Saint Martha didn't. She dropped her arms, scowled at us, and settled into a stance reminiscent of a boxer, leading with one of her mangled hands. Her legs bunched, tensed, as Mash and Siegfried both prepared to meet her, and —
Honestly its a good thing that she was only summoned as a Rider. Sure sending a dragon at someone is dangerous but this is the woman who quelled said dragon with her fist, learned martial arts from a legit angel and can fight a legit goddess.
Honestly its a good thing that she was only summoned as a Rider. Sure sending a dragon at someone is dangerous but this is the woman who quelled said dragon with her fist, learned martial arts from a legit angel and can fight a legit goddess.
Nah, I'd argue that her dragon was the most dangerous part of the package, at least in that without Siegfried's help it would be essentially impossible for them to defeat it with anything less than Arash's NP, which has obvious drawbacks.
Honestly I'm not really clear on what the difference between Rider and Ruler Martha is. Like Ruler Martha still very much has access to Tarrasque, and I'm not really sure why Rider Martha wouldn't have access to at least a ranked-down form of Jacob's Limbs if she's not limited to three skills, since Achilles also has potent hand-to-hand abilities.
Honestly I'm not really clear on what the difference between Rider and Ruler Martha is. Like Ruler Martha still very much has access to Tarrasque, and I'm not really sure why Rider Martha wouldn't have access to at least a ranked-down form of Jacob's Limbs if she's not limited to three skills, since Achilles also has potent hand-to-hand abilities.
Rider probably focuses on her Legend with the Tarasque, as a DragonRider/Slayer(by accident) and the shenanigans she got up to. Ruler probably focuses on her status as a Saint. So basically, Rider is more combat focused, while Ruler is more balanced and specced for judging (a situation/people/etc) and enforcing it.
James, sorry if this has been asked before, but have you considered using Earth Bet as one of the Singularities? The final one, perhaps; makes the most sense from a narrative standpoint. Alternatively, you could base it in Ward. I haven't read it yet, but I've been hearing things about 15 ratings and titans. Dunno what those are, but they sound like workable material for a good Babylon stand-in.
James, sorry if this has been asked before, but have you considered using Earth Bet as one of the Singularities? The final one, perhaps; makes the most sense from a narrative standpoint.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the Major Singularities will be the same as Canon. And changing them, or who is in it, doesn't make a lick of sense from a logical standpoint. The Incineration of Humanity was planned out over the course of 3,000 years, and happens in every single timeline in the Nasuverse. Nothing can change that.
Any Fic claiming otherwise is illogical and inaccurate to the Nasuverse. Now obviously people can write whatever they want, and have done so, but those stories are so AU as to be completely different crossover stories in a setting hosting a cast of characters from Grand Order, rather than it being the reverse where the setting of Grand Order is hosting someone else from somewhere else.
The only thing different in Grand Order's timeline from the standard Nasuverse timeline is that Lev doesn't commit suicide before becoming a meat puppet for Flauros, and he was the last piece needed to start the Incineration, without him it doesn't start. But those major Singularities always exist in those times and places in every single version of the Nasuverse. It's just without Lev becoming a puppet it can't be applied to the rest of Proper Human History. It's why we can even restore humanity in Grand Order, we remove the anchors of out the Singularities that have been applied to the Grand Order timeline's history.
However even with Rayshifting Chaldea has a strict deadline of December 31st 2016 before it becomes Permanent and Irreversible to every part of Proper Human History in every timeline ever. It's why when the first Grand Order is completed that everyone outside of Chaldea has not a single memory of the past 16 months. They wake up and suddenly 16 months have gone by for every single person on Earth in the Grand Order timeline.
Saying it caused a panic is understating the matter. It's why the UN and everyone in the Mage's Association don't really believe Chaldea's reports. It's a lot easier to believe that Chaldea pulled off the equivalent of Naruto's Infinite Tsukuyomi Plan and fucked up after 16 months, instead of fighting for their lives across Time and Space and against literal gods in order to save Humanity everywhere and everywhen.
The only thing different in Grand Order's timeline from the standard Nasuverse timeline is that Lev doesn't commit suicide before becoming a meat puppet for Flauros, and he was the last piece needed to start the Incineration, without him it doesn't start.
