This is a Friend Insert starring Passive_Soul from SB in the Mobile Gach Game Fate/Grand Order...
How To Save The World 101 [Fate/Grand Order Friend Insert Ft. Passive_Soul]
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Chapter 1 - Wizards are Professional Kidnappers
- Location
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This is a Friend Insert starring Passive_Soul from SB in the Mobile Gach Game Fate/Grand Order. While does know of the fate franchise as he has seen UBW and a bit of Apocrypha, he knows nothing about the game's plot, nothing at all and he has forgotten finer details concerning the animes. Passive_Soul doesn't have an Account here so you're free to discuss spoilers as he won't be reading the thread unlike the SB one.
Chapter 1:
Andrew Murphy was looking through the mail when he noticed a letter addressed to him by the Chaldea Security Organization.
Obviously curious, having never heard of such a thing, he opened the letter. He folded out the paper and began reading the first line.
"Congratulation Mr. Murphy for entering our contest during your latest blood donation and we are happy to announce that you have won the grand prize."
Andrew stared at the line, confused. He didn't remember entering any contest the last time he gave blood- or for that matter, the last time he donated his blood. Andrew continued reading curious as to what it was all about.
"And such you have won a week-long stay at the Chaldea Security Organization Observatory SHEBA. Our men will pick you up on July 7, there is no refusal of this request."
Andrew, now confused and honestly, a bit threatened by the letter looked over at the calendar to check today's date- July 7th. Desperately hoping it was a prank, he continued reading the letter. The only thing that was left on it was a symbol that looked like a moon surrounded crown of leaves, along with the name of the so-called organization written at the bottom of the page.
Andrew flipped over the paper, hoping there might be something there, only to find it blank.
Before he could do anything, he heard the sound of the doorbell ring. Andrew, now scared for his life, quickly grabbed his knife from his room, made sure he had his phone to call 911 once he thought he was safe and tried to sneak out the back door.
But when he did and opened the door he came face to face with a man dressed in a black uniform.
"Thought you would try this kid." The man said, and before Andrew had time to react he heard the words Sleep being spoken and his entire world went dark.
Xxx
Andrew felt the wakefulness of consciousness return to him as his eyes opened up to bright lamplight hitting them and instinctively closed them once again.
Andrew easily remembered what had happened and for just a moment thought that it had just been a bad dream. But when he tried to move his arms he found them not moving very much, and he heard the sound of two metal objects hitting each other.
Andrew, bewildered and afraid, looked around to try and figure out where he was. He figured he was handcuffed based on the position of his arms and how hard it was to move them. Andrew looked around where he was, and it looked to be a very spartan bedroom, that was painted white along with a few metal colored panels along the walls. And to the side, he could see a white desk at the corner where a door was. He only figured out it was a bedroom because he was lying on the bed. He tried to get up, only to find that he was seemingly cuffed to the legs of the bed. His head laying where his feet were supposed to be.
Andrew had never been in a situation like this before, and he was panicking. He had been kidnapped, knocked out, and was now chained to a bed in a sterile looking room with no idea where he was or how long he had been out. He felt like he wanted to scream.
But before he could scream or call for help the door in the middle of the wall he was looking at opened up, and a man stepped inside, not the one that had knocked him out.
Andrew looked up at the man in green. "Please, let me go." was all he could say, his frightened mind, robbing him of any thoughts more complex.
But all he got from the green top hat wearing man was a small laugh, more like a chuckle before he began to speak properly. "Sorry about the rough treatment kid, I hope our men weren't too scary, but we had to get you to Chaldea as fast as possible, the Director's order. But now that you are awake. You can get the explanation you deserve, also sorry about the cuffs we had to make sure you didn't run around the facility in a panic." The green man spoke with a voice filled with mirth to it as if he found the current situation like a big joke. One that only he understood.
Andrew looked up at the man, both more confused and more worried, though admittedly less panicked. "Wait, what? Who's the director? And why do they want me?" He looked at his wrists. "And can I get these off please?"
"Sure thing kid." The man spoke as he took the chair from the desk and over to where Andrew was laying. As he stopped, he took a key out of one of his pockets and unlocked the cuffs that were around his wrists.
Andrew sat up as the man sat down on the chair. He rubbed his wrists a little bit to get the blood flow back up to his hands and to not make them feel numb. "Thanks," he muttered.
"Don't thank me, kid, not yet anyway. Now, what do you wish to know first?" The man in green asked Andrew.
"What the hell is going on?" Andrew said, cutting to the chase. "And why do you want me, of all people?"
"Ah, an excellent first choice my boy. You see in this world there exists people with the capability to use magic- or Magecraft as it were, and you're one of the highest potentials of first generations we have detected in the modern age, putting even some of the older families to shame."
Andrew looked at the man before him incredulously. "So basically you're saying you kidnapped me because I'm a wizard." Now, he was even more worried. Magic? If the man was telling the truth that meant he might be able to use magic eventually, which was awesome, but at the same time the man and his organization could very well be crazy.
"Kidnapping is such a strong word to use Andrew, more like temporarily borrowing you. But I can see it in your eyes, 'magic how could something like that exists these people must be crazy.' So take a look at this. אֵשׁ" The man said and a second later a small ball of fire appeared in the man's hand before going out. "As you can see the Supernatural is very much real Andrew my dear boy."
Andrew stared at the spot where the flame had been above the man's hand. It was too round to have been a hidden flamethrower or something to fool him. Somehow, the man before him had actually used magic. "Holy shit," he said, dumbfounded. Magic. Magic was real. And according to the man before him, he had a high natural talent for it. He was mind boggled at the possibilities. "So, wait, what am I actually here for? Is this some kind of school or something?"
"Now that question is the crux of the situation, isn't it. First, there is a school in London along with Norway and Egypt for specific studies, mostly magecraft is taught internally in a family. And when first generation Magi like you are found is sent to one for basic learning of how to make mysteries. But as for why you're specifically here, Chaldea the Organization and whose base of operation your currently in are looking for Magi with Magic Circuits who are able to take up the role of a Master." The green man finished his current exposition dump.
"Wait, what? What are Magic Circuits? And Master of what?" Andrew asked, confused.
"Okay, basic information for beginner Magi. Magic Circuits are what allows Magi to channel Magical Energy, Prana to use Magecraft. Each Magi are born with a set number of circuits of various quality being able to only channel so much energy at a time. Yours are quite impressive for a First Generation Magus having 30 Magic Circuits of A-Rank quality. Now for the second question is a little bit more complex. Oh, it seems I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Lev Lainur, one of the head researchers here at Chaldea. Now for Chaldea itself, it is a security organization that is meant to ensure the survival of mankind, by having people like you, Andrew, to act as Masters to summon Heroic Spirits in the form Servants to ensure it." The now named Lev explained to him.
Andrew thought about Lev Lainur's words as he spoke. Apparently, he had good mana -or, Prana, he figured- capacity, which was why he had been kidnapped. "You didn't actually explain what being a Master actually means, though. What do you mean by 'Heroic Spirit'?"
Lev blinked for a few moments before he answered. "I'm sure I did, as I said Master's like you are to summon Heroic Spirits in the form of a Servant to command and defend humanity and the world from extinction. But what as for what a Heroic Spirit is they are Legends of the Past summoned from the Throne of Heroes. Think of it as an afterlife for the heroes of the past instead of being reincarnated like us ordinary humans; their Souls are Ascended to near Divinity as a reward for their deeds. A Servant is a small part, a copy of the hero if you will, meant to assist Masters like you when they answer the call to battle. Do you understand what I'm saying, its okay if you don't it is rather high-level stuff?" Lev finished speaking.
"So… you're saying that you kidnapped me so that I could summon some kind of demigod in order to protect humanity from extinction?" Andrew asked, trying to understand the situation.
"In a nutshell as you kids say nowadays, yes. But still, kidnapping is a rather strong word to use as you will be able to go home after you and your fellow Master have helped us resolve our current situation. We would have recruited you the normal way after discovering you through that blood donation you did last month. But you see my dear SHEBA lense have seen that humanity is going to by the next new year." Lev explained to him.
Andrew thought about it for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "You know if you guys would have just asked I would have said yes." He said, still not quite over being taken from his home like that. "But, I guess since humanity is at risk I don't really have a choice if I want to keep living but to help, right?"
"That's the spirit, Andrew! Now come with me, and I'll get you situated with the others, along with getting you some appropriate clothes, you have been sleeping in those garbs for over a day." Lev said as he stood and held out a hand to him.
Andrew gratefully took the hand and got up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his legs were more or less okay to use despite having been sleeping for more than 24 hours.
"Now follow me Andrew I'll show you the way to the showers." Lev began moving towards the door, and Andrew quickly followed behind, leaving the room and stepping out into a long hallway that was the same color as his room, but the obvious difference was that the left wall was entirely made out of glass which gave view to snowy mountaintops.
A blizzard was currently raging outside. Andrew looked out the window in awe. He had never been as high up as they appeared to be at the moment before. A thought occurred to him, and he vocalized it to the so far friendly Lev. "So, where is this place anyway?" He asked as they walked.
"Ah, that is a good question Andrew, but I'm afraid to even I don't know which country we're currently in. It's kind of an ongoing bet between us who work here of who can guess where we are. The only clue I can give you is that we're currently 8000 feet above sea level." Lev answered as they continued to walk down the empty corridor, currently absent of people.
Andrew had absolutely no idea where that meant they could be. As far as he knew, that could put them on any big enough mountain, so he simply filed away that information for later and continued following Lev with just a soft "Woah."
They walked for another minute before they came to a stop in front of another door with the stand blue logo on it. "The changing rooms and showers are here. Your locker is number 39. The code currently is 1234, but you can change it to what you want afterward. I'll be waiting for you. Afterwards, we'll be going to medical to get you a check up and open up your Magic Circuits for use." Lev said.
