Mali Brooks (Maelstrom)

(For the version appearing in Fate/Supernova, please see Mali Brooks.)Mali Brooks is a Sub-Servant and Master participating in the Sixth Holy Grail War of Fate/Maelstrom as the Master of Shielder.

Background
Assassin's True Name is Mali Brooks, a Sub-Servant fused with the Heroic Spirit Grail Assassin at the end of the First Eclipse Holy Grail War in Wyndarton, Australia.

Mali was the youngest child of her family, but the only daughter, resulting in her Sorcery Trait, Maiden’s Hand, being able to manifest, allowing her to wield holy weapons and make use of their passive attributes. The ideal ability for an Executor, she was trained almost from birth to be a cold-blooded killer.

She achieved the title of Executor at 12 under the tutelage of family friend and Executor Cassidy Turnbull and continued to work in tandem with the man on missions. At 14, though, one of their missions went awry. While hunting a small group of mages who had been killing Church members, one of the mages escaped and slaughtered Mali’s family. Cassidy changed occupations to a relic hunter for the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament, while Mali continued pursuing her life as an Executor - though she began taking more and more jobs targeting mages in hopes of one day confronting her family’s murderer and getting her vengeance.

At the age of 16, she heard rumors of her family’s murderer having resurfaced, packing up and traveling to Llandudno, Wales alone to exact her revenge. However, due to leaving for this personal vendetta unannounced, with only her gun and Black Keys, rather than usually being provided with some relic or another to use in battle, she was severely outclassed and had nearly been killed, had not the Grail Assassin appeared and killed the man.

The two struck a deal, forming a contract that would allow the Lostbelt Servant to participate in Australia’s Eclipse Holy Grail War since Mali had received a dispatch to the Church there to assist the Overseer. Through this contract and the Assassin’s goodwill, she came into possession of the Lance of Longinus, retaining it even after the war and her Servant’s disappearance, having absorbed the Servant’s Spirit Origin through her recently awakened Origin near the end of Wyndarton’s First Eclipse Holy Grail War.

Appearance
Mali is a young woman with dusty rose pink hair and eyes that are a blend of lilac and rose. Her casual attire consists of a short black sweater dress paired with thigh-high stockings and simple black dress shoes. On more official business, she wears her usual church attire - a black cassock with a clerical collar, with black stockings beneath and plain black dress shoes. Her hair is generally held in a loose, fat braid over her right shoulder. The Command Seal on the back of her right hand takes the form of a cross with a crescent moon above it, with the vertical bar of the cross appearing as a spear and the horizontal bar a sword.

In Servant form, she wears a skintight set of white and cobalt armor that leaves her midsection exposed. The faulds resemble a short skirt. She wears thigh-high black stockings beneath white boots and wears a garter on her right thigh. She wears full-length cobalt blue arm covers on both arms.

The Command Seal on the back of her right hand takes the form of a cross with a crescent moon above it, with the vertical bar of the cross appearing as a spear and the horizontal bar a sword.

Personality
To the general public, Mali could be perceived as a bit of a ditz who tries to make friends with everyone. She styles herself as a sweet young woman who’s willing to try anything once, as well as being something of a flirt. That said, this is simply a guise she’s created for herself for the ease of getting in close to her targets, an exaggeration of what her true nature would have been if not for her upbringing.

Beneath the surface, Mali is extremely cunning. She is careful in her planning and even in a fight, she still does her best to calculate each move, preferring to taunt her opponent into making the first strike and open themselves up. In a fight, she’s bold and straightforward, although not opposed to using underhanded tactics to make a decisive strike when she sees an opening. Although she feels pain like any other person, she will ignore her body’s limits and pain to continue pressing a battle unless stopped.

In private and left to her own devices, she is rather carefree, happy to drop her guard and kick her feet up to have a drink. Work is to be done on a schedule developed to suit her whims and open to being changed at a moment’s notice if something catches her attention. She struggles to express her actual emotions, covering them up beneath a thick layer of snarkiness and sarcasm.

Fate/Maelstrom
After her participation in Wyndarton's First Eclipse Holy Grail War, Mali fused herself with the remnants of Grail Assassin's Saint Graph through her Origin, becoming the first Sub-Servant. Returning to England, she took up her duties as an Executor once more, although in 2028 she once again settled in Wyndarton for a short period to oversee the Second Eclipse Holy Grail War.

However, dissatisfied with simply being the Church's lapdog to be sent where they pleased, in 2030 she took the opportunity to abandon her post in Lancashire upon hearing rumors of the Fuyuki Grail becoming active once more. She hoped not only to distance herself from the Church, even if temporarily, but also to summon some variation of the same Servant who had served her seven years prior and whom she had fused with. Using her own blood as a catalyst, she successfully summoned her Servant for Fuyuki's Sixth Holy Grail War - Shielder.

Holy Sacraments
Sacraments are the exclusive right of the Church, used to fight spiritual beings. Black Keys are one of their many charms used against demons and vampires.