Which now that I think about it doesn't make any sense. The Fuyuki Grail War is a thing in GO's timeline, it's how Chaldea was funded, Solomon was summoned, Dr Romani got his start, and it served as the inspiration and foundation for the much innovated and modified FATE system Chaldea uses to summon and control its Servants, but it was also the first and only instance of the war in GO's timeline. The Fuyuki Grail war that only was a thing because of Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern's miraculous nature, Nagato Tohsaka's adequate spiritual land holdings, and the genius magical skills and abilities of one Zolgen Makiri. And that's a problem because Zolgen is also an eye pillar gestational sack that has to successfully mature on his programmed date and wreck everything to incinerate history. Something he clearly did not do if there was a completed Holy Grail War ritual in Fuyuki 116 years after his timer dinged. Furthermore he says he only gave in to the Demon God because history had already been Incinerated and there was no point to resisting it, but said Incineration can only occur in the first place if he gives in and lets the Demon God mature and manifest.
Maybe I'm misremembering something, but it seems like FGO's got a bit of an issue with basic cause and effect in its timeline.
Fuck german, use american. It might be better, but it's impossible to work with. Language, cars, WWII weapon platforms, it holds true for almost everything. When you use german anything it all has to fit together just right and no substitutes, asian you just throw it out and replace the whole thing with something new when it stops working, but with american you can just kludge something together or use a foreign piece with some unwarrantied and possibly illegal modification. Language, cars, WWII weapon platforms, it all holds true.
English cannot convey the subtle nuance and beautiful elegance of concepts such as 'Panzer Selbstfahrlafette I für 7,62-cm-Panzerabwehrkanone 36(r) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II Ausführung D1 und D2'.
Another great chapter. One of the major draws of this story is that it can be enjoyed even by people with FGO lore-related disabilities, such as me.
English cannot convey the subtle nuance and beautiful elegance of concepts such as 'Panzer Selbstfahrlafette I für 7,62-cm-Panzerabwehrkanone 36(r) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II Ausführung D1 und D2'.
My understanding of the mechanics is that Singularities are free from Time and Space and that they are made from a snapshot of a specific place. Without a Grail to hold it to the Texture of the World, they're just kind of floating adrift from the rest of reality. In exactly the same way that Chaldea is adrift and thus spared from the Incineration. If the plan goes off, the Grails and their respective Singularities are rooted into the timeline and start to spread across all of Proper Human History's various timelines. If they spread too far for too long Chaldea loses.
As for the Fuyuki Grail War? It's never worked as intended by it's creators. So it starting on time, or at all is not a guaranteed thing. Much like Aylesbury Valesti ritual which also has no set time or guarantee to occur across all of the various lines of reality. Unlike things like the American Revolution or the fall of Camelot, which always happen in Proper Human History. It's why we see stuff like Strange Fake and Apocrypha, where the system was built but never properly enacted or was changed in some way like the Greater Grail being stolen by Darnic.
As a heads up: as of now, it's looking like Chapter XXVII (27): Kyrie, Eleison, which is the one I'm currently writing, is going to be the last chapter of the Orléans Singularity. At our current schedule, that puts us on track for Nov 27th. Heh. 27th on the 27th. At that point in time, I think I'll be taking a two week break. Well, technically, I'll probably have started my two week break, because that's Thanksgiving time, but half the reason I have as big a buffer as I do is so that I can keep consistency up as much as possible, so I want to finish Orléans before giving this story a breather.
If it works out the way I want it to, the Halloween event sidestory, Fleeting Lunar Phantasia, will get its first chapter on Halloween. Still working that one out, though, so don't take anything about that as set in stone until the "official" announcement goes up.
The instant Saint Martha was gone, Siegfried collapsed to his knees, as though her presence was the only thing keeping him upright. He supported himself with his sword, the tip thrust into the ground, and his other hand clutched at his side, where his wound still persisted.
Rika squawked. "Hey, is he okay?"
"Fou, fou!"
The little menace leapt from off of her shoulder and scurried over to Siegfried, and as much as it sent a shiver down my spine to follow it, the rest of us took off and jogged over to Mash and Siegfried. At least for the moment, there didn't appear to be any other Servants nearby to worry about. For whatever that was worth, when the Tarasque had burned through so much of my swarm.
"Senpai!" Mash called as we approached.
"Good going, Mash!" Rika cheered, grinning, and then she turned to Siegfried worriedly. "This guy doesn't look too good, though."
"I'm…sorry, Master," Siegfried said, looking up at me with a pained expression. "Even just that much…took a lot more out of me…than I expected."
"You did well," I told him. "Exactly what I needed you to do."
He sighed, and something of a relieved smile broke out on his face. In a movie, that would have been the cliché moment where he died, having succeeded in his mission or rescued the princess, but fortunately, his form stayed solid and corporeal, and he seemed in no danger of fading away, just yet.