Andrew decided to go with the flow, responding with a just a nod before going into the room. It looked like a standard high school gym locker room with mercifully separated showers unlike what he was used to. One of them was occupied, but he just ignored them and used the shower furthest away from them.
Andrew went over to his locker and opened it to see if there were shampoo, body soap, and a towel. And to his luck there were along with a folded up uniform; he could see a part of it was white.
He quickly changed and went into one of the shower cabins and got washed, while he did so he heard the shower currently being used stopping.
Andrew paid it no mind and stopped when he was clean of sweat, and dirt.
Andrew left the shower cabin, towel around the waist and went back to his assigned locker.
And of course right next to his was the one he heard use the other shower. He was a boy around his age, with spiky black hair, and blue eyes. Currently wearing what was probably the official uniforms for Masters to walk around in.
"Hello?" The boy greeted in heavily accented English. "Are you a Master too?" He asked.
Andrew, slightly taken aback at talking to a stranger fresh out of the shower, fumbled over his words before replying with something coherent. "Y-yeah, I'm a Master I guess." He said, not really knowing what else to say.
"New, too are you? I'm in the same boat as you got here two days ago. My name is Fujimaru Ritsuka, or rather Ritsuka Fujimaru here I suppose."
"My name is Andrew Murphy, and I guess I got here yesterday." He said, figuring it polite to tell the other Master his name.
"Nice be acquainted with you Murphy-san, I shall be honored working with you. I wish to speak to you later, as I have other things to do." The overly polite boy finished speaking with a slight bow and left for the door to the hallway.
Andrew let out a sigh of relief as soon as Ritsuka left the room. This was not the best way of meeting someone new. He then proceeded to put on the uniform, which fit rather nicely, before going through the door himself to rejoin Lev.
"Good to see you're done Andrew, I guess you met Ritsuka in there didn't you." The green wearing magic user said.
"Y-yeah, we met," Andrew said, trying to push the meeting out of his mind.
"Good, he's one you're going to be working with for the foreseeable future. Now let's go meet the Doctor shall we?" Lev asked.
Andrew nodded and followed him down the hall. As he did, he remembered something. "Oh yeah, do you know what happened to my knife?" He asked, not remembering what had happened to it when he got knocked out.
"Ah, yes that and some of your casual clothes and other items have been collected by our agents and placed in your room- the closet is built into the wall. And before you ask, your family is okay they have just been hypnotized to think you left for a two-week cruise trip, you've won. So no need to worry about them, we even fabricated some evidence to show them your trip when you go back home." Lev said as they came to a stop in front of another door one that was identical to the one to his room. "And we are here." Lev walked up to the door and began knocking on it. "Hey, Romani wake up you lazy bum, your patient is here for his check-up!" Lev yelled as he hammered on the door. And a second later a voice responded.
"I'm awake, awake, Lev. No need to yell I wasn't even asleep I was talking with Vinci." The door opened up, and a man stood in the doorway.
Andrew gave the supposed doctor a look over, he was a man wearing a white and green colored lab coat. He had light, fluffy orange hair tied into a ponytail.
"Andrew, this is Romani Archaman, he's Chaldea's head doctor and the one that will take care of your health, as he is the only one that doesn't have a Master under his care yet," Lev said, with none of the mirth his tone held before. It seemed that he and Romani didn't get along very well.
"You don't have to sound so mean Professor Lev, now come inside Andrew, so I can give you a look over, and have Vinci open up your Circuits for use," Romani spoke with a soft voice but seemed to have whining set at a low setting to it.
Andrew, slightly confused, did as he was told but spoke as he did. "It's nice to meet you Doctor, but ah, what do you mean about 'opening' my circuits? And, if you don't mind me asking, who is Vinci?"
Romani was about to speak, but Lev cut him off before he could. "You see a Magi's Magic Circuits first needs to be opened or rather activated before they can be used to channel Prana through them. One can do it oneself, or have another do it. Vinci is going to do it as that way is going to be the fastest way to do it, to prevent you damaging yourself. I will say this Andrew Magecraft is dangerous if one is careless, and you can die doing it if you're not careful. As the saying goes to be a Magus is to walk with death. As for who Vinci is? Well, she is the first successful Servant summoned by Chaldea." Lev explained. "Now could we do this quickly the Director is starting her speech in two hours, and there is one thing we need to do before that."
Andrew absorbed the information, before moving over to the doctor with the oddly colored hair, and did as he was told.
Andrew followed the doctor into his room/lab/clinic, that was still the same color as his room and the hallway. But inside the sitting on one of the chairs was the woman he guessed to be Vinci.
"Andrew, meet Vinci," Romani said gesturing with his hand at the beautiful woman.
"Hello to you Andrew, I'm the Caster Class Servant Leonardo Da Vinci, but you can call me just Da Vinci or Vinci."
Andrew's brain short-circuited. "What." Was all he could say in response to the woman before him who introduced herself as Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest inventors of all time, who he was pretty sure was not an (admittedly rather gorgeous) woman.
"Oh, I can see the face your making and the thoughts your having. "Leonardo Da Vinci, a woman? Wasn't he supposed to be a man?" Am I correct in guessing that?" She said a playful smile on her lips.
Andrew just nodded dumbly, still trying to get his brain to process this information properly.
"And that is true, I was a man when I was alive, but when I was summoned as a Servant, I chose to appear as what I think is perfect beauty, my Mona Lisa." Da Vinci answered.
The actual check-up seemed pretty routine, as Romani took a small blood sample, checked for any diseases or illnesses he might have gained over the last month, etc. After being confirmed healthy and in working order, Andrew sat directly in front of Da Vinci trying to avert his eyes from her rather impressive bust, her hands firmly holding his.
"Now the next part is going the be a little bit, painful as opening Circuits for the first time can be a shock to the system. Like nerves, you never knew existed bursting with energy. I can say from it experience doesn't feel nice. But afterward, when you use them normally it's going to feel like having your hands on a radiator. Nice inventions you know, wish I had come up with them, same with the toaster- so much easily baked bread. Anyway, I'm going off topic. Now brace yourself." Da Vinci took out one of her hands from his and pressed it against his chest. "Percorsi aperti di energia!" Came what Andrew guessed was a magic chant like what Lev had spoken when he had summoned his fireball.
Andrew's curiosity only lasted for a second as pain struck his body like a lightning bolt; he saw green lines spread across his body, but a few seconds later the pain of seemingly putting a fork in a socket stopped, and the lines disappeared.
Andrew couldn't help but yell when it started, and he was very grateful when the pain stopped. "Why is it...that whenever someone says...something will only hurt a bit...it hurts like a bitch…" he said, out of breath from not having been doing much breathing during the procedure.
"Because of the Placebo Effect, because I said it would hurt less, I braced your body and mind for only small amounts of pain, and so were a bit more relaxed. Then if I had said it would hurt more, you would brace for a lot of pain and cause your body to lock and stress. And making the pain worse and causing some damage to your muscles if you had spasmed." Da Vinci tried to explain to Andrew like he were a child. "Now a quick healing spell to soothe your aches." Da Vinci said another chant and Andrew felt like his body had just gone through a soothing massage and not a supernatural electrocution. "Now try and activate your Magic Circuits yourself. You do so by focusing on an image in your mind of an action happening, and your Circuits being filled with Prana."
Andrew nodded and tried to do so. He pictured himself running. Not for any particular reason, just running for fun. Andrew saw the image of the foot hitting the asphalt, and he felt it like something had awoken within him, and he saw the image of thirty lines lighting up filled with energy to be used. He closed the Circuits quickly after, a sense of satisfaction filling his body. He might just be able to help these people save the world!
Xxx
Rection Theater:
Me: Sending a picture of what Ritsuka looks like
Passive_Soul: That's a protagonist alright
-
Me: Sending a picture of Da Vinci
Passive_Soul: [Engage the Boner]
Chapter 1:
Andrew Murphy was looking through the mail when he noticed a letter addressed to him by the Chaldea Security Organization.
Obviously curious, having never heard of such a thing, he opened the letter. He folded out the paper and began reading the first line.
"Congratulation Mr. Murphy for entering our contest during your latest blood donation and we are happy to announce that you have won the grand prize."
Andrew stared at the line, confused. He didn't remember entering any contest the last time he gave blood- or for that matter, the last time he donated his blood. Andrew continued reading curious as to what it was all about.
"And such you have won a week-long stay at the Chaldea Security Organization Observatory SHEBA. Our men will pick you up on July 7, there is no refusal of this request."
Andrew, now confused and honestly, a bit threatened by the letter looked over at the calendar to check today's date- July 7th. Desperately hoping it was a prank, he continued reading the letter. The only thing that was left on it was a symbol that looked like a moon surrounded crown of leaves, along with the name of the so-called organization written at the bottom of the page.
Andrew flipped over the paper, hoping there might be something there, only to find it blank.
Before he could do anything, he heard the sound of the doorbell ring. Andrew, now scared for his life, quickly grabbed his knife from his room, made sure he had his phone to call 911 once he thought he was safe and tried to sneak out the back door.
But when he did and opened the door he came face to face with a man dressed in a black uniform.
"Thought you would try this kid." The man said, and before Andrew had time to react he heard the words Sleep being spoken and his entire world went dark.
Xxx
Andrew felt the wakefulness of consciousness return to him as his eyes opened up to bright lamplight hitting them and instinctively closed them once again.
Andrew easily remembered what had happened and for just a moment thought that it had just been a bad dream. But when he tried to move his arms he found them not moving very much, and he heard the sound of two metal objects hitting each other.
