Fate/Ethereal Order
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You are a depressed twenty-nine year old Enforcer, joining Chaldea for a year in search of something more. Whatever happens, it's not the end of the world.
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Chapter One: Just A Dream
Location
Ireland
Pronouns
He/Him
Your eyes are closed as you watch the world burn.

You aren't watching it though, not
really. Watching implies that your eyes are doing anything besides jittering around in the throes of REM sleep, glancing here and there at darkness as if suddenly something will reveal itself, blindly following the images and sounds your brain muddles together to try help you understand what it is that you're feeling. No, what you're doing is less watching and more knowing.

You aren't really floating with the earth before you, suspended in inky blackness like a satellite, watching what should be peaceful blues and greens and whites rotate slowly as the world ignites like a second Sun. You aren't really feeling heat on your skin despite how far you are from the surface, like an open flame held mere inches in front of you. You aren't really hearing the screams from all those below you as they and everything they were burn until not even cinders remain.

You can tell yourself that it isn't real over and over and over again, and you don't even have to lie about it.

But that doesn't help, does it?

Just because it isn't real now doesn't mean that it will never come to pass. And you wouldn't be dreaming of this if it would never happen. After all, this isn't
just a dream, is it?

Of course not.

It's a warning.

From who? Now you're asking the right questions. I won't answer them, but keep that spark alive. You'll need it in the days to come.

We don't have much more time, you'll be arriving soon. But I just wanted to say that I'll be watching you. I won't say something like "don't let me down", because I think you already know what the cost of failure is.

No pressure, right?

I'd like to say that it's only seven and a half billion lives on your shoulders, but we both know that's a lie. It's everyone who lives, but it's everyone who's died as well, everyone who's yet to come. You need to fix this.

There isn't anyone else.

It's only you.

Good luck.


---
You jolt awake with a start, and for a brief moment, you see nothing even after you open your eyes. There's a hint of panic that you squash down when you remember the blindfold you were told would be put on you when you stepped into the car. You can't quite recall how long you've been under since then, but the seat you're in has definitely changed. Whatever faux-leather upholstery was in the car has been replaced with something harder, and...yes, that's a harness that you're strapped into. That, plus the dull roar you can hear all around you, makes you fairly certain you're now on a plane.

So headquarters wasn't in London, then.

You're not permitted to know the location of Chaldea, even as a recruit. That's a little bit irritating, but hey, secret organizations are part and parcel of your life, and you know they don't stay secret for very long if they start advertising their exact location and how to get to them. A whisper here, a murmur there, and you were...recruited? Scouted? Press-ganged? Either one could be accurate, really. You didn't have much of a choice once it became clear you had the aptitude and the will.

Only you.

The words flutter by in your mind like scraps of paper caught on the winds, and you frown. Whatever it might feel like, you know you're not alone. Olga-Marie Animusphere has been looking for the best and brightest, and whatever they have you doing in Chaldea, you'll be among the people best suited for the job. Ordinarily you might have been more apprehensive about the idea, but then you met the young Lord.

You've known some stubborn people in your life, but watching her chew out the scion of some noble family or another who had demanded to be taken on board despite having failed whatever test Animusphere used to determine made you appreciate the kind of tenacity that taking the role at a young age must have given her. You didn't realise people's faces could get so white while still being alive. Anyone she picked was someone up to her standards, and those had been exacting.

It was going to be fine.

The minutes passed in a blur as your thoughts scrambled around in your head, your body buzzing with too much anticipation to even consider falling back asleep now that the hypnotism had worn off. You didn't dare try any magecraft in case that would bring down the wrath of whoever was currently keeping watch to make sure you didn't remove your blindfold, and without sight, there wasn't much you could do to sate the curiosity that bubbled up within. All you had to work with was the dull drone of the engines, the rumbling whenever the plane experienced some turbulence, and the tiny sounds of life somewhere else in the cabin, a cough here, a grumble there. It's almost maddening, but after an agonizing twenty minute wait, finally you hear the buzzing of an intercom followed by a polite voice.

"Approaching Chaldea now. You're permitted to take off the blindfold. Touching down in five minutes."

There's a crackle as the intercom shuts off, and immediately, you raise your hands to untie the knot that's keeping the stupid piece of cloth together around your eyes. Once it's gone, you're free to cast your gaze out the window beside you, and...

White. Just whiteness. A snowstorm?

Great. Can't even be sure where you are even when you're allowed to look.

With a sigh, you turn, but something catches your eye. A metal panel across from you, no doubt covering something important, like circuitry, or oxygen masks, or, as your grumbling stomach hopes, food. It's not quite polished to the kind of sheen you'd expect most Lords would insist everything be kept to, but even so, you can see your reflection in it. Might as well see how you're doing after who knows how long you've been sleeping.

[ ] You see tired eyes the colour of dried blood, dark circles under them that you can't quite blame entirely on the trip. Your hair is the same shade, messy and unkempt from the hours you've been pressed against the back of your seat. With your relatively youthful features you might be called handsome, if you had the opportunity to rest and wash up, but with the grimace your lips are pulled into and the dull look in your eyes, it'd be a wonder if anyone thought you were better than some common thug. A simple ring strung through a string hangs from your neck, and when you move a little, you don't hear the familiar clinking of metal on metal. Beneath your heavy coat is nothing but toned flesh stretching your simple white t-shirt across your chest, and you're already missing the weight that comes with your Mystic Code wrapped around you. You look like you're coming home from a rough night out, rather than approaching a secret facility dedicated towards the preservation of mankind, but hell, if it's this far out of the way, who cares?

[ ] You see vibrant eyes the colour of roses in bloom, hair the same shade cascading in waves down your back. A playful smile dances across your lips as you tilt your head this way and that, making sure that the long sleep and journey hasn't blemished you that much. With your features, you look about ten years younger than you really are, but you'd be jaw-droppingly beautiful even if you had aged less gracefully. You chose a relatively simple ensemble for the trip here, a plain white blouse buttoned over your impressive chest and a deep red skirt that falls to just above your knees. You'd certainly have chosen something a little more covering if you'd realised you'd be flying into a snowstorm, but really, how could you have anticipated that? A quick pat of your skirt pocket confirms that your little notebook of stories is still there, and you give the reflection a satisfied smile. When you meet Animusphere again in Chaldea, you'll do so looking as immaculate as you always do, and with your favorite little quirk on display. A quick brush of your hands tucks your scarlet tresses behind your ears, letting everyone see the elfin, pointed tips that mark you for what you are: a Child of the Fae.

-------------​
Q/N: So, I'm making a horrible mistake and starting a Quest about two weeks before my exams start, because I'm buzzing with too much energy to even think about doing anything else. This is a learning experience for me, but hopefully it'll also be an enjoyable one for all of you. Updates will probably be irregular, especially since this week is something of a crunch week for me, but i'll try to stick to a schedule regardless, especially once I start my Christmas break.

Also, if you've followed either Fate/Cavae in Paradisium, or Fate/Cascade Failure, the first option should be familiar. The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am a hack. :V
 
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Quest Info & Index


Chapter List:

Chaldea - 2019 AD
Chapter 1: Just a Dream
Chapter 2: Aviation Hazard
Chapter 3: Still Not The Worst Day You've Ever Had
Chapter 4: Director Animusphere
Chapter 5: Servant
Chapter 6: Firstborn
Chapter 7: First in its Path
Fuyuki - 2004 AD
Chapter 8: Fuyuki City
Chapter 9: Occupied Airspace
Chapter 10: Archer
Chapter 11: Shielder
Chapter 12: Plan of Attack
Chapter 13: Family Reunion
Chapter 14: King of the Beasts
Chapter 15: Lancer
Chapter 16: Sibling
Chapter 17: Saber
Chapter 18: War
Chaldea - [UNKNOWN]
Chapter 19: The New Normal
Chapter 20: House Arrest
Chapter 21: Somehow The More Pleasant Option
Chapter 22: Tea Time
Chapter 23: Self-Care
Chapter 24: 1431 AD
France - 1431 AD
Chapter 25: Into The Woods
Chapter 26: Fairy Tales
Chapter 27: Tenebrism
Chapter 28: Rose Garden
Chapter 29: Once Upon A Time
Chapter 30: Widow Capet
Chapter 31: Valent'huomo
Chapter 32: Daughter of Avalon
Chapter 33: Half-Blood
Chapter 34: A Little Chat
Chapter 35: A Mhuintir
Chapter 36: Artist's Block
Chapter 37: March on Paris
Chapter 38: Up In Flames
Chapter 39: Chiaroscuro
Chapter 40: Truth
Chapter 41: Castle of Thorns


Chaldea Servants:
Edward Information Matrix - Level 3
Class: Shielder

True Name: Edward Dempsey/???

Stats:-
STR: D
END: B
AGI: C -> B
MAG: C
LCK: E

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: B
A skill expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. As a defensive class, Shielder naturally boasts a high rank in this skill. All spells under three verses are completely ineffective against Edward, and the effects of higher ranked spells may be reduced.

Guardian Knight: B
A skill for those heroes who were not meant for killing others, but for protecting instead. When acting in the defence of another, Edward's stats receive a rank up equivalent to the same rank of Mad Enhancement.

Instinct: C+
Supernatural instincts for combat, allowing limited precognition when in battle. Though ordinarily C Ranked, if Edward is acting to defend another, it momentarily becomes equivalent to Instinct at A rank instead.

Natural Body (Purity): A -> D
A skill that denotes perfection of the body, generally possessed since birth. This variation represents a spirit so incredibly pure that the body is shaped to better represent the soul within. At its full power, this skill would provide complete immunity to all forms of poison, disease, and corruption, including magical and mental. However, due to Edward being an ill-suited vessel for such purity, this skill has been ranked down, merely providing immunity to mundane corruptions, as well as an increased resistance to all forms of "charm" effects.

Noble Phantasm:-

Lord of Steel Chains: Imaginary Phantasm Pseudo-Deployment (Barrier - C)
While Edward is unaware of the true name of his shield, he has learned to call on its power all the same, creating an imaginary Noble Phantasm by overlaying his own spirit onto the framework granted by the formidable relic. Effectively, this False Phantasm deploys a barrier in front of the shield that draws strength and form from his own indomitable will. So long as Edward remains focused and determined, the barrier will hold.

Further information is hidden.
Archer - Bond Level 2
Class: Archer

True Name: ???

Stats:-
STR: C
END: D
AGI: B
MAG: B
LCK: E

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: C
Class Skill of the Archer class, expressing a resistance to all forms of magecraft and thaumaturgy. At this rank, Archer is protected from all spells of two verses or lower.

Independent Action: E-
Class skill of the Archer Class, representing the capacity to act independently of a Master's mana supply and anchor to the world. At this rank, Archer can persist without her bond to her Master providing her the means to maintain her existence for up to thirty minutes. Archer is completely unsuited for this skill, possessing it only due to her container.

Oni-Kind Demon: ?
With her appearance and her abilities in tandem, there is no question that Archer bears the blood of an oni. Thus far, this skill appears to grant her the skills of Natural Demon and Monstrous Strength. Any further applications are hidden.

Mana Burst (Storm): ?
Archer is capable of converting mana into the terrible power of a tempest, allowing her to augment her strikes and maneuvers with stormwinds and lightning. The exact rank of this skill and its origin are hidden.

Further information is hidden.
Circe - Bond Level 2
Class: Caster

True Name: Circe

Stats:-
STR: E
END: C
AGI: D
MAG: A++
LCK: C


Skills:-
Territory Creation: A
Class Skill of the Caster class, representing the capacity to create a workshop that proves bonuses towards one's mysteries and magecraft. At this rank, Circe is capable of creating Temples to the goddess Hecate. If there is even a scrap of life where she chooses to build her Temple, it will quickly overflow with abundant foods and drinks, in addition to providing a reduction in both cost and time for her works.

Item Creation: A
Class Skill of the Caster class, representing the capacity to create magical items to help allies or hinder enemies. Circe's specialties revolve around creating potions with various helpful or harmful effects. At this rank, she is capable of producing certain simple compounds directly from her own mana supply, bypassing the need to mix any materials or herbs beforehand.

Divinity: B
A representation of one's closeness to being a Divine Spirit. As the daughter of the sun god Helios, Circe naturally boasts a high rank in this skill. While bathing in the sun's rays, the costs of Circe's magecraft are halved, and she will slowly recharge her natural store of mana at double the normal rate.

High Speed Divine Words: A+
The ability to speak magical incantations at high speeds. By utilizing a language from the Age of the Gods, Circe is capable of casting spells of the highest rank as if they were mere cantrips, all but erasing the need for vocalizations entirely save for the most powerful of rituals.


Noble Phantasm:-

Diskopótiro Scylla: The Piteous Devouring (Anti-Army - B+)
While a powerful witch and descendent of divinity, Circe was nevertheless a selfish and jealous woman, especially when it came to matters of her love. When she fell for she sea-god Glaucus, who had eyes only for the naiad Scylla, her fury drove her to atrocity. To punish Scylla for daring to captivate the man that Circe loved, the witch covered her with a potion as she bathed, transforming her from a beautiful water nymph to a terrifying monster, a six-headed monstrosity with snakelike necks, the maw of a dog, and rows of teeth like a shark.

As a Servant, Circe is capable of calling forth the monster that she created and binding it under her control, guiding her Phantasmal Beast to destroy all that she sees fit. Due to her nature as a sea-monster, Scylla can only be maintained in the sea of poison that Circe creates for a short time, but were she to be summoned on the ocean itself, she would become only a hair short of self-sustaining, held back only by Circe's control of her decayed mind.

Further information is hidden.
Goemon - Bond Level 0
Class: Assassin

True Name: Ishikawa Goemon

Stats:-
STR: D
END: B+
AGI: B
MAG: E
LCK: C

Skills:-
Presence Concealment: A
Class Skill of the Assassin class, allowing the wielder in question to hide their presence as a Servant, increasing their ability to perform clandestine operations such as espionage and assassination. At this Rank, Assassin is capable of near-completely erasing his presence while disappearing entirely from view, though this Skill drops severely in rank once an attack is launched. Assassin was formally trained as a ninja, a master of stealth and concealment, and made use of that training throughout his life to engage in many successful instances of thievery. It is even said he was only able to be detected during an assassination attempt by a mystical incense burner.

Eyes of the Great Thief: C
A Skill that denotes the ability to appraise value. Decades of ceaseless thieving, in addition to the keen analysis skills granted by training as a ninja, have given Assassin an inherent eye for the value of the items that he steals. Assassin is unafraid of to contradict the appraisals of others, as noted in the famous anecdote regarding the "eyes of Goemon", able to ascribe an accurate monetary value even to a spring view.

Assassin has the capacity to assign a monetary value to anything he gazes upon, and from there discern a number of an object's attributes based on that value. The observation time necessary to make his appraisals is directly correlated with the value of the object; mundane objects are judged instantly, while items such as Noble Phantasms require time, effort, and luck to get an accurate reading. Additionally, while he can make judgements on a Noble Phantasm's Rank and physical makeup, its more esoteric abilities will escape his notice until used. This Skill is not necessarily limited to physical objects, but due to the necessary criteria of "something he can derive value from", it is rare that he is capable of assessing individuals or abstract concepts—however, given the opportunity, it is possible that Goemon will be able to unearth value in someone that they cannot see themselves.

Ninjutsu: C-
A Skill that denotes the secret intelligence techniques, combat techniques, larceny techniques, torture techniques, etc. employed by ninjas. In life, Assassin was the pupil of the Iga ninja leader Momochi Tanba, and was even known to be particularly skilled. In the end however, he fled from his master and took up the role of a thief.

Assassin is trained in the Iga school of Ninjutsu, and is modestly proficient at explosives, medicines, poisons, unarmed combat, climbing, water walking, and the many weapons of a shinobi. Due to his decision to forsake the path of a ninja, Assassin is somewhat unwilling to make use of these techniques, and suffers reduced effectiveness when employing them.
Further information is hidden.
Leonardo Da Vinci Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Caster

True Name: Leonardo da Vinci

Stats:-
STR: E
END: E
AGI: C
MAG: A
LCK: B


Skills:-
Territory Creation: B
Class Skill of the Caster class, representing the capacity to create a workshop that proves bonuses towards one's mysteries and magecraft. While all of Chaldea is effectively part of Da Vinci's conceptual workshop, the majority of its benefits towards her manufacturing and inventing capacity are restricted to the laboratory Da Vinci spends most of her time in. For all other locations, Da Vinci receives a simple but significant boost to her efficiency, requiring an extremely low amount of mana to maintain her existence so long as she does not leave Chaldea.

Item Creation: B++
Class Skill of the Caster class, representing the capacity to create magical items to help allies or hinder enemies. Da Vinci is capable of creating powerful tools based on magecraft, modern technology, or a mixture of both. Due to her Polymath skill, Da Vinci possesses an incredibly broad range of potential creations, far eclipsing most other Casters.

Polymath: EX
A skill unique to Leonardo da Vinci, representing her incredibly broad range of interests, and the incredible talent she possessed in each one. Effectively a composite skill, this skill grants Da Vinci an A rank in skills based on a foundation of intellect and science, such as Astronomy, Engineering, Mathematics, Chemistry, and so forth. As she was not a magus in life, her rank in Magecraft is effectively only C and applies only to theoretical knowledge, but her time in Chaldea has given her ample practice with blending mystery with machinery.

Noble Phantasm:-

Donna Universale: Renaissance Woman (Anti-Unit (Self) - E)
Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as the greatest polymath of her time, a mind beyond compare constrained only by the technology she worked with, for her vision far surpassed what could be brought to light in her life. As a Servant in the modern day, this is no longer the case. Da Vinci's intellect has effectively sublimated into a Noble Phantasm, allowing her to learn, understand, innovate, and create at a pace and on a level that would put modern scientists and engineers to shame. Problems considered impossible are rendered merely improbable, so long as Da Vinci has enough resources to learn and experiment, and even the blending of magecraft and modern technology becomes a simple matter of course for the Universal Woman. It is through this Noble Phantasm that Chaldea has been able to grow into the facility it is today, and it is only by her continued maintenance and presence that it continues to function without threat of failure.


Fuyuki Servants:

Rider of Fuyuki Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Rider

True Name: Medea

Stats:-
STR: C -> B
END: C -> B
AGI: B - > A
MAG: A++
LCK: E

Skills:-
Riding: C++
Class Skill of the Rider class, denoting the capacity to control all kinds of mounts and vehicles, whether living or artificial. At this rank, Medea is capable of controlling most animals and vehicles with above-average skill, though she cannot ride any form of Phantasmal Species. The sole exception is her Noble Phantasm, which ordinarily she could control with an effective A++ rank in Riding. Due to her corruption, Medea instead controls her Noble Phantasm as an extension of her own body, increasing her skill and prowess with it.

Magic Resistance: C -> B
Class Skill of the Rider class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. Medea possesses an unusually high rank in this skill for her class despite her corruption, owing both to her expertise and the nature of her change. Cancels all spells below three verses, including high-thaumaturgy and greater rituals.

High-Speed Divine Words: A -> C
As a witch from the Age of the Gods, Medea would ordinarily be capable of casting spells on the level of high-thaumaturgy with but a single word, even outside of the Caster class. Due to her corruption, this skill has been ranked down, and she requires a full sentence to cast spells of that level.

Divinity: C -> D
A mark of divine lineage, conferring various bonuses and drawbacks depending on the deity one is related to. Ordinarily, Medea would possess a middling rank in this skill as Helios' granddaughter, but her corruption into a monster has degraded this skill's rank. Currently, she experiences only a mild lessening of her mana cost while basking in the sun's rays, though her connection to Fuyuki's mud makes such a benefit irrelevant.

Noble Phantasm:-

Heiress Helios: Escape on the Wings of Light (Anti-Army - A)
The chariot upon which Medea fled from Corinth upon committing her murders, sent by her grandfather Helios, the god of the sun. Pulled by two golden dragons, this would originally have functioned as both offense and defence for Medea, allowing her a safe haven among the skies while raining down dragonbreath and magecraft upon those below her. However, due to the corruption staining Fuyuki, Medea and her Noble Phantasm have both been warped.

