Chapter 1 - First Night

It was exactly one month until the Holy Grail War started all over again. Lena was in her small, two bedroom house trying to talk to her idiotic half-brother, who just refused to listen. They had been debating about the Summoning Ritual for months now, and the argument had finally come to it's climax. She was so sick of hearing him whine about he should be the one to be Master.

"Flynn, it's not going to happen. You haven't even been training as a mage for the last 5 years! How do you expect to perform the Ritual properly?" she hissed at him, completely over his protests.

"Sis, I'm serious. I want to do this." Flynn was three years younger than her, and had given up his mage training when their father had died of cancer 5 years ago. They had been close and Flynn had stopped training out of grief.

"No. You haven't trained properly and most of your magic circuits will probably be dormant and unusable. Attempting the Ritual might even kill you. Just stop your whining. At this stage, I'm not going to even let you help me fight because you are pissing me off so much." she growled at him when he went to stand up, and he quickly stopped moving. "Now, go home Flynn. It's over."

"Ssiiiissss!" he began to whine again, and she lost her temper.

"Flynn! Shut the fuck up and go home!" she pointed at him and she growled angrily at him until he cowered away and finally headed for the door.

She rolled her eyes at his form disappearing down her driveway, and sighed before she headed into the small basement that held the tools for her Summoning Ritual. The magic circle was drawn on the floor, and she was careful not to damage it as she got set up. Once she was ready, she stood in the middle of the circle and took a few breaths.

It took a few minutes before she was fully composed and ready to perform the ritual and she channelled her magic as best she could before beginning to speak the words to summon her Servant. As long as it was her that performed the Ritual, and not her brother, she was happy with whoever she got. The advantage to summoning them this early was that they could get to know each other, and learn each other's abilities before the fighting started. This would allow them to work as a team instead of expecting the Heroic Spirit to do all the fighting, she hoped.

Once it was complete, she felt a large surge of mana run through her entire body, the sensation taking her by surprise briefly before it died down, feeling the exhaustion come over her. She stumbled slightly, and strong arms caught her before she fell over backwards. After a moment to catch her breath, she faintly realised that it must have been her Servant that caught her and turned her head to look over her shoulder at them.

A young man with striking red eyes looked back at her, and they regarded one another blankly for a few seconds before he winked and smirked at her. Breaking her from her trance, she quickly stood up, not missing the way he kept his arms behind her until he was satisfied that she wasn't going to fall again. She spun on her heel to look at him, and took a couple of steps back to continue her casual inspection of him. His hair was a nice shade of blue that matched his armour, and she could see that most of it was pulled into a low ponytail. He only looked to be a year or two older than her. She idly noticed that he was built very lean, but he wasn't wiry. Strong muscle decorated his form, and she slowly look back up to his face, making eye contact with him after she shamelessly stared at him.

His smirk returned, much cockier this time and he let her look at him up and down, while he did the same to her. She was smaller than average height, possibly a bit over 5 feet tall, with long black hair pulled back into a braid that reached her waist. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were a strange shade of grey-blue. His eyes raked further down her body and his jaw dropped as he stared. Though she was short, she had some incredible curves and he took an extra moment to check them out. Her waist was small, which probably accentuated said curves, but he was pretty pleased to have a Master who looked like this.

Once his eyes found her face again, they watched each other for another brief moment before her soft voice broke the not entirely awkward silence between them.

"So...you are?" she spoke softly, but he heard her clearly.

Instead of verbalising his response, he materialised his spear and spun it around a few times before standing it up and resting it's sharp end gently on the floor. He grinned devilishly and he huffed when she smirked at his swagger.

"Lancer?" she asked and he nodded his confirmation.

"And you are?" his husky voice washed over her, and she forced her cheeks not to flush from the way he was looking at her.

"Lena. Lena Redwyn. What is your actual name?" she tilted her head as she waited for him to respond.

"Cú Chulainn."

The man from the Irish tales came to her mind, and she knew couldn't have possibly recognised him without knowing his name. She brushed it aside and smiled. She noticed his eyes momentarily dropped to her mouth, watching her expression change.

"And that is the mythical spear...Gae Bolg?" she vaguely recalled the name of the weapon from somewhere in her historical studies. His cheeky smirk was all the answer that she needed.

She strolled over to him, and looked closer at the spear. Too interested in the weapon, she completely missed the way his eyes continued to roam over her figure, especially how her hips moved when she walked. After she felt the heat of his gaze, she looked up at him and saw the strange glint in his eyes. He gave her his best sexy smirk and spoke.

"See something you like, gorgeous?"