Andrew, bewildered and afraid, looked around to try and figure out where he was. He figured he was handcuffed based on the position of his arms and how hard it was to move them. Andrew looked around where he was, and it looked to be a very spartan bedroom, that was painted white along with a few metal colored panels along the walls. And to the side, he could see a white desk at the corner where a door was. He only figured out it was a bedroom because he was lying on the bed. He tried to get up, only to find that he was seemingly cuffed to the legs of the bed. His head laying where his feet were supposed to be.
Andrew had never been in a situation like this before, and he was panicking. He had been kidnapped, knocked out, and was now chained to a bed in a sterile looking room with no idea where he was or how long he had been out. He felt like he wanted to scream.
But before he could scream or call for help the door in the middle of the wall he was looking at opened up, and a man stepped inside, not the one that had knocked him out.
Andrew looked up at the man in green. "Please, let me go." was all he could say, his frightened mind, robbing him of any thoughts more complex.
But all he got from the green top hat wearing man was a small laugh, more like a chuckle before he began to speak properly. "Sorry about the rough treatment kid, I hope our men weren't too scary, but we had to get you to Chaldea as fast as possible, the Director's order. But now that you are awake. You can get the explanation you deserve, also sorry about the cuffs we had to make sure you didn't run around the facility in a panic." The green man spoke with a voice filled with mirth to it as if he found the current situation like a big joke. One that only he understood.
Andrew looked up at the man, both more confused and more worried, though admittedly less panicked. "Wait, what? Who's the director? And why do they want me?" He looked at his wrists. "And can I get these off please?"
"Sure thing kid." The man spoke as he took the chair from the desk and over to where Andrew was laying. As he stopped, he took a key out of one of his pockets and unlocked the cuffs that were around his wrists.
Andrew sat up as the man sat down on the chair. He rubbed his wrists a little bit to get the blood flow back up to his hands and to not make them feel numb. "Thanks," he muttered.
"Don't thank me, kid, not yet anyway. Now, what do you wish to know first?" The man in green asked Andrew.
"What the hell is going on?" Andrew said, cutting to the chase. "And why do you want me, of all people?"
"Ah, an excellent first choice my boy. You see in this world there exists people with the capability to use magic- or Magecraft as it were, and you're one of the highest potentials of first generations we have detected in the modern age, putting even some of the older families to shame."
Andrew looked at the man before him incredulously. "So basically you're saying you kidnapped me because I'm a wizard." Now, he was even more worried. Magic? If the man was telling the truth that meant he might be able to use magic eventually, which was awesome, but at the same time the man and his organization could very well be crazy.
"Kidnapping is such a strong word to use Andrew, more like temporarily borrowing you. But I can see it in your eyes, 'magic how could something like that exists these people must be crazy.' So take a look at this. אֵשׁ" The man said and a second later a small ball of fire appeared in the man's hand before going out. "As you can see the Supernatural is very much real Andrew my dear boy."
Andrew stared at the spot where the flame had been above the man's hand. It was too round to have been a hidden flamethrower or something to fool him. Somehow, the man before him had actually used magic. "Holy shit," he said, dumbfounded. Magic. Magic was real. And according to the man before him, he had a high natural talent for it. He was mind boggled at the possibilities. "So, wait, what am I actually here for? Is this some kind of school or something?"
"Now that question is the crux of the situation, isn't it. First, there is a school in London along with Norway and Egypt for specific studies, mostly magecraft is taught internally in a family. And when first generation Magi like you are found is sent to one for basic learning of how to make mysteries. But as for why you're specifically here, Chaldea the Organization and whose base of operation your currently in are looking for Magi with Magic Circuits who are able to take up the role of a Master." The green man finished his current exposition dump.
"Wait, what? What are Magic Circuits? And Master of what?" Andrew asked, confused.
"Okay, basic information for beginner Magi. Magic Circuits are what allows Magi to channel Magical Energy, Prana to use Magecraft. Each Magi are born with a set number of circuits of various quality being able to only channel so much energy at a time. Yours are quite impressive for a First Generation Magus having 30 Magic Circuits of A-Rank quality. Now for the second question is a little bit more complex. Oh, it seems I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Lev Lainur, one of the head researchers here at Chaldea. Now for Chaldea itself, it is a security organization that is meant to ensure the survival of mankind, by having people like you, Andrew, to act as Masters to summon Heroic Spirits in the form Servants to ensure it." The now named Lev explained to him.
Andrew thought about Lev Lainur's words as he spoke. Apparently, he had good mana -or, Prana, he figured- capacity, which was why he had been kidnapped. "You didn't actually explain what being a Master actually means, though. What do you mean by 'Heroic Spirit'?"
Lev blinked for a few moments before he answered. "I'm sure I did, as I said Master's like you are to summon Heroic Spirits in the form of a Servant to command and defend humanity and the world from extinction. But what as for what a Heroic Spirit is they are Legends of the Past summoned from the Throne of Heroes. Think of it as an afterlife for the heroes of the past instead of being reincarnated like us ordinary humans; their Souls are Ascended to near Divinity as a reward for their deeds. A Servant is a small part, a copy of the hero if you will, meant to assist Masters like you when they answer the call to battle. Do you understand what I'm saying, its okay if you don't it is rather high-level stuff?" Lev finished speaking.
"So… you're saying that you kidnapped me so that I could summon some kind of demigod in order to protect humanity from extinction?" Andrew asked, trying to understand the situation.
"In a nutshell as you kids say nowadays, yes. But still, kidnapping is a rather strong word to use as you will be able to go home after you and your fellow Master have helped us resolve our current situation. We would have recruited you the normal way after discovering you through that blood donation you did last month. But you see my dear SHEBA lense have seen that humanity is going to by the next new year." Lev explained to him.
Andrew thought about it for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "You know if you guys would have just asked I would have said yes." He said, still not quite over being taken from his home like that. "But, I guess since humanity is at risk I don't really have a choice if I want to keep living but to help, right?"
"That's the spirit, Andrew! Now come with me, and I'll get you situated with the others, along with getting you some appropriate clothes, you have been sleeping in those garbs for over a day." Lev said as he stood and held out a hand to him.
Andrew gratefully took the hand and got up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his legs were more or less okay to use despite having been sleeping for more than 24 hours.
"Now follow me Andrew I'll show you the way to the showers." Lev began moving towards the door, and Andrew quickly followed behind, leaving the room and stepping out into a long hallway that was the same color as his room, but the obvious difference was that the left wall was entirely made out of glass which gave view to snowy mountaintops.
A blizzard was currently raging outside. Andrew looked out the window in awe. He had never been as high up as they appeared to be at the moment before. A thought occurred to him, and he vocalized it to the so far friendly Lev. "So, where is this place anyway?" He asked as they walked.
"Ah, that is a good question Andrew, but I'm afraid to even I don't know which country we're currently in. It's kind of an ongoing bet between us who work here of who can guess where we are. The only clue I can give you is that we're currently 8000 feet above sea level." Lev answered as they continued to walk down the empty corridor, currently absent of people.
Andrew had absolutely no idea where that meant they could be. As far as he knew, that could put them on any big enough mountain, so he simply filed away that information for later and continued following Lev with just a soft "Woah."
They walked for another minute before they came to a stop in front of another door with the stand blue logo on it. "The changing rooms and showers are here. Your locker is number 39. The code currently is 1234, but you can change it to what you want afterward. I'll be waiting for you. Afterwards, we'll be going to medical to get you a check up and open up your Magic Circuits for use." Lev said.
Andrew decided to go with the flow, responding with a just a nod before going into the room. It looked like a standard high school gym locker room with mercifully separated showers unlike what he was used to. One of them was occupied, but he just ignored them and used the shower furthest away from them.
Andrew went over to his locker and opened it to see if there were shampoo, body soap, and a towel. And to his luck there were along with a folded up uniform; he could see a part of it was white.
He quickly changed and went into one of the shower cabins and got washed, while he did so he heard the shower currently being used stopping.
Andrew paid it no mind and stopped when he was clean of sweat, and dirt.
Andrew left the shower cabin, towel around the waist and went back to his assigned locker.
And of course right next to his was the one he heard use the other shower. He was a boy around his age, with spiky black hair, and blue eyes. Currently wearing what was probably the official uniforms for Masters to walk around in.
"Hello?" The boy greeted in heavily accented English. "Are you a Master too?" He asked.
Andrew, slightly taken aback at talking to a stranger fresh out of the shower, fumbled over his words before replying with something coherent. "Y-yeah, I'm a Master I guess." He said, not really knowing what else to say.
"New, too are you? I'm in the same boat as you got here two days ago. My name is Fujimaru Ritsuka, or rather Ritsuka Fujimaru here I suppose."
"My name is Andrew Murphy, and I guess I got here yesterday." He said, figuring it polite to tell the other Master his name.
"Nice be acquainted with you Murphy-san, I shall be honored working with you. I wish to speak to you later, as I have other things to do." The overly polite boy finished speaking with a slight bow and left for the door to the hallway.
Andrew let out a sigh of relief as soon as Ritsuka left the room. This was not the best way of meeting someone new. He then proceeded to put on the uniform, which fit rather nicely, before going through the door himself to rejoin Lev.
"Good to see you're done Andrew, I guess you met Ritsuka in there didn't you." The green wearing magic user said.
"Y-yeah, we met," Andrew said, trying to push the meeting out of his mind.
"Good, he's one you're going to be working with for the foreseeable future. Now let's go meet the Doctor shall we?" Lev asked.
Andrew nodded and followed him down the hall. As he did, he remembered something. "Oh yeah, do you know what happened to my knife?" He asked, not remembering what had happened to it when he got knocked out.
