“And so, in the end, it comes down to two Kings. What else could be fitting as the prelude to my ultimate victory?” The Golden One floats above the courtyard, contemptuous of all beneath him, judging the world in the survey of his regal gaze. His eyes remain locked on the defiant figure rooted to the earth below. “But the question remains, King of Corbenic, if you are worthy to serve as my opponent. Tell me, are you a foe deserving of my full royal attention, or are you just another mongrel yapping at my throne?”

Pelles has so few words to spare him, this vainglorious pretender naming himself King, ignorant of the regnancy of Almighty God. What could even be said with meager language that would not be more poignantly expressed with trenchant blades? He calls the Longinus to his hand, drawing resolve from the familiar prick of its thorns.

“I am King of nothing,” comes Lancer's utterance. A wind like prophecy catches his unbound hair and the tatters of his cloak. “I supervise the death of all hope, the final failure of mortal hearts against the inevitable. There is only one truth, and it is that humanity is, and shall always be, unworthy of the Holy Grail. Not the lechers and degenerates, nor the hypocrite holy knights, nor even the greatest of monarchs have any right to touch the divine vessel. And that is why, King of Uruk, that I will slay you here and now.”

His bitter words are met with scoffing laughter. “Is that so? You would deny me the greatest of all treasures, as if you had any right? You insolent dog! I'll grind you into the dust where you belong!”

A tremor of anger breaks Archer's stoic visage, and behind him, the sky alights with the golden harbingers of Babylon, a dozen and more of the ancient portals, drawing forth unnameable Noble Phantasms.

“So be it,” Lancer replies, readying his spear. “You will try, and you will fail.”

“That's enough from you, mongrel! Die!”

The swords streak forward, howling as they break the air at impossible speeds, driving unerringly for their target in a multifaceted helix of golden light. So many Servants have met their death this way, impaled by the limitless arsenal of the King of Heroes. But it will not be enough. Pelles can hear the sublime call of the Grail like holy dovesong in his mind. The blood of salvation flows counterfeit and unworthy within his rotting veins, but it flows nonetheless, a wellspring of impregnable mana. He does not even bother to block. One upon another, the swords crash against his armor, detonating with each impact, the force enough to shatter the stone beneath his feet. But Pelles does not move. Cannot be moved by such as this.

When the dust clears, Gilgamesh is left gaping in shock. “You would dare defy me, cur?! Would you tempt a King's wrath with your brazen actions? I'll show you–”

“By blood and water, I write the death of history....” Below, Pelles rises floating from the crater, the divine spear pulsing with cadaverous light, aimed straight at the Sumerian lord. The Fisher-King speaks, a condemnation of the entire world voiced in sympathetic hatred. He can no longer feel the hollow of the loss which he avenges.

“It is for this that He was forsaken!”

The ambiance of the already-quiet night implodes into vacuous silence, the fabric of reality being drawn into the spear's tip, devouring space until nothing separates the False King and the holy lance. The pendulum of eternity hangs frozen for a moment, poised upon the instance of catastrophe, and through the distorted null the Fisher-King's words scream as from the floor of the abyss, the echo of transcendental murder.

“GOD-PIERCING DEICIDE!”

Fulminating like the heart of a collapsing star, folding the agony of ages upon itself in infinite regression to that one transgressive glimpse at the human will to defy its place in the cosmos, Lancer's Noble Phantasm erupts, a jet of godslaying Aether sundering the distance between them with no regard for time. There is nothing Gilgamesh can do. No matter how fast he might react, the very will of God will cause the spear to strike first, blasting aside any barrier, incinerating the blood of the false Sumerian idols that give the Heroic Spirit life.

And yet, it does not strike home.

The King of Heroes does the impossible, bending Fate itself to his decree, acting within the singularity created by the Noble Phantasm and retrieving from his armory the one object capable of parrying the divine weapon. Taking the full force of the unearthly assault, the Shield of Joseph of Arimethea, surmounted with the bloody, weeping Cross, stands unwavering, accepting the guilt of all mankind, sparing Gilgamesh the touch of the conceptual god-bane. Neither acts for a long moment.

“I have to admit,” Archer grates, “you've impressed me, o' wayward and misguided King. I didn't think you had it in you. A Noble Phantasm that strikes instantly and will kill anything of divine blood in a single blow. But as you can see, it will never be enough. For your gallant audacity, I shall grant you a noble death, and for that you should give praise!”