Yet. That was the part that worried me. That wound needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later, or else it was going to become a liability in short order. The very last thing we needed was to run into another pack of wyverns or one of Jeanne Alter's Servants and Siegfried be too weakened to fight back. The Armor of Fafnir would help, but the wound itself already proved that it was possible to get through that and deal a heavy blow.
"Is he okay?" Ritsuka asked, concerned.
"Jeanne Alter and her Servants wounded him, and because it's cursed, it won't heal," I summarized for the twins. "He won't be able to fight until we break the curse and heal the wound."
"I did everything I could," Jeanne lamented, "but I'm afraid…with my abilities as diminished as they are…"
"You can't break the curse," Mash concluded.
Beep-beep!
"— got through!" Romani said. "Thank goodness! That interference was really strong!"
"Doctor Roman!" said the twins together.
"Contract registered, by the way!" said Romani. "Saber class Servant, Siegfried, hero of the Nibelungenlied. It turns out your instinct was right on the money, Taylor! This is definitely a top class, Rank A Servant!"
He grinned.
"And two Spirit Origins have disappeared, as well! A-ah, we didn't detect the last one until moments before it was snuffed out, but you definitely managed to handle Saint Martha! Congratulations, everyone!"
With a quiet thump, Arash landed next to us. "Doctor."
"Arash Kamangir," Romani replied respectfully. "Thank you for looking out for everyone."
"Just doing my job," said Arash, smiling.
Romani looked over at something on his console. "Everyone's vitals are all in the green. No injuries, no one's hurt, and thank God, no one died. I'd call that a success. Although…"
Yes. "Although." There was no way he could have missed it, that little hitch.
"You can see it, right?" I asked.
Romani nodded.
"Siegfried's Saint Graph has some irregularities in it. Damage that predates the contract, along with some kind of status effect. Was there something that happened before you made contact?"
"It's a curse," Jeanne said sourly. "My other self… My evil counterpart and her minions inflicted it upon him. I can't lift it as I am."
"If it's lingering this long and managed to get through his Noble Phantasm," Romani hedged, frowning, "it's likely the result of a Noble Phantasm itself. You'd need either a specialized Noble Phantasm or else a bona fide saint to lift it… A-ah, I mean, n-not that you're not a saint, Jeanne —"
"Whatever history says of me, I don't think of myself as one," Jeanne interrupted, and then she sighed. "However, whether or not I am one, in my current state, I can't do anything more."
And without her, we were fresh out of the other two things, weren't we? Damn it.
"Maybe Emiya has something?" Ritsuka suggested tentatively.
"Emiya?" Arash echoed.
"Our emergency backup," I explained shortly. "An Archer class Servant who can reproduce Noble Phantasms, at the cost of lowered performance."
Arash, Jeanne, and Siegfried all reacted in a way I honestly should have expected: with surprise. In hindsight, being told a Heroic Spirit could make copies of the things that made other Heroic Spirits special wasn't something ordinary even among Servants. I had to start thinking of it like Tinkertech — even other Tinkers couldn't just casually reproduce a Tinker's work, and mass producing them was the Holy Grail of Tinkering.
And I just compared Emiya to Dragon in my head. I wasn't sure who should have been flattered more.
"I've never heard of such a Heroic Spirit before," Arash said.
"Neither had we," Romani told him. "As far as our records are concerned, he didn't exist before Taylor, Ritsuka, and Rika saw him in Fuyuki."
Arash shook his head. "You would think a Heroic Spirit with such a unique talent would be well-known."
"According to Emiya, his capacity for reproduction increased dramatically after his ascension — or rather, he couldn't just throw around copied Noble Phantasms willy nilly while he was alive, and large parts of his repertoire were only acquired during his summonings as a Servant," Romani said. "In any case, I could ask him, but I don't think he'll be able to help with this. Remember, he's limited to bladed weapons, and swords aren't really made for healing, you know?"
My lips pursed as an idea came to mind.
"You could ask him, but I'm not sure we need him," I said. "How easy is it to send him here, anyway?"
Romani scratched at the back of his head. "There's some sort of time differential between you guys and Chaldea. We can keep track of you and where you're heading, but even if it takes you a week to get somewhere, for us, it's a few hours to maybe a day or so. Da Vinci thinks the difference is going to get even more extreme the further back you go and the bigger the deviation from proper history."
"So?" Ritsuka prodded.
