Cetacea
a complete Fate / Grand Order oneshot
by fallacies
At the final confrontation with the King of Magicians, certain truths come to light. Fortunately, Gudako is familiar with the oldest Mystery in the world.
This was supposed to have been done by April Fools. Because it wasn't, I now have some pictures to go with it. Note that the genre is technically mystery/humor, and that the story doesn't wholly consist of Gudako talking Solomon to death.
You're stranded in a research laboratory deep within the Alps, six thousand meters above sea level. After a series of explosions rock the building and kill or severely injure the majority of your coworkers, the man who claims responsibility declares that a great cataclysm has befallen the world beyond. Communications outside the facility are cut not because of interference or sabotage, but because the rest of humanity is now dead.
You think he might be lying. Nothing so ridiculous could actually be true, right?
Wrong.
Your immediate superior -- the senior-most member of the surviving staff -- confirms the murderer's claims as soon as things begin to calm down. There is no escape; there is no out; there is no future.
Your sole hope, he tells you, is the path that you forge with your own two hands -- because there can exist only a single truth. The foundations of the Common Sense of Man are under threat. Unless you secure their continued existence, the world that you've known your entire life will be invalidated.
Reclaim the past. Rebuild the future. Deliver the world from the fate of annihilation. As one amongst the last representatives of humanity, it's your duty and obligation to fight the Shadows.
This is the Rite of Succession: The Grand Order.
Carried away by the heat of rhetoric, your multitude of questions are momentarily forgotten. By the time you recall them again, it dawns on you that you've perhaps committed a grave error ...
Q2. Why isn't Chaldea 201X considered a Singularity as well?
Contrary to expectations, the first and final singularity isn't at the dawn of the Consensus of Man. It's far closer to home -- in the halls of Chaldea itself.
Accessed with full administrator privileges, courtesy of Da Vinci-chan's hacking, the three servers of TRISMEGISTUS officially designate the pseudo-holographic projection of CHALDEAS in the Command Center as the concealed 'Singularity i' -- the number before zero. Even though the hardware within the chamber should've been destroyed in the explosion that killed poor Olga-Marie, facility-wide metering of energy demands indicates that systems somehow remain operational.
Proceeding with caution, you advance to the heart of the laboratory with Mashu, Da Vinci, and three of your best fighters in tow. Your final companion is a cloaked Servant, recently summoned, but fully ascended.
What awaits at destination is the termination of the Great War.
Q3. Isn't it kind of unfair that you only get to take six Servants into battle?
Those of your companions who survived the first wave of demons now gather about you protectively, bleeding as they warily regard the twisting appendages that grow from the chamber's damaged walls -- which wreathe nest-like about the crimson sphere overhead. The King of Magicians paces forth from amidst the creatures, smiling with a maddened gleam in his eyes.
"You've done well to discern the true form of CHALDEAS, Daughter of Eve," he says, addressing you. "In the end, however, this changes nothing. By the Original Sin, the fate of man is long foreordained. The Day of Judgment comes."
Q4. When the truth is known only to the Devil, can we trust him to tell it straight?
"Sempai ... ?" Mashu asks, looking to you with obvious worry.
"You know," you say, "for a long time, I wondered why Professor Lev would even bother to sabotage Chaldea. If the destruction of humanity is inevitable, we'd all just fall over and die without his intervention, right? It's a completely unnecessary effort."
Solomon's eyes narrow.
"Those overtaken by the logic of demons are wont to prioritize their base-most desires," he says. "Efficiency and necessity are constructs that exist only within the Common Sense of Man."
"'Lev's actions make no sense because the devil made him do it,'" you paraphrase. "But that's the thing, see? You and your people say all of this stuff, and we're just supposed to take it -- as if your honesty's utterly beyond question. How do we know if any of it's true? How do we know you aren't just lying?"
Solomon chuckles.
"I have no reason to lie," he says, spreading his arms. "You survive yet solely because I choose to humor you. But if indeed you wish to entertain this fantasy of yours, out of mercy and generosity, I should deign to hear you out. Come. Tell me why Lev Reinol Flauros would sabotage Chaldea."
"It's very simple," you say. "He wanted to paint a picture."
Q5. Who was it that told us about the outside world being destroyed, again?