"Ah, yes that and some of your casual clothes and other items have been collected by our agents and placed in your room- the closet is built into the wall. And before you ask, your family is okay they have just been hypnotized to think you left for a two-week cruise trip, you've won. So no need to worry about them, we even fabricated some evidence to show them your trip when you go back home." Lev said as they came to a stop in front of another door one that was identical to the one to his room. "And we are here." Lev walked up to the door and began knocking on it. "Hey, Romani wake up you lazy bum, your patient is here for his check-up!" Lev yelled as he hammered on the door. And a second later a voice responded.
"I'm awake, awake, Lev. No need to yell I wasn't even asleep I was talking with Vinci." The door opened up, and a man stood in the doorway.
Andrew gave the supposed doctor a look over, he was a man wearing a white and green colored lab coat. He had light, fluffy orange hair tied into a ponytail.
"Andrew, this is Romani Archaman, he's Chaldea's head doctor and the one that will take care of your health, as he is the only one that doesn't have a Master under his care yet," Lev said, with none of the mirth his tone held before. It seemed that he and Romani didn't get along very well.
"You don't have to sound so mean Professor Lev, now come inside Andrew, so I can give you a look over, and have Vinci open up your Circuits for use," Romani spoke with a soft voice but seemed to have whining set at a low setting to it.
Andrew, slightly confused, did as he was told but spoke as he did. "It's nice to meet you Doctor, but ah, what do you mean about 'opening' my circuits? And, if you don't mind me asking, who is Vinci?"
Romani was about to speak, but Lev cut him off before he could. "You see a Magi's Magic Circuits first needs to be opened or rather activated before they can be used to channel Prana through them. One can do it oneself, or have another do it. Vinci is going to do it as that way is going to be the fastest way to do it, to prevent you damaging yourself. I will say this Andrew Magecraft is dangerous if one is careless, and you can die doing it if you're not careful. As the saying goes to be a Magus is to walk with death. As for who Vinci is? Well, she is the first successful Servant summoned by Chaldea." Lev explained. "Now could we do this quickly the Director is starting her speech in two hours, and there is one thing we need to do before that."
Andrew absorbed the information, before moving over to the doctor with the oddly colored hair, and did as he was told.
Andrew followed the doctor into his room/lab/clinic, that was still the same color as his room and the hallway. But inside the sitting on one of the chairs was the woman he guessed to be Vinci.
"Andrew, meet Vinci," Romani said gesturing with his hand at the beautiful woman.
"Hello to you Andrew, I'm the Caster Class Servant Leonardo Da Vinci, but you can call me just Da Vinci or Vinci."
Andrew's brain short-circuited. "What." Was all he could say in response to the woman before him who introduced herself as Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest inventors of all time, who he was pretty sure was not an (admittedly rather gorgeous) woman.
"Oh, I can see the face your making and the thoughts your having. "Leonardo Da Vinci, a woman? Wasn't he supposed to be a man?" Am I correct in guessing that?" She said a playful smile on her lips.
Andrew just nodded dumbly, still trying to get his brain to process this information properly.
"And that is true, I was a man when I was alive, but when I was summoned as a Servant, I chose to appear as what I think is perfect beauty, my Mona Lisa." Da Vinci answered.
The actual check-up seemed pretty routine, as Romani took a small blood sample, checked for any diseases or illnesses he might have gained over the last month, etc. After being confirmed healthy and in working order, Andrew sat directly in front of Da Vinci trying to avert his eyes from her rather impressive bust, her hands firmly holding his.
"Now the next part is going the be a little bit, painful as opening Circuits for the first time can be a shock to the system. Like nerves, you never knew existed bursting with energy. I can say from it experience doesn't feel nice. But afterward, when you use them normally it's going to feel like having your hands on a radiator. Nice inventions you know, wish I had come up with them, same with the toaster- so much easily baked bread. Anyway, I'm going off topic. Now brace yourself." Da Vinci took out one of her hands from his and pressed it against his chest. "Percorsi aperti di energia!" Came what Andrew guessed was a magic chant like what Lev had spoken when he had summoned his fireball.
Andrew's curiosity only lasted for a second as pain struck his body like a lightning bolt; he saw green lines spread across his body, but a few seconds later the pain of seemingly putting a fork in a socket stopped, and the lines disappeared.
Andrew couldn't help but yell when it started, and he was very grateful when the pain stopped. "Why is it...that whenever someone says...something will only hurt a bit...it hurts like a bitch…" he said, out of breath from not having been doing much breathing during the procedure.
"Because of the Placebo Effect, because I said it would hurt less, I braced your body and mind for only small amounts of pain, and so were a bit more relaxed. Then if I had said it would hurt more, you would brace for a lot of pain and cause your body to lock and stress. And making the pain worse and causing some damage to your muscles if you had spasmed." Da Vinci tried to explain to Andrew like he were a child. "Now a quick healing spell to soothe your aches." Da Vinci said another chant and Andrew felt like his body had just gone through a soothing massage and not a supernatural electrocution. "Now try and activate your Magic Circuits yourself. You do so by focusing on an image in your mind of an action happening, and your Circuits being filled with Prana."
Andrew nodded and tried to do so. He pictured himself running. Not for any particular reason, just running for fun. Andrew saw the image of the foot hitting the asphalt, and he felt it like something had awoken within him, and he saw the image of thirty lines lighting up filled with energy to be used. He closed the Circuits quickly after, a sense of satisfaction filling his body. He might just be able to help these people save the world!
Xxx
Rection Theater:
Me: Sending a picture of what Ritsuka looks like
Passive_Soul: That's a protagonist alright
-
Me: Sending a picture of Da Vinci
Passive_Soul: [Engage the Boner]
Chapter 2 - Kouhai and She-Hulk
- Location
- Denmark
"I see that you managed to find an image to activate your Magic Circuits." Da Vinci said a smile still on her face.
"Yeah, I just thought about running and then…" Andrew thought about the feeling of activating his Magic Circuits- it was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. "The only word I can really use to describe it is, well, magical."
"Hmm, well that is certainly an interesting response. Now your body is in fine condition, and you can activate your Circuits that means your done here for today Andrew. Professor Lev is waiting for you outside the door." Da Vinci said.
"Yeah, I'm glad we got it over in less than twenty minutes." Romani intruded on the conversation. "I don't want him to be mad for wasting his time." The Doctor complained.
"Well, thank you very much, Da Vinci." Andrew thanked the hero, finding that calling someone that was a bit odd, but he was trying to roll with it. "And you too Doctor Archaman."
"Your welcome kid, now move along." The doctor responded.
Andrew nodded and raised himself from his chair and left through the door which slid open as he approached it. On the outside, he saw Lainur leaning up against a wall, his green top hat over his face.
As the door closed behind Andrew the professor looked up, his eyes meeting Andrew's own. "Ah, you're already done? Good, we still have two more things we need to do before the first mission starts." He said.
Andrew's interest was piqued. "Mission?" He asked, hoping that meant he could learn some kind of magic soon.
"Yes, the mission that Chaldea is going to send you Masters on to correct the anomaly in the Human Order, and prevent the extinction of mankind, but first you have to go through the Sipritron Simulation so that you get a little experience in how Servants fight." Lainur exposited to Andrew.
"Human Order?" Andrew asked, curious. He could understand what the professor meant about the simulator, but he hadn't heard that term before.
"I can explain that, on the way to the Simulation room," Lainur said as he began walking. Andrew quickly followed, walking right next to him. Going past the windows that showed the seemingly endless snowstorm. "The Human Order is a catch-all term for human history and the current reality. You see before the Age of Man there was the Age of Gods, where divinity ruled over man, from the Greeks to the Mesopotamian Gods." The weight of the silver cross around Andrew's neck felt a bit heavier at Lev's words. "But as humanity grew larger and Science became more fact. The collective Will of Mankind began to overcome the Gods and banished them from our reality to another called the Reverse Side. The Human Order in simple is the reality that mankind created. Physics exist because humanity believes it so. Now it's a lot more complex, but this is as simple I can make for someone of your beginner knowledge." Lev explained. "Oh my how time can go by when your teaching others, we're at the simulation room already."
And the professor was right in that as they stood right in front of a much larger door with the words ´Spiritron Simulation´ written on it.
"Now, let's get inside and have it booted up shall we," Lainur said, as he walked towards the door and it opened for him.
Andrew followed right behind him. The room or rather rooms they had entered looked like a studio recording booth. Andrew could see a large computer console with instruments and functions that looked decades ahead of any computer he had seen.
The second room was what he would say the recording booth, with a large window that allowed one to see the insides and the wall had studio lights that lit it up brightly. On the floor, there were several chairs, ten in total.
"Now Andrew I'm going to have you enter the simulation room and take a seat in one of those chairs. I'm going to be handling the rest from here, I just need you to relax. The whole thing is going to technically take place inside your head, so I'm going to warn you as a first time user you're going to be mentally drained a bit afterward." Lev explained.
Andrew responded with an affirmative nod and did as he was told, entering the booth and sitting on one of the chairs before doing his best to relax -admittedly a bit easier than he thought considering the circumstances. He just chalked it up to his freshly activated Magic Circuits having helped to release some of the nervousness from the whole 'being kidnapped' thing. "Alright, ready when you are Professor." He said.
Lev nodded and responded with. "Now the simulation is going to teach you how to command Servants in battle and how to utilize your Mystic Code."
"Mystic Code?" Andrew asked. He was starting to get used to having to ask questions so often.
"Ah, yes quick lesson, Mystic Code is the name for Magical objects capable of fulfilling a task. One is the clothes that you're wearing right now. It was developed by Da Vinci, by channeling Prana through you can use three spells that had been programmed into it. Now, do you have any last questions?" Lev finished.
Andrew was about to ask how to use which spell and what they did before he recalled that Lev had just said the simulation would explain how to use said Mystic Code. "Nope, I'm ready to go!" He said, honestly more than a bit excited.