"I'm getting there!" Romani said. "It means that, when we're not in direct contact like this, it's harder to pinpoint your exact location at any given moment. Chaldeas is a little more accurate than a GPS, but for us, you guys are moving around like a car on a highway. That's why I'm sometimes late announcing the presence of an incoming Servant. By the time the sensors pick it up and I get the readout, you guys are already fighting. And that's when interference doesn't make connecting impossible to begin with."
I made a noise of understanding in my throat.
"So if you tried to Rayshift Emiya to us, there's no guarantee he'd even land in our general area. Rika might have to use a Command Spell just to bring him to us."
Waste one, I meant, and everyone picked up on that.
Romani nodded. "Basically, yeah."
"Why didn't you just say that?" Rika groaned. "That wasn't that hard to understand!"
"Wha — h-hey!" Romani squawked. "I'm doing my best here, you know! This isn't exactly my normal job!"
"Romani." I brought the conversation back around before it could devolve. "If we forget about bringing Emiya in for now, can you detect any other Servants to the west or east?"
"Hang on a second."
He went back to the monitor, showing us the side of his face as he looked away.
"It's far enough away that the resolution isn't great, but I'm definitely detecting the presence of at least one Servant west of you, at a city called Thiers, roughly one-hundred-twenty kilometers from your current location, and there might be one even further out past that. If it's even there, it's at least twice as far, so I'm sorry I can't give you anything more concrete."
I nodded. "And the one at Thiers, can you detect human vital signs in its general vicinity?"
Everyone turned to look at me, eyes wide.
"Oh my," said Jeanne. "That's clever."
"H-holy crap!" Romani said. "H-hang on a second, I'll — Da Vinci's going to cackle like a madman when she hears about this one!"
"Human vital signs?" Mash asked. "I don't understand."
"Aside from our team, there should only be two kinds of Servants here," I explained while Romani checked the sensors. "Those who are on Jeanne Alter's side, and therefore will be slaughtering every living person they come across, and those on the side of the French people, who will fight back and protect the innocent citizens. If there's a Servant at Thiers and a bunch of people still alive there —"
"Then that Servant is protecting them!" Ritsuka concluded.
"That's awesome!" said Rika. "I don't see how that helps us, though."
"Jeanne was obviously summoned to fight her evil self, the Dragon Witch." I nodded at her, and she grimaced, but didn't protest the point. "But here at Lyon, we found Siegfried, a dragon-slaying hero, specifically suited for killing Jeanne Alter's wyverns. There's no guarantees, but if the Servants summoned are responses meant to match the threat, then the Servant at Thiers just might be another dragonslayer."
"It could be Sigurd," Mash suggested.
Siegfried nodded. "It's possible. Though our legends are similar, he and I are two different Heroic Spirits. If the threat is dragons, he may have been summoned as well."
"Maybe," I conceded, because it wasn't impossible. "But if he wasn't, then there's one other dragon-slaying hero that might have been called."
"Saint George," Romani said. "I've got a reading, and your instinct was right again, Taylor. I can't get an exact number, but there are numerous human life signs located at Thiers. It looks like whoever the Servant is there is protecting the city along with all of the people inside it."
My lips curled into a small smile.
"Can you tell if it's Saint George or not?" Jeanne asked.
Romani shook his head. "I've already explained, I don't have that kind of resolution from this far away. Not without one of the Masters having seen the Servant with their own eyes. The only thing I can tell you from here is the general location. I'm sorry."
"It's not ideal," I allowed, because it really would have been better to know who or what we were dealing with for sure, "but it's better than what we had to go on five minutes ago. We don't really have much better in the way of options, right now, unless you want to take another shot at summoning?"
I addressed the last part to Romani, who grimaced.
"Even if we tried, there still isn't a guarantee that who you summon will be of immediate use," he said. "We already tried to summon Siegfried, right? Arash answered instead, and we found Siegfried later. So if we tried to summon Saint George and it turns out he's the one at Thiers, won't we just have filled up one of our open slots and increased the strain on you Masters unnecessarily?"
That wasn't exactly my thought process. But it wasn't completely off the mark, either.
"Then our next destination should be Thiers," I concluded. "Whether or not Saint George is there, the odds are good that the Servant there will be an ally. At the very least, we'll be able to rest and brainstorm the next step from there."
Arash nodded. "It'll be a nice break from camping out every night."
"Is it really that big of a deal?" Ritsuka asked. "Rika and I haven't really been feeling any strain from supporting Mash or anything. Right, Rika?"
"The only things strained are my legs!" Rika reported cheerily.
Very deliberately, I stopped myself from rolling my eyes.