"Why didn't he just kill everyone?" you ask rhetorically. "He was one of the chief architects of the organization, and Olga-Marie trusted him entirely. If he wanted to collapse the laboratory and kill everyone inside, nobody would've been able to stop him."
"You mean ... Professor Lev wanted us to survive?" asked Mashu. "He just wanted us to suffer, or something?"
"Maybe he was possessed," you answer, playing devil's advocate to your own argument. "Maybe every act he committed was just arbitrarily malicious. If the world is ending, and humanity's doomed no matter what, that's a perfectly reasonable answer. On the other hand, that would make talking about his motives pretty much meaningless -- so let's categorically disregard this as a possibility. Let's assume for a moment that he was acting rationally, for a specific reason. Of the members of the Foundation with compatibility to the leyshift system, why would he eliminate everyone except us?"
"Because we aren't very highly ranked within the Foundation?" asks Mashu.
"No," you answer. "Because we're gullible. Because, as novices in the practice of magecraft, we served his needs as an audience."
"Hoh?" says Solomon, smiling in amusement. "And why would Lev Reinol Flauros require an audience?"
"Da Vinci-chan," you say, looking to the older girl. "Are you capable of confirming the status of the environment outside Chaldea via magecraft?"
Da Vinci frowns.
"I've told you before, Gudako-chan," she says. "Even if I was summoned as a Caster, I'm an artist and scientist foremost. I do have a comprehensive understanding of modern thaumaturgical theory, but actual magecraft aside from my capabilities as a Servant isn't something that I can perform."
"And what about you, Mashu?" you ask.
Embarrassed, Mashu looks away.
"Um ... I've been practicing ... but no, I can't."
"So," you say. "Why precisely are we under the impression that the world outside of Chaldea is gone?" You make a gesture with your hands. "That's right. Because Professor Lev said so, and because we can't independently determine otherwise."
"But didn't Doctor Roman confirm what he said?" asks Mashu.
"No," you answer. "If you think back, he told us that communications were down, and that nobody who ventured outside came back. Everything else he stated was explicitly conjecture. 'It's possible that the entire world is already dead,' and 'what Lev said might not be a lie,' and so forth."
Between her bangs, Mashu's visible eye widens.
"That means-"
"That means," you continue, "that aside from Professor Lev's testimony, we have absolutely zero evidence that the world outside is in fact destroyed. I can't confirm otherwise. Neither can you or Da Vinci-chan." You pause. "But you know, it's curious. There is one person at Chaldea that should've been able to tell us more about the situation. In fact, he even studied with Professor Lev during his apprenticeship at the Clock Tower."
"Doctor Useless, you mean?" asks Da Vinci, incredulous.
You nod.
"Don't you find it odd?" you ask. "Doctor Roman's a graduate of the Clock Tower, but his initial response to Professor Lev's statements amounted to telling us a handful of facts we could've confirmed entirely without his expertise in magecraft. He also happens to be the only remaining staff member with administrative access to SHIVA -- a system capable of observing the exterior of the facility. However, we've only ever seen him using his privileges to investigate other time periods."
Glancing across the chamber, you meet Solomon's gaze.
"I'd say it's incredibly convenient that every other staff member potentially capable of calling out Professor Lev on his bullshit happened to be right here in the Command Center when the bombs went off." Theatrically, you press a hand to your chest, pretending to be shocked. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that Doctor Roman's starting to sound a lot like an accomplice. Wouldn't you agree, King of Magicians?"
Q6. If the future isn't set in stone, how can fate exist?
For a moment, Solomon merely regards you in silence. Then, beneath the crimson light of CHALDEAS, his figure subtly shifts: White hair is stained in an orangish-blond hue -- and his clothes take on the familiar cut of a medic's uniform.
He grins; and beside you, Da Vinci sputters in disbelief.
"You know, I really did underestimate you, Gudako-chan," says Roman. "Got a bit full of myself, because it seemed like you were missing all of the clues I was dropping. This name, for example. Roman? So-Roman? Get it?"
At your lack of reaction, his gaze falls, and his expression becomes slightly self-deprecating.
"Sh'lomo silly-man. Nobody laughs at my jokes, ever ..."
Abruptly changing mood, he meets your eyes, smiling.
