Sakura's gentle voice cut through the awkwardness. "Perhaps we should invite them in before we conduct an investigation in our own doorway?" Such a softly delivered question sent Shirou and Rin into a terror-fueled shiver.

"AHAHAHAHA, come in, come in. I'm sure we can put some tea on for you?" Shirou shot Rin a questioning look. Like a well-oiled machine, Rin nodded her head, sending Shirou subconscious waves of relief.

Sakura guided the married couple and divine twins to their seats before leaving and returning with unnaturally quickly prepared tea.

Sakura, divine angel (demon) that she was, patted Shirou on the shoulder and placed a kiss upon both his and Rin's cheeks before returning to the kitchen. Of course, that was more than enough time for Shirou to voice his thoughts to Apollo and Artemis, though they did not quite understand his terror of an angry Sakura.

"So… let me get this straight," Apollo began, clasping his hands together while seated across from Shirou. "You think that you might be Belen. But only because you used to look like Artemis. And you're not quite sure because the…"

"Angra Mainyu," Rin helpfully provided from beside Shirou. Artemis's right eye twitched.

"Ah yes, the Persian God of Evil. How could I forget?" Shirou frowned. Is he being sarcastic? Who am I kidding, yes he is."Because you were caught in a cursed fire caused by the Persian God of Evil, which made you an amnesiac, but for some reason didn't kill you."

Apollo sighed before continuing, "Is there any reason why he didn't kill you? Beings like that only spare people if their fate is worse than death."

Shirou hummed thoughtfully, thinking how best to answer the loaded question. How exactly does one explain that Angra Mainyu wasn't actually a god, but was a Heroic Spirit empowered and sustained by a Holy Grail that wasn't THE Holy Grail. Or that there was a being that represented the unconscious collective will of humanity and wanted to turn him into the ultimate weapon/soldier, otherwise known as a Counter Guardian, that could act against threats to humanity across parallel worlds for eternity. Or that said being intended to do so by means of manipulating events so that he became the incarnation of a sword and was willing to accept such a fate. "Well, I'd say it's because I'm-"

"I have it on good authority from a dimension-hopping immortal troll that it was done, and I quote, 'For the lulz.'" Rin interrupted, holding up air quotes, before smugly taking a sip of tea while making eye contact with Shirou.

Shirou's right eye twitched. Rin's smugness increased substantially.

"'For the lulz.'" Artemis repeated disbelievingly. "I don't quite believe that." Rin shrugged noncommittally.

Knowing Zelretch, 'for the lulz' is not only a possible explanation, but one that is highly likely to be true.

Artemis took a deep breath, about to continue her line of questioning.

"Why has your appearance changed so much? It's too natural to be because of dye, colored contacts, and a tanning bed. No. I know scarring when I see it. Explain." Apollo fired out, causing a now familiar twitch in Artemis's eye to resurface. Though her annoyed look quickly shifted to a curious one.

"Well…" Shirou grimaced, uncertain how to best explain it. "It's a… side effect of my…" Fuck it. They're gods. They probably know about magecraft. "… of my magecraft."

Rin coughed violently before whacking Shirou across the back of the head. "Shirou!" Her voice lowered to a hiss, "Do you not remember the Sealing Designate fiasco? Never mind, of course you don't, otherwise you wouldn't have just said the same exact words that caused it in the first place. You're lucky Zelretch was willing to pull strings."

She crossed her arms and huffed. "I swear, if it didn't keep you away from that bitch Luvia, I'd be more angry now that we're both persona non grata in the Clocktower."

Shirou hung his head at Rin's… tsundereness. Honestly, by the way Artemis and Apollo were smirking, they had heard every word she just said. Of course, Rin also conveniently left out that Luvia was a family friend, fellow apprentice to Zelretch, and the godmother of their daughter. Let alone a blushing Queen of the Clocktower demanding Shirou's involvement in her Dead Apostle hunts as recompense.

And that the only reason that he was ever declared a Sealing Designate in the first place was not because of his magecraft or Reality Marble, but because of two oaths of vengeance. The first was sworn by the entirety of the Clocktower after Rin and Luvia had one of their fights over him and rendered the cafeteria a temporarily irreparable casualty on both Taco Tuesday and the following Wing Wednesday. Shirou could sympathize with such a reason.

The second was sworn by Lorelei Barthomeloi herself after Zelretch spread photos of her cradling a copy of Twilight while sleeping, and then went and blamed Shirou for it. The bastard. Needless to say, Zelretch was the one who placed such blasphemous material on her, but the damage was done, and Shirou was a much easier target. Shirou later sicced Dark Sakura on Zelretch. Zelretch never overtly pranked them again, nor did he retract Rin's apprenticeship. Shirou shivered violently at the memory of an enraged Sakura. Never again. So many tentacles. Yes, never again.