"That's because Chaldea's doing most of the heavy lifting," Romani told them. "The more Servants you contract with, especially out in the field instead of inside Chaldea itself, the more you guys will have to pick up the slack with your own power. Right now, Ritsuka, Rika, you two are only supporting Mash, and Taylor is only supporting Siegfried and Arash. If you just kept summoning as many Servants as you could, you would definitely start to feel the strain. If they all started fighting the next time you ran into an enemy Servant, the drain might just kill you."
The twins both blanched. I didn't have any idea what they were imagining it would look like to be drained dry of magical energy, but the image in my head was of a desiccated corpse, sunken-cheeked and so brittle it flaked away at the slightest touch.
"Then, it seems our next course of action has been decided," Jeanne concluded. "We will make our way to Thiers in the hopes of finding another ally and work out our next step from there. Are there any objections?"
"I'm sorry," Siegfried mumbled. "You're going through all of this trouble for me."
I shook my head. "Getting help for you is one thing, but Thiers probably would have been our next stop anyway. We'll need as much help as we can get to fight Jeanne Alter and her army."
Siegfried's expression drew out into determination. "Then I won't let your efforts go to waste. Once my injury has been healed, Master, I will ensure the Dragon Witch is destroyed. This, I swear."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
Not for the first time, I lamented the lack of industrial era conveniences in fifteenth-century France. It probably wouldn't be the last. Without a car to take us there, the journey of a few hours became a few days, and while we didn't have as far to go as before, Siegfried's disability slowed us down by at least a whole day, so it still took us the better part of a week to go from Lyon to Thiers. It didn't help that the terrain got far less flat the closer to our destination we got, to the point where "rolling hills" was a frustratingly accurate description of the obstacles we had to cross.
And unfortunately, by the time the sun had set and we settled down at the end of the fourth day, we still had another few hours of travel before we could crest the final hill overlooking the valley Thiers was nestled into, which meant another night of camping out in the wilderness.
For a certain value of the word "camping," at any rate. We didn't have nice, expensive tents or comfortable sleeping bags, and the only things we had for pillows were our own clothing, which didn't exactly make for the most comfortable of rests. The only small mercy we had was that my powers let me keep things like mosquitoes from harassing us, and that meant we didn't have to wake up in the morning with unexplained bites swelling on every stretch of exposed skin.
Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, I was jealous of the Servants who didn't have to sleep. Jeanne did anyway, and so did Mash, but Arash was always taking the night watch to keep an eye out for us, and Siegfried didn't sleep, exactly, so much as he closed his eyes and tried to move as little as possible throughout the night.
Trying not to aggravate his wound was my guess. Or conserving magical energy. It might have been both at once.
That night, the twins fell asleep almost instantly. They were huddled up next to each other on the edge of our little bonfire, and despite how uncomfortable sleeping on the hard ground was, they were sawing logs without a care in the world.
With Arash off in the dark, staying away from the fire to maintain his night vision, and Siegfried set off to the side, engaged in his nightly imitation of a statue, it left Jeanne and I alone in a rare moment of solitude.
Not for much longer, I knew. I was handling it all better than the twins were, but walking all day still took a lot out of me, too. With food in my belly and my body aching from a long day, I'd be heading off to dreamland myself, soon. It took everything I had just to stifle my yawns.
"Do you think she was right?" Jeanne asked into the silence.
I blinked at her, uncomprehending. "Who?"
"My other self," Jeanne said quietly. "My…evil self. Jeanne Alter."
Oh. One of those conversations, then.
"About?"
"The reason my abilities are so diminished," Jeanne clarified. "Why I'm…not as strong as I should be." She was quiet for a moment longer, and then went on. "I know I said it so confidently back then, but… Could it be true that I'm the fake, and she's the real Jeanne?"
Wasn't that a loaded question?
"Do you think you're fake?" I asked.
"I…I don't feel like I'm fake, but…" She trailed off for a moment, then started again. "If I was nothing more than the idealized version of Jeanne that the people of France believed in, would I even know for sure?"
I didn't know how to answer that. I didn't really know that there was any good answer to begin with.
"I'm not sure what you're expecting me to tell you," I said. "It's not like I knew you when you were alive or anything. I can't say one way or the other which one of you feels and acts the way the real Jeanne d'Arc did while she was still living and breathing."
But I definitely knew that Jeanne wouldn't appreciate me telling her that I thought Jeanne Alter's way of thinking was more realistic. It felt more natural for someone to hate the people who abandoned her, to feel like everyone who turned their backs on her deserved to have everything she'd ever given to them ripped away. For the French, to whom Jeanne delivered everything, having everything destroyed was…not the appropriate response, but the one that matched what she'd done for their sakes.
