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"Caster!" The voice cut through the night air like a blade. "Take one more step, and I'll use a Command Spell to summon my Servant back right now. I don't give a damn if the Archer down there lives or dies, but I promise you—you'll be the first one bleeding out on this roof."
Maverick didn't even blink.
Years of competitive PvP had honed his reflexes to a razor's edge, and those instincts were screaming at him right now. The Caster class didn't typically come equipped with Presence Concealment—which meant the second Wayne and that weird lion-guy had landed on the rooftop behind him, Maverick had already spun around, gun raised.
Now his submachine gun was leveled directly at Wayne's forehead, unwavering. His right hand was raised, Command Spells glowing faintly against his skin, ready to trigger at the slightest provocation. One wrong move from either of these jokers, and Nero would vanish from the battlefield in a flash of red light, reappearing on this roof to turn everyone here into confetti.
The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Maverick's eyes were cold, calculating. This wasn't his first standoff. Hell, this wasn't even his first standoff today.
The lion-headed man standing beside Wayne seemed to pick up on the vibe immediately. He raised both paws in a placating gesture, his expression shifting into something resembling a friendly smile—though it looked weird as hell on a lion's face.
"Whoa, whoa, easy there, friend!" the lion-man said quickly, voice smooth as butter. "Nobody needs to get excited here. We're here to make a deal, not a mess. If we're talking political alignments, I'd say I lean pretty conservative myself. Reasonable. Pragmatic. You know?"
Maverick's finger didn't leave the trigger. His eyes flicked between the two intruders, assessing threats, calculating angles.
Down in the chat, his viewers were losing their minds.
[Simp]: Holy shit, Maverick looks so badass right now.
[DownBad]: Okay but like... I kind of want him to step on me? Is that weird?
[Confused]: Wait, isn't this the same guy who was butt-naked like five minutes ago?
[GunNut]: "One shot to announce my arrival. One shot to announce your death." — Sun Tzu, probably.
[Strategist]: This is a terrible time for infighting. They should be working together.
[Furry]: Is that... is that a fucking lion in a business suit?
The lion-man smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket with one massive paw, completely unbothered by the gun pointed at his companion. If anything, he looked like a CEO about to pitch an investment opportunity.
"First, allow me to introduce myself properly," he said, his voice carrying that distinctive blend of showmanship and salesmanship. "My name is Thomas Alva Edison."
There was a beat of silence.
Maverick blinked. The gun barrel wavered slightly. "Ed... Edison? Like, the Edison?"
"Yes, that's correct," Edison said with the confidence of a man who'd patented a thousand inventions and sued people over nine hundred of them. "I'll be honest, I don't know why I manifested with this... leonine physique. Some quirk of the summoning, I suppose. But I assure you, I am the genuine article. Thomas Edison. Inventor. Businessman. Genius." He paused, then added with a slight grimace, "Also, apparently, a lion now. Let's just roll with it."
Maverick's eyes narrowed, but he didn't lower the gun. "Okay. Great. So what the hell does Thomas Edison want with me? Because I've got a war to win down there."
Edison gestured toward the edge of the roof, where the sounds of combat echoed up from below. "Your Servants are in quite the predicament, aren't they? That brute down there—Lu Bu, I believe—is putting up one hell of a fight. Even with three Servants and an army of my automatons piling on him, he's still holding his own. Impressive, really. Terrifying, but impressive."
"Get to the point," Maverick growled.
"The point," Edison said, clasping his paws together, "is that I have a method to deal with him. A way to neutralize that monster's overwhelming power. Once I release my Noble Phantasm, he'll be reduced to nothing more than a puppy. Soft. Harmless. Defeatable."
Maverick's expression didn't change. "Then why haven't you used it yet?"
Edison's smile faltered for just a moment, like a businessman who'd been asked an uncomfortable question during a pitch. He recovered quickly, though, his tone shifting to something more... apologetic.
"Ah, well. You see, the issue is that this particular Noble Phantasm comes with significant restrictions. Enormous magical energy consumption. It's my trump card, you understand. Not something I can simply throw around willy-nilly." He paused, then spread his paws in a gesture of openness. "Therefore, I propose a transaction. A simple business arrangement between rational parties."
"A transaction?" Maverick repeated, his tone flat.
"Precisely!" Edison's eyes lit up—well, as much as a lion's eyes could light up. "Here's the deal: each of you provides me with one Command Spell. In exchange, I will deploy my Noble Phantasm to seal Lu Bu's abilities completely. Once he's powerless, his head is yours for the taking. Simple. Clean. Mutually beneficial."
Maverick stared at him for a long moment.
Then he scoffed. "That's cute. Real nice pitch. But there's a problem with your little business proposal, Edison."
"Oh?" Edison's ears perked up slightly.
"Yeah. See, even if we don't pay you, you're going to use that Noble Phantasm anyway."
Edison's confident expression flickered. "I... beg your pardon?"
Maverick gestured toward the edge of the roof with his free hand, his gun still trained on Wayne. "You can't just sit up here and watch our Servants get wiped out. Because once that tank line collapses, guess who Lu Bu's coming for next?" He smirked. "You. You need us. Which means you're going to drop that Noble Phantasm whether we pay you or not."
There was a moment of silence.
Edison's lion face twisted into something between admiration and frustration. "Well," he said slowly, "that is... technically correct."
"Damn right it is."
Edison cleared his throat, recovering his composure with the ease of a practiced negotiator. "However, my young friend, that's precisely what makes this a negotiation. I set my price. You haggle. We meet somewhere in the middle." He held up a single claw. "So here's my counter-offer: just give me one Command Spell. Think of it as a service fee. Compensation for the massive energy expenditure I'm about to undertake on your behalf. Do that, and I'll guarantee your victory."
