teeth - as much from hatred of Zouken's mockery as from the agony of countless worms squirming through his body - Kariya prepared to do so until Berserker spoke up.

"If your health is half as bad as it looks, then don't even bother. Unless we get into a fight in the next five minutes, you'll just be wasting your energy. No argument against leaving this pit, though."

Furious, Zouken glowered at the Servant. "You dare disrepect me, worthless insect?"

Berserker seemed, if anything, rather pleased with the patriarch's reaction. "As stupid as you are ugly, I see. The thought of you being my Master... I might've killed myself on the spot."

Then she paused for a moment, as if in comtemplation, before she corrected herself. "Rather, I would have killed you on sight and sought another Master."

Berserker then turned to the still-kneeling Kariya and effortlessly hauled him to his feet. "Come Master, let us leave. I can't decide what offends me more - the foul stench, or this worthless wreck standing before me."

With that, the insect-armored woman abruptly grabbed Kariya by the arm and proceeded to drag him from the room.

Kiritsugu Emiya had been hired by the Einzbern family to represent them in the fourth Holy Grail War, and they had provided him with a catalyst that should summon the legendary King Arthur.

And, under the usual circumstances it would've turned out that way. However, the Grail was not allowing the usual set of circumstances. And so, having been expecting King Arthur, Kiritsugu Emiya was rather surprised when he found himself face to face with a well-muscled young man with lonb black hair in a ponytail, sweatpants, and a green muscle shirt.

Irisviel noted that he was rather handsome, as well.

Despite knowing the probable answer - it was technically possible that the King of Knights had intentionally chosen to appear in modern workout clothes for whatever reason - Kiritsugu asked anyway. "Are you the Servant Saber, Arthur Pendragon?"

The man stepped forward and extended his hand. "Nope, not King Arthur. I am Servant Saber, though. Nice to meet ya."

Staring at Saber's outstretched hand for a second, Kiritsugu quickly recovered and shook it. It didn't really matter if this Saber wasn't King Arthur - while he'd had a general outline of how he planned on fighting the War, the Magus Killer had been waiting until after the summoning to make any real strategies anyway. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, after all. Or one's allies, Kiritsugu mused.

"My name is Kiritsugu Emiya, and I am your Master. If you aren't the King of Knights, however, then... just who are you?"

With a friendly grin, Saber replied, "I'm the Green Ranger, of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. But you can call me Tommy Oliver."

With Tokiomi and Kirei's own father Risei - the priest who would oversee the War - watching, Kirei Kotomine summoned his Servant.

Obscured by the smoke created by the summoning, a figure yelled, "Ninja Storm, Ranger Form!"

When the dust settled, there stood a ninja. At least, the design of his costume gave the impression of a ninja motif, except for two things. First, he was wearing a helmet similar to those used for safe motorcycle riding, and second... said costume seemed to be made of yellow spandex.

"Yellow Ranger, at your service!"

The self-proclaimed Yellow Ranger made a show of looking around, observing the dungeon-like study the group was in and taking note of the older men in the room. "So... what's with this other Master here, you guys already have an alliance or something?"

Tokiomi smiled and replied, "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

Now the figure seemed to be confused. "Um... tall, dark, and quiet guy here is supposed to be my Master, right?"

Kotomine replied, "Yes. I am your Master. And you are... Assassin?"

Giving the priest two thumbs-up, the Yellow Ranger replied, "Yep!"

Risei muttered something derogatory about yellow spandex under his breath, at which point Assassin scared the hell out of Risei by clapping him on the shoulder from behind. While Risei could still see Assassin standing in front of him.

Carefree as a bird, Assassin asked, "What was that about my uniform?"

Risei twirled around, almost knocking Assassin back a few feet. He looked, finding an Assassin on either side of him. "W-what? You're not Hassan, how can you do that?"

Cool as a cucumber, Assassin put his hands in the air to show no ill intent and said, "I'm a Power Ranger. And a student of Wind Ninja Academy. So... yeah, I can kinda do that."

Kirei's lip quirked, as if he were trying to smile. His father's discomfort was... what was the word? Amusing.

Perhaps Kirei might find the answer he sought in this Grail War after all.

Tokiomi had long had the catalyst he planned to use for the summoning - an ancient snake skin that should summon Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes. However, he had been holding off in the hopes of getting him in a favorable class. Now that only a few Servants remained, he felt it was time.

After the dust from the summoning cleared, Tokiomi saw a man in a military-esque uniform, with a red undershirt beneath his unzipped jacket. The Servant immediately saluted. "Carter Grayson of Operation Lightspeed, reporting for duty as Servant Archer."

Tokiomi sighed. On the one hand, this completely annihilated whatever semblance of a plan he had for the War. On the other hand, the Archer he got was clearly more respectful than Gilgamesh probably would've been - it would seem he'd lost power in exchange for reliability.

"At ease, Archer. ... Well, you're obviously not the Servant I planned on working with... but I trust you'll get me through the War?"

Relaxing his posture a little and resting his hands behind his back, Archer replied, "I'd rather keep this brawl between Servants, keeping Masters and innocent people out of it if possible. That said, I have no intention of losing."