Instead of reminiscing on things best left to suppressed memories, Shirou decided to change the subject, as is typical of him, to a far more awkward one. "As much as I'd love to answer deeply personal questions about myself to what are effectively strangers, can you please explain why you abandoned me in another reality and are only now searching for me?"

Artemis immediately froze, resembling a fish out of water. "Uhhhhh... ummm…"

Apollo, one obviously used to embarrassing situations due to child abandonment, if only based on his reaction, grimaced before answering, "There is currently a law in place that gods cannot raise their mortal children, even when there is no mortal parent. And our father is Zeus; the one who put the law in place and is more likely than not to kill you simply for the crime of being born from his favorite daughter. Let alone the father being her brother."

"So I'm an incest baby? Aren't you supposed to be a virgin goddess?" Shirou asked with an eyebrow raised in judgment.

The question seemed to bring Artemis back to reality, and also deeply offend her, if the constipated expression was any indicator. "I'll have you know that I have remained true to my vows. You were born through artificial insemination, and only to satisfy my domain as the goddess of childbirth."

"That's a cold way of putting it, Sis." Apollo swooped in to save the conversation from itself. "We didn't have you as goddess and god because Zeus would have demanded your immediate incarceration in Tartarus. I have a… history of being mortal, so it was easy enough to incarnate as such and provide a... sample for your mother. The reason it was me instead of someone else is because I'm the only guy Artemis trusts with her well-being. Gods don't have DNA, so not only are you not an incest baby, technically speaking, but you are a demigod child of Artemis and a legacy of myself. So on the bright side you are probably really good at archery."'

"No shit!" Thank you, Rin. Perhaps next you'll say that 'the Archer class really is made up of archers.' It's like Captain Obvious was demoted to Second Lieutenant and forgot how to navigate. Is it sad that I'm the one thinking this?

"Okay… ignoring that outburst." Apollo continued, "Once you were born, we contacted an old friend of mine who has the ability to travel between realities." Definitely Zelretch. "He offered to take you to his home reality and make sure you were raised right." Considering he made sure I was adopted by Kiritsugu, I guess he was technically telling the truth. Though, his standard for raising people right are a Dead Apostle Ancestor and a True Ancestor with a combined body count in the millions. Meh, semantics, I'd say I'm well adjusted. "Though I'm starting to doubt his sincerity."

Shirou nodded, "Yeah, that's fair."

The response to that was equally concerned, quick, and repetitive. "Explain. Everything."

Shirou nodded his head swiftly. "That man has the ability to view and travel to parallel realities. One of the constants across almost all of them is the existence of a Shirou Emiya. Whatever the circumstances of his birth; whether that's as a nameless orphan with Magical Circuits, a British wizard named Harry, a child from a prominent Irish Magus family... or in this case: a demigod child of the Twin Archers named Belen. Every Shirou will be in Fuyuki City during that fire. Every single Shirou will be saved from that fire and adopted by Kiritsugu Emiya. Every Shirou will be imbued with Avalon and become an incarnation of a sword. Every Shirou will be the Master of Saber in the Fifth Holy Grail. And every single Shirou, without fail, is damned to become a Counter Guardian through a contract with Alaya after death. That is Shirou's fate. That is my fate." Was that too dark? "On the bright side, this version of me isn't British."

"Have you accepted such a contract?" Artemis, for the first time, had a look of deep concern and worry upon her face.

"No, not yet. But I've met a possible future version of me that has."

Apollo cleared his throat, "If you haven't died yet, can you explain the scar tissue you have over and through your heart?"

"Um, I was killed?"

"Kid, people die when they are killed," Apollo responded in deadpan.

Rin began muttering to herself. "So that's where he gets it from." Artemis had a similar line of thought. "Di Immortals, he really is his son."

Shirou adopted a look of deep offense at hearing Artemis and Rin's comments. "I got better."

Artemis violently slammed her face onto the table, surprising everyone. "Okay! Moving on! I would like to know about my child's life." Artemis pointed an accusing finger at Rin. "Who are you to him?"

Rin spluttered momentarily, before looking at a distressed Shirou. Rin smiled, evilly, before turning back to Artemis. "I'm his wife. And the mother of his daughter." Shirou let out a sigh of relief. At least she's telling the truth in the way least likely to cause my mother to mutilate me. I love that woman.

Artemis smiled tightly, "Well, as least he chose a strong woman to guide him. Who are the other women and children I'm sensing in the other room?"

Apollo's softly spoken comment went unappreciated, "Oh, you poor fool."

Rin's smug, evil smile only increased in both smugness and evilness at both statements and the question. Shirou felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. I take it back. Rin is an evil fucking witch. I was seduced by her thicc thighs. I should have listened to Sakura and focused on tits and ass like a good Christian.

The words of the apocalypse were spoken without care, "Ah, those are his other wives and children. We number four and three, in case you were wondering."