"Still, I gotta give it to you," he says. "That was a great reveal scene right there. Grade-A Holmes material. If I were a villain from a Hannah-Barbara cartoon, I'd be ranting something about 'meddling kids' just about now."
"D- Doctor Roman?" asks Mashu.
"Hi, Mashu-chan," says Roman, playfully waving his hand.
"It ... it isn't true, is it?" she asks. "You're really Solomon the King?"
"Sadly," he replies, "I'm afraid so. Your friendly neighborhood Doctor Roman is secretly an ORE-TUEEE uber-reincarnating legendary hero, just like the protagonists of all those webnovels you kids read online. Predictable plot twist, I know -- especially since Gudako here's joked about me being a last boss before. Still, a mentor figure revealing himself as the primary antagonist in the eleventh hour is one of the archetypal classics that nobody ever gets tired of. You see it in video games all the time!"
"But you've been helping us!" Tears gather at the corners of Mashu's eyes. "You've helped us restore each time period to its proper course!"
"He hasn't been helping us at all," you say, correcting her. "He's been setting us up for fights. In the first place, we were recruited to Chaldea because SHIVA's projections indicated that humanity would soon cease to exist. But just to recap -- who was it that created SHIVA again?"
"Professor Lev ..." Mashu trails off.
"And Professor Lev was intimately involved in the maintenance and debugging of the environmental modelling algorithms of CHALDEAS," you say. "In other words, we're only here because somebody wanted us to be. We're fighting for a cause that they laid out for us -- and every bit of information we know came from them. Even the knowledge that a Singularity i exists came out of a file we recovered from TRISMEGISTUS."
"But we've seen the past with our own eyes!" says Mashu.
"At this point, I wouldn't be too surprised if these so-called 'Singularities' we've been visiting are really all just hyper-realistic virtual simulations," you say. "We've been told that the course of history is self-correcting, but I don't see how that's even possible unless the 'correcting factor' extrapolates backwards from some kind of predefined future. And supposing that the future is definite, nothing that we do here and now matters."
Across the chamber, Doctor Roman laughs.
"Being a bit too paranoid there, Gudako-chan," he says, teasingly. "Though I know you don't have any reason to trust me, I can guarantee that every time period you've visited is one hundred percent authentic. Scout's honor!"
He raises a finger.
"But, you're right," he says. "The future can exist only as a waveform that hasn't yet collapsed to a single possibility. There's no such thing as an immutable plot to the course of human history. There's no such thing as a 'necessary' foundation to the evolution of the Shared Unconscious. Ergo, it's patently ridiculous to expect that a disrupted timeline would automatically reassert its course based on some sort of mystical template. If that were actually true, then any evidence of extratemporal meddling on my part would've been wiped out with or without your intervention."
"... but, if the 'self-corrections' that SHIVA's been showing us aren't real," says Mashu, "that means we actually haven't been helping anyone at all ..."
"We've been intervening at the turning points of the history known to us," you say. "We just haven't been performing the functions of Chaldea as advertised."
"So ... he's been using us to change history?" asks Mashu.
"Not our own, in any case," you say. "Or else we wouldn't still be standing here. Probably, just to prevent us from noticing that timelines aren't self-correcting, he's been leyshifting us into completely unrelated realities every time we investigate a 'Singularity.' His goals were never to derail any specific history. If my guess is correct, he's achieved the majority of what he set out to do simply by being in charge of deploying us to combat."
Mashu is perplexed.
"I don't understand," she says. "What does that mean?"
Q7. If Servants are static existences, why are these fights getting harder all the time?
"You've noticed, right?" Roman asks, pacing forward across the scarred metallic floor. "You've really had to fight for your victories, recently. It's getting harder and harder to pull off a win -- even though you've already upgraded all of your Priority SSR Servant containers to the limitations of FATE. Those monsters and enemy Servants, though -- it's like they just keep on getting stronger."
He pauses.
"But then you think to yourself, 'That's kind of odd.'" Tilting his head, he puts a finger on his chin. "Servants are by definition static existences. If you plot them at population by capacity to deny the Common Sense, they form a nice even bell distribution. Over time, random samples of enemy Servants really shouldn't exhibit the gradual attribute scaling you'd see in an RPG. Ignoring the impact of the container upgrades you've been obsessing over lately, enemies should only provide you with as much of a challenge now as they did back at Singularity F, during your first mission. But if that's really the case, how are you having so much trouble?"