Tokiomi chuckled, before rising from his chair and walking to Archer. "Fair enough, I suppose. Well then, Archer, let this be the start of a fine partnership."

With that, Master and Servant shook hands.

Waver Velvet considered himself doubly-successful. First, he'd woken up one day with Command Spells on his hand, meaning that despite his relative lack of pedigree, he'd been deemed worthy as a Master by the Holy Grail itself.

And then, second, he'd managed to steal his teacher, Kayneth's, catalyst in order to summon a Heroic Spirit.

Granted, Waver had no idea who the tattered cape should've summoned, but he certainly wasn't expecting an aloof guy a bit older than him dressed in a black jacket and slacks.

Visibly unimpressed, the man snorted, "So you're my Master, eh? I'm Servant Rider. Rest assured that I'll claim the Holy Grail. ... You look like you have a request."

Waver replied, "One of the other Masters - assuming he gets a Servant after I took your catalyst - is Kayneth. I want you to beat him and his Servant before any of the others."

Rider raised an eyebrow, intrigued. He muttered, "A thief summoned by a thief, eh?"

What he said loud enough to be heard, however, was "Any particular reason?"

Waver proceeded to explain the source of his grudge against Kayneth - namely, that Waver had published a paper at the Clock Tower to the effect that the talent of a Magus was not necessarily dependent upon how many generations his family had been studying Magecraft; the older families would, of course, likely have a head start, but even a nobody with only two generations behind him could catch up if he tried hard enough.

"And after he read my paper, he tore it up in the middle of class and mocked me out of the room!"

Rider, having taken a seat on a bean-bag chair while his Master ranted, took a moment to consider. "It sounds to me, Master, like you don't want this enemy of yours defeated."

Waver opened his mouth to retort when Rider continued, "I think that what you really want... is to see him helpless and humiliated, like he did to you. Now, I have no problems doing either, but you need to be honest with yourself and with me. Do you merely want him dead? Or do you want him disgraced, broken and humiliated, and then killed?"

Waver stopped, and considered. What did he want? To prove that Kayneth was wrong. Simply killing him could be dismissed as a fluke, or the work of another Master.

Waver licked his lips. "Can you do it? Break his pride and his reputation?"

Rider smirked. "Just say the word, and I'll see what I can do."

Waver appeared to struggle for a few seconds, before his face set in a determined expression. "Do it, Rider."

The Servant grinned. "I'll get right on it, then."

A wave of his hand, and a thick white miasma appeared on the wall. Rider began heading into it, but stopped just short of entering. Speaking over his shoulder, he asked, "Wanna come with me and see for yourself?"

Waver paused, thinking it over. On the one hand, he did want to personally see Kayneth as a wreck of a man, in despair. On the other hand, he also wanted to stay safe in his hiding place. "Not at present, Rider. When it's time to finish the job, come get me then."

Rider nodded, before stepping into the miasma. As he faded and could no longer be seen, the energy vanished.

Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi growled, furious that someone had stolen the catalyst with which he'd intended to summon Alexander the Great. Still, things weren't so bad overall. Even if his alternate Servant would likely be much weaker, he still had his wife by his side, and he could make sure to take revenge on whatever whelp had dared to steal from him.

The second catalyst should have summoned Diarmuid of the Love Spot. What the Master found standing before him, however, was some high school kid with brown hair, a red shirt, jeans, and a cocky grin.

The Servant sized up the two adults - taking notably longer to gaze at Sola-Ui - before asking, "So who's my Master here?"

Glaring at the boy, Kayneth declared, "I am your Master. However, Sola-Ui - my wife, over here - has the task of providing you with mana. Which class are you?"

The Servant took a few seconds to stare at Sola-Ui in deep thought, before answering, "Call me Lancer."

Then, shrugging, Lancer plopped down on the couch and made himself comfortable. "As much mana as I'm getting right now, I can fight and probably beat most enemies without any problems. ... Unless you want me to go full-power for more than about three minutes in a battle, in which case I'll need either mana from the both of you or an immediate recharge before and/or after the fight. And I'm gonna say right now, I'm not eating anybody."

Kayneth was about to reprimand Lancer for his casual demeanor, but paused. "What do you mean, full-power?"

"Well, I've got an Anti-Army support Noble Phantasm that, well... I could take out an entire army with it active for a long enough time. And then I've got an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm that - assuming there were enough power to keep it going - could conceivably wreck the entire city in the space of a night. And it's not that I'm not getting a lot of power to start with - that's not a problem by itself - it's more that... well, those two Phantasms are just really mana exhaustive."

Kayneth paused to consider that. "Too exhaustive for us to use them at all?"

Lancer shook his head with a grin. "Nah, even though I've got just three minutes of either of them, there's probably not anyone I can't beat in that time."

Hoping that the eighth attempt would be the charm, Ryuunosuke drew the bloody runes on the ground. He'd made a different mistake each time thus far, but the cheerful serial killer was persistent. He didn't know if it was really possibly to summon and meet with a demon, but if it ultimately proved impossible... well, it wouldn't be for lack of trying.