What she'd sacrificed for their sakes.
Jeanne frowned miserably at the smoldering embers of our fire.
"But," I continued, "I've heard enough of the stories about her to know she didn't begrudge anyone for what happened. The English for their partisanship, maybe, the clergy who condemned her on every trumped up charge they could, probably, but not the people or the country she'd given up everything for."
It felt like a lie. It was all true, of course, and none of it was wrong, but people could change a lot in the moments of their death. As she burned at the pyre, it was entirely possible the real Jeanne d'Arc had cursed everyone and everything even remotely connected to it. Maybe it was even likely.
I didn't tell her that.
"Yes." Jeanne closed her eyes and bowed her head. "I accepted it, at the end. The English, the clergy, they tricked me into a false confession. But I knew…from the beginning, didn't I? I knew that I would never return to the simple life of a farm girl the instant I left home to seek out King Charles. I knew what I was giving up for my people and what it would cost me."
She clutched her hands to her chest.
"I remember the moment I knew what I must do," she said quietly. "I remember making the decision to leave. I remember it all. My mother's tears. My father's love. My brothers' embrace. The smiling faces of my countrymen, liberated. The jeers of the crowd as I burned." She pushed out her arms, as though throwing something into the flames. "I remember that final moment as I offered my body unto God."
A small smile pulled at her lips. "Those are all things the real Jeanne d'Arc did. Those are all things the real Jeanne d'Arc felt. Those are all the things I lived and felt."
She might remember all of that, too, I thought but didn't say. It felt like the wrong thing to say in that moment.
If someone told me that my Echidna clone was just as much a real person, a real Taylor Hebert, as I was, just because she had all of my memories, too, would I have been able to accept that? Could I say a dark mirror was equally as valid as the original?
No. And when you looked at it like that, Jeanne Alter was just as much Jeanne's dark mirror, a tainted reflection corrupted by Flauros' Grail.
Even if we said Jeanne Alter's feelings were valid, that didn't mean what she was doing wasn't wrong. Real or fake, she was still the enemy, and we had to stop her. Whether or not she was the genuine article would just make it more or less tragic.
"We should get some sleep," I said. "Tomorrow, we'll be meeting whoever is at Thiers. We can't afford to be exhausted, especially if they attack before asking questions."
"You're right." She offered me a radiant smile. "Thank you, Taylor. Your words helped dispel my doubts."
I gave her a smile and a nod, perfunctory. I didn't know how I'd really helped her when she mostly seemed to have talked herself around, but if she thought I'd helped, then I wasn't going to argue. Turning away from the fire, I settled down, pillowed my head beneath one arm, and closed my eyes. Jeanne did something similar.
A long breath eased out of my nostrils, and I tried to still my mind long enough to sleep.
It seemed only seconds later that I was waking up to the morning sun on my face, feeling like I hadn't much rested at all.
The fire had burned down at some point, and as I gingerly sat up, I found everyone mostly where I'd left them the night before. The twins had shifted and moved around a little, but Siegfried remained where he was, utterly still but for his even breathing, and next to me, Jeanne began to stir, as well, probably because she'd felt me moving.
Briefly, I closed my eyes and stretched out my senses, feeling out my swarm. I'd lost some in the night, of course, to predation and any number of other factors, but nothing major had disturbed them. Of course not, because it would have jolted me awake, but it never hurt to check.
A mental prod at the thread connecting me to Arash got me a silent affirmation back, a sort of wordless "I'm here" to let me know he hadn't been assassinated in the middle of the night. It only took a moment's concentration to send the order for him to make his way back from wherever it was he'd been keeping watch.
Now that everything else had been taken care of, I stood gingerly, sighing, and went over to wake up the twins. They were about as enthusiastic about getting up as I was, because as much as you could get used to sleeping on the ground and learn to live with the associated aches, those aches never stopped being new when you woke up to them in the morning.
Siegfried was roused with nothing more than a quiet grunt to show his discomfort. He stood slowly and carefully, mindful of his wound, but although I thought he must have fallen asleep sitting there for the entire night, he showed no signs that he'd ever even started to doze.
I would have bet that if I asked him, he would have told me that he'd been awake and on guard the whole time. I wasn't sure I could even doubt it.
Arash returned around that time, and a quick chat later, Romani sent us provisions for our breakfast — that showed up five feet in the air above Mash's shield. Small mercies that none of it was fragile enough to make a mess.