"Good, now I'm going to start the simulation in three, two…" Lev didn't get to finish his countdown as the sound of beeps filled both rooms. "What is it now." Andrew heard Lev say. He saw him lift his arm up, and what seemed to be holographic screen appeared above. "What is it Director I'm about to put our newest recruit through the simulation."
"And I need you down in control to help with SHEBA and CHALDEA, just activate the simulation, and have Kyrielight pick him up when it's done." An irate female voice said that sounded like she was used to bossing people around.
"I will Director," Lev responded and ended the call. "Sorry about that, that was the Director telling me to come down to her and control. And you probably heard her didn't you?"
Andrew looked at Lev through the glass, a tad curious (which seemed to be his new default state) but nodded anyway. "Yeah, I did. She said that someone could pick me up when I'm done right? So I'm guessing that means you don't have to be here to operate the simulation."
"That is correct, I just need to start it, and the thing can run itself until it's done. Now starting simulation in three, two, one."
When Lev finished counting down, Andrew found his vision going black, but only for a moment, and when color came to again, he found himself standing in a green open field.
"Woah," Andrew said, looking around the field. Intellectually he knew that it was a simulation, but he couldn't help but think he had instead been teleported. Everything looked so… real that it defied what he thought of a 'simulation.' Though he was a bit confused why he was the only thing in the field. Wasn't this a training simulator?
Andrews confusion was alleviated when heard a male voice come from seemingly nowhere, but it wasn't Professor Lainur's voice, it had that automated, Siri-esque feel to it.
"Welcome Master, to the Training Simulator, here you will learn how to utilize the Chaldea Uniform Mystic Code that, you have been given and how to command Servants during battle. Please turn on your Magic Circuits." The Voice instructed.
Andrew did as he was told, thinking again of the feeling of running, and this time he was able to see the green lines appear on his skin as he did.
"Good, now the Chaldea Uniform has three spells that you can use by channeling Prana through the Code and thinking about the Spell you wish to use for as long as you have Prana to spare. Those Spells: are First Aid which is able to heal you or a Servant of Injuries; Instant Reinforcement which temporarily increases your or a single Servants strength; and finally Emergency Evade, which boosts agility to escape an attack. Now try to use them on yourself to proceed to the next part of training."
Andrew was ecstatic as he channeled the Prana from his Circuits into the Mystic Code (which he didn't even know he knew how to do) and thought of which spell to use first, before deciding on Instant Reinforcement. Andrew could instantly feel the power flowing through him, and with no target to test his strength decided to punch the ground underneath him, causing dirt to fly from the point of impact.
He was not expecting the pain in his hand and wrist after doing so, however. Andrew figured it probably just enhanced his strength and not his durability, but it was a good way to test First Aid. He channeled his Prana into his Uniform once more, this time to cast First Aid on his arm- and instantly the pain from punching the ground disappeared as if he had never done it in the first place.
Andrew then cast Emergency Evade, and suddenly felt much faster for about a second before the feeling completely disappeared. 'That must be why its called Emergency Evade' he thought to himself.
"Congratulation you have managed to use all of the Mystic Codes' Spells correctly, and from the quantity and quality of your Magical Circuits, you can use these spells a total of fifteen times before you run of magical energy. Now onto Servant combat simulating Servants and enemies for combats." The Voice said.
And a second later Andrew saw three circles appear on the ground in front of him. They lit up and on them stood three figures, two of which he felt he recognized.
Another second later the three of them spoke at once. "Servant Saber/Lancer/Archer. We answer your call to battle!"
Andrew suddenly realized why some of the things he had heard earlier sounded somewhat familiar. The small blond woman in the armored dress and the blue-haired man with the scarlet red spear, calling themselves Saber and Lancer, were what finally made him realize. This stuff was straight out of Fate/Stay Night!
Andrew's mind went into overdrive. How the hell were fictional characters (reinterpretations of characters, but the point still stood) from some anime, he watched once standing in front of him? Suddenly, he began to doubt whether or not this whole thing was just some weird dream, and he was still at home for New Yea-
His thoughts stopped. He had been home for Winter Break, not Summer Break, yet he had been kidnapped on July 7th. And when he had punched the ground just a moment ago, it actually hurt. He had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore. He decided that since this must be a dream, as things like this just don't happen, he'd might as well play along and enjoy it while it lasted.
"Master, enemies have appeared! What are your orders?" the gender-bent version of King Arthur calling herself Saber asked.
Andrew was pulled out of his thoughts and looked at her, and right behind her he saw eight feet tall figures seemingly made out of stone, walking towards them there were about twenty of them. "So orders, Master." The one called Archer said the one he didn't recognize from the anime.
Andrew thought for a moment before deciding on a course of action. "Archer, suppressing fire on the enemy!" He said motioning to the man wielding the scarlet bow as he did. "Saber, take the ones to the right, Lancer the ones to the left!" He finished, motioning to the respective sides as he did. He then remembered his Mystic Code and used Instant Reinforcement on Lancer first as he was faster second Saber, and Archer last.
The Servants accepted the orders and began to attack.
Andrew saw Saber and Lancer rush to their respective side, their superhuman speed breaking the sound barrier and they were within their targets reach in less than a second.
Sword and Spear cleaved through the monsters made of rock like butter with their temporarily enhanced strength aiding them.
Meanwhile, the Archer Andrew didn't know the name of summoned Arrows from thin air, firing at the monsters like a machine gun, hitting the ones that Saber and Lancer missed and was about to attack them. The Arrows, just how like Saber and Lancer moved, were fired at supersonic speed. The rock the monsters were made out of was pulverized upon impact.
Andrew could only watch in fascination and horror as all twenty of the rock monsters were massacred in less than a minute, leaving only rubble behind as evidence.
"Damn." Was all Andrew could say in response to the total decimation which had occurred at his command. It was one thing to see such destruction in an animated format; it was another beast entirely to see such a thing in person.
That was when Andrew saw the Servants freeze in place. "Congratulation on completing the beginners training course, come back another day for harder challenges." The Voice he had completely forgotten about spoke again.
And just like he entered the simulation Andrew's vision went black again.
Andrew opened his eyes once again, but now he felt something on his lap which hadn't been there when he had started; he looked down to see what it was. On his lap was a small, snow-white animal that looked like it was more fluff than anything else, with ears like a rabbit but looking more like a cat or a fox; and it was tiny. It seemed to be wearing a little blue shirt with a red bow. All in all, the animal conveyed one thing to Andrew- absolute adorableness.
"It's good to see you awake Senpai." Andrew heard a female voice speak from his left side, he turned his head and saw standing there was a girl, with light pinkish hair, and glasses that covered eyes of deep purple color. She was wearing a white and grey jacket, with a black shirt underneath.
"Uh, hi," Andrew said lamely, almost every fiber of his being telling him to pet the small animal on his lap, with the only thing preventing him from doing so being his experience with stranger's pets. He did not even process being called 'Senpai' so great was his preoccupation. "Uhm, is this your pet?"
The girl shook her head. "No, he is not, Fou is a squirrel-like creature that is allowed to roam the halls of Chaldea, he is like a Mascot we have." She said.
Andrew looked at her with barely contained glee at the small creature on his lap. "Is...is it safe to pet it?" He asked, hopeful.
The girl nodded. "It is, and Fou already seems to like you."
Andrew immediately began to gently pet the small, strange creature. Upon touching Fou's fluff, he had only barely prevented himself from squeeing (something he had done before with similarly adorable animals) in delight. He then remembered that there was a stranger, standing right next to him, and reined himself in. "U-uhm, sorry about that." He said, still petting Fou but now much slower and focusing more on the person before him. "I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. I'm Andrew Murphy, one of the new Masters here." He said, neglecting to mention how he had arrived. The girl looked about his age, maybe a bit younger, she likely had nothing to do with it.
As he stopped petting Fou, the creature left his lap and proceeded to jump up on the girls face with a loud. "FOU!" Coming from it landing on her face before situating itself on her shoulder.
The girl quickly regained her composure from Fou landing on her face. "I know that, my name is Mash Kyrielight, Professor Lainur told me to pick you up and taking you to the dining hall for a quick lunch as you're probably hungry." She spoke with her soft voice, that seemed to be filled with life.
"Sure, I guess," Andrew said, definitely feeling hungry, and more-than-slightly disappointed at Fou leaving his lap. He stood up. "So, where is the dining hall?"
"Its down on the floor below us. I shall show you the way." Mash said, and Andrew nodded in response. The two and Fou left the Simulation Room. And as they did Andrew could feel a slight headache building up- probably the after-effects of the simulation like Lainur had said would happen.
As they were walking, Mash leading the way, Andrew asked. "So, are you one of the other Masters?" He was curious as to who he would be working with and figured it be better to ask than silence.
Mash didn't turn her head to look at him as she spoke. "No, I'm unqualified for such a task."
"Oh, uh, so what do you do?" He asked, curious. He hoped he hadn't hit a nerve with that given her response.
"I assist others with their work, but most of the time I'm with Doctor Romani and Da Vinci, but now my job is to assist Masters such as you Senpai, in getting situated in Chaldea."
"Oh, okay," Andrew said, before realizing what she had said. "Wait, Senpai? I haven't been here for more than a day or two. If anything, I should be calling you that." He said, ignoring that since they were speaking English, he shouldn't be calling anyone that, but he figured since this was a dream it didn't have to make total sense.
Mash turned her head to look at Andrew, a look of bewilderment on her face. "Why? Doctor Romani told me that it was a polite way to refer to those older than oneself."
Andrew thought about it for a moment. "Well, how old are you?" he asked.
"I'm 16 Senpai." She gave a short answer.
