//------------------------------// // The epic begins // Story: Fate/Misplaced // by Darksidedownloaded //------------------------------// Hey guys, what’s up? Keeping things brief, I’m new around here and I decided to give this fim fiction thing a try. I can’t say that this is the first story I’ve ever written but it’s indeed the first of its nature I ever attempted to publish online. Anyway, Gilgamesh is in Equestria. Not something you see around here a lot is it? Well, I hope to do it justice. The Gilgamesh you see here comes from the Unlimited Blade Works route of F/SN. I haven’t really played the VN (Can’t find it, if any one of you guys knows a place where I can get it, please tell me). So some small details may be a bit off. Before we start though, warning to you all: I might not update very much, being a med student and all. Well, enjoy. Before that however: My greatest thanks to my proofreader CrossoverManiac for sorting out my inevitable grammatical messes in this chapter. You’re a real pal man. Fate/Misplaced Chapter 1: The epic begins The first thought that descended upon the unrivalled King of Heroes, Gilgamesh, timeless lord of Uruk, at the moment of his awakening from dreamless slumber, was a simple realization. The realization, that even his headaches were fit for a king, which surprisingly, unlike most of his similarly kingly attributes, was not something he felt entirely happy to brag about at the time. Lets see, splitting headache as a result of a corrupted phantasmal artifact of unfathomable power slicing your arm cut off, stabbing you in the head, tearing your physical body apart, and, finally, casting your soul into the deep, dark, and foul depths to be use as a support column for its physical manifestation. ...Meh, could have been worse. Even one such as he, Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, could only be considered as lucky to have survived the experience….if he was currently alive that is. Was he? He thought he was. Too much pain to be dead. Regardless, for those few moments in his recent past, even he had given up ever laying eyes upon the mortal world again. Not that he would ever admit it out loud that is, at least not without beheading his audience afterwards. Presently however, all that he found himself dearly wanting to behead was his rapidly escalating migraine. The blinding glare of the sun upon his eyes wasn’t helping any either. Traitorous star! Gilgamesh made a hasty mental note to punish the sun for its insolence as soon as he got back enough strength to form a complete thought in his head. The moment Gilgamesh regained his ability to call upon his endless armory of timeless magical artifacts, the sun would taste the power of his ultimate treasure, Ea! Ha! Glare on that sun! In your face! Wait… The god king groaned. One could fully understand the full extent of his exhaustion and injuries when he started mentally threatening insentient forces of nature in a mad delirium. Besides, the sun was a bit far for the current diminished state of his prana reserves…probably, especially as he could feel no connection with a master at the moment. It was not surprising, considering he killed his past master with his bare hands in hopes of using him as raw materials for the materialization of the Holy Grail on the physical plane. The very grail that proceeded to gobble the god king up the moment it found itself unstable enough to need a snack to put itself back together…Gods be damned, Gilgamesh hated irony, well, when it was directed at him at least. Hatred at the circumstances aside, the King of Heroes chose to stave off his potential plans of revenge against the universe. With decreasing numbness and with a small jolt of relief that would never be made known, Gilgamesh begun to feel a full spectrum of jumbled stimuli assaulting his glorious person as his senses were slowly but steadily regaining the usual awe-inspiring sharpness. The King of Heroes, once again, found himself praising his ungodly fortune. The golden king had, indeed, no idea where he was at the moment, or even how he had gotten there from the innards of the tainted grail that had consumed him. However, had he not been transported in such a unnaturally mana-dense area, even one such as him would have succumbed such extreme injuries. He could feel the powerful and intoxicating sensation of the world’s magic, as heavy and thick as he had never felt it, reenergizing his body and heroic soul with every breath, empowering him and increasing his rate of recovery. It was slow, true. A ridiculously small trickle of power compared to having a master to feed upon and even more pathetic when one considered how much magic one such as Gilgamesh tended to wield, but it was enough to restore and sustain him and, for now, that was good enough. As his situational awareness slowly returned, the first thing he came to acknowledge was the feeling of a rich layer of grass over soft soil beneath his still mostly insensate yet undoubtedly fabulous form. Well, seeing as the last time he visited it, the underworld lacked comfortable lush greenery. Gilgamesh found himself fairly reassured that he was still amongst the living, surrounded by unearthly dense mana or not. Although, in retrospect, living was a ridiculous expression to use considering he had been dead for untold millennia and was currently existing as some sort of glorified ghost made solid, but all in all, not a bad omen for his current situation. The next thing the god king came to realize was the pleasant smell of baked goods at the distance. A smell made even more prominent by the summer heat and