Rather than a chariot she can dismiss and summon at will, Medea has fused with her chariot and dragons, becoming a chimeric beast of scale, steel, and Servant. Doing so has ranked up her physical stats and her Magic Resistance skill and increased her control over her mount, at the cost of her sanity being diluted among three minds and further corroded by her corruption. By opening her draconic mouths, Medea can spill dragon's teeth into the world below, instantly raising an army of dragon-tooth warriors to destroy all those they come across, in addition to possessing the considerable might of a dragon's breath still. So long as one head remains, whether human or draconic, Rider will not die, and can retreat to restore herself as she gorges upon the infinite mana provided by the mud of Fuyuki.
Assassin of Fuyuki Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Assassin

True Name: The Unknown Soldier

Stats:-
STR: E
END: E
AGI: E
MAG: E -> A++
LCK: E

Skills:-
Presence Concealment: C- -> X
Class Skill of the Assassin class, allowing the wielder in question to hide their presence as a Servant. The Unknown Soldier's manifestations would ordinarily b capable of appearing as simple humans to the naked eye, though continuous observation would reveal the façade of life they cling to. In the blasted hellscape of Fuyuki and under the corruption of the mud, they have no use for this skill, revealing themselves for the walking dead that they are at all times.

Military Tactics: C
Tactical knowledge meant not for duels, but for battles with many soldiers on each side. The effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms utilized by the Unknown Soldier is raised, while the effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms used against them are reduced. As their consciousness is distributed across all their manifestations, the Soldier suffers no degradation to this skill despite their corruption.

Noble Phantasm:-

The Unknown Soldier: Dulce Et Decorum Est (Anti-Army – EX)
There is no difference between the Unknown Soldier's manifestation as a Servant and the crystallization of their "legend", such as it is. They are in essence a living Noble Phantasm, constantly under its effects and incapable of suppressing or deactivating it, as to do so would kill them. The Soldier is capable of manifesting countless bodies at minimal mana cost, their core distributed across their manifestations. Each one is as weak as a human, and each possesses weaponry appropriate for a soldier that died in one of the many wars that have plagued human history.

By expanding their supply of mana and entrenching themselves within the world they are summoned to, the Unknown Soldier is capable of increasing the amount of bodies they can maintain, as well as advancing the technology they are capable of bringing to bear. While they may start with muskets and bayonets, given time, they can outfit themselves with weapons up to the level of those deployed in the Second World War, theoretically up to and including the power of an atomic bomb.
Lancer of Fuyuki Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Lancer

True Name: Cú Chulainn

Stats:-
STR: B-> A
END: C -> B
AGI: A - > A+
MAG: C - > A++
LCK: E-

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: C
Class Skill of the Lancer class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. Cú Chulainn possesses an average rank in this skill from his class and his divine blood, and through his remarkable feats of tenacity throughout his legend has avoided any degradation of the skill due to his corruption.

Disengage: C -> X
The ability to withdraw from battle in the middle of combat, resetting one's status to before they took action. While ordinarily Cú Chulainn would possess a middling rank in this skill that would make him more suited for reconnaissance and hit-and-run attacks than other Servants, his corruption has sealed this skill completely. Within the area he has claimed as his territory, he will never once retreat, and will defend it to his last breath.

Rune Magecraft: C -> X
A skill marking the ability to make use of runic magecraft. During his training with the warrior-witch Scáthach, Cú Chulainn was taught the secrets of runic magecraft through both ancient Ogham and the Elder Futhark. That he retains a middling rank in this skill despite being a Lancer is a testament to his great skill, though as with most higher functions, it has been sealed away by his corruption. Cú Chulainn's mind has degenerated into that of a beast, unsuited for anything but guarding that which it has deemed belongs to it.

Battle Continuation: A -> C
The ability to withstand lethal blows and continue fighting as though one is utterly uninjured. Cú Chulainn met his end only after tying himself to a rock with his own intestines, continuing to challenge the army of Connacht until the last traces of life fled from him hours later. There is nothing left of this noble spirit within Lancer as he exists now, and as such his ability to withstand mortal damage has lessened considerably. A fatal blow remains fatal, but Lancer is able to cheat death for far longer than should be possible.

Protection from Arrows: B
The ability to deal with any form of projectiles. An inborn gift that remains strong even now, and essentially makes Lancer immune to any form of thrown or launched weaponry. Regardless of its source, whether or not he can see the projectile, or even if it is something on the level of a Noble Phantasm, Cú Chulainn will avoid being hit like a leaf slipping through the wind. The sole exception to this is wide-scale weaponry that aims to destroy vast swathes of land.

Divinity: B -> D
A mark of divine lineage, conferring various bonuses and drawbacks depending on the deity one is related to. As the child of the sun god Lugh, Cú Chulainn's rank in this skill should be approaching the limit for any being that was not once a god, but his monstrous corruption has degraded his divine blood. While originally this would provide a rank up to his Magic and Luck during the day, his corruption has provided him effectively limited mana, and in return has cancelled his luck bonus.

Noble Phantasms:-

Gae Bolg: Barbed Spear that Pierces with Death (Anti-Unit - B, Anti-Army - B+)
The cursed spear carved from the bones of a great sea monster by the warrior-witch Scáthach, passed down to her greatest student once he surpassed her and returned to his home. Though represented as a single Noble Phantasm, it is in fact capable of two different implementations. The first is an invention of Cú Chulainn himself, calling upon the curse of the spear and using it to reverse causality, such that its target's heart is pierced before the thrust has even begun. While there exists a few ways to avoid this, such as a shield with enough magical energy to overcome the curse, having high enough Luck to resist the manipulation of fate, or through some unique ability that prevents the heart from being pierced, should the curse be successful, it will result in a gruesome, instantaneous demise as the target's heart and body are flooded with barbs. Due to its relatively low cost and extreme utility, this could be considered one of the most dangerous Noble Phantasms in a typical Grail War.

The second implementation is how Gae Bolg was originally designed, namely as a powerful throwing weapon. Upon leaping into the air, Cú Chulainn can throw his spear and unleash its curse as an extremely powerful, extremely wide-ranged attack. This method of use sacrifices the efficiency and always-accurate attributes of the other in exchange for vastly increased range and power, equivalent to a carpet bombing of the targeted area.

While both of these methods are deadly, they also require significant skill, as the Gae Bolg was a spear that none but the most exceptional could master. In his current state, Cú Chulainn is incapable of making use of either of these abilities, restricting him to simple force in combat.

Ríastrad: Battle Frenzy Warp-Spasm (Anti-Unit (Self) - A+)
Cú Chulainn's famous battle frenzy, known as the Ríastrad, or the warp-spasm. In moments when he was gripped with terrible rage, Cú Chulainn would change from a beautiful warrior-demigod into a hideous monster that made no distinction between friend and foe, mercilessly slaughtering everything in range until he calmed down enough to reverse the change. His corruption has forcibly activated and sustained this Noble Phantasm, further corrupting him from a simple monster into something far closer to his moniker, resulting in a true Hound of Ulster. While in this state, Cú Chulainn's physical stats are ranked up as though he possessed an equivalent rank in Mad Enhancement, as well as gaining temporary C ranks in both Monstrous Strength and Natural Monster. Finally, this Noble Phantasm allows Cú Chulainn to harness his boundless rage through his howl, inflicting a mental attack on all beings in range once he roars. Without sufficiently high mental or magical resistance, the targets will suffer a rank down to all stats and be affected by supernatural fear until they are able to compose themselves, disrupting any sort of rituals, spellcasting, or other forms of activity that require concentration.
Saber of Fuyuki Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Saber

True Name: Arturia Pendragon

Stats:-
STR: A -> A+
END: B -> A
AGI: B - > D
MAG: A++
LCK: E

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: A
Class Skill of the Saber class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. While ordinarily the corruption caused by tainted mud would result in a reduction in this skill's rank, the exact nature of Arturia's corruption brings her more draconic aspects to the forefront, allowing her to avoid any such effect.

Riding: X
Class Skill of the Saber class, representing the ability to ride and direct all forms of mounts. As she is now, Arturia eschews any steed, and so this skill has been sealed.

Instinct: A -> B
Supernatural instincts for combat, allowing limited precognition when in battle. As a result of the mental corruption that Arturia has undergone, this skill's rank has been reduced. Despite the madness and rage that lies beneath the surface, Arturia has retained some semblance of sanity, and as such this skill remains a powerful tool.

Charisma: B -> E-
A skill representing the capacity to lead and inspire others, all but required for a ruler. Naturally, Arturia possesses a B rank in this skill, marking her as a truly great candidate for a king, but in her corrupted state she no longer possesses such charm, nor does she care for it. She leads through fear and domination, and though her subjects may follow her, their morale will be extremely low.

Mana Burst: A -> A+
The ability to expel mana from one's body in order to strengthen themselves and their equipment. Arturia's corruption has enhanced her draconic aspects, and as such her Mana Burst has been strengthened as well. Each and every blow contains immense destructive force, and with the tainted mud providing her effectively limitless fuel for as long as it burns within her veins, Arturia is capable of abusing this skill with impunity.

Noble Phantasm:-

Excalibur Morgan: Sword of Promised Victory (Anti-Fortress - A++)
The legendary blade of King Arthur, granted to him by the Lady of the Lake alongside the scabbard of immortality, Avalon. Once the pinnacle of holy swords, it has been corrupted along with everything else about Arturia. Where once the light of humanity's hope would have shone freely, this blackened version instead emits darkness that devours light and bring nothing but despair, like the shadowy flames of the dragon Vortigern.

Upon activation, the sword converts Arturia's mana into an incredibly destructive beam of black energy that completely destroys all in its path. With the mud burning away her very existence into energy, Arturia is capable of unleashing this devastating Noble Phantasm as many times as she pleases.

France Servants:

Berserker of the Forest Information Matrix - Level 2
Class: Berserker


True Name: Little Red Riding Hood?


Stats:-
STR: E
END: C
AGI: D
MAG: D
LCK: C


Skills:-
Mad Enhancement: D

The Class Skill of the Berserker class. In exchange for raising one's physical parameters, madness is inflicted upon the Servant, and their capacity for reason is reduced. At this rank, Berserker's Endurance and Agility are both ranked up. Though she retains some level of sanity, it has been twisted into something more akin to a beast than anything recognizably human, and any form of understanding is all but impossible without a similar mindset, or certain exceptions.

Animal Dialogue: A
A Skill that denotes the ability to communicate with animals and reach a mutual understanding. While complex conversation is impossible, Berserker nevertheless bears the capacity to communicate with and command beasts that are considered to be "below" her. Obedience is not magically compelled, but her orders are nevertheless followed without hesitation.

Further information is hidden.
Avenger of Thorns - Bond Level 1
Class: Avenger

True Name: Lionel du Gannes


Stats:-
STR: C
END: A
AGI: C
MAG: B
LCK: E


Skills:-
Avenger: B+

Class skill of the Avenger class, marking an existence that lives only to accumulate hatred and claim vengeance, that will never rest nor forget until burnt to nothingness. This skill allows Avenger to recover moderate amounts of mana simply by existing, and boosting the rate of generation while acting towards fulfilling her personal revenge. Clinging desperately to life in defiance of all logic, existing only to destroy themselves as they seek to sate their impossible hunger. Such is the lot of an Avenger, a fate that cannot be avoided.

Princess of Loveliness: B+
A Skill somewhat similar to Charisma, but rather than denoting the capacity for leadership, this instead represents the ability to draw those around them to the bearer. When awake, Avenger is difficult to part from and holds the attention and affection of others far more easily than normal. However, when Avenger falls asleep, this Skill receives a rank up, increasing from a mundane ability to a powerful supernatural charm. Those around her are struck dumb by her beauty and find themselves incapable of harming her, and those of a knightly character will be drawn to her as a protector, willing to fight and kill for her sake.

Additionally, while a powerful blessing, it is also curse. Avenger requires as much sleep as the average human, and will suffer from the same afflictions as them should she be unable to fulfil this requirement.

Protection of the Faeries: A-
A Skill that denotes a blessing from the Elementals known as the faeries, typically bestowing increased luck upon the bearer on the battlefield. Where it is possible to perform feats of arms, Avenger may temporarily raise her Luck by one rank. Avenger's ties to the Lady of the Lake, her foster mother, would grant her this Skill regardless, but due to the composite nature of Avenger's existence, she also benefits from additional blessings such as those of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and goodness—boons granted by the myriad faeries of Briar Rose's tale. However, the curse which bestowed the name to Briar Rose's legend was inflicted by a faerie as well, and as such the stability of this Skill is negatively affected—Avenger cannot control when the effect ends, for better or for worse.

Unbridled Heart: A
A Skill that denotes Avenger's unmitigated fierceness of heart and indomitable strength of mind. Avenger bears a natural resistance to both physical and mental damage, reducing the effectiveness of wounds dealt to her and allowing her to ignore any and all pain. Additionally, mental interference that attempts to affect Avenger through fear or despair are utterly ineffective.

In life, Avenger was known as the Unbridled Heart, a title earned through their unyielding tenacity. Even when bleeding from a hundred wounds, Avenger did not flinch, and though he was smote down more than once, he always returned to the battlefield. The sole exception to this protection is the pain of abandonment or betrayal—such agonies drove Avenger to murder and hatred in life, and will subject Avenger to uncontrollable rage and despair as a Servant.

Noble Phantasm:-

Briar Rose, Castle of Thorns: The Rotten Tree Yet Dreams (Fortress - B+)
Avenger's sole Noble Phantasm, the crystallization and composite of her own horrific experiences in life and the anecdotes concerning the Phantom composited with her Saint Graph, her vengeance made manifest in the very thorns that pierced her flesh and deemed her unworthy of being saved.

Avenger is capable of summoning enchanted thorns, briars, and brambles at will, conjuring them from the tip of her blade Florent and all it has pierced, or from within her own flesh itself should she be disarmed. While she bears direct control of them, the thorns also act as an automatic defense, attempting to snare and entrap any threat that draws too close to Avenger, even should she be asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Due to the fusion with the Phantom of Briar Rose, Avenger's thorns are imbued with a powerful curse—though they cannot deal much damage physically, they are capable of enforcing an enchanted sleep upon those whose bodies are pierced by the thorns. Victims of her thorns without some form of resistance to mental interference will be struck with intense drowsiness, and upon being pierced enough times they will slip into a dreamless slumber, the thorns continuing to feed on the blood and mana of their victims in order to spread.

This expression, however, is only a partial release of her Noble Phantasm. Upon invoking the true release, Avenger falls into a slumber of her own as she is consumed by a rotten tree, an eruption of thorns instantly creating a vast castle of cursed growth to entrap those around her. This castle will expand indefinitely as long as it has victims to drain—the more blood and mana it drinks, the swifter its grounds spread. The curse of slumber is magnified while this castle is active, with even a tiny prick of the thumb capable of lulling a Servant into endless sleep.

So long as Avenger herself remains alive, the castle will regenerate from any and all blows—but should the inner sanctum of the castle be breached, Avenger is left utterly helpless, asleep and incapable of defending herself, dreaming of the hero who shall cut down the rotten tree she has become and grant her eternal rest.
Caravaggio Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Saber

True Name: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Stats:-

STR: C -> D
END: D -> E
AGI: D -> E
MAG: C -> D
LCK: C -> D

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: E
Class Skill of the Saber class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. Saber possesses this Skill solely due to his class, and has no particular aptitude for it. The damage from hostile magecraft is blunted somewhat, but the effect is not cancelled out.

Riding: E
Class Skill of the Saber class, expressing the ability to ride a mount. Saber possesses this Skill solely due to his class, and has no particular aptitude for it. At best, he is capable of riding a domesticated mount for a short while to make a getaway, but is at risk of being tossed from the saddle should his concentration slip.

Item Construction (False): E
A Skill that acts as an equivalent to Item Construction for those who lack the aptitude of a magus. Saber was not a magus in life, nor does his Saint Graph possess any particular abnormalities, and thus he would normally lack the Skill of Item Construction entirely. He has been granted this Skill solely to denote his ability to produce paintings. Saber is capable of producing paintings at a blistering pace and with little preparation beforehand, and even do so under the harshest of conditions. However, the paintings he produces with this Skill possess no unusual attributes, not differing at all from those made by a human; they serve no practical use whatsoever.

Saber was an infamous and unorthodox painter nevertheless possessed of undeniable prowess. Uniquely among artists of his era, he made no preparatory drawings, painting directly onto the canvas with daring improvisation. He was well known for his preference to work quickly and take shortcuts whenever possible, impatient enough even to paint wet-in-wet rather than wait for the layers to even dry.

Territory Creation: E
A Skill that denotes the ability to create a terrain advantageous to one's self. At this Rank, the setting of a 'Scene' can be performed. Saber is well capable of the arrangement of props and lighting in a given area, especially around a model, heightening the dramatic realism of his paintings. While it is possible that the setting of a scene could be useful in rare situations, this Skill generally serves little practical use.

Saber did not have a studio or workshop in the conventional sense, generally painting wherever he might be lodged at a given time. He did however take a uniquely theatrical approach to the composition of his paintings, making careful use of props, models, and especially the lighting to create scenes and fragments of scenes, joined together by shadow upon his canvas. His methodology can genuinely be deemed a prototype to cinematography.

Tenebrism: A
A Skill that denotes the unique style of painting that Saber especially pioneered, encompassing as well the techniques that Saber used in order to realize it. As the true form of Saber's Human Observation, it is a composite Skill that includes Human Observation and Human Anatomy Research equivalent to Rank C. Saber's painting style is defined by dramatic illumination, the use of intense darkness to effect equally intense lighting to dramatically highlight the realism of his subjects. Saber was well known for his finely tuned sensitivity and observational skills, missing not the smallest detail when looking at a face. In order to depict human bodies as realistically as possible, Saber frequently made use of actual corpses, studying carefully the anatomy and wounds of criminals executed in Rome.

Self-Preservation: A-
A Skill that denotes the ability to escape from most dangers in exchange for a reduction in combat ability. After committing a murder, Saber was a fugitive on the run for the last four years of his life, audaciously continuing to produce paintings for the various patrons that sheltered him all the while. Most prominently, he even managed to escape from the guva, an underground cell carved into the rock of Malta that, prior to Saber's flight, none had ever escaped from. However, his pursuers eventually caught up to him after three years, ambushing him as he exited a bar. They inflicted sfregiato upon him, a disfiguring facial scar to avenge his insults and mutilate his honor, a festering wound that would contribute to his death a year later.

Though his parameters are lowered so long as the Skill is active, Saber is capable of getting away from virtually any dangerous situation, shake off any pursuers, and remain at large even when prominently present somewhere. A bonus is added to attempts to ingratiate himself with any who would shelter him, and he is even capable of breaking out of imprisonment with some effort on his part. However, this Skill has a limit. Eventually it will cease to function, and he will be forced to stand his ground and fight. Saber receives no warning when this failure occurs, and as such cannot plan his final stand in advance.

Noble Phantasm:-

La Morte Della Virgine: Darkness Illuminating Reality (Anti-Unit – C)
Saber's sole Noble Phantasm, the crystallization of a lifetime pursuing naturalism in his paintings and a refusal to idealize even the great Christian figures his contemporaries depicted without flaw—to go so far as to paint the holy as meek and poor.

In order to activate this Noble Phantasm, Saber must observe the subject to his satisfaction—a timeframe dependent solely on Saber's own impressions and temperament, though usually relatively short with the aid of Saber's Tenebrism. Once this condition has been met, Saber is capable of invoking it upon the target, calling forth a surge of darkness from his right arm that envelops them and the area around them, altering their vision to view the world in the extremes of light and darkness that Saber painted in life. However, this is merely an aesthetic effect, the true nature of this Noble Phantasm manifesting moments after invocation.

Echoing Saber's own rejection of the ideal in favor of the natural, this Noble Phantasm forcibly rejects the idealization and lionization inherent in a Servant, peeling away the layers of legend to reveal the figure beneath. When used upon those legends from centuries past whose own power and prowess far eclipse what can be manifested as a Servant, or when used against those who are wholly inhuman, this Noble Phantasm is effectively useless, as it cannot reduce the true strength of the subject. However, when used upon a Servant who has been empowered far beyond what they were capable of in life, it becomes a devastating debilitation. Parameters are forcibly lowered to the level the target possessed when alive, and any and all Noble Phantasms and Skills not intrinsic to the target are forcibly sealed for the duration of Saber's Noble Phantasm. There is no way to resist this effect once it has been enacted, though Saber must maintain close proximity or it will fade. Aside from this, only Saber's own will or death can dispel this forcible reminder of humanity.