"Oh, okay. I'm 18, so I guess it makes sense then." Andrew said, not really giving it much else thought. He then had a realization. "Uh, Professor Lainur said that there were other Masters, and I met the one, but do you know how many there are total?" He asked in order to figure out how many people he might end up working directly with.
"Ah, there are forty-nine Masters in total Senpai, 38 from established Magi families and 11 civilians. And they are separated into teams of seven."
"Oh, so that each team has one of each servant right?" Andrew said, recalling how there were seven servant classes.
"That is correct Senpai," Mash responded.
Andrew let out a short laugh. "Seven whole holy grail wars being used against one enemy. Man, they don't stand a chance!" That made Andrew have a small realization. "Oh! So when do I get to summon a servant?" He asked, excited at the prospect of having a legendary figure under his command.
"That is a good description of our fighting force Senpai, and from what I remember summoning is supposed to take place after Rayshift has been commenced and on location."
Andrew, by now used to not recognizing a term, asked "Rayshift?"
"Ah, has Professor Lainur not told you about that?" she asked, to which Andrew shook his head negative. "I tell you when Senpai. Rayshift is a piece of technomancy developed by Chaldea that allows for the consciousness to be converted into Spiritons and sent into the past to correct the calamity that SHEBA has observed that will end the Human Order that CHALDEA used to see."
Andrew soaked up her words like a sponge. He noticed that she said about going to the past, which meant this dream also involved time travel! As if it wasn't already complicated enough!
"Ah, we need to turn left here Senpai," Mash said, and Andrew followed the shy looking girl as they entered through a door. And from there walked down some stairs to the lower floor. And after a minute more of walking and relative silence, they came to the dining hall, marked by the giant letters on the door.
The three of them entered inside, and Andrew saw that were people already inside, and this time it was adults clad in uniforms different from his own. These were primarily black in color with a green stripe down the middle for men and orange for women.
"They are Chaldea's General Staff Senpai." Mash introduced Andrew to the men and women who would work behind the scenes.
Andrew followed Mash as she leads him to where the food was and picked out something that he recognized and liked. Afterwards, they took a seat at the round dinner tables.
Andrew and Mash ate their food in a relatively comfortable silence. Fou also ate, eating something out of a bowl on the table for him.
Andrew went for two more portions to have his fill and when he was full Mash spoke up. "Are you done eating Senpai?"
Andrew thought for a moment before speaking. "Yeah, I think I'm good. So, where to now?"
"We are going to go down to mission control where the Director is going to make her opening speech about the mission and its details. When the teams are going to be Rayshifted to where the Calamity originated from."
"Neato. Lead the way, Kouhai." Andrew said.
Andrew saw a small blush on Mash's face as she nodded and they put their plates away, and they made their way out of the dining hall passing by some of the staff, who greeted them, and they returned the courtesy.
This time the journey didn't lead to another room, but rather an elevator, which Mash said, lead to the control room deep down inside the mountain.
As the elevator came to a stop, they went to another large door which bore the symbol he had seen on the end of the letter had gotten before the kidnapping happened and his dream had begun.
"The rest of the Masters are inside Senpai take the seat with number 49 on it." Mash instructed.
"Thank you for helping me today, Kouhai~," Andrew said as he went to do as she told him.
Andrew entered through the door, and a few feet in front of it he saw several heads sticking over several benches. He quickly guessed those were his fellow Masters and that he should quickly take a seat.
Luckily for him, his seat number was the end of the last row, and as such sat down. But it seemed he was still a bit early as the others Master were making small talk with each other. So he took the time to look around as much as he could from his seat. But the only thing he could clearly see was a contraption. It looked like a multi-layered gyroscope with a blue glowing sphere at its center that looked like a small star. The whole thing was seemingly floating in the air, surrounded by more of the holographic screens he had seen earlier. More strange was the fact that the walls surrounding it looked like something out of an M. C. Escher painting, and the more he looked at them, the more his head hurt.
As Andrew finished examining what he could see of the room he leaned back in his seat as he waited for the Director to show up. He yawned a bit and was starting to feel a bit sleepy, the simulation starting to catch up to him. The Director stilled looked ways out so, catching five didn't seem to be a bad idea. He stifled a laugh at falling asleep in a dream.
Andrew closed his eyes.
"Oh, you think my speech is boring to do you." Andrew heard an angry-sounding woman say. Andrew opened his eyes immediately coming face to face with the woman he guessed was the Director, recognizing the voice from Lainur's call earlier. "So do you enjoy sleeping during important information Master 49?" Her voice sounded like it could freeze fire cold and the glare she was giving him could melt the north pole.
Andrew sputtered, at a loss for words, before deciding on spite and snark. "Sorry, I've been through a rather stressful kidnapping recently." He said with a smile which held no mirth. "I'm a little out of it right now. Sorry, Director." The final word was filled with as much vitriol as Andrew could muster. He wasn't normally so spiteful, but he was dreaming so who cares, he thought.
And with those words, he saw the Director's face turn into one of undignified rage. "Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Olga Marie Aminusphere. Out! Out get out!" She screamed at him, and before Andrew knew it, he was pulled from his seat and bodily thrown by the woman in an impressive feat of strength through the open door and landed right at Mash's feet. He heard the door seal shut.
Andrew was completely dumbfounded before he started laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened. A white-haired woman who otherwise looked like she was at most in her late 20's, who was at best five and a half feet tall, and definitely on the skinny side. Had just lifted him, a 6'2" male weighing almost 300 pounds and had thrown him at least 6 feet! He couldn't do anything but laugh at the strange turn his dream had apparently taken. Her exploding on him just moments before made it even better.
Andrew stopped laughing as he saw Mash looking down on him. "Senpai did you do something stupid?"
Andrew let out another, much shorter laugh before speaking as he started to get up. "Yes, Kouhai. Yes, I did." He said, bearing a wide and frank smile.
Andrew heard a sigh escape from his Kouhai's throat. "Stand up properly, Senpai. Let's get back to your room. It seems that you won't be joining the first mission." Mash said.
"That he won't my dear Miss Kyrielight, not with how mad he made the Director." Andrew heard the familiar voice of Lev Lainur, one of the few people in this dream he really liked.
They both turned to the green man coming out from a door a little away from the main door.
"Oh hey, Professor!" Andrew said, greeting the well-dressed man with enthusiasm. He pointed to the ball of fluff on Mash's shoulder. "Hey, is Fou your pet?" He said, being curious about the creature and not giving any shits about the bitch who had just thrown him out of the room.
The man shook his head. "No, that thing is not mine. But think it was Romani that found it wandering around the facility one day, we wanted to throw it out, but the Director took a liking to it. Convinced by Romani, it could be some sort of mascot for us. Anyway, I got a good laugh from what you said to the Director, haven't seen her so riled up in a while. But it seems your banned from this mission Andrew, but there is always a next time cause I don't think this is going to be the last one." Lev said as he left Andrew, Mash, and Fou alone outside of the control room.
"Come Senpai, I'll go with you up to your room," Mash said.
"Alright Kouhai, lead the way," Andrew said, pep in his step as he followed her back.
Xxx
"It was nice to meet you Senpai, but I need to return to the control now, I want to watch the A-Team Rayshift," Mash said as they reached the door to Andrew's room.
Andrew smiled as he spoke. "It was very nice to meet you too, Kouhai~," He said. "And thank you very much for everything you've done for me today. See you soon!"
Mash nodded goodbye as she and Fou left together, a small blush on her face. As she turned the corner.
Andrew turned to the side and entered his room.
Where he came face to face, with Romani sitting on his bed eating a strawberry cake, with a laptop on his knees.
"Oh, Doctor Archaman, I wasn't expecting you to be in here," Andrew said, not really finding it all that strange. Dream logic, after all!
The doctor put down his spoon of strawberry cake and looked somewhat sheepishly apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't know that this was your room. I normally use this place to get away from others, and Da Vinci was starting to get a little nagging. But weren't you supposed to be down in mission control ready to Rayshift?" The Doctor asked.
"Oh, I'm banned from the mission," Andrew explained nonchalantly. "I closed my eyes for what I'm pretty sure was a literal second, and she got up in my face, so I just told her the truth, and she threw me out." Andrew paused for a moment before adding "And I mean she literally, bodily threw me out of the room."
"You made the Director mad didn't you?" Romani said, with a deadpan voice. It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yes indeed!" Andrew said, smiling wide. He had no respect for the woman who had ordered his kidnapping.
With his answer, Romani just laughed. "You're just like me, she yelled and threw me out earlier to since I couldn't help with anything as the machines are better at seeing the vitals of Mages inside the Rayshift Coffins than me."
Andrew blanched at the name. "Coffins?"
"Hey, don't look at me I didn't name them something so stupid, the previous Director did," Romani stated.
That caught Andrew's attention. "Previous Director? You mean Bitchy McShehulk didn't start this?"
Andrew heard a snort coming from Romani. "No, the previous Director was her father Marisbury Aminusphere, she took over after he seemingly disappeared, people thought he committed suicide, but not me. I knew the man from before he created Chaldea and I think somebody forced him to run away."
Andrew barely had to think before he responded. "Do you think it was the current Director's doing, or…?" he said.
Romani shook his head immediately. "No, Olga didn't do anything, she was a daddy's girl all the way, while she is a bad person she isn't capable of that kind of betrayal."
Andrew let out a short "Ah, ok." before he realized something. "Wait, her name is Olga?" He said, starting to laugh. He hadn't really realized it before, but now that he had it made sense why she was so violent with a name like that.
"Yeah, Magi don't have the best naming schemes." But before Romani could talk any more a beeping sound came from the doctor's wrist. "Sorry going to have to take this. Hello?"