Shirou could feel the Feminism in his mother awaken as the nonchalant comment passed through her ears. Whatever hope he had to survive this without significant injury died as her tea cup shattered in her fist and her vengeful eyes locked onto his, not unlike those of a great white shark's meeting those of a minnow's. Welp, I'm fucking dead.

Apollo meanwhile wiped a tear from his eye, "Huh, this is a new feeling. Is… is this pride in someone else?"

A/N: As several reviewers have pointed out, I faced some significant issues when writing this crossover. (TL:DR version: PJO and Fate mythologies don't mesh well. In this fic, PJO will be a separate reality to Fate due to incompatibility. Rider Medusa will be based on pre-Ovid mythology; essentially a minor nature goddess that degenerated into the Gorgon, not a random human priestess that was seduced/raped by Poseidon and cursed by a petty Athena. The PJO gods will not be the machine gods present in the Fate series, once again due to incompatibility between series.)

Beyond everything else, PJO and Fate are inherently non-compatible. PJO has the genealogy and presence of gods, titans, primordials, and monsters laid out, with all able to respawn when killed. Fate on the other hand starts with the fact that the Age of the Gods has ended. In other words, the gods no longer interact with the mortal world and now reside within the reverse side of the world. Furthermore, Fate does not have respawnable monsters, but phantasmal beasts that stay dead when killed. Gorgon did not continuously respawn to plague heroes, but became a summonable Servant of the Avenger class, as opposed to the eternal monster Medusa in PJO.

Even more incompatible are the legends of the gods themselves. In PJO, the gods are descended from the Titans, who are themselves descended from the Primordials, the children of Chaos. Eventually, the gods in PJO are altered by their Roman worshipers into their Roman counterparts, becoming Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, and Pluto to name a few. In Fate, they begin as the machine gods of Atlantis, who bore their Roman names and were originally known as a single entity/spaceship called Chaos. They were built by an alien species named by one source as the Titans. Said machine gods, led by Jupiter, were heavily damaged by the White Titan Sefar, and devolved into biological gods and thus bore their Greek names. Even crazier, Fate lore is extremely contradictory when it comes to the Olympian gods. I've already mentioned it, but the Titans do not exist in Fate lore as divine beings, yet Heracles's Labors specifically mention the presence of Atlas and his eternal punishment of holding up the sky. Further, how do the machine gods devolve into their Greek counterparts with different names, yet are later on worshiped in Rome by their original names? And where is the Gigantomachy, another aspect of Heracles's legend and the main plot of Heroes of Olympus, in Fate? I'm not saying that PJO is more accurate. After all, it was written for young teenagers and the incestual cesspit that is Greek mythology was cleaned up to make things more palatable. And that's not even getting into the different versions of the real mythology itself, with the most recent written by Ovid, who was deeply against religion and government authority, during the reign of Caesar Augustus, and the more ancient Mycenaean (Linear B) beliefs, where Poseidon was king of the gods, lord of the underworld, and god of earthquakes and rivers, yet not the sea. In terms of accuracy, PJO may not be the most accurate, but Fate has the Olympians originally existing as alien spaceships who were worshiped in Atlantis by their Roman names in 12000 BC. So yeah, Fate's not exactly setting a high standard of accuracy to beat.

Shirou: He is going to be the demigod son of Artemis and a legacy of Apollo. Apollo is still the father through in vitro fertilization (i.e. virgin birth). As I stated in my last author notes, Apollo is the father because he is the only male Artemis trusts. As a mortal, Apollo is only comparable in terms of divinity to a demigod. This keeps Shirou from being born as a god, and thus hidden from both Zeus and Hera, who are notorious child murderers in mythology. The rest of Greek mythology is populated by serial killers and serial rapists, with the two not being exclusive. Apollo also has a history of living as a mortal beyond PJO. The first time was when he was punished for killing the cyclops who created Zeus's weapon in revenge for Zeus killing his son Asclepius. The second time was punishment for when he and Poseidon, along with several other gods, caught Zeus in a net and made him promise to be a better king. He and Poseidon would go on to build the walls of Troy while human, later making the city nearly impregnable during the Trojan War.

Medusa: She is going to be based off of the pre-Ovid myths of being a nature goddess that degenerated into the Gorgon, before being slain by Perseus. This is different from the version of her in PJO, who was a priestess of Athena that was seduced by Poseidon before being turned into the Gorgon by Athena. Thus, we have a summonable Servant, with some divinity, versus an immortal/respawnable, weaker monster with a grudge. I wonder what will happen when they meet.

For future chapters, I'm facing a dilemma. Do I include Illyasviel and Berserker? It has the potential to seriously fuck with the PJO cast in the best possible ways, but it also has the potential to be too much. There's also a pretty interesting theory among archaeologists that Apollo and Lugh (Celtic god and father of Lancer) were the same deity, which could be an interesting route to pursue if I include Lancer. I'll leave the decision to the reviewers in the poll below.