 * Baptism Sacrament - The sole mystery that is freely taught to all members of the Church. A simple ritual with an aria that falls on the Ten-Count category, it is capable of exorcising Daemons and sending Wraiths back to the world of the dead. Possess weak capacities of physical interference, but its power is overwhelming against spiritual bodies. It is ineffective against spirits on the level of Servants, though.
 * Black Keys - A sacrament of the Church, one of their many charms used against demons and vampires. As Keys of Providence, they are able to call forth the original laws of nature vampires were subject to as humans, thus preventing them through purification from healing the wounds made with this weapon. Emphasized on the ability to intervene spiritually against "evil", they focus less on physical attack power, even affecting powerful spirits like Servants to some degree should they be struck. It is not enough to inflict any sort of fatal injury to them no matter how much energy is put into them, but they can be used to distract or pin them for a brief moment under the right circumstances.
 * Iron Plate Effect - A "secret throwing technique" of the Burial Agency, strengthening the Black Keys through pure martial arts. it is possible to utilize the technique to throw them more effectively, increasing the force of impact dozens of times to allow them to bore through even reinforced concrete walls and hit an enemy with enough force to be likened to being struck by a car.

Legacy
Mali’s Origin, Legacy, allows her to take on a Demi-Servant like state, although at a lesser level, known as a Sub-Servant. This allows her to use a Noble Phantasm’s full potential, as well as giving her the ability to partially fuse the Spirit Origin of a Servant with her own body to achieve a Sub-Servant state, although once she has fused with a Servant’s Spirit Origin, it is permanent and she cannot undo the fusion or fuse herself with another Servant’s Spirit Origin. Her Origin awakened during the First Eclipse Holy Grail War in Wyndarton, Australia, where she fused herself with the Spirit Origin of her Servant, Grail Assassin (consisting of the knights ◼◼◼◼◼, ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼, and ◼◼◼◼◼◼◼◼). This allows her to behave similarly to a Servant, although as a Servant she is relatively weak.

Maiden's Hand
A Sorcery Trait passed down through Mali’s family but only usable by the female members. Maiden’s Hand allows for Mali to wield holy weapons with ease and retain the effects of their base form, including Noble Phantasms if granted permission from the Servant. However, she cannot activate a weapon’s ultimate attack (the Lance of Longinus being an exception), and weapons that require additional criteria to be met cannot be wielded by her unless she meets the additional criteria.

Class Skills

 * Magic Resistance (A Rank) - Grants protection against magical effects. Differing from the Resistance effect that merely rejects Magical Energy, this ability cancels the spells altogether. Cancel spells of A-Rank or below, no matter what High-Thaumaturgy it is. In practice, the Servant is untouchable to modern magi, so it would not be an exaggeration to title the Servant a "Magus Killer".
 * Possession Inheritance (-) - A unique Skill that Demi-Servants and Sub-Servant s possess. A Succeed Phantasm. One of the Skills that the possessing Heroic Spirit owns is inherited and sublimated in a self-taught manner. In Mali’s case, the inherited Skill is Code of Honor. A Skill denoting who closely followed the high standards of a knight’s code of honor. This allows for greater resistance to mental debuffs, as well as resistance to Skills or Noble Phantasms that alter one’s mentality.
 * Presence Concealment (A Rank) - The capacity to hide one's presence as a Servant. Hides one's presence as a Servant. Suitable for spying. It is possible to disappear completely and become nearly impossible to be detected. The rank of Presence Concealment drops considerably when preparing to attack.

Personal Skills

 * Code of Honor (A+ Rank) - A Skill denoting who closely followed the high standards of a knight’s code of honor. This allows for greater resistance to mental debuffs, as well as resistance to Skills or Noble Phantasms that alter one’s mentality.
 * Disengage (C Rank) - The ability to withdraw from the battlefield in the midst of combat or reset the battle conditions. Bonus effect of returning battle conditions to what they were at the beginning of the match.
 * Instinct (B Rank) - The ability to instantly identify “the best personal course of action” during combat. Because this Skill allows for the prediction of trajectory, it is possible to avoid attacks from firearms. Through this ability, it is possible to halve the penalties inflicted by visual and auditory interference.
 * Torture Technique (B Rank) - A Skill that represents one's possession of outstanding torture techniques. Plus modifiers are added when using torture tools to deal damage. Because it strengthens bloodshed and agony, further damage is continuously added after the ordinary damage.

Noble Phantasms
Mali wields the Lance of Longinus, which was given to her by Grail Assassin shortly after meeting in the events of Fate/Supernova's First Eclipse Holy Grail War. It is the lance that is said to have pierced the side of Jesus Christ as he hung on the cross, the greatest dolorous stroke of mankind's history. This is also the same lance which would deal the second dolorous stroke known to man. This is the spear that ◼◼◼◼◼ unknowingly took hold of to defend herself against Pellam’s attack after her sword was shattered, her strike killing the Grail Kingdom’s ruler and collapsing the castle on its occupants, of which she was the only survivor. It is a passive Noble Phantasm could pierce through any armor. A wound dealt by the lance cannot be healed by normal means, the only known ways being to destroy the spear are through the use of a Noble Phantasm or artifact possessing equal or greater holy magic to the spear, or by killing its wielder.However, due to her later fusion with Grail Assassin after the awakening of her Origin, Mali is also able to unleash Grail Assassin's version of the lance's ultimate attack. With the activation of this Noble Phantasm, the Lance of Longinus itself seems to begin bleeding, the blood dripping onto the ground and spreading to form a magic circle. Once complete, a wave of power and blood engulfs the area, dealing heavy damage to any living thing that comes into contact with it and turning the affected land in its range to a desolate wasteland.

Other
Mali is adept at wielding medieval melee weapons such as swords and spears, as well as being highly proficient in the use of small firearms and Black Keys. She’s also talented at tracking people and has knowledge of a variety of torture techniques. Additionally, she is capable of using small firearms, usually having a pair of .45 Magnus pistols on her person along with a .22 Colt revolver.