"Romani, we're going to start the Rayshifting soon. Could you come in case there's an emergency?" Came Lev Lainur's voice from the holographic phone. "The A-Team's in perfect condition, but B-Team on down is less experienced, and they're displaying some slight abnormalities." The Professor told the doctor. "It probably comes from anxiety. The inside of that Coffin is like a cockpit."
"Hey Lev, I feel bad for them. Why don't you give them some anesthesia?" He responded.
"Yeah, hurry up, will you? If you're in the main infirmary, then you can get here in two minutes." Lev finished, the hologram disappeared, and Romani sighed.
"Don't let me hold you up Doctor Archaman," Andrew said once the call had finished, not wanting to get in the way of a doctor helping people.
"Yeah, I should go, but I'm at least going to be five minutes late, by being here. But, don't call me Archaman, call Dr. Roman, my friends do that, for we're friends aren't we, my patient."
"Alright, Dr. Roman. I'll see you around." Andrew said with a smile. Man, this was a long dream.
"Sure thing Andrew, come around to my infirmary, and I'll treat you to some cake." And as the doctor finished speaking the light inside the room went out at once. "Wait, why did the light just go out?"
Xxx
Reaction theater:
Me: Picture of Fou.
Passive: Wow, we got a mascot. And it is adorable.
Me: Mash
Passive: We got us a Sakura here.
Me: [Showing Olga and her father's name]
Passive: It's like a Japanese person trying to come up with English sounding names. *Gets thrown out of reaction*
Me: The lights going out.
Passive: Well the other shoe just dropped.
"Yeah, I just thought about running and then…" Andrew thought about the feeling of activating his Magic Circuits- it was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. "The only word I can really use to describe it is, well, magical."
"Hmm, well that is certainly an interesting response. Now your body is in fine condition, and you can activate your Circuits that means your done here for today Andrew. Professor Lev is waiting for you outside the door." Da Vinci said.
"Yeah, I'm glad we got it over in less than twenty minutes." Romani intruded on the conversation. "I don't want him to be mad for wasting his time." The Doctor complained.
"Well, thank you very much, Da Vinci." Andrew thanked the hero, finding that calling someone that was a bit odd, but he was trying to roll with it. "And you too Doctor Archaman."
"Your welcome kid, now move along." The doctor responded.
Andrew nodded and raised himself from his chair and left through the door which slid open as he approached it. On the outside, he saw Lainur leaning up against a wall, his green top hat over his face.
As the door closed behind Andrew the professor looked up, his eyes meeting Andrew's own. "Ah, you're already done? Good, we still have two more things we need to do before the first mission starts." He said.
Andrew's interest was piqued. "Mission?" He asked, hoping that meant he could learn some kind of magic soon.
"Yes, the mission that Chaldea is going to send you Masters on to correct the anomaly in the Human Order, and prevent the extinction of mankind, but first you have to go through the Sipritron Simulation so that you get a little experience in how Servants fight." Lainur exposited to Andrew.
"Human Order?" Andrew asked, curious. He could understand what the professor meant about the simulator, but he hadn't heard that term before.
"I can explain that, on the way to the Simulation room," Lainur said as he began walking. Andrew quickly followed, walking right next to him. Going past the windows that showed the seemingly endless snowstorm. "The Human Order is a catch-all term for human history and the current reality. You see before the Age of Man there was the Age of Gods, where divinity ruled over man, from the Greeks to the Mesopotamian Gods." The weight of the silver cross around Andrew's neck felt a bit heavier at Lev's words. "But as humanity grew larger and Science became more fact. The collective Will of Mankind began to overcome the Gods and banished them from our reality to another called the Reverse Side. The Human Order in simple is the reality that mankind created. Physics exist because humanity believes it so. Now it's a lot more complex, but this is as simple I can make for someone of your beginner knowledge." Lev explained. "Oh my how time can go by when your teaching others, we're at the simulation room already."
And the professor was right in that as they stood right in front of a much larger door with the words ´Spiritron Simulation´ written on it.
"Now, let's get inside and have it booted up shall we," Lainur said, as he walked towards the door and it opened for him.
Andrew followed right behind him. The room or rather rooms they had entered looked like a studio recording booth. Andrew could see a large computer console with instruments and functions that looked decades ahead of any computer he had seen.
The second room was what he would say the recording booth, with a large window that allowed one to see the insides and the wall had studio lights that lit it up brightly. On the floor, there were several chairs, ten in total.
"Now Andrew I'm going to have you enter the simulation room and take a seat in one of those chairs. I'm going to be handling the rest from here, I just need you to relax. The whole thing is going to technically take place inside your head, so I'm going to warn you as a first time user you're going to be mentally drained a bit afterward." Lev explained.
Andrew responded with an affirmative nod and did as he was told, entering the booth and sitting on one of the chairs before doing his best to relax -admittedly a bit easier than he thought considering the circumstances. He just chalked it up to his freshly activated Magic Circuits having helped to release some of the nervousness from the whole 'being kidnapped' thing. "Alright, ready when you are Professor." He said.
Lev nodded and responded with. "Now the simulation is going to teach you how to command Servants in battle and how to utilize your Mystic Code."
"Mystic Code?" Andrew asked. He was starting to get used to having to ask questions so often.
"Ah, yes quick lesson, Mystic Code is the name for Magical objects capable of fulfilling a task. One is the clothes that you're wearing right now. It was developed by Da Vinci, by channeling Prana through you can use three spells that had been programmed into it. Now, do you have any last questions?" Lev finished.
Andrew was about to ask how to use which spell and what they did before he recalled that Lev had just said the simulation would explain how to use said Mystic Code. "Nope, I'm ready to go!" He said, honestly more than a bit excited.
"Good, now I'm going to start the simulation in three, two…" Lev didn't get to finish his countdown as the sound of beeps filled both rooms. "What is it now." Andrew heard Lev say. He saw him lift his arm up, and what seemed to be holographic screen appeared above. "What is it Director I'm about to put our newest recruit through the simulation."
"And I need you down in control to help with SHEBA and CHALDEA, just activate the simulation, and have Kyrielight pick him up when it's done." An irate female voice said that sounded like she was used to bossing people around.
"I will Director," Lev responded and ended the call. "Sorry about that, that was the Director telling me to come down to her and control. And you probably heard her didn't you?"
Andrew looked at Lev through the glass, a tad curious (which seemed to be his new default state) but nodded anyway. "Yeah, I did. She said that someone could pick me up when I'm done right? So I'm guessing that means you don't have to be here to operate the simulation."
"That is correct, I just need to start it, and the thing can run itself until it's done. Now starting simulation in three, two, one."
When Lev finished counting down, Andrew found his vision going black, but only for a moment, and when color came to again, he found himself standing in a green open field.
"Woah," Andrew said, looking around the field. Intellectually he knew that it was a simulation, but he couldn't help but think he had instead been teleported. Everything looked so… real that it defied what he thought of a 'simulation.' Though he was a bit confused why he was the only thing in the field. Wasn't this a training simulator?
Andrews confusion was alleviated when heard a male voice come from seemingly nowhere, but it wasn't Professor Lainur's voice, it had that automated, Siri-esque feel to it.
"Welcome Master, to the Training Simulator, here you will learn how to utilize the Chaldea Uniform Mystic Code that, you have been given and how to command Servants during battle. Please turn on your Magic Circuits." The Voice instructed.
Andrew did as he was told, thinking again of the feeling of running, and this time he was able to see the green lines appear on his skin as he did.
"Good, now the Chaldea Uniform has three spells that you can use by channeling Prana through the Code and thinking about the Spell you wish to use for as long as you have Prana to spare. Those Spells: are First Aid which is able to heal you or a Servant of Injuries; Instant Reinforcement which temporarily increases your or a single Servants strength; and finally Emergency Evade, which boosts agility to escape an attack. Now try to use them on yourself to proceed to the next part of training."
Andrew was ecstatic as he channeled the Prana from his Circuits into the Mystic Code (which he didn't even know he knew how to do) and thought of which spell to use first, before deciding on Instant Reinforcement. Andrew could instantly feel the power flowing through him, and with no target to test his strength decided to punch the ground underneath him, causing dirt to fly from the point of impact.
He was not expecting the pain in his hand and wrist after doing so, however. Andrew figured it probably just enhanced his strength and not his durability, but it was a good way to test First Aid. He channeled his Prana into his Uniform once more, this time to cast First Aid on his arm- and instantly the pain from punching the ground disappeared as if he had never done it in the first place.
Andrew then cast Emergency Evade, and suddenly felt much faster for about a second before the feeling completely disappeared. 'That must be why its called Emergency Evade' he thought to himself.
"Congratulation you have managed to use all of the Mystic Codes' Spells correctly, and from the quantity and quality of your Magical Circuits, you can use these spells a total of fifteen times before you run of magical energy. Now onto Servant combat simulating Servants and enemies for combats." The Voice said.
And a second later Andrew saw three circles appear on the ground in front of him. They lit up and on them stood three figures, two of which he felt he recognized.
Another second later the three of them spoke at once. "Servant Saber/Lancer/Archer. We answer your call to battle!"
Andrew suddenly realized why some of the things he had heard earlier sounded somewhat familiar. The small blond woman in the armored dress and the blue-haired man with the scarlet red spear, calling themselves Saber and Lancer, were what finally made him realize. This stuff was straight out of Fate/Stay Night!
Andrew's mind went into overdrive. How the hell were fictional characters (reinterpretations of characters, but the point still stood) from some anime, he watched once standing in front of him? Suddenly, he began to doubt whether or not this whole thing was just some weird dream, and he was still at home for New Yea-
His thoughts stopped. He had been home for Winter Break, not Summer Break, yet he had been kidnapped on July 7th. And when he had punched the ground just a moment ago, it actually hurt. He had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore. He decided that since this must be a dream, as things like this just don't happen, he'd might as well play along and enjoy it while it lasted.