Finally, as this Noble Phantasm reflects "Saber's truth" rather than "objective truth", it possesses a curious side-effect for Servants who have no true basis in legend, or created through the fusion of Phantoms. In recognizing these beings as individuals and eschewing whatever legend empowers them, Saber inadvertently provides Servants of these varieties with a stronger foundation in the world, granting a significant boost to the stability and power of the created being—an unexpected implementation of this Noble Phantasm that Buné has thoroughly taken advantage of in the creation of his Servants.
Jeanne d'Arc Information Matrix - Level 4
Class: Ruler

True Name: Jeanne d'Arc

Stats:-
STR: B
END: B
AGI: A
MAG: A
LCK: C

Skills:-
Magic Resistance: EX
Class Skill of the Ruler class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. With the exception of sacraments of the Church, Ruler is effectively immune to hostile magecraft, all spells simply washing over her as it strikes. As this is closer to an evasion than a cancellation, wide-ranging magecraft will still affect those around her—it is solely the maiden of Orléans who is spared.

True Name Discernment: D-
Class Skill of the Ruler class, expressing their capacity to know all participants in the war they are adjudicating. Ordinarily, Ruler would possess a much higher rank in this Skill, which would allow her to instantly comprehend the True Name, class, statistics, Skills, and Noble Phantasms of any Servant she sees. Due to the circumstances of her summoning and the unconventional nature of the war, this Skill has been ranked down significantly. Ruler may, upon passing a luck check, comprehend a Servant's True Name, but no other information.

God's Resolution: X
Class Skill of the Ruler class, expressing their right to administrate the Holy Grail War. In ordinary circumstances, Ruler would possess two unique Command Spells for each participating Servant, to be used as she pleased. Due to the circumstances of her summoning and the unconventional nature of the war, this Skill has been completely sealed. The only Command Spells Ruler possesses are for the Servants she has contracted with.

Charisma: C+
A Skill representing the capacity to lead and inspire others. Warriors who fight alongside Ruler are motivated to fight beyond their normal limits, raising their performance in battle as long as her standard is in view. Additionally, the information gleaned through Ruler's Revelation Skill is believed as a matter of course.

Revelation: B
A Skill that represents the capacity to hear the voice of the heavens, a sixth sense somewhat equivalent to Instinct, but applicable to all circumstances rather than simply battle. Ruler is granted information as she moves through the world—whether hearing the voices of those in peril, understanding that an enemy ambush is ahead, or even simply realising that one path will be swifter than another, Ruler can confidently claim to know the most optimal action to take at a given moment.

Saint: A
A Skill granted to those recognized as a saint, whether canonized or not. As one of the most famous saints in the Catholic canon, Ruler naturally possesses an extremely high rank in this Skill. Ruler is capable of performing powerful holy sacraments used for offense, defense, and healing purely through her prayer, and is rendered immune to all forms of corruption or infection as though she possessed an equal rank in Natural Body (Purity).

Further information is hidden.
Charles Henri-Sanson Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Assassin

True Name: Charles Henri-Sanson

Stats:-

STR: D
END: D
AGI: C
MAG: D
LCK: A

Skills:-
Presence Concealment: D

Class Skill of the Assassin class, allowing the wielder in question to hide their presence as a Servant, increasing their ability to perform clandestine operations such as espionage and assassination. Sanson's rank in this skill is pitifully low, as he was an executioner whose killings were treated as a spectacle. The pinnacle of what he can achieve is disguising his presence as a Servant so long as he is not preparing an attack.

Executioner: A++
In life, Sanson personally executed over three thousand people, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and Robespierre. Disregarding all considerations such as age or social class, he executed all those the courts judged guilty without hesitation, and was the greatest proponent of the guillotine for its efficiency and comparative mercy. This skill grants a boost to Sanson's parameters that increases in proportion to the severity of the crimes committed by his target, with an upper limit of two rank ups. At this rank, it also offers Sanson an intuitive sense of the sins of those around him – a boon that, to his shame, allows him to act as jury, judge, and executioner at once.

Medical Techniques: C+
In life, Sanson was a trained doctor, and in fact the path of a healer was his preference, only becoming an executioner to carry on the family tradition when pressed. Sanson is supernaturally adept at treating illness and injury, reducing severe threats to one's health to mild ones without much difficulty as long as he has time and tools. The rank of this skill represents the state of medical techniques when Sanson was alive, but given the right tutelage it is possible for him to effectively rank up this skill with time.

Human Anatomy Research: B
As a doctor and executioner both, Sanson had a profound interest in the human body. In his early years, he studied how to heal, in his later, how to harm. This skill represents Sanson's ability to target weak points in his enemy's body as they fight, either to non-lethally incapacitate them, or enhance his killing blows. Naturally, this manifests only for humans and supernatural creatures with similar bodies. Additionally, as a quirk of Sanson's studies being motivated by a desire to kill painlessly, Sanson's strikes cause remarkably less pain than they would ordinarily inflict.

Noble Phantasm:-

La Mort Espoir: Death is Hope for Tomorrow (Anti-Unit - B)


The materialization of Sanson's true nature – not a "killer", but rather an "executioner". While unable to physically materialize a guillotine, Sanson is nevertheless capable of enforcing the concept of a merciful, just death upon an enemy in certain conditions.

Upon activation, tendrils of shadow resembling grasping hands burst from Sanson's shadow, aiming to bind and entangle his target. Those who have sinned greatly or were executed in life will find it especially difficult to escape their touch. So long as his target is bound, Sanson may then attempt to perform an execution.

Firstly, he must aim only for the neck. Secondly, he must aim only to kill, not harm. Finally, he must strike without hatred.

Should these conditions be met, Sanson's blade becomes impossible to stop, severing through all enchantments, shields, armors, and protections. Carried by the force of the justice Sanson serves, his blade swiftly and painlessly brings an end to the lives of those sentenced to death.
Alexandre Dumas Information Matrix - Level EX
Class: Caster

True Name: Alexandre Dumas

Stats:-
STR: C
END: D
AGI: E
MAG: D
LCK: A

Skills:-
Territory Creation: E

Class Skill of the Caster class, allowing the wielder to create a favourable territory. Dumas bears this skill only by virtue of being a Caster, and is utterly incapable of creating anything beyond a small "writing room", and even then only when given the proper implements and furniture.

High-Speed Writing: A
Dumas wrote several dozen works in his life, ranging from adventure and fantasy to romance and drama and even works of non-fiction. His prolific body of work has sublimated into a skill representing his capacity to write at incredibly high speeds. At this rank, Dumas is able to easily pass a few hundred pages a day when struck by inspiration, and is somewhat less susceptible to writer's block.

Bravery: C
This skill represents the wielder's ability to resist all forms of mental interference. Alexandre Dumas père was famously big-hearted and egotistical, possessing an endlessly positive and generous spirit that carried him throughout his life. As a result, he possesses this skill despite not being a typical "hero." At this rank, Dumas is outright immune to lesser spells and abilities that influence the mind, and highly resistant to more powerful effects.

Gourmand: A
A Skill that expresses the wielder's wide knowledge, full skill and refined taste necessary to cook anything from a peasant's dinner to royal court meals, including techniques for hunting and gathering ingredients. Dumas was a noted hedonist in life, especially with regards to food, even writing a combination cookbook and encyclopaedia based on his experiences that was published posthumously. As a Servant, he has attained an extremely high rank in this skill, thus even food made with lower quality ingredients will be delicious, so long as Dumas prepares it.

Noble Phantasm:-

Masquerade Musketeers: Musketeers, Challenge the Windmill (Anti-Unit – A+)

A representation of the power of the written to change an individual that Dumas held, sublimated into an extremely powerful Noble Phantasm. By selecting a target that Dumas himself finds potential in, Dumas is thereafter capable of writing their tale himself with their consent, documenting and enhancing that which he records and reflecting these changes on the target, effectively allowing him to empower those he chooses to heights far beyond their natural limits.

This power comes at a cost, however, as Dumas is incapable of using it on anyone that does not pique his interest, cannot change his target until their story is written to completion, and cannot bestow more than one story upon any given individual.
Marie Antoinette Information Matrix - Level 4
Class: Rider

True Name: Marie Antoinette


Stats:-
STR: D
END: D
AGI: B
MAG: C
LCK: E


Skills:-
Riding: C
Class skill of the Rider class, denoting the capacity to control all kinds of mounts and vehicles, whether living or artificial. Marie can handle most animals and vehicles with above-average competency, but cannot ride any form of Phantasmal Beast.

Charisma: D-
A skill representing the capacity to lead and inspire others, all but required for a ruler. Marie was initially popular with the people of France once she began bearing children, enjoying for a few years some level of sway among them. However, her popularity sharply dropped as the years went by. At this rank, Marie may inspire vague resolve in those she fights with temporarily, but with sharply dropping effectiveness.


Princess of Loveliness: D-
A skill somewhat similar to Charisma, but rather than denoting the capacity for leadership, this instead represents the ability to draw those around them to the bearer. At this rank, Marie is capable of drawing others around her easily, albeit without any particular feelings towards her that would be applied at a higher rank. However, should this skill be applied to someone with a distaste for the nobility, it would rapidly induce aggression and distaste, encouraging the spread of rumours and slander.

Innocent Monster: C
A skill possessed by those whose legends have been twisted and polluted by rumour and falsehood, influencing their manifestation as a Servant physically and mentally. Marie Antoinette in life was quite simply a queen from a foreign land, who enjoyed some level of popularity before the beginning of the French Revolution, but lacked political savvy and made unpopular decisions such as her opposition to economic reform. In her later life, however, many lies were spun to stoke hatred for the royal family, claiming that Marie was responsible for bankrupting the nation, that she was a gluttonous simpleton, that she was a promiscuous adulterer. These rumours tainted her legend, and have twisted this incarnation of her.

Marie's disposition is turned towards the sinful, bearing many greedy and gluttonous desires, and she is also naturally dismissive and haughty when regarding those of lower status. Additionally, her association with wealth and overspending have resulted in physical changes, most notably in the form of gemstones growing from her body.

Marie is keenly aware of how she has been twisted and is capable of keeping the mental changes at bay through an effort of will, but is incapable of suppressing them completely or permanently as she is now.

Noble Phantasm:-

Flight to Varennes: A Comedy of Errors (Anti-Army – C)
The Flight to Varennes was an attempt by the royal family of France to escape the growing rage directed towards them from the masses, wherein they would escape Tuileries Palace in disguise and travel to Montmédy, where it was the king's misguided belief that the royalty would be supported by the people. However, there were numerous issues with the escape, such as the constant shifting of schedules, ill-timed visits from officials, broken carriage-wheels, and more. Despite these setbacks, the National Guard was almost unable to apprehend them, only succeeding due to pure chance – a man recognising the king from a portrait on a coin, who raised the alarm in the town of Varennes, where they were arrested.

Marie is capable of calling forth the carriage that was used for the attempted escape, a large and conspicuous vehicle that is pulled by six horses. It has no offensive capacity whatsoever, and ordinarily functions as a simple carriage, albeit one that is pulled by horses with no need for rest or food. When the carriage is pursued, however, its more esoteric abilities activate. By drawing on the legend of the Flight and the cavalcade of complications and issues that plagued both the royal family and their pursuers, Marie can reduce all factors involved in a chase to a simple luck check between the pursuer and those within her vehicle. If Marie and her entourage succeed, they will escape without fail, but if their enemy succeeds, they will be captured without fail.

Further information is hidden.
Melusine Information Matrix - Level 4
Class: Alter Ego

True Name: Melusine?

Stats:-

STR: C -> B (A)
END: C+ (B+)
AGI: B (A)
MAG: A (A+)
LCK: E- (D-)

Skills:-
High Servant: B

A Skill indicating that the Servant is currently comprised of multiple mythological essences. At this moment, it is unknown what figures Melusine has become a composite of.

Magic Resistance: B+
Melusine's strongly mystical nature grants her a powerful resistance to all forms of thaumatury. Invalidates Magecraft of three verses and lower. Furthermore, she is completely immune to water magecraft of the Common Era, and bears a significant resistance to water-aspected magecraft from the Age of the Gods. As a payment for this benefit, however, Melusine possesses a heightened susceptibility to fire-based magecraft.

Territory Creation: A
Typically a Caster Class Skill, expressing the capability to create a beneficial homefield on the level of a Temple. Any lake or body of freshwater becomes Melusine's territory immediately upon her declaration, with no requirement to develop or improve it. Normally this speed would come at the cost of one's ability to establish territory elsewhere, but as the matron of Lusignan, Melusine sidesteps this penalty.

Mixed Blood (Cursed): B
A skill denoting the holder as a hybrid, born from two opposing and irreconcilable entities, in this case a powerful king and a wild free-spirited fae. For Melusine, this skill would have manifested as ranks in both Charisma and Independent Action, however her attack against her father and subsequent exile from Avalon resulted in her being cursed and losing these boons.

Melusine's body bears the characteristics of a great snake, and her serpentine body benefits from a constantly active "+" rank to Endurance. The sole exception is when Melusine is targeted by Christian sacraments or the weapons and strikes of saints, where her Endurance is effectively halved. With sufficient focus, she can suppress the curse's effects and appear almost completely human to hide her identity, though holy or consecrated ground will expose the curse for all to see.

Monstrous Strength: B
A skill that denotes the possession of a monstrous bloodline, allowing the user to tap into its power at will. Due to her Mixed Blood (Cursed) Skill, this skill is considered to be always active, providing a permanent rank up to Strength.

Natural Spirit (Water): A+:
Even when the other boons of her blood were taken from her or twisted into curses, Melusine retained her attunement to water, powerful enough that no curse could diminish it. In the present, Melusine endures as a symbol practically synonymous with water magecraft.

Melusine possesses a natural aptitude for water-based Magecraft, enough to qualify for the Caster class, and can draw mana from natural bodies of water and imbue them with healing properties.

Noble Phantasm:-

Arondight: Shine Evermore, Parallel Light of the Lake (Anti-Unit/Anti-Army — B++)

The Holy Sword wielded by Sir Lancelot, or rather, a near perfect imitation of it. Using a vast body of magical energy, Melusine may call upon a Projection of Arondight to wield as her own, boosting all of her parameters and allowing her to wield the darkened blades of light that this corrupted sword can create. The sword requires a large amount of magical energy to summon each time it is created and as such cannot be called upon haphazardly or without limit.

Arondight, the holy blade granted to Sir Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake, is not a weapon ever wielded by Melusine. That she bears it in this incarnation is merely additional proof, if it was ever needed, of Melusine's calibre as a Water Spirit.

Further information is hidden.
Matchstick Information Matrix - Level 1
Class: ???

True Name: The Little Matchstick Girl?

Stats:-
STR: E
END: D
AGI: E
MAG: B
LCK: E

Skills:-
Guiding Light (False): A

A skill that apparently denotes the capacity to guide one down a path or towards a goal, to act as a beacon to illuminate one's journey forward. In truth however, it is a skill to deceive people into bringing ruin upon themselves, to enchant someone to be led astray. Matchstick is endowed with a natural persuasiveness as pertains to the notion of improving one's reality, of being directed to a means to fulfill one's dreams. She can direct people towards reward they will find at the end to only be illusion. On those without mental resistance the effect is even more pronounced, allowing her to even guide people to their own demises without their being the slightest bit aware.

Further information is hidden.
Jeanne d'Arc (Alter) Information Matrix - Level 1
Class: ???

True Name: Jeanne d'Arc (Alter)

Stats:-

STR: A
END: C
AGI: A
MAG: A+
LCK: C

Skills:-
Pyromancy: A

It was flames that once ended Jeanne d'Arc's life, and now it is flames that grant the blackened saint her strength. Jeanne Alter is capable of creating and manipulating vast quantities of fire dyed pitch black and bloody scarlet, and may call upon this intense fire with but a thought. Though this skill lacks the explosive force of a Mana Burst imbued with the attribute of fire, it nevertheless allows for a far greater level of manipulation and finesse.

Further information is hidden.
 
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Chapter Two: Aviation Hazard
Your name is not Edward Dempsey, but that's what you prefer to call yourself.

Tired, a little dazed, and feeling downright naked without your Mystic Code around your torso, you fumble at the harness that keeps you strapped into the seat. It's useful, sure, you bet it kept you in through whatever turbulence you flew through as you headed to god-knows-where in the ass end of nowhere in some Siberian wasteland, but right now it's stifling. There's a little irony in that, considering what you usually wear, but hell, there's a difference between a tool that's kept you alive for nearly ten years in your job and some uncomfortable polyester wannabe bondage gear. It's about as hard to get off as bondage gear is too, and you curse under your breath as chilly fingers fumble the clasp for the third time.

Secrecy is one thing, but they could at least spring for some kind of proper heating in their planes, right?

Kzzzzrt.

The sound of the intercom makes you look up and around, though there's still no one near you. Given that people were walking, there's at least two in the cockpit, but they haven't seen fit to actually come talk to you, which suits you fine. There's any number of reasons, after all. Maybe they're professionals who don't fraternize with the people they transport. Maybe they're mundanes just hypontised into doing their job, no way in hell any magus worth the title would know how to fly one of these.

Maybe they knew what you are, and they're just scared. It'd make sense, considering they disarmed you while you were unconscious, without telling you beforehand.

Part of you resents that, honestly. Treated like a rabid dog, isolated and muzzled, even when you try to help. Somehow, you doubt that the little lords and ladies that signed up for this as a fun experience to show off to their superiors were knocked out and brought here as the sole occupant of a plane that could easily hold a dozen. But that's how it goes, isn't it? At the end of the day, you might be necessary, but you're certainly not equal.

That's the hand you're dealt as an Enforcer. You've been dealing with it nine years now, so this is just another little drop adding to that mountain inside. Almost nothing, easy to ignore. But still, for a moment, it stings.

"Touchdown in three minutes. Once you arrive, you'll be escorted to meet the director, then placed in a simulator to examine your capability as a Master. If you pass, you'll officially be brought on as staff. If you fail, your memory will be wiped and you'll be returned to London. Please remain seated until instructed otherwise."

Well, that's fair. Animusphere wanted the best of the best to act as humanity's safeguards, so screwing up at the final hurdle is just as much of a reason to get kicked out as screwing up at the first. You're not seriously worried about it, but the warning is appreciated. No, the tension you feel at the back of your neck is something different, something about what they said. Something that would make anyone with your experience pause and have second thoughts.

Master.

Animusphere's plan to protect humanity from threats involved summoning Servants.

The theory was sound. It had been years since the Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City that had proven it was possible, and given that the Chaldea Security Organization had been the Animusphere's passion project for nearly two decades at this point, it made sense that they would be able to crack it. Whatever they were using as a Grail worried you, but not nearly as much as the Servants that could be summoned. Heroes and legends that were larger than life, certainly, but the darker side of humanity was recorded just as often as its shining stars. The Old Men of the Mountain, merciless killers that slipped in and out of fortifications like smoke. Monsters in truth like the Gorgon and the Minotaur, or monsters in human skin, like Gilles de Rais or Jack the Ripper.

Summoning Servants was a gamble, and you know that better than most, you all do. Enforcers were sent after bounties and Sealing Designees, sure, but dealing with the knockoffs that appeared after Fuyuki is another part of your job now. You've all seen what Servants can do, good and bad.

Glasgow.

Engelberg.

New Orleans.


With a sigh and a shiver, you shake your head. If they've figured out how to summon Servants and Chaldea's still standing, there's probably nothing to worry about. And hell, now that you're there, maybe you'll be able to advise them as soon as they're summoned, get the Masters to Command them to slit their throat if they end up with someone like Gilles. This isn't putting out a wildfire that's threatening to burn down entire cities, it's a controlled situation wherein all variables are accounted for, all possibilities have been examined and countermeasures developed. It'll be safe.

You can almost believe it, when you put it like that.

Again, you fumble with the clasp. You'd almost think the stupid thing is frozen over, but with a growl and a little bit more force than you really should have needed, you finally manage to get the stupid thing undone, rolling your arms to loosen them up and reaching to massage your shoulder, trying in vain to work away the knotted muscles you know you're going to be dealing with for the next few days. You're halfway through rationalizing why it won't be too awful to be spending your first days in your new employment more tense and stressed than usual when the sudden impact rocks the plane to the side and flings you at the opposite row of seats.

Years of developing your instincts and reactions wins out over momentary panic, and an unnatural serenity falls over your thoughts. Self-hypnosis, practice, whatever it was, you're focused to the point that everything seems to move in slow motion. Breathe in, twist body, curl up to avoid damaging anything important, feel within for the circuits and the power and the strength, the key slides into the lock. Breathe out, turn the key, hear the lock give way, see the chains tighten, feel it as they snap and your soul burns and your circuits flare.

