Part 65: God's Resolution - Jeanne d'Arc - Part 2

Jeanne 2



What? Even saints need to take a waterside vacation every now and then. Well now, Jeanne's first appearance was in Fate/apocrypha, like our old pal Karna, but she held the title of Ruler and was summoned by the Grail to oversee the largest Grail War to date, between 14 Servants instead of the usual 7. Whereas Amakusa was tight with the Red faction (though honestly, he was basically doing his own thing for the entire story), Jeanne was more on the side of the Black faction, and became close with the Rider of Black, Astolfo, the Saber of Black, Siegfried, and the main character Sieg (he chose the name to honor the dude who saved his short homunculus life near the start of the story).

Jeanne eventually discovered that the enemy Ruler, Amakusa Shirou, intended to use the Great Grail, and she was determined to stop him. Allying with the remaining units of the Black faction (Archer and Rider), as well as the Saber of Red, Mordred, she infiltrated Amakusa's base of operations and eventually gave her life to lead Sieg to the Great Grail and gave him the chance to stop Amakusa and his plans. Her life as a Heroic Spirit ended, but the body of the woman she inhabited, Leticia, made it out okay.

So that's her first appearance. She would next appear in-person in Grand Order, as the usual Ruler but would, at launch, also have an evil counterpart, Jeanne Alter (who initially was a Ruler at launch, but would Class Change into an Avenger when she became playable). Now, the thing is, most Heroic Spirits have the usual heroic side, and darker aspects to their personality. Normally the darker aspects embodied in a separate existence as an Alter cannot be summoned, but Jeanne is a special case. She has no dark aspects to her personality, and the chance of summoning her as a woman who would wreak vengeance and death upon France, leading an army of dragons to do it, is nil. There is absolutely no way to normally summon Jeanne as such an existence.

However, as I mentioned, the Holy Grail makes many things possible. In Grand Order's timeline, in 1431, Gilles de Rais, the Marshal of the French army and a man driven to absolute lunacy by the recent death of Jeanne d'Arc, came into possession of and made a wish to the Holy Grail to reincarnate his beloved, but, embodying his hatred toward France (of course, ignoring the fact that it was the English and their allies who actually captured and killed her, but to be fair, the idea of strict nationalities wasn't really established in the Late Middle Ages), he wished for a side of Jeanne that never existed, someone who would take bloody revenge on France. Thus was born Jeanne d'Arc Alter, a woman who is basically the complete opposite in every way from the person she's based on, and someone to whom she displays apparently limitless animus.

Less seriously, in Christmas 2016 she would get another Alter version. However, in time for Christmas, Jeanne Alter was tricked into drinking a potion of youth that Gilgamesh had lying around (itself a reference to his Kid Gilgamesh version in hollow ataraxia), and it transformed into a cheerful, light-hearted aggressive Santa Claus who enlisted her Master to go around delivering presents. So Jeanne Alter committed herself to becoming the greatest Santa of all and that event was based on her doing just that. Although her full title is Jeanne d'Arc Alter Santa Lily, she's much more cheerful than her grumpy grown-up side.

Actually, speaking of Gilles, Jeanne's first appearance was actually in Fate/zero as a cameo. When Gilles is about to be swallowed by a blast from Excalibur near the middle of the story, he briefly sees a vision of the actual Jeanne, as she appeared in their lives, not as the King of Knights Artoria Pendragon, who Gilles thought was Jeanne for his entire presence in the 4th Holy Grail War. While Artoria and Jeanne have similar faces, the in-universe explanation is actually, he's just out of his goddamn mind.

Now then, onto business. Once again, we're gonna be heading to Dawn Arc stage 5, so prepare yourself for another rumble against Tamamo's Servants.


Jeanne stage 2

How foolish. No matter how many attack programs they rally against us, the Sword of Mars will destroy everything they have. They only provide us with more targets. Why does Caster not understand that?

...Altera, may I have a moment with you?

I don't have much time before I head out. Make it quick.

I understand. Well, then...Altera. You call yourself the Great Lord of Destruction, but by any chance, would you rather be anything else? Difficult as it might be to read the echoes of your heart from your words, I do believe your heart lies elsewhere. At the very least, you feel no joy in the act of destruction. You don't seek to massacre or commit atrocities either, do you?

I am the Umbral Star's...

I am not asking about the Umbral Star. I am asking YOU how you feel, your will as a Cyber Frame that exists here and now.

...

This is not the will of God speaking through me. This is a question that I asked myself... Ever since I was summoned to this SE.RA.PH...

It's time. We'll continue this talk later, yes?

Yes. We will continue... After we repel this attack.