"... you utter bastard," you say.
"Have something you'd like to share with the class, Gudako-chan?" asks Roman, pointing a finger in your direction.
"The enemy Servants haven't been getting stronger," you say. "We've been getting weaker."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Mashu objects. "The more you upgrade a Servant's container, the more representative they should be of their base Heroic Spirit. After all of this effort, there isn't any way we'd be weaker than we were at the beginning!"
"If this were a video game, you'd be right," says Da Vinci, picking up on your train of thought. "But remember, FATE is ultimately a thaumaturgical apparatus. You invoke the Mystery behind it too many times too frequently, and the output ends up becoming banal -- assimilated into the context of 'the everyday.' After countless activations of the system, any capacity we might have had as summoned Servants to defy the laws of the Common Sense slowly evaporates ..."
"In that case," says Mashu, "why aren't the enemy Servants getting weaker as well?"
"Our abilities as Servants are grounded in the local iteration of Gaia," Da Vinci explains. "Because the rendition of the Second Magic that leyshift is built on is incomplete, whenever we project ourselves into another reality, we're physically and spiritually still within our own -- accessing whatever Mysteries we'd normally use. By the same logic, enemy Servants we encounter are materialized on Mysteries native to their own worlds. Thus, they aren't downgraded at the same rate that we are."
"In short," you say, summing it up, "Solomon's goal all along was to restrict any Servants summoned in this particular world to the absolute limits of performance experienced by modern humans."
Roman laughs.
"It's just the law of inflation, you know?" he says. "The more you have of something, the less valuable it is. Would you, for example, be terribly impressed with yet another Saber of the same facial features as Arturia Pendragon?"
Your companions only glare at him stonily, and he raises a brow.
"Tough crowd tonight," he says. "But yeah, you've pretty much hit it on the nail. My dastardly plan was to neuter the defenses that the Counter Force deploys against extinction-level threats. And because Solomon the King is one of the cornerstones that sustains the Common Sense of Man, Alaya is fundamentally incapable of regarding me as a hostile. As always, I act on behalf of humanity -- to usher forth the End of Days, one World at a time."
"Humanity doesn't seek its own destruction."
These words that you utter are certain; resolute. They're a promise -- because too much has been sacrificed, and you're no longer happy to sit by as a spectator in the ongoing tragedy of mankind.
Doctor Roman, however, smirks knowingly -- and shifts again to the outward appearance of the King of Magicians.
"I am Roma," he declares. "I am Great Babylon, to which leads every road lain by the devices of Men. In my unlimited benevolence, I shall therefore enlighten you to a single immutable truth: Without a wish to serve as a heart, there can be born into the world no curse and no devil. The seventy-two Shaytan that have here gathered at my beckon come ultimately of the impulse of Man to render self-destruction -- and the Common Sense has yet to raise its sword against them."
Meeting your gaze, he splays his fingers. The tattoos that cover the back of his hand come alight with a crimson glow.
"In this hour," he solemnly intones, "in this land forsaken by Hashem-Elokim -- Alaya is not your ally."
Q8. You do realize he was crucified as a political dissident, right?
Drifting in the air before Solomon's legs, the glowing formalcraft circle that traces itself into existence isn't familiar to you.
"By the compact of Ausare, I as Companion call you forth," says Solomon. "By the Seven Faces of Man, I create you as Grand Assassin. Come!"
The veiled, bronze-skinned figure that rises from the circle is voluptuously feminine -- clad in a midnight-black garment that exposes far too much, and leaves nothing to the imagination.
"The Qedesha," Martha whispers besides you, breathless. She recognizes the Servant, apparently -- and is afraid.
"Eliminate the Master," Solomon commands; the time for explanations is over, it seems.
The demonic beings writhing along the walls don't move to attack; Grand Assassin alone charges forth unspeaking -- but vanishes from before you just as Mashu activates the Lord Camelot.
The voice that speaks behind your ear is husky -- surprisingly low and masculine, given the Servant's figure.
"These are the names of the seven to'evot cast from my flesh by the Lord, which reside as well in every man and woman descended of Hawwah," she continues. "So too in His name shall I purge them now from you. Pulsa D'Nura."