When you hit the other side of the plane, you do so with your enchanted coat blunting most of the force, and your Reinforced body handling the rest. Whatever hit you was loud, and you can barely hear through the ringing. With a hiss, you stretch the Reinforcement to your ears, your hearing growing sharper, unfortunately along with the ringing. Can't stay like this for long or you'll get sick, but you know the intercom is on, you need to hear...

"...een hit, I repeat, we've been hit! Unknown surface-to-air weapon, our right engine is gone! We're going down, prepare for emergency landing, I repeat..!"

You see a vision of the plane crashing into a mountain at hundreds of kilometers an hour, metal crumpling against the stone, your body popping as you're crushed on all sides. No, not happening, definitely not happening. A quick glance shows you the closest door, sealed to keep the cabin pressurized, but there's a release lever on the inside. With a grimace as the force of your unplanned descent makes you feel like your insides are trying to rip their way out of your back, you slowly begin to climb towards the door, your fingers easily punching through the upholstery of the seats and finding purchase in the metal beneath them.

One pull at a time, you crawl closer and closer, acutely aware that you've only got seconds before you crash. Again, you curse that they took your Code, but you can explode at someone about that once you survive this. Another pull, another few inches, and damn if it doesn't feel like the stupid thing is pulling away from you as you move. It's all in your head, you know nothing is really warping reality to mess with you, but that doesn't help. One last pull, your heart jumping up into your throat, before finally...finally...

Yes!

You can see the mountains approaching, maybe a few hundred meters, and you know it's now or never. At this speed, if you waited a few more seconds, you'd be crushed. The pilots are doing their best to control it but they can't, not really, not with one wing practically gone. It's a miracle that you haven't ended up in some horrible diving spin, that would have made it all but impossible to do what you're about to do.

Given that what you're about to do is still stupid, you're not totally sure if that'd have been so terrible.

With a grunt and a pull that makes the metal squeal and bend beneath your grip, you all but rip the lever into the "open" position and let the rushing wind do the rest. It flings the door open and the sudden suction pulls you out, sending you flying into the air. Your lungs feel like they're about to explode and your stomach feels like it wants nothing more than to come out your mouth, but this isn't the worst situation you've ever been in, is it? No, you're an Enforcer. You've tangled with death so often you've made a career out of it. This is just a fall, and you've always been really good at falling.

"Gaoth!"

Your circuits burn in your soul as you summon the winds yourself, practiced motions drawing it up and around you, catching your coat and lifting you up like a parachute. Even with control over where the winds blow, it's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be. As long as you can slow down enough to go from "squished pancake" to "a few broken bones" on impact, you'll be fine. Survival comes first, comfort later. Once you make it to Chaldea, you can get medical treatment, right after you find Animusphere and throw her out the nearest goddamned window-

The air is knocked out of you on impact, and for a few moments, all you can see is whiteness, all you can feel is pain. Once you get your vision back and realise that the whiteness has gone from being due to sensory overload to being due to the snowstorm, you force yourself to your feet, start checking for injuries. Miraculously, you haven't broken anything. Everything feels tender and sore and you're probably going to be one big bruise tomorrow, but for now you can move. A Reinforced glance to your left shows what you think is some kind of metal structure, and conveniently, you've landed on a relatively flat patch of mountain. Now you can start wondering about who the hell attacked-

"Help! Someone, help!"

You're moving before you realise you're moving. Incredibly, impossibly, one of the pilots survived. The plane crashed near enough to you, you made it out at close enough to the last second that it makes your stomach drop uncomfortably for a moment, but the pilots shouldn't have been so lucky. In the moment of cold, rational survival, that was something you'd accepted, but now that they're there...

The plane is a mess when you get there. Barely intact, small fires spreading as machinery and fuel spark together, but in this snowstorm it'll be a frozen-over wreck in no time. The first pilot is nowhere to be seen, but the splattering of blood underneath the crumpled cockpit makes it obvious what happened. You shove down the pang of regret like it's bile rising to the surface, and move over to the one crying for help. He's young, military buzzcut, darker skin than you'd think from the slight English accent. Whatever god looking after him let him survive, but you can already see the mangled leg trapped in the crumpled cockpit, see how every slight movement to try escape causes fresh tears to bead at the corner of his eyes.

Just normal military, probably hypnotised into this, and now one of them was dead and the other maimed, sure to die if he didn't get help. Just two normal people, used by magi because they were disposable.

Part of you knows you're being unfair, that they couldn't have planned for this, but you don't care. You need that rush of emotion, the passion to give you strength. You grab his arm tight with your right hand and grab the metal of the wreckage with your left, ignoring his babbled words, and heave.

With preparation, you probably could have done it far more easily. You've shattered concrete without meaning to at your best, and your skill with Reinforcement and runes means that physically speaking, you're damn tough when you need to be. But this was a quick and dirty job, no chance to fine tune, and so it takes three tries to push the squealing metal up enough to free the young man's leg. You ignore the cry of pain as he moves, and as soon as you've pulled him free, you set him down and look at his leg, speaking as you do, trying to distract him.

"Hey, hey, you'll be okay. What's your name? I'm here, I'll get you out of here, just tell me your name, come on..."

"S-Shankar, i-it's Shankar, I...m-my leg, what's wrong, I-I can't m-move..."

It's lost, you can already tell. Amputating it here would be impossible, you can't pull off something like that, but you don't have the skill to heal it. At best, you might be able to block out the pain for a little bit, but does he have that long? He got lucky by surviving the impact, almost unbelievably lucky, but...

You hear yelling.

You're not quite sure what language it is, maybe something Slavic, but they're close. The wreck of the plane is still alight, and it's practically a beacon in the middle of the snowstorm. Whoever attacked you is coming, and you'd be willing to bet they want to finish the job. How the hell did they cross the mountains so quickly? Two groups, maybe, or some kind of displacement magecraft? Something isn't right, but you don't have time for that now.

You look down at Shankar, his eyes squeezed shut as if he could shut out the pain just like that.

You're in the middle of a snowstorm, you don't have your Mystic Code, and Chaldea is at least a kilometer or two away, even across the flat plateau you've found yourself on. You've only got a few minutes before your unknown assailants find you.

[ ] Hypnotise Shankar into unconsciousness so he can't give you away, and wait for them to approach. It's hard to tell exactly how far away they are, but you'd guess you have about five, maybe six minutes. If you hide yourself in the snow well enough, you might be able to ambush them and take them out before they can react. You don't know how many of them there are, but you're willing to gamble on it. Shankar will have to hold on until you can get help...if he can hold on that long, buried in snow and bleeding out.

[ ] Tug Shankar onto your back and carry him. It'll slow you down, but whoever attacked you might assume that you've all been crushed in the wreck, and the snowstorm will quickly cover up any tracks you might lead. If you patch up his leg as you walk and dull his pain, he should survive until you reach Chaldea and get real help. If they manage to find you anyway, you'll be stuck at a disadvantage, but this way you're not trading his life for yours, at least.


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Q/N: As predicted, not enough sleep and far too much stress, but here's the second chapter. The information post will be updated with part of Ed's character sheet before too long, but for now, enjoy your first real foray into the plot of Fate/Ethereal Order, which has no deviation from Grand Order whatsoever.
 
Chapter Three: Still Not The Worst Day You've Ever Had
You read somewhere once that the fastest person to run a kilometer did so in...two minutes? You can't remember exactly, but you know it was around that. The average person's time is, as far as you're aware, something like six or seven minutes. In a flat plain with no real obstacles, you're reasonably sure you could halve that with just Reinforcement, do even better if you had the time to sketch some runes, but with them so close and attacking a magical organization, they're bound to be on the lookout for any signs of life. Reinforcement would be subtle enough, but anything external could tip them off, and...

And Shankar needs it, right now.

You hesitate for a moment, but at the end of the day you know it's not a choice. You're going to survive this no matter what, you know you will. But Shankar's mundane, he's injured, and if you don't do something with that leg there's a good chance he'll just bleed out. It'll mean tipping your attackers off to where you were when you cast the spells, if they're looking, but they're still at least three or four minutes away, even if they hustle.

Chaldea stands across in the distance, a titanic structure built into the side of a mountain. Secure, safe, secret. Well, two of those things at least. They're bound to have medical personnel, people who can heal, maybe even fix a leg that mundane doctors would have no choice but to remove. Reaching it in a minute is unrealistic, not when you can't make time for runes for yourself and Shankar both, not when you're carrying a man on your back, not when there's a snowstorm raging all around you.

But damn it, you're not slow by any means, and you've got a man down. You'll bring the pilot back with you, even if it's only to spit in the faces of the cruel, uncaring nobility that sent him out to die without a single care.

It's not true, you know it doesn't make sense even with your spite fueling it, but it's anger, hot and passionate and wild, and you can use that. Your fingertip glows a soft green as your circuits sing with magical power, and you quickly sketch out a few runes. Nothing perfect, nothing graceful, but it's workable and that's all that matters. A Fraga would be done in half the time with twice the effectiveness, but you aren't a Fraga, so Shankar will have to deal with his leg being deadened and the bloodflow stopping for at least a little bit.

"W-Wha...y-you're, why, y-you need to go...!"

Damn him. A little time to get over the pain and he's already focusing on the mission. Idiot.

"I'm going, and you're coming with me. No arguments, come on."

The shouting behind you is getting louder, they were looking for anyone casting. Great. With a grunt, you hoist Shankar onto your back, arms under his legs while you guide him to wrap his arms around your chest, before standing upright. Reinforced as you are, the weight is nothing, but you know it's still going to slow you. Whether it's gratitude for being saved or just that he can't do anything but whimper in pain even through the deadened sensations of his leg, he's shut up about leaving him behind to die, so that's helpful.

Now it's just you, the most hazardous run you've ever done, with an injured person on your back, and a team of professionals armed to the teeth behind you, who know where you were. Not the worst odds you've ever faced, but you wouldn't exactly bet on yourself if you were watching from on high.

There's a series of cracks from behind, and you can see the snow to your right puff in little chunks as bullets spray into it. That's probably the best indication you'll ever get that you need to move, so you do exactly that. With a deep breath that fills your lungs with air so cold it burns, you push from your position, a flurry of snow spraying out from behind as you charge forward.

You slip the first time your foot makes contact with the rock below the snow, and it's only a quick gust of wind you conjure that keeps you steady. The second time, you almost stumble, but the earth moves beneath your foot to give you something to stand on. The third, you're ready. Fourth, fifth, sixth, the steps blend into each other as your awareness expands, training, instinct, and experience taking over where your conscious mind doesn't help.

You can hear shots behind you, but they're further away, and none of the bullets graze you. You can hear shouting, but each footstep makes them harder to hear above the snowstorm. You can feel biting wind stinging your face and your hands, feel melting snow seeping cold into your bones, but you can still move, and as long as you can move, you can survive. That enormous cylinder of steel before you grows closer with every step, and once you have time to think, you're sure you'll marvel at its scope, easily the largest building you've ever seen.

But that's for later. Now, you've got to deal with Shankar. He's sobbing now, not able for this, and you curse. You might be used to speeds like this, but he's not, not in this injured state, not when his tears are practically freezing to his cheeks as you move. You can just...you can hike for a bit, can't you? The sounds are further away, you're safe. You're safe unless you cast another spell and you doubt you'll have reason to, all you need to do is keep him talking, give him a break, let him know what you'll do next.

"Hey, hey, Shankar, it's alright...it's alright, see? They're gone, they can't find us. We'll get you help. You'll be fine." Liar. He'll lose that leg, you know it.

"I-I don't...I don't want to die, I don't..."

"You're not going to die. I promise. I promise." That, at least, is the truth.

"I-I can't feel my leg, what...is that magic...?"

"It is. I'm using magic right now, so we'll be fine. I'm going to start running in a minute or two, so get yourself ready, hide your face if you can. It's going to be fine, Shankar. I promise." Part of you is annoyed by the term "magic", but you shove that down. The stupid magus part of you that your upbringing instilled just never shuts up when it needs to.

You can hear him draw breath to answer, and he's cut off by another series of cracks.

They're about a hundred meters behind you, maybe less.

Neither of you freeze up, which you're glad for. Shankar fumbles around for what you can only assume is a pistol on a holster somewhere, while you bolt off immediately and make the other man yelp with pain. You did warn him. That's about the only blithe thought you have time for underneath the panic and confusion of how did they find you so fast? The snowstorm cut off visibility and ruined tracks, and you were moving faster than them. Even if they were able to move as fast as you, they shouldn't have been able to follow you so exactly!

Another bullet whizzes by, this one almost clipping your arm, and you growl under your breath. Not the worst day you've ever had, but fuck if it's not trying to close in. You hate guns. When you move, you're losing time from zig-zagging and weaving, but you'll take getting to Chaldea a little later than planned if it means you do it without having holes forcibly ventilated through you. Now if you could just-

Shankar cries out, and you feel something like a rock to your back as you're thrown forward into the snow.

Immediately, you extricate yourself from the tangle of limbs and move to look at him, cursing under your breath. He's been shot in the back, you can't tell exactly where under the layers of clothing he has on, but the blood oozing slowly beneath him makes it obvious. He needs healing now, but you don't know how much you can do with whoever is attacking you so close. As your breathing deepens and grows more ragged, you try to work through the frustration and decide what to do, stand and fight, try your luck healing him, just run and let him die...but damn it, it's hard. You escaped, you hid, they shouldn't be able to find you so easily! It's like someone up there is testing you, and you level a curse at whatever god you pissed off to-

Wait.

You freeze, before blinking, flakes of snow falling off your lashes as you do.

It's as if someone up there is testing you.

You're a dexterous man, but the clasp took four tries to open, and as soon as you were free, the plane was hit.

Oddly lucky that you didn't break anything, didn't suffer any injury that impeded you significantly. Oddly lucky that you landed on such a perfect flat plain in the middle of a mountain range. Oddly lucky that Shankar somehow survived a collision you know would have killed you.

You've never been that lucky in your life. Maybe that was balanced out by what happened next, but you didn't feel any surge of magecraft that would be needed to transport or displace a full team of people all at once. They were lost and far away from you one moment, and then right on top of you the next. Sure, there's probably some way of sneakily displacing so many people in one go without flaring so much magical energy that people could feel it without even looking for it, but you doubt anyone but a Servant would be able to do it nowadays.

Once you arrive, you'll be escorted to meet the director, then placed in a simulator...

Worth a shot. If you're wrong, it can't go much worse.

You stand and look towards the sky, fixing it with a glare as you speak.

"I'm already in Chaldea."

Everything goes white.

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The first thing you hear when you blink awake is a woman's voice, unfortunately familiar to your ears.

"Your practical skills are impressive, but your decision-making was horrendous. Saving the pilot's life and escorting him to Chaldea while under fire from unknown enemies? What were you thinking?"

Olga-Marie Animusphere looks down at you, hands on her hips as she glares with topaz eyes. Long, silvery hair cascades down her back besides for the braid on her left side, and the orange-and-black dress with the white underskirt she's decided to wear manages to give off an air of both "I'm attractive and I know it" as well as "I'm the single most important person in the room, try me and see what happens."

In other words, she's a Lord.

And whatever you did in there, you pissed her off.

[ ] Apologise. You're not quite sure if this is just simple cruelty or if there's a deeper meaning to it, but you might as well try to get off on the right foot, if she's already pissed off at you. She'll be your commanding officer for as long as you're part of Chaldea, after all, and you don't doubt that she could make your life very very unpleasant if she felt like it.

[ ] Get angry. You made a poor decision in saving someone's life? What, a mundane just isn't important enough? No, whatever reasoning she has for her callousness, it's not good enough. You're an Enforcer, sure, but that doesn't mean you're heartless, doesn't mean you'll kill just to make things easier for you. You're better than that, even if she isn't.

[ ] Laugh. Really, she honestly though the simulator was up to snuff? It's clearly not the standard order simulation if it didn't involve Servants, but it was just shoddy. Landing from an airplane crash with no serious injuries, then finding a mundane still alive, then teleporting Slavic mercenaries? It's petty, it's spiteful, but you figured it out, and maybe having it pointed out will take the wind out of her sails.


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Q/N: Hopefully this comes off as believable instead of pulled from my ass, and hopefully you enjoy it! I know there was speculation about the nature of this mysterious conventional opposition, but yeah, it was all part of the simulator. I'll admit to directly trying to mislead people into thinking it could be Kirei and the Oprichniki from Cosmos in the Lostbelt, but hey, that would be a deviation from how FGO is meant to go, and we all know how I feel about that.
 
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Chapter Four: Director Animusphere
The first thing you do is look around.

You're laying in something like a cross between a bed and a pod, cushioned beneath your body with raised white walls about a foot on either side of you. Above you is some kind of headset, you can only assume the main piece of whatever simulation they intend to put people through, though part of you is wondering how in the hell they managed to do it. Everything is cold and white and very obviously mechanical, but that doesn't seem to matter when it comes to working their mysteries. Marrying magecraft and technology was meant to be difficult, but then again, if they really were in some isolated wilderness then maybe the heightened mystery from abandoning civilization could be enough to balance out the-

A delicate thumb and forefinger pinch your chin between them and pull your gaze from the side to look directly up at Animusphere.

"You will look at me when I am talking to you, Dempsey."

Part of you is almost shocked into silence from the sheer audacity. The delicate dance of magus and Enforcer was that the magus got to denigrate and look down on the dogs who had abandoned the one true pursuit of an magus worth their salt, but the terror that Enforcers instilled in magi was still there, under the surface. If she was willing to not only insult you, but actually force you to look her in the eye after you try get your bearings? When they've tricked you into thinking you were still en route, when in actuality they'd taken you into the bowels of this metal monstrosity in the middle of who knows where? When they've made you think you were attacked, that you were dragging someone back with you to help them, that you failed to save them?

There's the spark you're looking for.

You scowl, pushing yourself up to sit and slapping away her hand. She meets your gaze without flinching, though she's less intimidating now that you realise that you tower over her, even while sitting down on the bed. When you speak, you're not speaking with the restrained politeness that you use to mollify the nobility in the Clock Tower when you disrespect them by breathing the same air as they do. No, your voice is like a cracked whip, a chained animal, fury barely held back by the fact that Animusphere isn't alone, and her company happens to be armed. You'd rather not get shot in real life just after avoiding it in the simulation, but you just can't let it sit, not after what she's said and done, how she's treated you like a plaything to be jerked around and then chastised for complaining about it.

"I was thinking that there was a man down that I could still save, ma'am." You relish the way her nostrils flare out as she sucks in an angry breath, but you're not done, not by a long shot. "Just because he was a mundane pilot wasn't any reason not to save him. Was I supposed to let him bleed out in the snow, or get executed while I ran away? Pardon, ma'am, but fuck that. If he's on our side, then I'm going to do what I can to make sure he comes back safe, even if he's not a magus. Just because you don't give a damn doesn't mean anyone else doesn't, so if that displeases you, then you're welcome to sit down and shut up while I do the actual groundwork for whatever this mission is, since I'm sure you'll be kicking back with your feet up!"

She looks at you the way you'd imagine she looks at particularly loathsome bugs that manage to escape her boot time after time, but when she speaks, it's not in the imperious, holier-than-thou tone you've come to expect when you're being lectured about your place in the world. It's frustrated, angry, almost indignant. You've struck some kind of nerve, you think, but you're honestly not sure when.

"Dempsey, I am your commanding officer. If you speak to me like that again, then I will destroy your Mystic Code, wipe your brain until you are a drooling vegetable, and ship you back to the Clock Tower on the next plane out of Chaldea. Am I understood?" You suck in a sharp breath as you realise that for all the simulation was a lie, you still can't feel that familiar weight around your torso. That's enough to make you freeze all by itself, and when she looks expectantly towards you, it's all you can do to force yourself into a short, jerky nod. You don't trust yourself to speak, but that's fine, because she continues on.

"The only reason the pilot was mundane in that simulation was because a magus pilot would have made you question it earlier. The purpose was to test your ability and your temperament, your decision-making. You might be capable, but it won't mean anything if you can't make the right decisions. You were the target. If you had left, the attackers would have wasted time trying to confirm your death at the wreckage, and the pilot could have distracted them further. That was the correct choice. All of our members here understand the risks, and understand that they may die in the line of duty. That is what they signed up for. Those who weren't comfortable with that, we shipped back home and erased their memory of this place. If someone dies, it's unfortunate, but it's not worth losing even more people just to satisfy your own delusions of heroism."