Spreading his arms wide, Gilgamesh evokes the Gate once more, this time calling forth a hundred of the shimmering doors, filling the sky and casting the demolished courtyard in radiant light. “Receive your hero's death, Grail King! Binding of Heaven, Enkidu come forth!”

Before Lancer can react, a hundred lengths of the infinite chain surge outward, writhing around each other and hurtling downward to encircle the Fisher King head to foot. Only his eyes remain visible through the labyrinthine restraints, to gaze upon the sight of six more gateways unsealing above him.

“I have heard you are difficult to put down... how truly like a rabid dog. In that case, we must be thorough. I think you will appreciate my choice for your destruction”

One by one, they emerge, pristine swords, holy swords too pure for those who held them. Familiar sights to his aggrieved heart. From left to right, outshining the stars: Clarent, Curtana, Galatine, Arondight, Caliburn, Excalibur. All of Camelot's virtue sent to serve as his executioner.

Gilgamesh wastes no more words, bidding Pelles farewell with a final nod which sends the swords in slow, impaling descent. And one by one, they strike home, passing through Enkidu's chains effortlessly, driving through his armor, his flesh, splitting his organs, spreading purifying fire into the foundations of his soul. The Fisher-King burns like all the martyrs before him, a single pyre to consume the collective sins he selflessly bears.

But he does not scream.

No, the blinding nimbus of flame is broken by piercing, bloody light that blasts like lightning from the Heroic Spirit's eyes, and his laughter shatters the night.

“Gilgamesh!” comes his retort, strong as the firmament. “Do you take me for a God? I will not be bound!” And Enkidu disintegrates around him, falling like meaningless tears from his boiling, naked frame.

Now, one by one, Lancer withdraws the holy swords from his flesh, the suffusing power of the Grail rendering him invincible. And each, in his hand, he shatters, one by one. The shards of Excalibur are the last to clatter to the floor.

“You... you ungrateful mongrel! Do you even know the insult you've done?! To think, I would be pushed to draw forth Ea against a worthless dog like you!” In a flash of black lightning, the hilt of the annihilating sword appears in Archer's hand, its supernal mechanisms stirring to life, creating the blade that can end the world. Shards of fracturing existence weep from the weapon as it draws itself into being.

“No one shall remember your name, you wretched mongrel! I'll see to it myself! Enuma Eli---”

“No.”

And once again, the moment freezes, even Gilgamesh, in the throes of unveiling his Anti-creation Noble Phantasm, is halted as the Reality Marble begins to evoke. Lancer holds up his spear, as if in offering, and shatters the fabricated handle, driving the red-stained blade into the ground.

“For us men, and for our salvation, He was made man. He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that bought our peace. By His suffering were the blessed made barren, and we begged for our destruction.”

The blade of the spear dissolves, and with it, the world around them, overtaken by Lancer's Reality Marble. They stand now upon a limitless plain, empty of life. Where Gilgamesh is held, a hill of skulls has now arisen, high enough to meet him where he floats. Once more, the Fisher-King's invocation rings out.

“For this, I suffer the world's woe. For this, I watch the unworthy flourish before a helpless Heaven. For this, I wear the Crown of Thorns and reign as the vessel of every sin unrepentant.”

It begins to erect itself now, growing from the skulls as the divine tree of death, reaching up to frame the King of Heroes in its unyielding arms.

“For this, I become the orphaned Grail in flesh and spirit. For this, I judge the earth in vengeance, and without mercy. For this, and for so much else, I stir the ashes of unending regret.”

Tendrils of black, like the inverse of Enkidu, slither from the Cross, wrapping the limbs of the False King. Before him, the Nails begin to crystallize, manifesting from the collective guilt of all mankind. Pelles bellows the final incantation.

“For this, I bind you to the death of God! GOLGOTHA!”

Immediately, time snaps back into shape, the tendrils invading Gilgamesh's mouth before he can speak the final syllable of destruction, others seizing him, arm and leg now tied to the Cross. Just as the Nails transfix him.

Ea falls wayward from the air, dislodging a skull where it lands.

There is nothing he can do, nothing that can be done. Only True Magic could break the spell of crucifixion, and the Grail has turned against him. With every passing second, the mana that sustains him is drawn from the King of Heroes, empowering the Nails and making his futile struggles all the weaker. Too late, he tries to open the Gate of Babylon. Weapons without names spill out uselessly, the arsenal of every era impotent in the face of divine justice. Archer cannot even scream as the Cross murders him.

Down below, and far away, the Fisher-King carries his broken body off into the stretching desert, sparing no regard for the dead.