Her eyes widened and her brows raised, and she blinked at him slowly until his words sunk in. She huffed and shook her head, but she smiled anyway at his flattery. The only male she regularly spoke to was Flynn, and he was so fucking stupid it wasn't even funny. It was just frustrating for her. It was very strange for her to be complimented, let alone by an Irish Heroic Spirit. But she supposed that the Holy Grail War was weird in itself, so she didn't bother looking into it too much, just assuming that he was a mischievous sort of person. Simultaneously, she didn't want him gaining the upper hand right away. They had barely spoken a few sentences to each other.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I don't." she shrugged one shoulder with nonchalance.

Instead of replying, he just chuckled softly, a knowing smile on his face. She didn't read into it any further, and instead started walking towards the stairs so she could head back upstairs. Once she realised he hadn't moved, she looked at him sidelong.

"Coming?"

He grunted his response and dematerialised his spear, following after her. Once they both entered the house, she shut the door behind her, being sure to lock it. She didn't want Flynn getting in there. She headed to the kitchen and grabbed herself a drink, and fixed one for Lancer as well, unsure if he would actually drink it. She carried them into the lounge room and sat down, and he followed her lead and sat down across from her and accepted his drink.

"Shall we talk strategy?" she crossed one leg over the other, and his red eyes followed the movement, though she knew he was listening to her.

"How long do we have until the fighting starts?" he sat back and shifted in his seat until he was comfortable.

"About a month."

She jumped at his response. "WHAT? A month?!" he sat forward and almost spilled his drink in the process.

"Yeah. A month." his expression was a mix of disappointment and confusion and she elaborated. "There is certain circumstances which caused me to perform the Summoning as early as possible." his brow just knit tighter together and she exhaled and continued further. "My half-brother was insisting that he perform the Ritual, but he hasn't done any mage training in 5 years. All the materials including the Summoning Circle are all here, so I had to do it before him so he didn't kill himself trying to attempt it...fucking idiot." she hissed that last part mostly to herself, but he heard it anyway and snorted at her temper.

"Then if it's a month away, let's not worry. Just relax for a bit."

He skulled the last of his drink, and put the glass on the floor next to him and laid down fully, his long legs hanging over the edge of the lounge, one arm behind his head. Lena just stared at him, and exhaled slowly. He certainly was a strange guy. With a frown, his armour dematerialised and Lena's eyes could not have been wider, but a Hawaiian shirt and black pants appeared and she took the breath she had been holding in. That could have gotten really weird, really fast.

"Um, I have a room for you, if you would like to use it." she stood up and gathered his glass, stacking it with her own. He cracked one eye open, still looking content.

"My own room?" his voice was still just as husky as earlier and she could only manage to blink and nod in response. He stood up faster than she expected and they were only standing inches away from each other and he smirked at her. "Lead the way, gorgeous."

After a moment of staring blankly, she shook her head almost imperceptibly to steel herself. She turned towards the small kitchen area and placed the glasses in the sink before she headed to the small hallway that lead to the two bedrooms and bathroom. He was on her right, one step behind and she couldn't even hear his footfalls.

"This is the bathroom," they continued past down the hall. "This is my bedroom, and this one is yours." she pointed to the open doorway, which was her bedroom, and the closed one, which would be his, respectively.

"You mean we aren't bunking together? I'm disappointed." he gave her his best pout and dropped her head to the side so he wouldn't see her smile. He did see the movement of her shoulders, signalling that she was laughing. "Well, I'll get settled in. Much appreciated, gorgeous."

"You are never going to stop calling me that, are you?" she asked him with an amused smirk and raised eyebrow.

"I could change it, if you like? Beautiful, sexy. Or I could even change it to temptress, seductress." the look on his face said that he was very much enjoying this and wouldn't stop unless he had to.

"I think one is enough." she held her hand up flat, in a stop gesture. He simply chuckled and nodded in understanding and left her be.

It was already close to midnight, since the Ritual had taken some time to complete, and she was feeling exhausted. Exhausted from fighting with Flynn, as well as being lucky enough to successfully summon a Servant. She took a deep breath and headed to bathroom, intending to shower before she headed to bed for what she hoped would be a decent night's sleep.

Once she was comfortable in her pyjamas, she turned all the lights off in the house and checked that the doors were locked. It wouldn't make a difference anyway, she assumed that with Cú Chulainn here, no one that broke in would get out alive. It was just a habit. When her once-over was complete, she headed back to her room and called out into Lancer's dark room.

"I'm going to bed. Goodnight." she couldn't make anything out in the room, since it was too dark, but she knew he was there.

"Mmm. Night." he sounded like he was already sleeping himself and she smiled before she went into her own bedroom and shut the door behind her.

As she got under the covers, she realised that she was going to fall asleep straight away. Sure enough, a few minutes after her head hit the pillow, her breathing evened out. Her last thought for the day was true, but it was only the quiet before the storm.

What a strange day it's been...