You want to talk, want to interrupt, want to challenge her, but in the space it takes you to take a breath, she's continued on. "You could instead have hidden and waited to ambush them, leveraging your superior skills and the advantage of surprise to defeat them, which would give you the chance to interrogate them while we sent out a rescue team. You could have learned more about who was trying to stop us, given us valuable information, or failing all of that, you could have at least made things safer by rooting out one threat to us right then and there. Instead, you chose to save one life, letting whoever attacked us run free, and putting your life in danger as well! So, Dempsey, I'll ask you again: what were you thinking?"

You're thinking that you dearly want to punch her, but you'll hold that part back. On one hand, what she says makes...enough sense you can't dismiss it out of hand. A magus flying a plane would have made you freeze up from the sheer incongruity, and if that made you suspicious already, there was every chance you could have figured things out far sooner with the bizarre streak of luck you had that landed you in the perfect situation to be tested. Everything she's saying, that they're soldiers, that they signed up knowing they might die, that he put himself in danger to save someone who was willing to be lost, that all makes sense too. For a moment, you can almost believe it, almost let yourself think that she really, honestly, truly was impartial, and that the reason for everything in the simulation was entirely for the purpose of testing your honest reaction.

And yet.

You were the target. That was just a matter of course. It couldn't have been one of the pilots, couldn't have just been that whoever attacked you wanted to destroy the transport, wanted to plunder it, wanted any number of different things. You were the only magus on board, and you were the target. It was just logic, wasn't it?

She could talk about how egalitarian she was for hours, but that was enough for you. She was like the rest underneath whatever mask she decided to wear.

"...I don't like leaving people behind, ma'am." For a moment, you smell smoke, but you shake your head a little and banish the memory. Swallowing pride time, just like the Clock Tower. "I understand. In the future, I'll do better." But you're not going to apologise, and you're going to be better your own way.

"Hmph. See that you do. There's a briefing in two hours, but you're free to explore until then. The band on your wrist is a communicator and map. So long as you're in the main control room in two hours and you don't cause any disruptions, you're free to wander." She turns on her heel like she's already forgotten you exist, and when you stand up and roll your shoulders, you pause before calling out to her again.

"My Code. Where is it?"

She doesn't even answer verbally, just turning to point at a metal box in the corner of the room, before the door slides open with a hiss. Her two guards follow her out, and then you're alone.

You almost punch something, but keep your cool at the last second. Anything in this room could be expensive, vital, and hard to replace. Instead, you all but wrench open the box, giving a little sigh of relief at the familiar shimmering of polished steel when you do. You hold your hand out and let your circuits sing just the smallest amount, a mere trickle of power that the links of chain beneath you respond to. A thought, and the blade at one end lifts up and slides under your coat, link after link clinking together as you return your Code to its proper place. When you're done, the length of chain is securely wrapped beneath your coat, and the comforting weight makes it easier to stay calm after your conversation with Animusphere. Everything seems to be in order, you can control it as well as ever, and the blades are still sharp as hell, tucked flat against the underside of your forearms.

You can live with this, as long as you've got your little comforts.

Tapping the little glowing button at the top of the small band on your wrist brings up a holographic display, and a few more taps on the display itself brings up a map. You've got two hours to kill, and you could honestly use a chance to cool down after that conversation. A couple of places catch your eye, and you take a moment to decide where you want to visit first.

[ ] The medical wing. Being under for as long as you were might have complications, and you'd rather have some kind of medical assurance that you're fine instead of just assuming based on the fact that Animusphere didn't seem to consider it important.
[ ] The cafeteria. Considering that you've been under hypnosis, drugged, or otherwise kept out of your right state of mind for as long as it took to get to Chaldea, you quite literally can't remember the last time you've eaten, and your stomach is making it known that it's not happy with this state of affairs.
[ ] Your room. They've marked out personal quarters for you already, where hopefully what meager possessions you brought with you will already have been delivered. You can't exactly have a nap after so long sleeping, but if you're lucky you might have time for a smoke and a shower.
[ ] The room marked "Laboratory". You're not quite sure what they'd be researching here, but you suppose that an isolated facility somewhere in a snowy mountain range would be a pretty good place to do whatever they want without oversight.
[ ] The control room. It might mean running into Animusphere again, but if you could find someone else, you might be able to get some answers about where you are and what exactly you'll be doing before the briefing.

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Q/N: So, ended up being so exhausted I couldn't get this out yesterday, but hopefully this isn't too bad. This is mostly a tie-in piece to open up Chaldea to Ed, in all honesty, but I hope that I could at least make it an interesting argument. For the vote, you will have the opportunity to visit more than one location, but you won't be able to visit them all, so keep that in mind when deciding which parts of Chaldea you want to see most, as well as who you might meet while you're around there.
 
Chapter Five: Servant
You're about to make your decision when your stomach does one of those growls that you thought only happened in fiction, the kind that squirms and roars and groans until it's embarrassing for you and everyone around you and you go off to find something to chow down on half to avoid having anything quite like that happen again. It's never really happened to you before, and you don't have an audience, but in the constrained, uncomfortably same-y halls of Chaldea, you can imagine the sound bouncing around halfway through the facility. And, well, if there's one thing that you've never wanted when you're in a tight space filled to bursting with magi, it's to be noticed.

The cafeteria doesn't seem to be far, but now that you're finally moving around freely, you wish it was closer. Everything about Chaldea is...uncomfortable. To an extent, you know that it's difficult to blend magecraft and technology, so seeing the stronghold of one of the twelve Lords of the Clock Tower being so obviously cutting-edge is bizarre, but it's more than that. You know exactly what it is, and you hate yourself a little for it, but twenty years of history doesn't just vanish, no matter how much you might wish it. Years of being taught the ways of the druids back in an idyllic glade, a manor that wasn't so much built as it was grown from the forest itself. Even now that you're gone nearly ten years, some part of you can't help but feel disgust, can't help but crave the earthy smells of the deepwoods, the scent of decay and growth, of morning dew on shimmering emerald leaves, of flowers dancing in the wind.

Some part of you craves life, and Chaldea isn't it. The only scents in the air are sterility and efficiency, chemicals and recycled air flavoring every breath you take through corridors and hallways of grey metal broken up only by the little signs at crossroads and junctions and the window that runs the length of the outer ring of the floor you're on. It's almost a blessing when your route takes you down from the third floor to the second, because if you had to spend much more time wandering around it, you might have ended up going stir-crazy already. The idea that Chaldea's going to be your home for at least a year from this day on is seeming less and less attractive by the minute, but you'll get used to it. You got used to the hustle and bustle of London when you ended up there, and you'll figure out how to get used to this too. Besides, you saw plenty of leisure areas too. Whatever about Animusphere being a pain in the ass to deal with personally, apparently even she understands that if she kept people cooped up in whatever godforsaken ass-crack of the world she's found to put Chaldea in without any way to blow off steam, she'd end up with a mutiny at best or a society of crazed cannibals at worst.

You shiver a little at that last thought. Maybe not the best thing to drag up some unpleasant memories of one particular family you took in right before you're getting a meal.

The room that opens up once you approach the silvery sliding doors right out of a sci-fi movie is not at all what you expected. Oh, you're certain that wherever Animusphere stays there's probably a kitchen and hired staff right next door, but this is...it's a cafeteria. An enormous one, to be sure, six rows of benches that run the length of the room, three on each side with one long path up to the actual food in the middle. It's all buffet style, food shoveled into metal containers to keep warm, and people coming and going as they please, a constant flow of warm food into warm bodies as they mill in and out, laughing and chatting and arguing until it combines into the hazy, impossible to parse thrum of conversation anywhere you get far too many people inside a tight space. It's downright uncomfortable, makes your skin crawl a little, but from the way that one small little group goes quiet and starts sneering - nobility, probably, judging from how pissed off they all look that they're forced to dine with the rest of the rabble - you're not the only one who'd rather not be here now. That makes everything a lot easier, even if you were hoping you wouldn't be recognised for at least a couple days.

Being an Enforcer is a fun little paradox. You're the real backbone of the Clock Tower, because gods know that magecraft would be public knowledge by now if you weren't around to keep it from spilling over into the public consciousness whenever anyone went too hardcore on their fantasies of becoming an immortal mage-god. But you'll still get treated like dirt for so publicly abandoning the search for the Root, right up until they need you. Feared when you walk past, but the moment your eyes are off of them, they'll turn to whisper venomous words and barbed insults, trading them between each other as they look for the best way to push themselves forwards in their social circle, using the idea of you as a stepping stone.

It's a song and dance you're well aware of. You don't care. It stopped getting to you after the third or fourth time you nearly died on the job. You've just had to learn to take the satisfaction when you can, like how nearly every magus you've ever had to report to breaks into a cold sweat they think you can't see when you sit down in their office.

Your stomach growls again as you stand in line and you have to suppress the urge to just stab it right there and then. The last thing you need is to stand out more than you already do, but given that nearly everyone is wearing a Chaldea uniform, either yellow or green or white, and you're the only one in a long black coat...well, that was probably a pipe dream from the start, and that's before you got into how odd your hair and eyes are when you're pushed into a crowd of mostly normal looking people. There's the odd smattering of pale white hair, some dyed pinks and blues and purples, but among them all you're the only one with that kind of naturally unnatural colour, and it bothers you. You prefer to not be noticed, and that suits you just fine.

At least the spread is varied enough to take your preferences into account. If you're already going to end up being talked about because of how odd you look, you'll happily gorge yourself on all those fresh pastries you can see at the end of the buffet spread. Luxury, thy name is warm, freshly baked croissant.

A few minutes later after you wordlessly scooped exactly enough food to be socially unacceptable onto your plate, you're sitting down. You don't know if the space around you cleared out because people were getting ready for the briefing and finished eating, or if it was because no one wanted to sit around the big bad Enforcer, but frankly you don't care. The hum of conversation is still around you, but you have your own little bubble of quiet to enjoy, and frankly from the way your stomach seems to be doing its best to rip its way out of your torso so it can shove the food into itself directly, you feel like you're going to enjoy this plenty. Fried eggs, bacon, blood pudding, some sausages, some mushrooms, almost everything you need for a proper fry-up, along with a rough bucketful of black tea that you've added just a smidge too much milk and sugar to, and a half-dozen warm croissants that you tear into like you imagine a hungry wolf might do to an unsuspecting rabbit. A deliciously flaky, sweet, buttery rabbit filled with a little dark chocolate and...

You're about halfway through ruining the analogy in your head when you realise someone's staring at you.

With a forceful swallow that you chase down with a gulp of hot tea, you manage to clear your throat of any obstructions as you look up, which turns out to be a good thing. If you'd taken the sharp breath you do when you see the woman in front of you while you still had pastry in your throat, you'd probably have started choking.

She's not wearing the uniform, that's the first thing you notice. The table blocks off everything down from her knee, but even from that you can see the blue thigh-highs she has on, leaving a few inches of pale, soft thigh exposed before your eyes reach the red skirt she's wearing. Above that there's some kind of odd mix between a corset and a coat, a soft brown thing trimmed with red and gold, coattails hanging below her knees even though it only really starts at her impressive chest in front, tied around her waist with a red sash and a matching golden buckle. Underneath that there's some sort of blue blouse that you can see through the slits in the puffy shoulders of that weird coat thing, and neatly tucked into the short sleeves are two elbow length blue gloves. All in all, it's an ensemble that's weird enough that you'd pin her as a magus, but not so strange as to make you worry that she's something more.

No, it's her face that does that.

There's nothing wrong with it is the problem. It's soft, gentle, the smile she has bordering on the mysterious side of amused and her light blue eyes sparkling in the artificial light of the cafeteria. Her hair is like silk, reaching down to her lower back and curling around her shoulders in such a perfectly imperfect way that you can only imagine that it's magic that does it, and from the way she's staring at you without a hint of anything besides interest puts you on edge all by itself. In all honesty, she might be one of the most beautiful woman you've ever seen, let alone met.

She's also the spitting image of the Mona Lisa, and you've been involved in enough Grail Wars to know that "unbelievably gorgeous" is as much of a warning sign as any skull mask or suit of armor.

This woman is a Servant, and that fact alone makes you feel like there are ants running up and down beneath your skin, pricking and biting at every bit of flesh they can find.

"Is this seat-" she begins, before you cut her off. Balance it. Rude enough to make her go away, not enough to make her mad.

"No, it's fine. Sit if you want, I'll be done in a minute." Half that, really. You'd take being surrounded by Lords if it meant getting away from whoever the hell this was. Even if your vague guess is correct, and it's someone relatively harmless, you'd really rather be literally anywhere else.

"Perfect! I was hoping I'd get the chance to talk to you when I saw you'd walked in!"

Fuck.

"After all, it's not every day we get an Enforcer in Chaldea, and your simulation was so interesting!"

Fuck.


"Director Animusphere didn't seem to think so. I'll work on doing better next time-" You're about to begin the whole apologetic speech again before the woman waves her hand dismissively, her smile growing wider as she spears a few slices of bacon with a fork and carefully layers them onto a slice of buttered toast, beginning the foundations of what your stupid, traitorous, slow-to-the-punch stomach tells you is going to be a wonderful sandwich.

"Oh, don't mind her, she's under a lot of stress. I really did want to make sure the simulation was up to scratch after her last-minute adjustments, but she kept wanting to push you a little more and more and...well, you did figure it out in the end, but that just goes to show that it's not perfect, right? Though, if you didn't already know one was coming, I don't think you would have...well, that doesn't matter. I did want to congratulate you on seeing through it, but next time you won't be so lucky!" There's a competitive glint in her eye, and despite how fast and excited she is, there's still an almost musical quality to her voice. Every part of her seems like it was practically designed for perfection, and it's about as uncomfortable as you expected it to be. You already feel grubby and flawed, and the fact that she had plenty to do with that simulation is making that pit of tar in your chest bubble up again. But you can't lose your temper, not with a Servant.

"I'd rather not be put in one without my knowledge again, honestly. Watching a man be shot and thinking it was my fault wasn't very...enjoyable." You keep your voice level, that's good, but it's like pulling teeth. One minute around a Servant and you're already on edge, does no one else here realise that she could turn the entire room into a bloodbath in seconds if she felt like it? Your words make her blink, and she holds a hand in front of her mouth like she's been shocked by something.

"...Oh! Oh, right. Yes, that part was a bit much, but Olga kept on insisting that Enforcers were used to death and that it shouldn't really bother you, and she is the Director, so..." Despite her words, she looks vaguely guilty, and with a theatrical sigh she sets down the pudding she carefully carved into sandwich-appropriate slices before looking you in the eye, and gods you wish she'd just kept making the damn thing. "I'm sorry, Edward. Honestly, I hadn't thought of that. I was just very impressed you'd seen through it, and especially impressed that you tried to save the pilot. For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing."

Damn right you did, but you take that little ball of warmth you can feel in your chest and snuff it out immediately. It's manipulation, plain and simple. Animusphere probably just wants someone to get on your good side after remembering who she pissed off, now that you're armed again. You're too smart for that kind of simple manipulation, too smart to let a little praise go to your head.

"Thank you..." You scramble around in your head for a name, before frowning. Might as well go with your guess, the worst that can happen is that she's compared to someone fantastic. Your experience with the fickleness of the Grail means that "historically recorded as a man" is no real barrier to being summoned looking like...well, looking like a masterpiece come to life. "...Miss Da Vinci?"

She claps her hands together and beams at you, before it turns into the kind of smug smile that can only mean she's about twice as pleased with herself as she is with you for figuring it out. "Mm! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you're not surprised, given what's in your file. Yes, I'm Leonardo da Vinci, finally as perfect on the outside as I always sought to be! Olga does work me to the bone, but the upside of being summoned as a Servant is that I was able to control how I appeared a little bit. Working out all the kinks and issues with everything that we need to keep Chaldea running is its own reward for a genius like myself, but getting to finally fit in a body that really feels right is wonderful too. Ah, what a lucky organization, to have summoned a beautiful genius such as me!"

Well, that's certainly something. Leonardo da Vinci being summoned makes a certain kind of sense, given that historically he - she, you correct yourself - was one of the greatest minds in history, especially with regards to engineering and thinking up new inventions. With her at the helm, creating a place like this that so perfectly marries magecraft and machinery could be turned from "nigh-impossible" to just "extremely difficult", but the results are more than evident. You are, after all, digging in to a fry-up cooked about six thousand feet above sea level, inside a facility built into a mountain, somewhere so out of the way that you half expect to be told that they brought you to another planet while you were out.

And despite it all, how friendly she is, how she's apologised, how she's probably responsible for the fact that your stomach isn't trying to devour itself in rebellion against the cruel host that refused to feed it, you'd still rather be anywhere else but here. She's a Servant. Powerful, intelligent, dangerous. Everyone else around you might see a pretty face and a sweet voice and delude themselves, but you can't. Not yet, at least, and from the look she gives you, she can see it on your face. When she speaks up again, it's gentle, soothing, a hair shy of motherly if you're being kind, patronizing if you're not.

"I know it's probably difficult for someone with your experience to relax around me, but really, we're on the same side. I'll leave you to your meal if you'd like, and if you ever want to chat I'm sure you'll be able to find me-"

"No, it's fine. I was just finishing up." You weren't, but all of a sudden you're really not hungry. One last puff of buttery, flaky goodness vanishes into your mouth before you start to move your tray, but the damn woman still just keeps smiling as she offers you a little wave.

"Come talk soon! I'd love to find out how you made those chains of yours, they were fascinating from the little look I had!"

You don't respond, but you feel your Code tighten around your torso a little, the unconscious command giving you a little comfort. It's pressure and weight but it's the good kind, the kind that reminds you that you have a weapon and protection. Useless against one of the Throne's many heroes, but a nice little placebo that keeps you going until you march out the door and finally let out the breath you were holding.

"...That sucked." You're not hungry, but now you've apparently caught the interest of a Servant, even if it's only due to your craftsmanship. She'll get bored once she realises the trick, but actually handing it over for her to examine feels like a violation all on its own.

Later, you can think of it later. All in all, you spend about an hour looking for the cafeteria and then eating, but you should have time to meander around a little more before the briefing. You can still remember the icons that caught your eye on that holographic map, so all that's left is choosing where to next.

[ ] The medical wing.
[ ] Your room.
[ ] The room marked "Laboratory".
[ ] The control room.

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Q/N: No, Chaldea's cafeteria isn't that big in canon, but frankly for what it is, Chaldea in canon seems kind of small. In my head I'm thinking it's about three times as big, so bear in mind there's a bunch more to it than what we see in canon. Ideally I've captured Da Vinci's voice, and I blended in the fact that she's explicitly trans fairly organically, but given my relative lack of experience, I'm of course open to criticism and suggestions on how to do better. Hope you enjoy!
 
Chapter Six: Firstborn
Your blood pressure feels like it's skyrocketed up to...well, you're not actually sure what blood pressure is unhealthy, but you know having it high is bad and frankly you're still a little too shaken to care. Sitting down to have lunch with a Servant is the kind of thing that you prefer to have at least a week to prepare for, not something that just happens. Even if she was kind, even if she was understanding, even if she'd seemed far more interested in bragging about how smart she was than trying to hurt the people around her...she was still a Servant. The only way to be safe around one was to have those three little brands on your body, and that only worked for one.

Memories come unbidden to your mind and you try shake them free as you walk forward. Legions of the dead, marching with rifles at their shoulders and blank, empty faces. A woman with serpents spun from hair, statues littering her lair before being crushed to rubble underneath her reptilian tail. A town filled with fog and the mad giggling of a murderer, throats slit and hearts gouged out for all to see.

With a shiver, you decide to head towards the medical wing. Maybe the trip has you tired and that's affecting your mind, maybe the simulator's still got some nasty side-effects, or maybe you're already getting cabin fever, but you'd rather make certain nothing is wrong with you before the big speech that's coming. Murmurs from staff you pass along the way shape themselves into something resembling information, and after a few minutes of walking, you're reasonably sure that not only will this be the first big meeting for all the Master candidates, but the first Rayshift too, whatever that involves. You'd really rather not be caught sick or tired for it, so after doing your best to quell your stomach, which still grumbles like it hasn't been fed nearly enough despite the amount you gorged yourself on, getting a little checkup couldn't hurt.

Besides, given how your job usually goes, you imagine you'll be there a lot. Best to figure out what the situation with them is like, given that you've never been in a techno-magical miracle facility built with the assistance from a Servant who you imagine must by definition be better than any modern engineer or magus you could think of.

