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.
----------
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.
----------
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. 