pleasant breeze that the king soon found to be washing over his person. It was an unbelievable, fine aroma. Even at this distance and by scent alone, Gilgamesh could tell that the baker, whoever he or she was, considered his occupation to be art and himself an artist. He could clearly tell that a lot of work, sweat and love had been dedicated into these pastries, a thought appealed unbelievably to the god king’s broken and starved body. Surely the baker and his goods would be fit for king such as him. If they did, Gilgamesh made a note to put the baker under his employ and pay him his weight in gold. Of course, that could just have been his ravenous hunger talking. Oh! What’s this? Something was repeatedly nudging at his side. At first it was a weak sensation, easy to ignore. It was nothing more than a phantom touch, no more prominent than the wind that flowed over him. However as the golden king’s senses expanded and grew sharper, he managed to identify this previously insignificant sensation as touch, a push to be exact. Someone was poking him, with their foot no less, if his pressure receptors could be trusted. Normally, Gilgamesh would have been furious at the mere notion of such an act! Who would dare poke the ruler of Babylon as if it was some vagrant dog lying off the side of the street? The fact that he WAS probably laying off the side of a street was non-withstanding. Seeing as he was still struggling to regain the feeling of limbs he decided to stall his anger, in favor of focusing further on his surroundings. From the edges of his hearing he could hear a soft sound, a whisper coming from someone or something above, probably the vulgar person poking him. The murmurs slowly grew more and more pronounced at the god king slowly regained his strength, until… “….-ou ok, man?” The voice spoke, finally becoming intelligible in the god-king’s ears. Amassing his endless reserves of willpower, and even larger ego, Gilgamesh forced his eyes fully open. He would be damned if he, the Hero of Heroes, was found shamefully lying half insensate on some gods forsaken back-alley by a lowly commoner let alone receive their pity. Summoning his incredible heroic spirit strength, admittedly diminished by his lack of prana, the god king shot to his feet, earning an entirely satisfying yelp of surprise from the one that awoke him. Ha! Serves him right! No one stands above Gilgamesh! No one! Not even when he is unconscious! He found himself hatefully humbled a second later when, for a peculiar reason he could not at the time comprehend, he entirely lost his balance and fell forward upon his stomach. Well, there goes his dignity. Fortunately, he had at least managed to retain from furiously cursing at every known god in the infinite dimensions in an enraged tantrum, so hey, that counted for something right? With that in mind, the god king finally turned to look at his unknown company, in hopes of forcing eternal silence upon his audience on the matter of his recent situation. Yet, he found himself mystified when he saw no one in his immediate surroundings. How could this be? It wasn’t as if the oddly grassy alley he was lying in offered a lot of places for one to hide. All it was composed of was the two buildings that framed it, a grassy street and a few wooden boxes and barrels behind which he neither saw nor felt any living being. Well, actually, that was slightly inaccurate. There was, indeed, one other creature with him in the alley, but it was far from what the god king had expected to find. “A horse?” The god king was, for the first time in years, no, centuries, completely baffled. Indeed it was a horse-a very, very weird horse that was currently giving him an equally weird look, a look that made Gilgamesh, just for a split second, almost believe that this peculiarly small and wide eyed creature was actually sentient. Pfft, as if. “Why is this beast standing over me? What kind of disrespect is this?! Do not insult my perceptive abilities! I heard your voice I know you are there! I demand that you show yourself!” Gilgamesh growled from his prone position on the ground. A second later, the god king’s face was promptly introduced to speeding hoof in an equine version of the much fabled bitch slap. “Who are you calling a horse, Goldie!” A voice of indignant female rage growled from above. Shaking the stars from his eyes, mostly out of sheer shock than the strike, the hero king was forced to do a double take. No…no, it couldn’t be. Did this horse thing just talk...and…was it wearing…purple shades? His thoughts completely derailed by the new turn of events. The god king took a second to fully analyze the creature that stood before him. Despite his familiarity with horse breeds that was instilled to him by his Sumerian teachers during his childhood, the knowledge that the grail itself had granted him upon his materialization, and his own vast knowledge of ancient legends and myths, there was no horse he knew off, mythical or otherwise, that was about a meter tall, with a head composing over a third of its body, dressed in white fur, wearing purple sun glasses and having a spiky blue mane. This entire image was distinctly…ridiculous…and for some reason, girly…very, very girly. Really, he thought, he shouldn’t be so surprised at the whole situation; Gilgamesh, both as heroic spirit and one born in the now passed age of gods, had seen his fair share of strangle magical talking creatures in the past. Also, while not quite the same as what was before him, there were in fact a few legends of mythical horses with supernatural abilities and human like intellect, but not like this. The general imagery that this creature offered was just so ridiculous and childish. It completely caught even him off guard. Frankly, the only thing he could relate this with was the horse sketches he used to make as a child for his art lessons at the palace…when he was three. “What manner of insane and disgustingly immasculine legend spawned you?” He found himself blurting out. Almost predictably, what he received in response was a vicious snarl of barely restrained violence. “I have no idea what you said Blondie, but that better not be a comment on my mom or by Celestia I’ll give you the hoofing of a lifetime!