Yep, this stage again. As I've mentioned before, you really have to keep your eye on the big picture to win this stage. The 4-key Sector nearest to your starting position is the best bet, obviously, and you have to defend that against all attacks, no matter what.



First objective done (the game just hasn't marked it as conquered yet, for some reason), next objective is up to you. You can go after the southernmost Sector to cement your hold on the biggest Sectors, you could go after the Plant Sector currently sending out parties to attack your Sectors, or you could go after Lu Bu / Tamamo to keep safe Altera / the 4-key Sector, respectively.

For Iskandar, as you'll recall, I went after Tamamo, but this time, I'm choosing to go after the Plant, then Lu Bu. We can wrap up Tamamo fairly easily, I think.



And for god's sake, don't use anything but an EM to take out large groups of flying units. These guys are really obnoxious, and there's tons of them.



Well, to be sure, Tamamo is taking forever to take over her Sector (while Altera's certainly not hustling herself, to be fair), so the biggest threat is this Plant. After this, Then we'll get Lu Bu.



As always, the biggest problem with fighting this ape is the reach of his halberd, and the somewhat halting nature of his attacks. The best strategy is to not play at reach with this guy, and block his combos. When he unleashes a more flashy attack than normal, that's his special, and his combo will be over after the danger has passed. Don't hesitate, just attack him in this moment.



Great, another takeover of a Sector I'm currently in. Well, in spite of my current problems, I'm having much more fun with this stage than the last one. It's immeasurable how much Jeanne's gameplay improves when you're not doing smacking enemies with a wet noodle.



Yeah, that's not gonna be happening. This is Jeanne's final special attack, where she'll stab forward with her standard a few times, then point is straight up to gather a bunch of enemies together by sucking them in. Using a mini-version of her Noble Phantasm, she'll then shoot up a column of flame. It does pretty good damage, actually, but more importantly Jeanne can finally deal some nice single-target damage.

Shortly after that, I finally flip kicked him to death, just in time for Tamamo's invasion.

Th-This woman is so sparkly...! No more pure hearts, now! We don't need that in my SE.RA.PH!

I sense such moral decay...! I will fight you for peace and order!

Checks out. Although I took off all of Tamamo's health with a Moon Drive, if you don't have one, there's really nothing special you have to keep in mind. Jeanne's T T T combo is strong enough to handle things on their own, and you can use special attacks to deal damage when you feel comfortable.

As nearly always, once all enemy Servants are defeated there's not much more to discuss. I handled things better than I did with Iskandar, given I had only three outstanding Sectors and no invasions by the time Karna showed up.



As I've mentioned, Jeanne's T T T combo is really effective and covers a lot of ground. While it's hard to focus the damage on a single target, mainly because the less-damaging part of the combo usually throws a target too far away to follow up, it's a nice safety net if you're under pressure. Karna vs. Jeanne's lines are not memorable, so I will not post them.



Glad to have your approval. Now I'll try to end this fight while the Moon Drive is still active. As it turned out, I couldn't.



And there we go.



Vastly more entertaining than stage 1, to be sure.







The enemy troops cower back in their base. It seems they're fortifying now, but this will be our chance. Caster's main headquarters. We can take it immediately, can we not?

I understand our situation. All the same, we must take a moment to rest.

I could press on now, but... It's true. Jeanne needs to recover.

I mean, if Gil got off his ass for once, he may have a point, but then he wouldn't be Gil. Anyway, I could see relying on Jeanne to handle everything in this timeline because, after all, she has single-handedly beaten Li Shuwen, Cu Chulainn, Nameless, Karna, Lu Bu, and Tamamo no Mae. I'd base my plans around her given that pedigree, too.

Hm. Well, it seems the two of you are getting along. During the fight, you looked like a pair of war goddess sisters.

Sisters...you say?

Of course we look alike. Don't state the obvious.

Oh... Really? I hadn't thought of that. Some things, it takes someone else to notice, I suppose.

At the very least, I am a hero and a human woman. Ruler is the same. Two females of the same species. We have that much in common.

Oh...well, I suppose if one takes a broad perspective, then yes, no one could argue with that.

Ruler and I share very few genetic similarities. There must be others who look much more like her than I do.

See that? Altera's calling Type-Moon's CEO out, there. Although, Jeanne and Artoria have the same face because Takeuchi really likes drawing Artoria and variants by pure coincidence, rest assured.

Ha. Well, you two are like peas in a pod from my perspective. However, they do say silence is golden. See? Even I can read a room sometimes. Ha, ha.

The gold pun wasn't funny.

...King of Heroes. I believe such things are best muttered under one's breath. Some women would despise a man like yourself, you know.

...You don't say.

Speaking from experience...