After a brief and largely tasteless meal (accented by some chocolate protein bars that were actually pretty good), we started up our journey again and continued our hike towards Thiers.
"Do you have any more information about the Servant in the city?" I asked Romani as we walked.
"Sorry, I don't," he answered. Static tinged his words around the edges. Without a ley line terminal, a stable connection to Chaldea seemed like it was too much to ask for, but Romani and his sensors were the only line of information about the Servant at Thiers and the larger movements by Jeanne Alter that we had.
"Nothing?"
He shook his head. "I can tell you that he doesn't seem to have moved outside of the city itself, and also that there doesn't seem to have been any significant drop in the city's human population, but even this far out, I'm just speaking in a general sense."
My lips pulled into a frown. "What about Jeanne Alter and her forces? Do we have any idea what they've been up to for the last week?"
Romani shrugged and sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Sorry, I can't tell you much there, either. I've been checking back in whenever you guys settle down for the night, but the best I can give you is that there's been movement by Servants. I couldn't tell you one way or the other what she's doing or why, only that she is doing something."
That was more helpful than nothing, and we stuck to that for a while, discussing different things she might have been doing and reasons she might have been shuffling her "troops" around. Probably trying to spare the twins' feelings, Romani kept things steered away from the obvious, that she was going out and burning down whatever town, village, or city caught her eye on any given day.
I didn't think the twins missed that, but neither of them brought it up themselves. They were inexperienced, not stupid.
Eventually, we found ourselves on a road that seemed to have been excavated out of the hillside, a relatively narrow pass that had a steep upward slope to the right, enough space for a decently sized merchant caravan to ride, and then another steep slope to the left. The drop was sheer enough that I didn't like the odds of us surviving uninjured if I or one of the twins fell down it.
"— at Lyon," Romani was saying. "I shouldn't need to tell you, but she definitely knows you were there and she definitely knows you killed Saint Martha and Phantom. The next Servant she sends is definitely going to be even harder to fight. You guys need to be on your guard. She might even send two."
"Being double-teamed is cheating," Rika muttered sourly.
"Doctor Roman," said Ritsuka, who had been mostly silent the rest of the conversation, "has anything happened at La Charité?"
Romani sighed, grimacing. At length, he reluctantly said, "There are no human life signs at La Charité, as of now."
Ritsuka scowled, staring hard at the ground. His fists clenched. Rika, too, looked miserable, and Mash had the appearance of a kicked puppy.
I didn't want to say that I'd told him so. This was one of those things I would have gladly been wrong about.
"That doesn't mean anything on its own," Romani added. "It's entirely possible that the people who evacuated all left for another town. They might have —"
Something chimed on Romani's end, and he lunged forward, eyes wide, and shouted, "Incoming Servant detected!"
We had barely a moment to register his words before something fell out of the sky like a ballistic missile.
"Master!" Mash shouted, and she threw herself in front of the group, her shield materializing in front of her.
The other Servant landed with a thunderous crash some twenty feet or so down the road, kicking up hunks of rock with the impact. They'd moved so fast that I hadn't even had time for my bugs to pick up their movement before they'd landed.
She, I realized as I took in her figure. Definitely a woman, dressed in a long, almost military-style coat, knee-high boots, and elbow-length gloves, all accented with small plates of gold armor and all predominantly white and blue with red piping. Her long, golden hair looked frankly ridiculous in a pair of tails that reached almost to her knees.
The most striking thing, however, was not her appearance nor the tiny lance she carried in one hand, but the blazing star of a shield strapped to her other. At its center was a gold ornament with eight points, but radiating out from those points were eight spokes of pure energy, light solidified.
For an instant, she reminded me of Glory Girl.
"Halt!" she said firmly, brandishing the glittering, crystalline head of the miniaturized thing she called a lance at us. "Take not one step further! If you value your lives, turn around and leave this place immediately!"
She tilted her head back, staring down at us imperiously. It only made my mental comparison to Glory Girl all the stronger.
"I am the Lancer class Servant, Bradamante!" she declared. "The town of Thiers and its people are under my protection! You're not welcome here!"
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
So this isn't perhaps the discussion a lot of people were expecting Taylor and Jeanne to have first, but I never found a good place for them to talk about the bugs, so it can't be helped, I suppose. Looking back, I tried to stretch out Orleans a little so that the team wasn't bouncing around nearly as quickly as they were in canon, but I didn't succeed as well as I wanted to, so for Septem, I'll have to look into fixing that. Give the team a little more time to breath between the major story beats.
Yes, you understood that implication correctly. Yesterday, I finished up the last chapter of Orléans — Chapter XXVII: Kyrie, Eleison.
