I have been a fan of the Fate franchise since I was about eleven years old, but this is my first foray into writing for it beyond some oneshots. I am no expert in the lore of the franchise, few really are, but I will be doing my best with this zany universe. As for canon, I have played the original visual novel, Ataraxia, and Extra, though I have never paid much attention to Grand Order pre-lostbelts. As such, if I mess anything up that involves Grand Order shenanigans, please let me know… though it likely won't affect much.
This story will have adult content on par with the source material.
Your name… was Shirou Emiya. That wasn't… really your name, but it was the name you had always known, or rather, only known for yourself. You had another name once, but it was lost and, you suppose, rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. You were seventeen, just turned seventeen in fact, and you lived a relatively uneventful life in Fuyuki City. Every day you went to school, met up with your friends, then returned home for study, practice, and sleep.
It was, as a whole, ordinary and monotonous. One might call it boring, but then, you never mind being boring to begin with. One step forward at a time, making your way through life, chasing your goals, but never losing sight of the present in order to obtain them. That's how you did things, that's how you had always done things.
Of course.
Things changed… that night. Well, that wouldn't be fair either. You'd say it was a rather rapid series of nights in a row all coalescing into one gigantic mess of screwups and explosions. Demigods, heroes, villains, creatures from other worlds and everything else you might have not even begun to imagine.
But it started with that night.
—
"Shirou! Remember to get the good stuff, the good stuff! Wagyu!" Taiga calls out from the living room.
You glance back from the threshold of the door, where your guardian was all warm underneath the kotatsu while you were about to walk out into the snow.
"Sure sure." You reply, then slide the door closed behind you. "If you want the good stuff then maybe you shouldn't eat everything in the pantry," you grumble, quietly so that Taiga doesn't hear you. With a sigh, you begin making your way out of the Emiya residence and into the city proper. It was evening, late in the evening in fact. Eight o'clock on a Wednesday evening, the best time to go grocery shopping.
But… you couldn't complain, besides your part-time job she was paying for this herself, and she has been taking care of you so long that it would be very ungrateful for you not to spend her dinner money the way she requested.
… Can't help the cold though.
You press your body in against yourself as you walk, your shoes clapping against the wet, frozen sidewalk as you make your way through the night towards the nearby grocery store. It had been a cold winter, and it was, paradoxically, only seeming to get colder as January turned to February. But still, there was a beauty to it, with the lights spread about the city in the rolling hills, it almost gave the appearance of twinkling christmas lights, even a full month past the season as the reds, blues, yellows and whites of the city flicker and fade in the darkness of the evening.
Your body moved on autopilot, winding your way through the streets. The grocery store was familiar, and luckily still open for another half hour. You had gotten a few odd looks at your arrival, but you were beyond the age of curfew, and besides… not a lot of crime one could get up to with a pound of steak on a Wednesday evening. At least, nothing you want to be privy to.
With the bag slung over your shoulder, the meat wrapped in ice, you begin to make your way back.
"Need to talk to Taiga about doing some of the grocery shopping herself from time to time…" you mutter, shaking your head as you make your way past the park. The snow had stopped, transitioning to a faint, but cold rain, just enough to annoy you but not enough to make getting an umbrella worth it. A cold, wintery, rainy evening in the boring life of Shirou Emiya.
But then… you saw something there in the part, something laying on the ground.
The bag loosened in your fingers, and your legs were moving before you even recognized what you were doing. Running across the park, nearly slipping on the icey wet cobbled stone of the park, you come to a stop next to the figure. It's-
Hmm, so we've got Caren, Bazette, fucking Mash for some ungodly reason, and Medea. Welp, I know who I need to vote for, lets pick up the sad, ever betrayed witch and get a very potent ally.
You son of a bitch, you know exactly what you've done, and I am here for it.
She's not, that's Caren Ortensia. Don't be fooled by the word shield and click the link itself
Hmm, don't have any reason coming to mind why Mash would be here, I could see Tachie if you were using the cut material, but not Mash so I think I'll pass on her.
Bazette could be interesting, especially with the whole Kirei betrayal and the fact that we're starting without a servant unless we summon one later, but I'm not quite feeling it for some reason I'm having trouble putting into words.
So that leaves Caren or Medea imo. Caren could be neat, going down a church aligned path with Kirei and friends could be interesting. And lots of exposure to Kirei is always fun. Not familiar with HA enough to know what else might come from that team up though.
Or we could grab Medea and have some nice interplay with the whole Hero of Justice vs Villain on the same team thing. We'd also get to work our archery skills a lot with whatever Medea could make for us, since she really isn't the best heroic spirit in an actual fight, and we've got monsters like Cu, whoever is in the Saber class with their magic resistance, and possibly Mr. "I have more ego than I have gold" if he hasn't been butterflied away by anything in the backstory.
[X] [A woman in blue, bleeding on the ground]
[X] [A woman with white hair, laying next to a tree covered in dirt]