“ “The subject of your feeble ancestry is insignificant! I demand to know what manner or ridiculous chimera, phantasmal beast, legendary monster or otherwise, you are!” The god king growled, his ire rising. Not only was this creature insisting on treating him with disrespect, his current state of confusion and ignorance was rabidly getting on his nerves. Gilgamesh, both as king and unmatched warrior, wasn’t used to being in the dark about what was happening around him. It imparted him a sense of weakness that he did not care for. Had his depleted prana reserves been great enough to accomplish the feat, he would have already executed this infuriating creature out of simple irritation, by use one of his infinite blades. “Okay, I get it. You’re drunk out of your mind.” The horse mumbled, more to itself than to him. By the look of her surprisingly human face, it was made quickly apparent to Gilgamesh that half the terms he had just used had entirely gone over the tiny horse thing’s head. Later, much later, when Gilgamesh would quell his anger and if he actually cared to reflect on this encounter, he would find it logical for his magical terminology to be mistaken for drunken rumblings in the ears of the mundane. As things were now though, Gilgamesh was content to glare at the creature with seething rage. “Oh, stop giving me that look. You’re not scaring anyone Blondie. It just makes you look ridiculous. Get up, go home, and sober up. I don’t have time to deal with angry drunks right now. I’m late for the talent show, and I would REALLY hate to miss a chance to promote my rad sounds.” “Do not make me repeat myself. What are you? Where am I?” Gilgamesh demanded angrily, entirely ignoring the horse thing’s words. In his ire, the ancient Sumerian king tried once more to stand up, to tower over the tiny pathetic thing, gaze down at its ridiculously large eyes and instill the deepest of fears inside them. All he managed was to collapse once again by the same uncanny sense of imbalance that had stricken him before. Gods damn it, what in the world was happening? “Vinyl! Vinyl! Where are you!?” A feminine voice sounded from the entrance of the alley. As if stuck by a needle, the creature shot up and looked over its shoulders vainly looking for the speaker. Hidden behind the corner as it was, neither it nor Gilgamesh were able to see the actual source of the sound. However, his peculiar companion appeared to recognize whoever had shouted. Through the haze of hate that currently blinded the god king, a small part of his mind idly toyed with the thought that the speaker might as well be a creature similar to the one standing before him. What if this whole place was infested with them? A detestable thought! “Just one second.” The white horse proclaimed before swiftly turning its…her attention back to him. It was a female right? “Ok, here’s the thing cider breath. You’re about two doors down sugar cube corner at the moment. It’s mid-afternoon. Gather up your wits, if you have any that is, get on you hooves and go home. It’s for your own good, trust me. No one wants a grumpy intoxicated pony in the middle of a social gathering. ” And just like that, the creature referred to as Vinyl, turned tail and leisurely trotted down the alley and around the corner. “Where do you think you’re going?!” The Hero of Heroes bellowed! Enraged that a lowly beast of burden, magical or otherwise, would dare ignore his words and dismiss him in such a demeaning manner. “Get back here! I demand it! I order it! You will suffer for a thousand days for this indignity!” Yet, with his heroic spirit ears, he could clearly hear the voices of the creature and her companion slowly getting further and further away. No one ignored Gilgamesh! The King of Heroes! Blinded by rage and bloodlust, he once more shot to his feet. In a mad delirium he tried to lunge after the creature and throttle it with his own two hands. Yet for the third time that day, powerful force pulled his upper body to the ground and all he earned for his troubles was a face full of grass. Damn it! Damn it all! He was Gilgamesh! He would not stand for this indignity! Why did he find himself unable to walk? To stand even! It was as if his upper body had gotten three times heavier over night. Damn that Vinyl creature! It must have bewitched him! But how? His magic resistance was high enough to resist most curses and spells. Was it because he was weakened by his lack of prana? Damn it! It had even mocked him! Him! The great King of Heroes! ‘Get on your hooves and go home’ his anatomically perfect ass! He would that creature suffer for every sign of disrespect it ever showed to him! He would…would…wo- ….Wait…. ‘Get on your hooves and go home’? ‘Hooves’? She did say…’hooves’ right?...Oh no…Oh gods no… With a horrible feeling of dread overtaking him, the King of Heroes ever so slowly turned his head around to look upon himself. The roar of rage, shock and horror that followed resounded all over the small rural town of Ponyville.