The medical wing is located relatively close to the main deck, which you suppose is a good idea. If the major operations are going to be co-ordinated from there, then having a medical wing right next to it is probably the best place for it to be. At this point, you're half-suspecting that the Rayshifting thing you've heard about is some kind of teleportation, which...well, it should be nearly impossible, but that's the name of the game since you came here, and it's about the only thing that makes sense. A neutral base backed by the UN in an unknown location that can rapidly deploy troops to combat whatever threats Chaldea finds could be useful as hell. Travel time is one of the worst parts of the job, and you're certain if you could have cut down the days flying into minutes being warped to wherever some arrogant magus had decided to turn into their private petshop of horrors, a lot less people would have ended up as experiments or resources before you got there.

With a sigh, you shake your head again, this time managing to banish the thoughts more successfully. You're feeling the weariness that so unfairly creeps up on people who sleep too much, your stomach is taking its sweet time realising that you've put food into it and that you don't really need to eat more, and you're stuck in a metal can with only the promise of missions to the outside world and a little segment labelled "Hydroponics and Garden" on your map for any kind of comfort. No need to make it worse by starting to grumble about what could have been if only you'd been able to defy logic and do the impossible.

You have to stop and consult your map a few times while you walk, if only because you're still very much not used to the whole aesthetics of the place just yet. More than once you find yourself having to double back because you missed a turn in the same-y halls, and you're quickly beginning to think that your life here will be far more frustrating than you thought it'd be. Nevertheless, you find the door eventually, and right as you move to knock it hisses open, leaving you looking down at a young man who only realises he's about to bash into you when there's an inch in it. He yelps and backpedals, holding up his hands with an apologetic, nervous smile, immediately starting to speak in as hurried a tone as he possibly can.

"I'msorryIdidn'tseeyoutherethatwasmyfaulthowareyou!"

He's too young to be a doctor, maybe just on the cusp of twenty, with lavender pink hair and deep purple eyes behind a pair of round glasses. Most of the rest of him is covered up by a white and green lab coat, but you can see a pair of white slacks and matching shoes beneath the hem of the coat. Around his neck is a little keycard on a string, which identifies him as "Matthew Kyrielight, Assistant Medical Staff." Well, one mystery solved.

"Don't worry about it. I'm one of the new recruits. Wanted to get a check-up before the meeting." Confusion flickers across his face for just a moment before he makes whatever connection he was thinking about, clapping his hands together with a soft "oh" of comprehension.

"You're Edward Dempsey, right? The Enforcer? Olg- er, Director Animusphere mentioned you'd be in today, you're actually the last one we recruited! Come on in, Doctor Archaman and the rest of the staff are grabbing some lunch but he usually eats at his desk, so he'll be around in a moment, he's head of the whole medical thing here. I can do a quick physical, unless there's something in specific you're worried about?"

You blink. You didn't expect to be recognised by medical staff of all people, and if you were you'd imagine you'd be regarded with more suspicion and worry than usual, not less. But after realising who you are, Matthew's calmed down significantly, which...makes a lot of sense, if he's had to deal with people like Animusphere. If it's typical magi who fill the ranks of Chaldea for the most part, you can imagine they wouldn't be the nicest patients in the world to deal with, especially if you accidentally ran into them. Well, no sense in worrying him if he's gotten a bit more comfortable. Gods know you understand the feeling of having to deal with the nobility for vital services, even if for you it's more irritation than fear that results.

"I was in the simulator about two hours ago, and I don't know how long I was out before then." You smile at Matthew, doing your best to convince him you're not about to curse him into oblivion for daring to walk out a door. "Just want to make sure everything's functional and I haven't ended up with some issue that'll ruin things for everyone the moment I'm out in the field."

"Heh, that makes sense. Just take a seat and- no, no, bad Fou!" He swerves in the middle of his sentence like he's trying to avoid a bullet and makes a beeline for a cabinet near the right edge of the long wing. Following him with your eyes, you see...a cat? Or maybe it's a dog. Or a squirrel. It's definitely something small and furry, pure white besides for the bluish tips of its ears and the little blue mantle around its neck, tied with a red bow. It's roughly the size of a squirrel at least, but it's definitely not anything you've ever seen before. Some kind of magical creature? You're halfway through wondering whose familiar it is and why they're letting it run around before it makes a beeline for you, stopping right at your feet and gazing up at you imperiously.

"Fou!" it says.

"Um." you reply.

Matthew manages to dive down and pick up the little thing, apparently named "Fou", before giving you another apologetic look. "S-Sorry! Fou kind of comes and goes as he pleases, but he's not meant to be in the medical wing and messing with our stuff, are you Fou? Are you? Bad Fou!" Somewhere along the way, the chastisement turned into the little baby talk that you give animals that can't really understand you, but...well, you're not made of stone. Fou might be the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life, and there's some part of you that you're pointedly not listening to that wants nothing more than to pet the little thing and coo at it just like Matthew's doing.

After a moment, Matthew realises that he's got a patient, offering a nervous apology and setting Fou down on a nearby desk. The wing seems to be organized with a kind of examination room at the top, the rest of it split into long rows of beds flanked with beeping machines and intravenous stands, with a few of what you can only assume to be isolated rooms at the end. None of the beds are occupied, which at least means no accidents recently, but the sterile, chemical scent that made you wrinkle your nose before is doubly strong here. More incentive not to get hurt, you suppose. At Matthew's instruction, you remove your coat, before turning to give him a look when he trails off at the sight of your chains.

"Never seen a Mystic Code before?" you ask. It's not really teasing, but getting him more used to you is probably a good idea if he's going to be examining you, and making it a bit more normal for him is a good thing. If he's training as a doctor, there's no way in hell he's a magus.

"Oh, um, I have, just...well, not one like that. Could you, uh...?" He gestures vaguely at the pile you left your coat in, before sighing with relief when you let your chains unwind and spool down on top of your coat, picking up a pair of disposable gloves and putting them on after handling Fou. "Right, perfect. Now, take a seat and I'll...forget to introduce myself, damn it, I'm Matthew!"

You can't help but let out a little chuckle, pointing towards his chest as you do. "I kinda figured, seeing as how that's the name next to your picture." His pale cheeks flush just a bit, but instead of getting upset or angry he grins back at you, before putting on a stethoscope.

"Alright, alright, medical professional time. Just hang on a bit..."

The metal is cool against your bare chest as his hand slides under your shirt, though you can't help but stiffen up noticeably when it passes over the upper part of your torso, just a bit to the left.

"Are you-" he begins, pulling the diaphragm away just a bit, before you shake your head and push his hand back.

"I'm fine," you lie, giving him another disarming smile. "Just colder than I remember. I'll keep the shirt on, if that's okay."

He doesn't seem convinced, but continues nevertheless. Your lungs are, for a given definition, fine. When he asks you to cough there's a little bit of hacking in it, but a quick explanation that you both smoke and cheat with magecraft to make sure it doesn't get too bad is all that he needs to keep going, though there's no way for him to hide the look of disapproval on his face. For all he was nervous before you walked in, settling into the role of a doctor certainly makes him a lot more comfortable.

You're halfway through Matthew sticking a thermometer in your mouth when the door hisses open again, and you lock eyes with the man standing in the doorway. He's...well, "soft" is the first word that comes to your head. Light green eyes that look as inviting as a meadow at midday, salmon pink hair that would fall halfway down his back if it wasn't tied up in a ponytail, and a youthful looking face with gentle, kindly features. It's almost impossible to tell how old the man is, though you'd have bet not a lot older than Matthew. He's holding his own identical labcoat underneath his arm, some kind of roll wrapped in tinfoil in his hand, and as your eyes trail down, you realise that his features are about the only thing you could really call "soft."

He wears the same slacks and shoes that Matthew does, but on top he's wearing nothing but a tight black t-shirt that clings to every muscle on his torso, and there's certainly plenty to cling to. For a doctor, the man keeps himself in shape, and you can't help but admire the wiry build he's got beneath the shirt. Not anything like someone trying to build muscles, but they're functional and very, very pretty. His arms are just as well defined, toned without bulging out, but you really don't want to end up leering at the head medical authority of Chaldea if you can avoid it, so you flick your eyes back up and give him a smile, starting to explain as he opens his mouth.

"I came in for a checkup, but people were out to lunch. Matthew offered to do a quick physical, so..."

"Oh, perfect! Matthew, keep going, I'm starving. Don't worry Edward, he's competent." He grins at his assistant, who shakes his head and smiles.

"C'mon, Doctor, he's your patient. I'm only here because you forgot to eat until just now." The embarrassed grin he gives doesn't really do anything to suggest Matthew's wrong, and with an exaggerated sigh, he sets down his lunch on his desk and shucks his lab coat on, before pulling on some gloves of his own and moving to start where Matthew left off. Once your temperature is cleared he offers for you to stand up and start doing some stretching, starting to chat as you do.

"I'm sure Matthew's mentioned, but I'm Doctor Romani Archaman. Roman is fine though, it's what everyone calls me. Well, everyone but Matt, he keeps on saying "Archaman" no matter how many times I tell him." He gives a little chuckle, while Matthew calls over from the corner, head buried in some kind of filing cabinet.

"You're my teacher! If I don't respect you, no one will!"

Roman shakes his head and laughs, before turning back to you with a distractingly warm smile on his face. "I'm his guardian and his teacher. I picked him up about ten years ago, and ever since we've been pretty much inseparable. Olga wasn't pleased when she realised that recruiting me meant taking him on board, but you can't ever have too many people around to help heal others, right?"

"Mmh. He seems nice." You're not really sure what to say, and a part of you is bubbling with a little jealousy, but you stamp it down. Not the time or the place. "You both recognised me."

"Yeah, uh...honestly, most of the recruits on the magus side ended up being pretty standard, besides for one or two. Olga decided that we needed a bit more muscle, so we reached out to you, but it was a fairly late decision. You're the only one to arrive today, so Matthew and I were briefed on you before you came in, in case there was any issues while you were in transit or in the simulator." That's about as much of an explanation as you need, though you're a little disquieted by the notion that your forces are mostly going to be typical magi commanding Servants. Half you has to wonder if you're there less for the actual role of being a Master and more to keep the others in check.

The rest of the physical goes on without a hitch, another attack from Fou trying to clamber onto your shoulders notwithstanding, and after a few more minutes your Code and coat are both back on. You turn to leave, before you feel a hand on your shoulder, turning and finding yourself face to face with Roman, Matthew having taken Fou somewhere else for, apparently, disciplinary pets and harsh baby-talk.

"I know that this isn't exactly the nicest place in the world, and that the medical wing isn't where people want to end up often, but...well, if you ever need help, feel free to come around here. You're a little more down to earth than most of the Master candidates, so it'd be nice to have a chat every now and again."

You really aren't entirely comfortable with how eager you are to accept, but you're careful not to let it show on your face. Even if he's mundane, he's still working for Chaldea, and...well, you're not going to be here forever. It's one thing to have a fun night with someone you're attracted to when both of you can vanish the next day, it's another to end up committed when you're stuck in the middle of a frozen hellscape and have to see each other whenever you end up getting hurt.

"I'll think about it. Thanks, Roman."

You'll be about fifteen minutes early, but you get the feeling that Animusphere would rather everyone be seated and settled an hour before she deigns to grace them with her presence rather than the opposite, and you don't see any reason to piss her off even more than your "disappointing" display in the simulator did. Idly as you walk, you take note of those who walk past you and those you walk past, some moving slower, some quicker. There's a man with black hair and glasses who seems to be holding some kind of odd-looking sword, a vacant expression on his face, a petite woman with fluffy orange hair and a pink sweater who seems nervous just to be in Chaldea at all, another woman with strawberry blonde hair and the strangest expression of serene happiness as someone bumps past her and she ends up stumbling around. None of them really catch your eye as you approach the doors to the command center, except for one. A woman with skin pale enough to look unhealthy, long, dark hair spilling down her back, so helpfully revealed by the black backless dress she's worn. With matching black-and-silver opera gloves and thigh-boots, you half want to crack a joke about goths in your head, but another glance stills that particular reflex. Her lips are black as night, and her eyes are a pale, sickly yellow.

Grail mud abuser. Fantastic. Just absolutely perfect. You make a mental note to keep an eye on her as the doors to the command center hiss open, admitting the next little block of Master candidates, and you cast your gaze forward to examine the throne from which Animusphere will reign-

You see a flash of familiar, scarlet hair, of pale, pointed ear.

You're running before you even realise it, turning and all but sprinting away. Your mouth makes the noises people expect, that you've forgotten something, you're sorry for running into them, please move, anything to get them out of you way so you can just run. The rooms and command center are both in the third floor and that makes it easier, makes it simple for you to take a look at your map as your hand trembles and bring you to your room. It's locked, and you're about to get ready to pry the steel door open before the communicator on your wrist beeps and the door hisses open, and you all but stumble in, the door shutting behind you as you frantically try to figure out how to lock it.

A click and a light turning red is about as good a sign for it being locked as anything, and now that you're alone, you finally allow yourself to relax. Your chains are tightening around your limbs so hard it almost hurts, but you can't stop, like a fist clenched for so long it's forgotten how to relax itself. Your hands are shaking and your legs feel weak, and when you sit down on the bed your stomach feels like it's twisted itself into about a million different knots at the same time, somehow.

Breathe.

You force yourself to start taking deep breaths, in and out, held and released in a rhythm. That calms you enough that you can reach into your coat with shaky fingers and dig out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, and you know that will calm you much more. It takes you three tries to light it, and you hiss as you burn your finger on the second, but the pain is good, keeps you focused, distracts you from everything else. Your first breath of poison is like water in a desert, smoky-sweet vanilla rolling onto your tongue and into your lungs as you hug yourself tighter and shiver on the bed.

She didn't see you.

She didn't see you.

There's still time, still a way out. You'll be late for the briefing but that'll work in your favor, piss off Animusphere and tell her you want to go, submit to the memory erasure, make sure that you put this as far away as possible and never come back, that's how it'll be, that's how it has to be.

You can't be here while she's here.

If your sister knows where you are, if she realises that you're here, she'll drag you back and you can't go back.

Time passes, measured only in burnt fingers from cigarettes held too long and moments stretched out into eternity in the way only panic and fear can do so easily. You don't know how long it is until you hear a rap at the door, hear a voice calling out to you.

"Edward? Edward, are you okay? It's Romani!" Of course it's the medical head. Probably think you've gone crazy. "Please, open the door. I just want to make sure you're okay! You don't have to come out, I can stay in with you if you need!"

What will you do?

[ ] Pretend you can't hear him. Ignore him. Shut him out and make sure your mind is your own, refuse to let anything that could compromise it do just that. You're fragile and you know it, and you need to pull yourself together. You haven't broken down like this in a long time, and if you succumb to the desperate desire for someone else, you could ruin all your progress to fixing it. And who knows? It could be a trick. She could be out there.

[ ] Open the door. Roman's not a magus, he has no way of knowing your history. If he's after you, it's because he's worried. He was friendly and kind and inviting when you were in the medical ward, and right now you need to feel like you're not alone, even just for a moment. You don't have to tell him anything, but if he's there, you know you can use him to feel better, parasite on his company until you're able to control yourself. Then you can work on leaving.
 
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Chapter Seven: First in its Path
Breathe in.

He's just there to get you out of your room because Niamh asked him to. If you open the door you're opening yourself to being taken back and you won't, can't do that. It's a trick, it's a lie, it's a scheme, it's everything and anything that terrifies you so and you're frozen in place with your chains biting so deep into your skin you're sure it'll leave marks, and it's all you can do to keep breathing through the lump in your throat and the pit in your stomach.

Breathe out.

No one knows you. No one knows you're related. No one knows the verdant grove you grew up in, the prison of wood and flowers you escaped, the gaolers who wanted nothing to do with you right up until the moment that you wanted to leave. Niamh didn't see you, and you know she didn't because if she had, she would have ripped the door apart already. It's just Roman, kind, caring Roman, who wanted to help you, because you came to him for that help earlier.

What does it matter that you missed the timing on it just a bit, that you would need help an hour after you asked it instead of an hour before? He's a doctor, for gods' sake. Sworn an oath to never do harm. Even if he was sent here because of duty instead of personal worry, what of it? You need help, his duty is to help.

You don't know this man, and you hope that you won't ever get to know him. That means you can be vulnerable, just for a bit. Made of glass instead of steel, just for one moment.

Breathe in.

You're still scared, but you're moving. It's like wading through sand, but you're moving. Your body trembles with nervous shivers and your throat feels so tight that you'd swear someone was gripping it and choking the life from you, but you're moving nevertheless. In a moment that lasts hours, you're at the door, your hand hovering over the button marked "Open".

Breathe out.

You push it.

Roman is on the other side, his face practically bursting with concern as he steps inside, so much more forcefully than you expected that you step back and let him in without even thinking. His nose wrinkles a little at the smell of smoke and the sight of the three cigarette butts haphazardly left on the small cabinet beside your bed, before turning to you with a look so sympathetic you'd almost be insulted if you weren't trying to hold yourself together. He must be able to see that you just can't choke out the words, because he talks first, guiding you to sit down on the bed and taking the single chair in the room so he can sit to face you.

"Whatever you're worried about, you're alright. You're safe here. I know that it can be difficult adjusting, and that for someone with your history, you might be nervous about the other Masters or the Servants that we'll be summoning. But I promise you, Edward, you're safe. Given your track record, I'd almost think they have more to be worried about from you!" The awkward attempt at humour falls so flat that it's funny all by itself, and you give a slight, choked chuckle even as Roman winces to himself and tries to smooth over the little mishap. "...Look, Olga's a bit upset, but she's willing to overlook it. It'll make things harder going forward to upset her, so...I know it's tough, but if you get yourself prepped for the first Rayshift, I can explain what's going on along the way. I know that's harsh, but you have to think big picture, right?"

It makes sense. Sure, you'd like to hide here for the rest of your time in Chaldea until you find a way out, but that's just not realistic. If Roman doesn't get you out, if you make more of a scene, then others will come. Olga and some guards to take you away, sure, but more than that. Bystanders, gawkers, anyone who heard the rumour of the Enforcer running away at the first sign of trouble. That means more chance she finds you, and you can't deal with that. Even if you don't plan to be in Chaldea for long, it's better to play along and not rock the boat until the time is right.

But you're still scared.

"I...I can't..."

"Hey, it's alright. I promise." Roman reaches out and takes your hand in his, and it feels nice enough that you have to resist the urge to snatch it away like you've been stung. "You're tough, I can tell. Get yourself on your feet and come follow the others, they'll be suiting up and getting ready to Rayshift right about now. Once you get in the action, you'll be fine, I'm sure of it. Get the adrenaline pumping, right? C'mon, let's go, Olga's not really known for being kind to slackers." He stands and moves to pull you up, and with a surprising amount of strength that reminds you that he's pretty damned built under that lab coat of his (tragically zipped up, you could use the support that seeing him in causalwear would bring), he brings you to your feet. Part of you still feels shellshocked and panicked, and that's evident in the way your chains still bite into your skin from above your shirt, but...

You're moving.

"You can. You were brought here for a reason. Now, come follow me. I'll explain on the wa-" His kind words are cut off by a shrill beep from his wrist, and before he can so much as move to answer what you can only assume to be a call, a familiar, very irritated voice rings out, filling the room and making Roman wince as he steps back from you.

"Romani! What the hell are you doing? I told you specifically to leave him behind so that I could deal with him!" Olga Marie Animusphere's voice is worse when heard through the slightly digital filter on the communicators, and on top of it all, you realise that she apparently has the kind of access that means you can't hang up on her when she calls. Joy of joys. "Get back here right now so we can run diagnostics on the Masters, they're about five minutes from beginning the Rayshift! Lev can't do it all by himself, and we don't have time for you to waste it on trash!"

You freeze as you hear her words, and the look on Roman's face makes it clear that he wishes he could erase the last ten seconds of both your lives. You were scared, true, but hearing that there's something else bubbling up inside you, black as pitch and red as blood and burning until you feel like you're going to explode. She knows nothing about you, nothing about why you fled, and she still feels comfortable enough to call you trash?

Fear might be like icy talons gripping your heart, but if that's the case then spite is like your blood being set aflame. All at once, there's nothing you'd rather do than march there and remind Animusphere that you were hired for muscle, and that you're going to demand the same respect from her that you get from any magus that decides to work with an Enforcer. Roman must see it on your face, because he suddenly looks panicked, and he quickly raises the small band on his wrist up to speak in a hurried voice.

"D-Director, everything's fine, I'm just about to bring him back-" He manages to squeak out just that little bit, before he's cut off again, Animusphere's voice raising in decibels already.