Oh? You're saying I didn't address the elephant in this chapter? Yeah, I didn't want to deal with Elizabeth and Kiyohime, so they got put on the chopping block. Elizabeth kinda made sense with Carmilla in the Singularity, but since Carmilla is dead, that story beat is, too, and it made much more sense to have a French Servant (or at least Frankish, if I understand my European history right) show up in the French Singularity. Originally, I thought, "Maybe Charlemagne?" But he didn't work as cleanly and I haven't actually played Extella Link, yet. I'm not overly fond of Astolfo, so Bradamante got to go to bat, since her only feature in FGO NA so far is a single Christmas event.
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Bummer, Liz and Kiyo are two of the best parts of Órleans, too, along with Marie and Mozart. Ah, well, if you felt like you wouldn't be able to write them, that's that. Bradamante is cool, I guess, though the least interesting amongst the Paladins in Fate, IMHO.
Well at least she's one of the less crazy ones. Not that that's saying very much where the Paladins are concerned. Oh yes, and her ring lets Merlin talk to her whenever he feels like it.
Fun chapter as always. Got some major concerns though @James D. Fawkes. As much as you might not want to have Liz and Kiyohime around you really need them to be present here in Orleans for the rest of the story to succeed.
I'll admit that Bradamante is a fitting Servant given who she is, and her being present will only be a benefit. I could see Merlin arranging to have her show up to help. Charlie is also a fun character but since he's the legend part of Charlemagne, he is kind of a Chuuni, and thus he's not a super serious character. He would however be a very useful person to have around regardless. His Noble Phantasm's are stupid powerful, particularly the one that summons a fucking Flying Fortress.
However the reason Liz and Kiyohime were summoned by the Counter Force was because they have the Dragon trait, not just because of Liz being a counterpart of Carmilla. Also Liz being in Orleans is extremely intergral to later Events, in particular she takes a grail from somewhere in this Singularity and later creates the Castle Csjete Singularity Chaldea visits most Halloweens. Kiyo is slightly less necessary, but this is the same Kiyohime that is summoned by Chaldea. Their interaction in Orleans is kind of important too.
Without receiving that invitation from Liz Chaldea won't be on the lookout for more Minor Singularities and that needs to happen. Moon Fest and Nerofest just take place in Orleans and Septem, Halloween is the first Singularity that is in a new location. Those additional power sources are vital to Chaldea's success and they need to meet the Servants in the various Event Singularities. Otherwise Chaldea will lose in the end.
Bradamante eh? Not bad. I'm curious to see how far the changes to the story will spread with Chaldea having met different Servants. This one in particular really does open up some options with that ring of hers... Also, I can't remember if that was in the game or not. But that was a clever trick Taylor figured out. Checking to see if there were human life signatures near the Servant they were heading towards.
Though I will kinda echo a few others. I don't particularly care about Kiyohime, but Elizabeth? I just adore that narcissistic little dragon girl. I can only hope we'll eventually get to see her. But if not? Well, no harm no foul if you don't want to follow canon that closely.
Well at least she's one of the less crazy ones. Not that that's saying very much where the Paladins are concerned. Oh yes, and her ring lets Merlin talk to her whenever he feels like it.
However the reason Liz and Kiyohime being summoned by the Counter Force was because they have the Dragon trait, not just because of Liz being a counterpart of Carmilla. Also Liz being in Orleans is extremely intergral to later Events, in particular she takes a grail from somewhere in this Singularity and later creates the Castle Csjete Singularity Chaldea visits most Halloweens. Kiyo is slightly less necessary, but this is the same Kiyohime that is summoned by Chaldea. Their interaction in Orleans is kind of important too.
Without receiving that invitation from Liz Chaldea won't be on the lookout for more Minor Singularities and that needs to happen. Moon Fest and Nerofest just take place in Orleans and Septem, Halloween is the first Singularity that is in a new location. Those additional power sources are vital to Chaldea's success and they need to meet the Servants in the various Event Singularities. Otherwise Chaldea will lose in the end.
Yeah though that's more for variety as far as I am aware. The main supplies that are needed are available from the main Singularities. Really the most important thing is the bonds forged during the Events. Without them, and in particular Dantes who does a lot in the background, Chaldea will fail in the final hours. No if's ands or buts, without Chaldea having those they lose, and Humanity is erased. Taylor being around will absolutely not be enough to offset anything, and the Twins won't be able to offset it either. The Grails are next in terms of importance as the extra power they can generate is vital too, followed by the extra supplies.