And time resumes; a tearing pain blossoms in your body as Grand Assassin rematerializes at Solomon's side. From within your torso, seven scorching blades pierce outwards, exuding a black steam that smells of curses.
Screaming, you fall to your knees, and your companions can only look on in horror.
"Know this only to be a formality, Daughter of Eve," says Solomon. "I have no pressing need to see you in pain. I do so only to educate you in the meaning of futility. Victory is beyond your reach, now."
As he turns away toward the crimson-red CHALDEAS, blood spills from your lips, and you struggle to right yourself -- but, gritting your teeth, you manage somehow to savagely smile.
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" you say.
Q9. So, when exactly is it appropriate to draw your hidden Ace?
You have a secret: You aren't really the 'Gudako' that Mashu refers to as 'sempai.' You've managed to survive because Grand Assassin performed an attack specifically intended to kill a living human.
"Let me tell you a story," you say.
In the distance, Solomon breaks his stride, and slightly turns his head.
"Once upon a time, there was a girl," you say, climbing painfully to your feet. "Her parents were magi -- but for the sin of vastly outperforming their peers in certain specialized domains, they were given a sealing designation by those within the Association who coveted their capabilities."
Upright, you haphazardly jerk one of Grand Assassin's daggers from your flesh. It comes reluctantly loose, eliciting a fresh pain in your abdomen. Blood flows, and you let the weapon clatter to the floor.
"The girl was abducted, taken to the Clock Tower," you continue. "There, she was used as a bargaining chip to pacify her parents and ensure their cooperation. However, as she herself was of no particular thaumaturgical talent -- by the workings of the bureaucracy, she was eventually relegated to the care of a man who called himself Romani Eichemann."
"Sempai?" Mashu hesitantly asks, staring bewildered as you cut your hand pulling a second blade from your chest.
"At the time, the girl was only eight or nine," you say, "but Romani Eichemann had plans for her. Utilizing procedures normally reserved for the coining of homunculi, he stole her memories and altered her body -- advancing her to physical maturity, and implanting circuits and artificial recollections where necessary. After just a year, she was introduced to Eichemann's associates at Chaldea as the Forty-Eighth Master Candidate of the Grand Order."
Realization spreads across Mashu's face.
"That means, Sempai is ..."
"But the story doesn't end there," you say, letting a third knife fall to the floor. "It doesn't end when Romani Eichemann is revealed to be the author of Chaldea's tragedy. It doesn't even end when the girl's friends and companions are slaughtered like livestock. Somehow, she alone survives. She's good at that. It's her only real skill."
You wince, pressing your teeth together as the fourth knife extracts from the flesh of your breast.
"The girl lives on to witness the arrival of the extinction-level threat prophesied by the King of Magicians," you say. "The seven heroes that once delivered the primate species from the hated Managarmr aren't there to fight -- but the best and brightest of humanity choose to make a stand. In the War to End All Wars, they manage to force the enemy into retreat, drawing a stalemate in the blood of millions. By then, however, the world is a scorched and ruined waste."
Mashu is now staring at you in confusion.
"When the girl dies," you say, grasping the edge of the fifth blade, "she's been alive for over two hundred years. Romani Eichemann stole from her the capacity to normally age -- and so, when she finally expires, it isn't because her flesh has been scarred by two centuries of injury and oxidation. It's because the Mystery sustaining her continued operation has broken down."
You pull the dagger free, leaving another cut along your palm.
"Those two hundred years weren't wasted, though," you say, gripping the sixth dagger with both your hands. "With parlor tricks and amateurish magecraft, the girl wandered the desolated earth -- helping survivors where she could; gathering money and resources. And everywhere she went, she sought out the fragments of manifest potential that had been scattered to the corners of the Human Domain."
Blood gushes from your gut when the blade gives. Your vision swims slightly from the loss of fluids, but only a single knife remains.
"But myths have a way of just springing up, you know?" you say. "In a world where barely any magi survive, a third-rate thaumaturgical practitioner can become a legend. And with two hundred years of 'selfless acts' behind her, her reputation can be very nearly messianic."
The last of the knives clatters to the floor, and you feel your wounds knitting together; your Master's activated one of her Command Seals, as agreed. Lifting your face, you glare into Solomon's back.
"In two hundred years, the one who holds sway over the human imagination as Grand Caster isn't you," you say. "It's me."