Suddenly, his hand felt like it was on fire, as another rune burned itself into his hand. The circle on the floor glowed a brilliant flash of red and billowed massive quantities of smoke, and then nothing happened for a moment.

Then the building shook until it seemed as if the entire structure seemed that it would fall apart, before the small earthquake came to an end.

At that moment, a hoarse voice roared, "I AM CASTER, LORD ZEDD! EMPEROR OF ALL EVIL WITHIN THIS GALAXY!"

Ryuunosuke saw the creature that had appeared, and was completely awestruck. Lord Zedd was a human-looking figure without a single scrap of skin covering his exposed muscles. Or a skull, in the case of his pulsating brain. Zedd's face was covered by a steel mask with a blood-red vizor, and he had a giant scepter with a stylized 'Z' at the tip of it.

"So... COOOOOOL! ! !"

Zedd immediately turned to Ryuunosuke, who had apparently forgotten how to even stand in the presence of his great darkness. Taking a few steps forward, Zedd pointed at the orange-haired Master and demanded, "You there! Are you the one who called upon my dark sorcery?"

Ryuunosuke couldn't believe it - he was talking to a real, live demon!

"Y-yeah, I did the stuff in that book to call you, and I even have a sacrifice for you!"

As the villainous redhead pointed to the helpless children in the corner of the room, Zedd regarded both his summoner and the designated sacrifice for a split second. "What is your name, boy?"

"Ryuunosuke! Ryuunosuke Uryuu! So, um... do you have a really cool way to kill people?"

Booming with laughter, Zedd declared, "I see! Very well then, Ryuunosuke, swear your neverending loyalty to me, and I will show you ever-greater heights of DARKNESS!"

With this promise, Zedd extended his hand to the children and fried them all with electricity for several seconds, before he then absorbed their screaming souls into himself, his hellish laughter booming all the while.

As the little boys and girls faded to dust and their souls were eaten, fluids began flowing through the various tubes across Zedd's body.

"That... that was SO AWESOME! I'm gonna follow you EVERYWHERE, and be your loyal servant forever!"

Deep within the sewers beneath Fuyuki, a darkness stirred.

Three times had the Heaven's Feel ritual been attempted, and three times had it failed to reach fruition.

There was enough power accumulated within the Grail for three Magi to reach Akasha immediately if they wished, but none realized it.

Angra Mainyu, however had been imprisoned within that pool of mana for the neighborhood of sixty years. He alone - the Servant that had been so weak as to be registered as a human - had been in the position to make a wish.

And that wish had just come true.

Clad only in brown pants, all the evils of the world had manifest as a Master in the Fourth War. He had none of the powers he should have as a Servant or otherwise magic-based being, but would still return to the Grail once killed.

And in exchange for the power loss, he had a Servant of his own.

A black knight bent on revenge, with golden horns sticking out from either side of his spheroid helmet like a bull's.

Angra Mainyu leaned back against the filth-covered wall and smiled. "Avenger, I have but one order for you."

"And what is that?"

With a malevolent grin, Angra Mainyu declared, "Go forth as the representative of my hatred. Cut down every enemy Master and Servant you can. Let nothing but your own survival stop you. If you have to cut down so-called innocents in order to reach your target... then so much the better."

Avenger turned to leave, silent for the longest time. Eventually, he declared, "I fight for my revenge. Not yours."

Author's Notes: Welp, everybody's summoned their Servants! Saber, Archer, Assassin, and Caster have already revealed who they are - Assassin moreso to you guys than to his Master - and while I tried not to make it too obvious, it's probably easy to guess who Berserker, Lancer, and Avenger are as well. Kamen Rider fans probably already know who Rider is, or at least have a 50-50 guess of getting it right.

Servant Saber:
Real Name: Tommy Oliver (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers)
Green Ranger
Alignment: Lawful Good
Alternate classes: Berserker (Evil Green Ranger), Assassin (Black Dino Ranger), Rider (Red Turbo Ranger)
Strength: B+
Endurance: B+
Agility: B
Mana: C-
Luck: A+

Skills

Magic Resistance: C: As the Mighty Morphin' Green Ranger never had any measure of Magic Resistance in life, this skill is unusually low for a Servant of the Saber class. Had Saber been summoned as the Red Zeo Ranger, this skill would be at Rank B.

Riding: B: Can master almost any mundane vehicle, but is unable to Ride mythic or phantom beasts, and can only pilot Zords that are directly connected to his legend.

Instinct: B: Saber can "feel" the best course of action for him to take during battle.

Noble Phantasms

Dragonzord: A++ Anti-Fortress: Tommy summons the Dragonzord by using his Dragon Dagger as a flute. He can choose to control it either exclusively via music commands, or by entering the cockpit himself. Using the flute allows him to put it on autopilot while he deals with smaller enemies personally, but manual piloting allows for the superior control needed against powerful giant-sized opponents.

Dragon Dagger: B/A Anti-Unit: the Green Ranger's signature weapon. Can be used as a flute to summon and control the Dragonzord, and is capable of flinging energy blasts. These knife beams are treated as 'Rank A'.

Dragon Shield: B Support: Affords partial resistance against all types of attacks, and can provide a Rank Up to Strength, Endurance, and Agility.