"Bullshit you are! I'm coming there to drag you back myself, and if that Enforcer shows his face to me I'm going to have him turned inside out before I make sure he realises what kind of commitment he made coming here!" That seems to really rattle Roman, and he's practically waving his hands like she's already in front of him and he's trying to show her how bad of an idea he thinks it is as he responds.

"N-No, no no no, that's fine! You can go back, keep an eye on everything, I'll be right there!" He turns to you with a panicked look on his face, all but grabbing your arm, not even flinching as he feels the hard metal beneath your coat. "Come on, we gotta go, j-just keep your mouth shut until the Rayshift is over and when you get back we can sort everything out!"

You're pulling back, taking a breath to explain to him that there's no way in hell you're going to let some little noble harpy with no idea what you're dealing with call you trash when the hair on the back of your neck stands up. It's not quite a sixth sense, because those are very real, and you weren't blessed with one. But a third of your life has been spent fighting, sneaking, killing and avoiding being killed, and that leaves its mark. A kind of expanded awareness, instinct that isn't Instinct, just the vague feeling of something wrong as opposed to prophetic senses.

Something is wrong.

Something is wrong, wrong, wrong.

You shove Roman out of the way and lunge into the hallway, right as the world itself begins to shake, explosions roaring in the distance as the lights above turn from hospital-white to burning red.

You're under attack.

Protect Roman.

That's your first port of call, but even as you're turning to call him to your side you see him running out, the light of his communicator beeping a slow red to show the call had disconnected. His face is awash with concern and panic, but he's keeping himself under control well enough that part of you is impressed despite yourself.

"We have to get to the Klein Coffins! O-Olga, the Masters, they're all still there!" He barely waits for you to nod, taking off at a sprint, and you follow him. All around you is the buzzing of klaxons, and after a moment you hear a mechanical female voice speak out from the PA system.

"Emergency alert. Fires have broken out in the central power plant and central control room. All personnel evacuate from gate two immediately. Bulkheads will close momentarily. Repeat: Fires have broken out..."

You've heard all you need to know, and you tune the voice out. It won't help, and right now, you're focused, you have to be. All the tightness in your body vanishes like dust in the wind, your chains are fluid and free, letting you move as nimbly as you can.

Panic later. Action now.

"Where do I go?" You call out towards Roman beside you, who looks at you with a little shock at the sudden change, before nodding resolutely.

"The Rayshifting chamber! The candidates could be hurt, and I think Matthew might have been with them! I'll head to the control room and-"

Whatever he says next, you don't know. You have your orders, your target, your goal. You're no good at healing, but you can keep things stable, and if there's anyone still in there then you can kill them before they finish the job. You falter for a single step when you remember that Niamh is there, but...

No.

You're not trading your comfort for their lives. Even if you want to leave, you need someone here to fix things. If the Masters die, then there's no one.

And if Matthew dies, then that's at least one normal person dead, because of the machinations of uncaring magi.

No more.

A key turns. The lock tightens. The chains break.


Go.

Mana floods your body and you rocket forward, easily doubling the speed you ran at moments ago. You'd like to go faster, but you've no handholds, no leverage, no way to make the sharp turns you need, so you settle for merely superhuman. The blades of your chains slip out into your waiting hands while you run, and it all settles into a familiar rhythm. Step, breathe, push, move. Like you're only half-alive when you're normal, but like this, no hesitation, no doubt, no fear, this is when you're real. When your movements are blinding, when you can shatter stone, when your chains move like extensions of your own body.

You feel powerful, and dangerously focused. It's an escape, just as much of one as the cigarettes were, but you'll take it. Seeing Niamh after nine years was more than enough to make you need something like that.

The main Rayshifting chamber is on the second floor, so you all but fire yourself down the closest stairs you can find, bouncing off the walls and launching yourself into a graceful leap before rolling to your feet, no energy wasted, the picture of efficiency. Already you smell acrid smoke and hear the hissing and fizzing of broken pipes and wires sparking, and your eyes water as you get closer, but you can handle this. You've already got smoke in your lungs, and a little heat never hurt anyone. No sign of any intruder yet, or any bodies. You passed a few panicked staff on the way, and you saw some of the uniformed guards sprinting towards the control room on the third floor, but no sign of Animusphere or Matthew yet. No bodies, at least.

For a moment, Matthew's grinning face flashes into your head and you stumble, just a bit. You don't know how big the explosions were, don't know if there was anything else to the attack. For all you know, his corpse is burnt to the point that you couldn't recognise it, or maybe he's just riddled with bullets somewhere in Rayshifting chamber. You're close, so close, and you just barely manage to right yourself and get back on track when the wall beside you erupts in a flash of light and heat and pain.

It takes you a few moments to blink away the white spots in your vision, and there's nothing but ringing in your ears. You can taste coppery blood, not a good sign, but you're filled fit to burst with Reinforcement magecraft and your coat took the brunt of it, even if you were slammed against the opposite wall. At worst you've got a few broken bones, but those won't stop you, you can dip into what little healing you have and keep yourself bound together until you can do something more permanent. All you need is to stand up and-

Your leg gives out the moment you put weight on it, and you hiss out a sharp curse from the pain. Glancing down, you can see that one of the shards from the wall impaled you through your thigh, and you swallow thickly. You can't see straight just yet and your head is pounding from the sound of the explosion, but you got away relatively unscathed for how close it was. You're never that lucky, but...hell, you'll take it. An impaled thigh isn't a high price to pay for being able to walk away from that, but you know you're going to be bleeding too much for comfort.

Matthew's still in danger.

You hiss out a few words of Irish under your breath and feel the drowsy spell of hypnotism settle on your body like a warm blanket, your aches and pains vanishing. Not ideal, because you're not healing yourself, but it's all you've really got. With a deep breath, you wrench out the spike of metal and curse as some of the blocked pain seeps through, though your spell downgrades it from "black out immediately" to merely "agonizing", and with a quick sketch of glowing fingers you can feel your flesh knitting together. It's not perfect, but when you step again, you can move, barely.

The gate is right in front of you, and you're limping. As long as you have your chains you're a threat, but every blood-trailed step you take feels like an eternity, and you can't even call out for anyone for fear of alerting your attackers. All that you can hear is the buzzing of klaxons, the dull, monotone voice of the PA system, and the crackling of fire in front of you, a sound so familiar that you almost flinch away.

Not again.

You step forward, raising a hand to cover your mouth from the smoke, and look inside.

The giant globe in the middle of the room is burning bright red, the rings surrounding it slowing further and further, moving like the last few steps of someone bleeding to death. All around you, metal pods with frosted-glass panels in front are scattered, some merely askew in their docks, others totally blown apart from their proper place, though none have come unsealed. Blood seeps out in pools from some, and ahead you see...

A body?

Someone outside the pods, barely visible through the smoke that stings your eyes and draws out your tears, but it's someone. Their shoulders are shaking as they cough up the smog that fills the room and they don't seem like they can move, but they're alive.

"M-Matthew! Are you okay?!"

They can't hear you, and as you try to get closer, you stumble, try to catch yourself, but it's too much weight, too soon, and your leg gives out again, sending you crashing to the floor. The air leaves your lungs in a whoosh as you hit the ground, and for a moment even your enchanted coat and Reinforced body isn't enough to keep you from curling up on yourself from the pain. When you cough, there's flecks of blood, and idly, you wonder if a rib ended up piercing your lung from something as small as a fall, or if the explosion beforehand ended up damaging you worse than you thought.

You want to move, but you just...can't. Maybe if you had time to think, time to do some more emergency healing, but your lungs are on fire and the smoke is falling lower and lower, and the pain is starting to fade into sweet, seductive numbness. You'll die if you pass out here, but your body doesn't seem to care, crooning that a release from the pain you're just barely holding back would be welcome, that you can just rest for a bit.

Just a bit.

You hear something in the distance, metal on metal, clanging together and hissing, and you just barely manage to turn your head enough to watch the steel bulkheads slide down.

Well, that's that, then.

You didn't save anyone. All it took was one explosion, and you failed. If anyone is alive in here, they'll choke on the smoke or they'll burn or they'll bleed out.

You'll be one of them.

You can just barely hear the words of that monotone female voice again, the ringing in your ears almost growing too loud to hear over.

"...laplace conversion protection in place."

You see movement above, and when you strain your eyes, you see someone through shattered windows in the control room.

"Unsummon program set...searching for qualified Masters."

They're moving so frantically, but you can barely see through the haze of smoke and your own blurred vision. You're fading, you realise, but there's nothing you can do, is there?

There's never been anything you can do.





I will not ask, we don't have time. You will be my Master.




"Re-establishing connection with qualified Masters 13 and 48. Unsummon Program Start. Beginning Spiritron Conversion."

"Executing Rayshift."



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Your eyes are closed as you watch the heavens burn.

Eight raging lights sear themselves into your vision, one larger, closer, than all the others, stars shining so bright that the empty sky itself seems lit aflame.

You should be swallowed up, but something holds back the destroying flames. A tiny, shimmering light the colour of the sky at midday holds the sphere of flames back, and as you watch, it grows. It shifts, changes, expands, until you see it clearly, a disc of pure light, a thousand times smaller than the dark sun before you, but it holds nevertheless.

You don't need to look to see what's behind you. Seven billion tiny sparks.

All that protects them is that little disc. Looking at it from here, it almost looks like...

A shield.

My shield.

But it cannot hold forever, and you cannot let it break.

It will never break, so long as we hold it.

You're going to take it, and hold the line. You don't have a choice, because otherwise, you'll die. You're first in its path, after all.

You're going to take it, and hold the line. You don't have a choice, because I took it away from you. I'm sorry.

But you'll have to forgive me. For all I saw, I didn't realise it would be like this.

You needn't forgive me. I knew what I consigned you to when I took your hand.

I need to know.

I want to know.

Why do you take the shield?


[ ] Duty. You became an Enforcer to protect the innocent from the magi that preyed upon them. Whether it's someone taking them for their experiments, or someone trying to destroy the world, it's only a matter of scale. At the end of the day, you made your choice because you wanted to protect.

[ ] Shame. You failed, utterly. You ran when you could have helped, and when you so lazily returned, you did nothing but get caught off guard so you could limp your way into danger and die pretending you did anything. Now, you have a chance to atone. To make it right.

[ ] Fear. You'll die if you don't take the shield, you can already see the cracks. You're the first one in the path of what's to come, after all. Without its power, you'll be burnt to nothingness before anyone else. You have to take the shield because you aren't ready to die.

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Q/N: So yeah, consider this the last update before next Friday evening, almost certainly. Three exams this week, so I can't really go ham on this as much as I like to. I'm not entirely satisfied with this but I'd rather you have something to get you hooked into things than me fretting my way through the day trying to study while worrying that I've left you hanging for more than a week, and hey, hopefully it's still at least decent!

As always, feedback is appreciated. Thanks for keeping up with this!
 
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Chapter Eight: Fuyuki City
Why do you take the shield?

Words spring to your lips immediately. Shame, you think, self-hatred and arrogance bubbling up in equal measure within you. "If only I hadn't ran away, I could have done something." There were over fifty experienced and powerful magi in that room, but you would make the difference, and because you chose not to, you must make it right.

But that isn't all of it. Your arrogance is not all there is to you. It is not why you take up the shield.

Fear, then, is your answer. You don't want to die. You're not embarrassed by it, why would you be? At your core, it's always been there, always held you back from pushing yourself that little bit too much, from truly seeking out the kind of release you long for at your lowest moments. You don't want to die, and because of that, you will do anything to avoid it, even if that means accepting such power. You'll use it to protect yourself, and the others will be incidental.

But that isn't all of it. Your fear is not all there is to you. It is not why you take up the shield.

Why, then, do you do it?

You hear something behind you, a child's shivering breath, the dying embers of tears that went unheard, the birth of cruel understanding. Alone and unloved and
used, because that is what magi do. Because that is what the world does. Because that is just the way things are.

No more. Never again. Not a single person would suffer like that again.

Weren't those the words you whispered to yourself when you made your choice?

Aren't those the words that keep you going, even when you wish you could simply stop?

Never again.

Your mouth moves, and you move with it. The shield takes shape as you draw closer to the dark sun pressing down, and you can see it clearly. Dark steel, tinted black and purple, a circle large enough to cover you from thigh to neck, and from each cardinal direction, the prongs of a cross burst free. A strap for your arm set in the center, a ring around the edge of the circle to hold onto as well. It's like no shield you've ever seen before, and even with the front outside your vision, you know that it's beautiful beyond compare.

You have a good eye, don't you? It is a beautiful shield, and more besides that.


It is a beautiful shield, but it means far more to me than simply that.

Let me hear your answer again. I want to record it. I want to remember it. I want to close my eyes and hear your voice when I think of humanity.

Let me hear your answer again. It was beautiful. You needn't have been afraid of fear, nor ashamed of shame...but you are more than that. I chose well, and I'm thankful for that.

Your mouth moves again, and this time the shield is close enough to touch. The fire above feels like it will scorch you to your very soul, but...you know what stands behind you, know that you are all that stands between them. You're ashamed of yourself, and you want to make reparations. You're afraid, and you don't want this to be how you die.

But you chose to be a protector, didn't you? This is just upping the scale a little.

We are alike, in that regard. We protect. Always.

Now, do what you were meant to do.

Now, do what you were chosen to do.

You reach outwards with trembling fingers, slipping your arm through the strap and bracing yourself. The fell star will descend upon you soon, and you know you have to carry the weight. But that's what you've always signed up for, and you won't turn your back now.

You look up as the flames draw closer, and you scream defiance when they collide.

Good luck.


----------
You wake with a heaving, sucking breath choked with ash, and immediately you roll over and start to cough. Flecks of black mucus come up and splatter against the ground, and with a shake of your head that makes your stomach turn like you've been sick all night, you sit back, trying to gather your thoughts. You know you blacked out after you pushed yourself too far, and...you know someone was with you. You cast your gaze out and take another breath of foul air, but the words die on your lungs as you see your surroundings.

A moment ago, you were in the center of Chaldea as it burned. Now, you're still surrounded by flames and smoke and ash, but you're in the middle of a city.

A closer look tells you that it's not a city anymore though, not really. Once tall skyscrapers have crumbled into ruins, abandoned cars litter the roads in burnt-out husks, and the air is a scorched, angry red. When you breathe, you smell smoke, and flecks of ash settle on your tongue and inside your throat no matter how much you cough to get them out. This is the corpse of a city, quietly burning in the final breaths of its funeral pyre.

You push yourself up onto your knees, moving gingerly out of habit before you realise...you're not in pain. You were dying minutes ago, from internal bleeding, from smoke inhalation, maybe even poison in the Rayshifting chamber for all you know. But now you're fine. That's...not how things are supposed to work. If you teleported somewhere, it's not like whatever mechanism would restore your body to full health, would it? You take a tentative step upwards, and when you don't collapse, you stand up straight. Something tickles at the back of your mind, a memory halfway to being forgotten, but...

When you glance downwards, you freeze for a moment. You'd been wearing what you usually wore, simple trousers, white shirt, chains, black coat. The chains are there, thankfully, but everything else is different. Your coat has vanished, and instead of a shirt you're wearing a leather jerkin, wrapped in chains in some facsimile of mail. Your arms are bare but for the chains and the communicator on your right wrist, and instead of the dark pants you prefer, you're wearing a pair of linen trousers tucked into hard hide boots. None of this is anything you'd even begin to consider wearing normally, especially with your own clothes enchanted, but you're wearing it nevertheless.

Hah. Maybe you're just in hell. Looking around, it's not like the scenery doesn't fit.

...take up the shield...

Memory dances on the razor's edge between recollection and oblivion, and you strain to recall where you heard that voice before. What did it mean, take up the-

"W-Whoa!"

You shout in surprise as blue light sparks on your left arm, and all of a sudden it's being weighed down. A blue-and-black shield in the shape of a cross with a wide circle surrounding the nexus of the points. It's enormous, bigger than you are tall, and you haven't Reinforced yourself yet. You wince, preparing for the inevitable jerk of your arm that'll dislocated it at best, and...it never comes. Your arm holds steady.

What?

A tool that appears when you think about it, and strength that you never before had to hold it. Your body is, as far as you can tell, in perfect shape as opposed to dying slowly. And that dream, that half-remembered voice flitting about in your head...

Your thoughts are cut off by the sudden chittering, clacking sound coming from the left, and when you whirl to defend yourself, the shield throws you off. More weight than you're used to, and you stumble a little, your gaze sharpening as your instincts kick in and you start to flood your body with mana. Walking skeletons, about a dozen, nothing you've not dealt with before, but these ones are different, a little darker, not quite human, no full skull just a jaw full of needle-sharp fangs and they're moving fast-

Your analysis runs headfirst into a block as your more rational mind takes front and center, and time all but slows to a crawl as you take stock of how to avoid being killed. They're armed with weapons of bone too, but nothing beyond crude swords and axes and spears. Faster than most animated skeletons you've seen, but to you they're slow. The stupid shield is blocking the chains on your left side and they're too close for you to untangle yourself, but, well, you are still holding a giant mass of steel.

If nothing else, this'll definitely help burn off some of the stress you're feeling.

The first of the too-sharp skeletons jumps at you, holding its sword aloft with the point down to impale you from above, but you're ready. You swing your arm, seafoam-green light shimmering on the skin as you Reinforce yourself, aiming to catch the torso on the longest prong of the shield's cross, maybe knock it into the next closest skeleton, this one holding a spear. Your plan is ruined with you scythe straight through the skeleton, striking with enough force that the bones you didn't cut straight through end up being splintered into little shards, flying off to the side. There's no time to be surprised by your strength, unnatural even by your standards, because the spearman is upon you next.

Fighting with a shield is awkward, but you're moving better than you thought you'd be. Catching the tip of the bone-spear on the front of your shield is easy enough, and as soon as you do you shove forward and up with enough force to send it swinging upwards, leaving the skeleton defenseless. You dart out with your other hand, the blade of your chain clenched in your fist, before slicing the thing in half from the top of its skull to the bottom of the spine. It's dissolving even as you move forward, the other ten a little more wary, but there's only so much they can do with tactics. At their core, they're weak constructs, and you'd only really be threatened by them if you were caught half asleep. With your newfound power and your own experience? It's just unfair.

Your worries melt away a little as you surrender to the pace of the fight, charging into the throng with your targets carefully picked. Swords and axes were for close range, but the three left with spears have more reach. Get overwhelmed by the closer ones and then find yourself spitted like a pig, they don't have to worry about hitting anything vital on an ally if they're all skeletons. There's no formation to it, just a horde of constructs, and that only really makes your job easier. Charge forward with your shield raised and smash one of the swordsmen back into the others, turn on the ball of your foot and lash out with your chain, the metal obeying your mental commands and winding its way around the haft of one of the spears. Yank, pull, sidestep and smash the skeleton with your shield, turn and duck under a swing from one of the others who dodged the swordsman you pushed, sweep the legs out and slam them into the ground with your shield.

It's easy, really. You're not even relying on the dance of your chains like you'd normally have to for a group this big, everything just seems slower, more sluggish, easier to slip around. What you can't dodge, your shield blocks, and even if it's designed for defense it turns out that a giant slab of metal is pretty good for smashing things if you can swing it hard enough. They try to surround you and it's so simple that it's almost insulting, and a quick pirouette and two-handed swipe is enough to turn the skeleton almost into dust from how hard you hit it. Someone else might be disappointed, but an easy fight where you don't end up hurt is pretty much exactly what you needed to work off some stress. It's only when the last of the skeletons is fading away into nothing that your senses start to scream at you, and you just barely manage to move your head out of the way as something goes whizzing past it from behind.

You whip your gaze behind you, bringing your shield up to block any more projectiles, before your blood runs cold. Standing before, about fifty meters down the road, is another skeleton. This one is human, the bones rounded and normal instead of twisted and sharp, and it's got a full skull beneath its steel helmet rather than just a jaw of teeth. Most of it is covered by khaki combat fatigues, and in its pale white fingers it holds an older looking rifle to its shoulder, already aiming for a second shot.

You turn and start to sprint.

Even with your enhanced speed and your Reinforcement, even if that was a relatively mundane weapon, even if the way you zig and zag until you turn and launch yourself up into one of the ruined buildings to hide means that it's almost impossible to hit you, you don't let out a breath until a minute passes and you're sure you're safe. You take another minute to try and keep yourself calm, your shield dissipating into blue sparks as you relax, and you're almost ready to continue when your communicator starts beeping loudly enough to echo through the corpse of the building you're in.