His smile was back, but this time it had a distinctly used-car-salesman quality to it.
Down in the chat, the viewers were having a field day.
[Marxist]: Capitalism at its finest. Truly disgusting.
[History]: Wait, how is Edison even a Caster? Does he know magic?
[Skeptic]: Don't trust him, Maverick! He's just price gouging!
[Lore]: What's his Noble Phantasm called? "One Hundred Patent Lawsuits"?
[Correction]: Nah, probably "One Hundred Stolen Ideas."
Back on the roof, Wayne looked distinctly uncomfortable with the whole extortion attempt. He opened his mouth as if to object, but Edison held up a paw to silence him, his expression one of professional focus.
Behind them, The Professor and Daisy were exchanging glances, clearly debating the proposal. Their eyes drifted down to the glowing Command Spells on their hands, considering. They looked ready to agree.
But before either of them could speak, Maverick stepped forward.
He stared directly into Edison's lion eyes, his own gaze hard as steel.
"Alright," Maverick said firmly. "I'll give you one Command Spell."
Edison's ears perked up. "Excellent! I knew you were a reasonable—"
"But," Maverick interrupted, "you use the Noble Phantasm first. Payment on delivery. You pull off this miracle you're promising, then you get the Command Spell. If you don't like those terms, the deal's off, and we can all die together down there. Your call."
Edison stared at him.
For a moment, the lion-man's facade of jovial salesmanship dropped entirely. He studied Maverick with a sharp, calculating gaze—the look of a businessman evaluating whether his opponent was bluffing.
What he saw in Maverick's eyes was pure, unshakable resolve.
Finally, Edison's expression shifted. The haggling was over. This was the closing move.
"Very well," Edison said, his tone shifting from salesman to professional. "For a true businessman, the most important thing is closing the deal. I accept your terms." He turned toward the edge of the roof, his massive frame silhouetted against the night sky. "Now then. Prepare yourselves. You are about to witness the genius of Thomas Alva Edison!"
He strode to the roof's edge with surprising grace for a lion in a suit, looking down at the chaotic battlefield below.
Lu Bu was still down there, locked in combat with three separate Servants and what had to be at least two dozen mechanical soldiers. The guy was an absolute monster. Even surrounded, even under constant assault from multiple angles, he was somehow winning. His halberd moved like lightning, cleaving through metal and magical energy alike.
You had to admit—Lu Bu was legitimately terrifying.
But his good times were about to come to a screeching halt.
Because Thomas Alva Edison was about to strip away the very foundation of his power.
Edison spread his arms wide, his voice booming across the battlefield like a ringmaster announcing the main event.
"Come! Focus your gaze upon me!" he roared. "The grand entertainment is about to begin! Watch closely, for I am about to paint every corner of this dark world with the brilliance of my light! I grant illumination equally to all humanity! This is the burden—no, the privilege—that only a genius must bear!"
His paws rose toward the sky, magical energy crackling around him like electricity.
"World • Faith • Domination!"
Maverick felt the shift in the air immediately. Something fundamental was changing.
In the context of the Holy Grail War, "Mystery" was everything. It was the source of power. The fuel that made magic possible. It was the unknown—the things that existed beyond the realm of human understanding, beyond science, beyond logic.
The more mysterious something was, the stronger it became. A Servant with high Mystery could shrug off modern weapons like missiles and nukes, not because they had thick armor, but because the "known" simply couldn't harm the "unknown." It was the fundamental divide between Science and Magic.
Before humanity learned to make fire, creating a flame was True Magic. Now that we had lighters and matches, fire was just chemistry. When people understood how something worked, the Mystery faded. And when the Mystery faded, so did the power.
Edison's Noble Phantasm was the ultimate weapon against fantasy itself.
The Lightbulb. The Phonograph. The Motion Picture Camera.
His three great inventions had fundamentally changed the world. They had illuminated the darkness, recorded the silence, and captured the unseen. He had taken the "Unknown" and dragged it kicking and screaming into the "Known."
When Edison activated this Noble Phantasm, he weaponized that concept. He forced the very idea of mass production, of science, of understanding onto the battlefield itself.
Normally, things like Artoria's Dragon Core or Nero's Imperial Privilege relied entirely on Mystery to function. They were supernatural abilities, fueled by the unknown. But under Edison's light? Those buffs would vanish like morning mist. The Dragon would become just another lizard. The Emperor would become just another girl with a sword.
Massive spotlights materialized in the air around Edison, brilliant white beams cutting through the night like searchlights from heaven. The illumination was blinding, turning the darkness of night into the harsh brightness of day. The light of civilization itself flooded the battlefield, washing over Lu Bu like a tidal wave.
Edison grinned, his lion face splitting into a triumphant smile.
It's over, he thought. Under this light, even a monster like Lu Bu will be reduced to nothing more than a mortal man with a stick.
But in the next second, his smile froze.
Down below, bathed in the blinding white light of Edison's Noble Phantasm, Lu Bu slowly raised his head.
He didn't shrink. He didn't weaken. He didn't lose even an ounce of his overwhelming aura.
He just looked up at Edison with a gaze of utter, complete, and absolute disdain.
Like he was staring at an insect that had just tried to bite him.
Edison's composure shattered like glass.
The Lion of Capitalism looked like a man who'd just watched his entire stock portfolio crash to zero in real-time.
"How..." Edison stammered, his voice rising in pitch. "How is this possible?! Why—why is there no effect at all?!"
On the roof, Maverick's eyes widened.
Down in the chat, the viewers were going absolutely berserk.
And far below, Lu Bu's lips curled into the faintest hint of a smirk.
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