Fighting off a minor heart attack, you frantically scramble to answer it, but it picks up itself after less than a second. You remember the last time that happened with a small sense of dread, but you barely have time even for that before a familiar voice fills the room, crisp and clear for a moment before you slam your hand over the communicator to muffle it.

"Dempsey! Status report, now! What on earth is happening?! What the hell kind of readings am I getting from you?"

"Quiet!" you hiss, bringing your wrist closer to your mouth and glancing around for any skeletons in the dark. "I'm alive but there are constructs around, potentially a Servant, keep your voice down!" You speak under your breath, hopeful that you can get through to her, a hope that's vindicated when she immediately drops her voice to your level, though you can't imagine she's happy to be spoken to like that.

"Shit, shit shit shit. You're in the Singularity, we'd expected resistance but if you're already fighting a Servant...Dempsey, keep yourself alive. I don't know what's happening but we're getting bizarre readings from you, stronger than we observed when you were in the simulator. I don't care how you're doing it but you're clearly stronger now, and we were able to pick up your signal through all the distortion. Roman and Lev vanished with you, and so did another candidate. It's...it's bad, but we're putting them all into cryo. Our systems are down, no one seems to have any privileges for summoning anymore, and without Lev we can't fix it." She's speaking quickly and clearly, and you have to grudgingly admit that for all her flaws, she's at least keeping a cool head back in Chaldea.

"The Rayshift I initiated was only meant to catch whatever valid Masters were still there, to get them somewhere safer than Chaldea for the moment. I don't know how Lev and Roman got caught up in it, but find them, find the other Master too. SHEBA's scans suggested no other humans in the Singularity, so if you see anyone alive that isn't them, they're probably Servants. You need to-"

"What the hell is going on?!" You cut her off and keep going as she sucks in a shocked breath, no doubt wondering why someone like you had the gall to interrupt. "What the hell is a Rayshift? Where on earth am I? I don't know anything, I've got a huge shield and clothes I've never seen before, I'm stronger and faster and tougher and- just tell me what on earth is happening!" A little hysterical, but you think you've earned it. You've got half-remembered dreams with voices you can't remember saying words that slip away when you try think of them, you've somehow gotten arms and armor replacing your usual clothes, and you're quite possibly in the strike zone for some kind of shelling if you misjudged how far away you got from that last skeleton.

There's silence on the line as Animusphere draws in a breath, and when she speaks it's in a strained tone of voice, the kind people make when they want nothing more to strangle the person they're talking to, but know that it'd be a terrible idea. "You weren't here for the briefing. It's too much to explain now, not while you're in danger, so I'm ordering you to find our missing staff and establish a beachhead on a leyline somewhere. You're in Fuyuki City of 2004, you're there because of the Rayshift, and that's all you need to know right now. Find the civic center, it's the safest of the leyline nexuses, then we'll talk more. The signal here is weak and it's only because you were so easy to observe that we could contact you. Just...just do it, Dempsey. It's a disaster here too. Losing those two would hurt."

The communicator falls silent, and if you were any less stunned you'd be fighting the urge to curse. Time travel. Rayshifting was fucking time travel. You've been sent backwards in time to this, this Singularity, and you need to find the only three humans that are still alive in this hellhole. It's worse than the true Grail War ever was, you know that, but even so...

Breathe.

You take a deep breath and hold it, before letting it out slowly. It's manageable. Be stealthy, be quiet, be shadow while you creep through the city. Your alignment with earth will help you track the flow of the leylines, and once you get close enough you'll recognise the civic center from your study of the War. If you find anyone on the way, even better.

One step at a time.

You stand from where you slumped against the wall before looking out over the flaming city two floors below, nose wrinkling at the scent of smoke as you consider your options. You can see the sea far to your left, an ocean of ink-black liquid, which means that the civic center is to your right, somewhere. All you need to do is figure out which path to take.

[ ] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

[ ] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

----------​
Q/N: So yeah, this exists. I'm not fully happy with it and ended up scrapping the whole thing to rewrite it more than once, but I'll go insane if I don't get something out before this weekend is over, so here you all go! Updates will get a little more regular after Tuesday once I finish my last final, so thanks for sticking around. I appreciate it!

I'll also be working on the info page by the next chapter, so expect more to it once Chapter 9 drops.

Thanks again!
 
Chapter Nine: Occupied Airspace
There's at least two definite non-combatants in Fuyuki, maybe three if the other Master candidate can't handle themselves, and there's definitely Servants around. You can take the slow and steady route, creep around, stick to the shadows, and you'll be fine. Honestly, in a burnt-out city like this, you could probably hide for days and never get noticed. But the others, Roman and Lev and Thirteen? They'll die in a few hours if they're lucky, less if they're not. You have to get to that community center and pick up communications with Chaldea, hope that they can use whatever contraption they have for scanning the Singularity to point you in the right direction. That means moving fast, and you really only have one option.

Besides, you're half-sure that the area you're in is about to be bombed to hell and back, so getting out of it quickly can only be a good thing.

There's more to consider, your strange new power chief among them, but that can wait. You aren't safe, and panicking over the potential explanations when you're in danger is about the worst possible thing you could do, regardless of the impossibility of what you're thinking. It fits, but it doesn't make sense at all, and you're not in any position to puzzle it out. Link to Chaldea, figure it all out, rescue anyone you find along the way. Simple mission parameters, probably not even the most dangerous thing you've ever done. As you breathe, you feel a sense of calm settle on your mind, jumbled thoughts and half-formed worries simply fading away under the clarity you've earned over your years.

Just another mission.

Just another Grail War.

You move.

You're using your Reinforcement, your arms and hands free for you to use your chains, but gods, you barely feel like you need to. A simple jump takes you up to the rooftop of the building across the way from you, and from there it's easy enough to start moving towards the civic center. Jumps that you'd have to supplement with a lot of energy barely take any effort at all, and you realise with a little bit of almost-melancholy that you don't even need your chains to help you.

There's nothing happening as you leap forward, just long enough that you start to wonder if maybe nothing would happen. You only ran into one skeleton soldier, after all, and you didn't notice anything in the skies beforehand. It's possible that you could get through this without any kind of issue, reach the civic center in a couple minutes. It's also entirely possible that Animusphere will get on her knees and beg forgiveness for being so rude to you earlier, but you're not holding your breath for either. You're in the middle of a city at the end of the most destructive Grail War you've ever seen, and you're leaping across crumbling rooftops without a hint of secrecy. Your luck isn't nearly good enough to get you out of this without issue.

With those thoughts in your mind, you're ready for when your instincts start to scream at you, though even without them you'd have heard the whistle and crackle of soaring flames, the screaming of some horrible monster. You've already jumped and you can't really jump off of thin air, but fortunately, you've got some help. With a thought, your shield appears in your arms and you twist just in time for the fireball to slam into it, golden flames spilling out around your sides and heating the metal around your arms just enough to be uncomfortable. What's distinctly more than uncomfortable is the fact that you've been pushed off course, and you only just managed to slam one of the prongs of your shield into the crumbling concrete, arresting your movement and distinctly not tearing your arm off from the force. More evidence for that impossible conclusion, but you can't think about that now, not yet. The screaming still hasn't stopped, and you can see golden streams of fire above you.

You take a deep breath and let your shield disappear, your chains whipping out as you launch them upwards, blades digging into the top of the building. With your newfound strength it's easy to leap upwards, letting your chains retract and pull you up, before whipping back around your arms, ready to be used again. Face to face with a horrible fire-breathing monster is, unfortunately, not that uncommon for you, so you're a little calmer than you might be.

At least, until you see a woman's face.

Lavender hair streaked with silver falls in messy waves down to the small of her back, the wind whipped up by the heat of the flames below making it blow around in the air. Her eyes are covered by something that looks like a mask growing from either side of her face, golden scales bursting from her temples and growing until they blocked her vision completely. Her mouth is open in a wordless snarl, teeth filed to sharp points illuminated by the glow of flames down her throat, trails of something dark spilling down to her chin and the neck below. In one hand she holds dark, pulsing reins that seem to vanish into the construct below, and in the other she brandishes a broken staff, the delicate circular tip shattered in half into ugly, irregular spikes. A form-fitting dress of deep-purple covers her from her chest down, and you have to think she's got a kind of unearthly beauty despite the strange features.

Your eyes reach her waist, and you swallow sharply.

She's a woman from the waist up, but below, there's nothing but burnished golden steel and matching scales. Her body simply melts into the metal, skin spreading from the point of contact and reaching around the construct like wires or nerves. It grows into sinew and muscle around the wheels, tendons and bone where there would be bolts and connecting struts. It's a mangled mockery of a once-great chariot, the shine it gives off corrupted and tainted. From the front, where there should be horses hitched, grow the bodies of two serpentine dragons, wingless and legless, simply sprouting halfway from the chariot like a parody of limbs. Their eyes are black and shot with red veins, their mouths open in snarls that match their mistress's, and after one moment of horror, realization hits you.

No one Enforcer handled every Grail War, and not all Enforcers survived their deployments. But you still gathered information, sent it back as you could, gave every advantage to every other Enforcer that you could. You recognise what this thing should be, from a couple of pictures and reports sent back from a small War in Belgium, four Servants, barely enough to qualify as one. Still killed sixty-four people, including all of the Masters, by the time it was over. You recognise the lavender hair, the purple dress, even recognise the chariot despite the fleshy growths that almost obscure it.

You're being hunted by the Witch of Colchis.

Class: Rider

True Name: Medea

Stats:-
STR: C -> B
END:
C -> B
AGI:
B - > A
MAG:
A++
LUK:
E

Skills:-

Riding: C++
Class Skill of the Rider class, denoting the capacity to control all kinds of mounts and vehicles, whether living or artificial. At this rank, Medea is capable of controlling most animals and vehicles with above-average skill, though she cannot ride any form of Phantasmal Species. The sole exception is her Noble Phantasm, which ordinarily she could control with an effective A++ rank in Riding. Due to her corruption, Medea instead controls her Noble Phantasm as an extension of her own body, increasing her skill and prowess with it.

Magic Resistance: C -> B
Class Skill of the Rider class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. Medea possesses an unusually high rank in this skill for her class despite her corruption, owing both to her expertise and the nature of her change. Cancels all spells below three verses, including high-thaumaturgy and greater rituals.

High-Speed Divine Words: A -> C
As a witch from the Age of the Gods, Medea would ordinarily be capable of casting spells on the level of high-thaumaturgy with but a single word, even outside of the Caster class. Due to her corruption, this skill has been ranked down, and she requires a full sentence to cast spells of that level.

Divinity: C -> D
A mark of divine lineage, conferring various bonuses and drawbacks depending on the deity one is related to. Ordinarily, Medea would possess a middling rank in this skill as Helios' granddaughter, but her corruption into a monster has degraded this skill's rank. Currently, she experiences only a mild lessening of her mana cost while basking in the sun's rays, though her connection to Fuyuki's mud makes such a benefit irrelevant.

Noble Phantasm:-

Heiress Helios: Escape on the Wings of Light: Anti-Army (A)
The chariot upon which Medea fled from Corinth upon committing her murders, sent by her grandfather Helios, the god of the sun. Pulled by two golden dragons, this would originally have functioned as both offense and defence for Medea, allowing her a safe haven among the skies while raining down dragonbreath and magecraft upon those below her. However, due to the corruption staining Fuyuki, Medea and her Noble Phantasm have both been warped.

Rather than a chariot she can dismiss and summon at will, Medea has fused with her chariot and dragons, becoming a chimeric beast of scale, steel, and Servant. Doing so has ranked up her physical stats and her Magic Resistance skill and increased her control over her mount, at the cost of her sanity being diluted among three minds and further corroded by her corruption. By opening her draconic mouths, Medea can spill dragon's teeth into the world below, instantly raising an army of dragon-tooth warriors to destroy all those they come across, in addition to possessing the considerable might of a dragon's breath still. So long as one head remains, whether human or draconic, Rider will not die, and can retreat to restore herself as she gorges upon the infinite mana provided by the mud of Fuyuki.
Medea screams in a language you can't understand and her staff glows, and as soon as the first twisted syllable left her mouth you're moving. Getting close is about the only way you can think to finish this quickly, and you really don't want to test out what kind of magecraft she has access to in this twisted state. Arrows of light rain down behind you, but you're so goddamn fast compared to how you were before! Servants should easily outclass you even with your preparations, but now you're not just keeping up, you're actually managing to dodge the burning light she sends your way. She might be able to fly around, but if you get onto the chariot itself, you're pretty sure you can take care of her in melee before anything bad can happen.

It seems crazy, but you've committed, so you're going to commit. A blast of flames scorches your hair as your duck under it, before a second one just about clips the bottom of your left boot as you throw yourself to the side. By the time you're done dodging both, Medea has cast another spell, and this time you've got to summon your shield to defend yourself. Thorns of pure white slam into your shield one after another, but you stand your ground, your boots digging into the concrete around you as you crouch behind the seemingly impenetrable steel. It vanishes as soon as the assault stops, and your chains unwind and launch upwards, the blades digging into the softer underbelly of one of the dragons as you dash beneath the chariot.

There's a pull upwards and you know what she's trying to do, lift you up before you can get purchase and make you a sitting duck, but you're faster than she is. With a wrench of your arms and another powerful kick, you launch yourself upwards towards her, your chains retracting and yanking you up with them. You're swinging at an angle, and the dragons can't twist their heads fast enough as you disappear behind them. Everything's going about perfect, and you really don't have time to worry about what'll happen if it's not. Your arc takes you to the back of the chariot, behind Medea, and you're moving the moment you touch down, grasping hands reaching for her head, one in front, one behind, a flash of scarlet on your left. With your newfound strength, you let out a grunt as you twist.

Her head turns.

There's no crunch.

You need to move now but when you try to push away, you feel a piercing pain in your leg, crying out half from the sheer shock. A glance down reveals a dull, golden claw sprouting from the fleshy surface of the chariot, all three talons sunk deep into your leg. Medea's mouth twists into a hellish grin, and this close you can smell the acrid, burning stench of the mud that spills from her lips like a bloodhound slavering over its kill. The dragons are rumbling below you, but they don't seem to be moving, letting their master go for the kill as she lets go of the reins. Her hand draws close, and you see the dirty claws that burst from her gloves, reaching up, nearly at your throat-

There's a high-pitched whistle through the air, and your eyes widen.

Something slams into the chariot and explodes the next second, and your vision goes white for a moment. You barely have a chance to catch the breath that was knocked out of you when your back hits something hard, and miraculously, whatever you hit gives instead of your body splattering on impact. You crash through another hard something before coming to a stop, and as you blink away the ash and crumbling rubble, you can see the ruins of the building you were knocked through starting to collapse.

You panic as you hear more whistling, more explosions, more screaming from the twisted mockery of Medea that had you dead to rights a few moments ago, and it's all you can do to summon your shield and brace yourself for the crumbling concrete that batters down on you. A few smaller bits and pieces fall and strike you, but you've wedged the shield between the ground and the still-standing wall behind you, enough that you can huddle beneath it a little. When you give it an experimental nudge, the rubble above starts to crumble and fall, and you freeze instantly.

Class: Assassin

True Name: The Unknown Soldier

Stats:-
STR: E
END:
E
AGI:
E
MAG:
E -> A++
LUK:
E

Skills:-
Presence Concealment: C- -> X
Class Skill of the Assassin class, allowing the wielder in question to hide their presence as a Servant. The Unknown Soldier's manifestations would ordinarily b capable of appearing as simple humans to the naked eye, though continuous observation would reveal the façade of life they cling to. In the blasted hellscape of Fuyuki and under the corruption of the mud, they have no use for this skill, revealing themselves for the walking dead that they are at all times.

Military Tactics: C
Tactical knowledge meant not for duels, but for battles with many soldiers on each side. The effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms utilized by the Unknown Soldier is raised, while the effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms used against them are reduced. As their consciousness is distributed across all their manifestations, the Soldier suffers no degradation to this skill despite their corruption.

Noble Phantasm:-

The Unknown Soldier: Dulce Et Decorum Est (Anti-Army – EX)
There is no difference between the Unknown Soldier's manifestation as a Servant and the crystallization of their "legend", such as it is. They are in essence a living Noble Phantasm, constantly under its effects and incapable of suppressing or deactivating it, as to do so would kill them. The Soldier is capable of manifesting countless bodies at minimal mana cost, their core distributed across their manifestations. Each one is as weak as a human, and each possesses weaponry appropriate for a soldier that died in one of the many wars that have plagued human history.

By expanding their supply of mana and entrenching themselves within the world they are summoned to, the Unknown Soldier is capable of increasing the amount of bodies they can maintain, as well as advancing the technology they are capable of bringing to bear. While they may start with muskets and bayonets, given time, they can outfit themselves with weapons up to the level of those deployed in the Second World War, theoretically up to and including the power of an atomic bomb.

Okay.

Okay, you can make it out of this.

Breathe.

You know what that whistling was, what the explosions are, you remember them. Your worst fears were confirmed, but you're not dead yet. The armor and chains managed to catch most of the shrapnel, even if you are bleeding from a few small wounds around your torso, but you're alive, for now. The Unknown Soldier's attention is on Medea for now, and maybe they'll even think you're dead. You can hide here and-

And let the others die?

Breathe.

You're trapped. You're trapped and if you move too much a whole four stories worth of concrete is going to come tumbling down onto you. You don't want to risk being killed by it, but even if it wouldn't kill you, you're struck with thoughts of being trapped under there, not hurt enough to die and not strong enough to free yourself, just wasting away until you're found or you die of hunger or thirst. Maybe you could cast a spell to help, but the moment you do you know Medea will know where you are, and if you screw it up you'll just be stuck waiting for her

You shiver.

Breathe.

There's a way out. There's always a way out.

The battle outside is raging on, mortar fire and screaming spells exchanged between the two Servants, and you wish, hah, you wish you had one of your own. If you could summon one, they could help. If you could summon one, they could protect you. If you could summon one, they could save you. But the summoning system was shot, wasn't it? The only hope you can think of, dead and gone before you could even try it out.

There's a flash of scarlet on your left hand.

Hell, worth a shot.

You can't move it to check, not with your arm propping up your shield, so you'll just have to hope. You close your eyes, reaching out with your right hand, and begin to chant.

It's not a spell you'd ever expected to use yourself, but you can't go through so much study of Grail Wars and not memorize it. The summoning chant created by the three families that designed the original War. It's words and energy but it means nothing without a Grail to connect to, or something like that, and even if you have Chaldea, even if you were once registered as a Master, with the system shut down, there's no chance it'll work. Why are you even bothering? You can't see a way out of this, it'd be easier to admit it, to just try something less pointless.

You almost stumble in your chanting before you feel a hum from your shield.

It's not a physical thing, it's still stuck in its position, wedged as a barrier between you and the rubble. It's not even a sound, as far as you can tell, because the din of the fight outside is still dominating your hearing. It's a rumbling, a thrumming that seems to come from the shield and inside you and all around you at once, an invisible, intangible vibration that some integral part of you can just know.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, small bits of rubble on the ground beside you starting to shake as the spell begins to complete itself, a searing pain on the back of your left hand that makes you shiver and drops another few pieces of concrete on you.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, stronger this time, and your soul burns at the contact, roaring, raging, yearning to take the final step.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, and you can't help but gasp, taking a breath filled with the dust of crushed concrete as you feel something, an impression of something impossibly vast, but familiar. Your soul reaching out, and something answering.

[ ] You feel hope and warmth and spirit, a peaceful summer's day, undercut by a simple, honest yearning. You want to excel, to surpass, to reach the pinnacle that you know you can, if you only could stretch out a little further, a little higher. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them squeeze tight, as though reassuring you that it will be okay.

[ ] You feel longing and worry and eagerness, the autumn sky in the moments before the storm. You want to belong, to be loved, to find your place in the world and never have to leave it, that place you know exists if you search just a little more, just a little deeper. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them cling to you, as though they're afraid you'll vanish if they let go.

[ ] You feel spite and bitterness and determination, the stinging winter that brings blankets of snow and icy death in equal measure. You want to prove them wrong, to tear them down, to rip apart the roots of those that scorned you like you know you could, if you had been a little stronger, a little smarter. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them grip your arm, like they mean to simply pull it off your body.

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A/N: Took a while, but I finally got it out. Hopefully you all enjoy it! I'll be keeping this vote up a little longer than usual, given that Christmas is in three days, but I should have plenty of time to write around the 27th onwards, so you shouldn't be kept waiting too long!
 
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