"Master, enemies have appeared! What are your orders?" the gender-bent version of King Arthur calling herself Saber asked.
Andrew was pulled out of his thoughts and looked at her, and right behind her he saw eight feet tall figures seemingly made out of stone, walking towards them there were about twenty of them. "So orders, Master." The one called Archer said the one he didn't recognize from the anime.
Andrew thought for a moment before deciding on a course of action. "Archer, suppressing fire on the enemy!" He said motioning to the man wielding the scarlet bow as he did. "Saber, take the ones to the right, Lancer the ones to the left!" He finished, motioning to the respective sides as he did. He then remembered his Mystic Code and used Instant Reinforcement on Lancer first as he was faster second Saber, and Archer last.
The Servants accepted the orders and began to attack.
Andrew saw Saber and Lancer rush to their respective side, their superhuman speed breaking the sound barrier and they were within their targets reach in less than a second.
Sword and Spear cleaved through the monsters made of rock like butter with their temporarily enhanced strength aiding them.
Meanwhile, the Archer Andrew didn't know the name of summoned Arrows from thin air, firing at the monsters like a machine gun, hitting the ones that Saber and Lancer missed and was about to attack them. The Arrows, just how like Saber and Lancer moved, were fired at supersonic speed. The rock the monsters were made out of was pulverized upon impact.
Andrew could only watch in fascination and horror as all twenty of the rock monsters were massacred in less than a minute, leaving only rubble behind as evidence.
"Damn." Was all Andrew could say in response to the total decimation which had occurred at his command. It was one thing to see such destruction in an animated format; it was another beast entirely to see such a thing in person.
That was when Andrew saw the Servants freeze in place. "Congratulation on completing the beginners training course, come back another day for harder challenges." The Voice he had completely forgotten about spoke again.
And just like he entered the simulation Andrew's vision went black again.
Andrew opened his eyes once again, but now he felt something on his lap which hadn't been there when he had started; he looked down to see what it was. On his lap was a small, snow-white animal that looked like it was more fluff than anything else, with ears like a rabbit but looking more like a cat or a fox; and it was tiny. It seemed to be wearing a little blue shirt with a red bow. All in all, the animal conveyed one thing to Andrew- absolute adorableness.
"It's good to see you awake Senpai." Andrew heard a female voice speak from his left side, he turned his head and saw standing there was a girl, with light pinkish hair, and glasses that covered eyes of deep purple color. She was wearing a white and grey jacket, with a black shirt underneath.
"Uh, hi," Andrew said lamely, almost every fiber of his being telling him to pet the small animal on his lap, with the only thing preventing him from doing so being his experience with stranger's pets. He did not even process being called 'Senpai' so great was his preoccupation. "Uhm, is this your pet?"
The girl shook her head. "No, he is not, Fou is a squirrel-like creature that is allowed to roam the halls of Chaldea, he is like a Mascot we have." She said.
Andrew looked at her with barely contained glee at the small creature on his lap. "Is...is it safe to pet it?" He asked, hopeful.
The girl nodded. "It is, and Fou already seems to like you."
Andrew immediately began to gently pet the small, strange creature. Upon touching Fou's fluff, he had only barely prevented himself from squeeing (something he had done before with similarly adorable animals) in delight. He then remembered that there was a stranger, standing right next to him, and reined himself in. "U-uhm, sorry about that." He said, still petting Fou but now much slower and focusing more on the person before him. "I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. I'm Andrew Murphy, one of the new Masters here." He said, neglecting to mention how he had arrived. The girl looked about his age, maybe a bit younger, she likely had nothing to do with it.
As he stopped petting Fou, the creature left his lap and proceeded to jump up on the girls face with a loud. "FOU!" Coming from it landing on her face before situating itself on her shoulder.
The girl quickly regained her composure from Fou landing on her face. "I know that, my name is Mash Kyrielight, Professor Lainur told me to pick you up and taking you to the dining hall for a quick lunch as you're probably hungry." She spoke with her soft voice, that seemed to be filled with life.
"Sure, I guess," Andrew said, definitely feeling hungry, and more-than-slightly disappointed at Fou leaving his lap. He stood up. "So, where is the dining hall?"
"Its down on the floor below us. I shall show you the way." Mash said, and Andrew nodded in response. The two and Fou left the Simulation Room. And as they did Andrew could feel a slight headache building up- probably the after-effects of the simulation like Lainur had said would happen.
As they were walking, Mash leading the way, Andrew asked. "So, are you one of the other Masters?" He was curious as to who he would be working with and figured it be better to ask than silence.
Mash didn't turn her head to look at him as she spoke. "No, I'm unqualified for such a task."
"Oh, uh, so what do you do?" He asked, curious. He hoped he hadn't hit a nerve with that given her response.
"I assist others with their work, but most of the time I'm with Doctor Romani and Da Vinci, but now my job is to assist Masters such as you Senpai, in getting situated in Chaldea."
"Oh, okay," Andrew said, before realizing what she had said. "Wait, Senpai? I haven't been here for more than a day or two. If anything, I should be calling you that." He said, ignoring that since they were speaking English, he shouldn't be calling anyone that, but he figured since this was a dream it didn't have to make total sense.
Mash turned her head to look at Andrew, a look of bewilderment on her face. "Why? Doctor Romani told me that it was a polite way to refer to those older than oneself."
Andrew thought about it for a moment. "Well, how old are you?" he asked.
"I'm 16 Senpai." She gave a short answer.
"Oh, okay. I'm 18, so I guess it makes sense then." Andrew said, not really giving it much else thought. He then had a realization. "Uh, Professor Lainur said that there were other Masters, and I met the one, but do you know how many there are total?" He asked in order to figure out how many people he might end up working directly with.
"Ah, there are forty-nine Masters in total Senpai, 38 from established Magi families and 11 civilians. And they are separated into teams of seven."
"Oh, so that each team has one of each servant right?" Andrew said, recalling how there were seven servant classes.
"That is correct Senpai," Mash responded.
Andrew let out a short laugh. "Seven whole holy grail wars being used against one enemy. Man, they don't stand a chance!" That made Andrew have a small realization. "Oh! So when do I get to summon a servant?" He asked, excited at the prospect of having a legendary figure under his command.
"That is a good description of our fighting force Senpai, and from what I remember summoning is supposed to take place after Rayshift has been commenced and on location."
Andrew, by now used to not recognizing a term, asked "Rayshift?"
"Ah, has Professor Lainur not told you about that?" she asked, to which Andrew shook his head negative. "I tell you when Senpai. Rayshift is a piece of technomancy developed by Chaldea that allows for the consciousness to be converted into Spiritons and sent into the past to correct the calamity that SHEBA has observed that will end the Human Order that CHALDEA used to see."
Andrew soaked up her words like a sponge. He noticed that she said about going to the past, which meant this dream also involved time travel! As if it wasn't already complicated enough!
"Ah, we need to turn left here Senpai," Mash said, and Andrew followed the shy looking girl as they entered through a door. And from there walked down some stairs to the lower floor. And after a minute more of walking and relative silence, they came to the dining hall, marked by the giant letters on the door.
The three of them entered inside, and Andrew saw that were people already inside, and this time it was adults clad in uniforms different from his own. These were primarily black in color with a green stripe down the middle for men and orange for women.
"They are Chaldea's General Staff Senpai." Mash introduced Andrew to the men and women who would work behind the scenes.
Andrew followed Mash as she leads him to where the food was and picked out something that he recognized and liked. Afterwards, they took a seat at the round dinner tables.
Andrew and Mash ate their food in a relatively comfortable silence. Fou also ate, eating something out of a bowl on the table for him.
Andrew went for two more portions to have his fill and when he was full Mash spoke up. "Are you done eating Senpai?"
Andrew thought for a moment before speaking. "Yeah, I think I'm good. So, where to now?"
"We are going to go down to mission control where the Director is going to make her opening speech about the mission and its details. When the teams are going to be Rayshifted to where the Calamity originated from."
"Neato. Lead the way, Kouhai." Andrew said.
Andrew saw a small blush on Mash's face as she nodded and they put their plates away, and they made their way out of the dining hall passing by some of the staff, who greeted them, and they returned the courtesy.
This time the journey didn't lead to another room, but rather an elevator, which Mash said, lead to the control room deep down inside the mountain.
As the elevator came to a stop, they went to another large door which bore the symbol he had seen on the end of the letter had gotten before the kidnapping happened and his dream had begun.
"The rest of the Masters are inside Senpai take the seat with number 49 on it." Mash instructed.
"Thank you for helping me today, Kouhai~," Andrew said as he went to do as she told him.
Andrew entered through the door, and a few feet in front of it he saw several heads sticking over several benches. He quickly guessed those were his fellow Masters and that he should quickly take a seat.
Luckily for him, his seat number was the end of the last row, and as such sat down. But it seemed he was still a bit early as the others Master were making small talk with each other. So he took the time to look around as much as he could from his seat. But the only thing he could clearly see was a contraption. It looked like a multi-layered gyroscope with a blue glowing sphere at its center that looked like a small star. The whole thing was seemingly floating in the air, surrounded by more of the holographic screens he had seen earlier. More strange was the fact that the walls surrounding it looked like something out of an M. C. Escher painting, and the more he looked at them, the more his head hurt.
As Andrew finished examining what he could see of the room he leaned back in his seat as he waited for the Director to show up. He yawned a bit and was starting to feel a bit sleepy, the simulation starting to catch up to him. The Director stilled looked ways out so, catching five didn't seem to be a bad idea. He stifled a laugh at falling asleep in a dream.
Andrew closed his eyes.
"Oh, you think my speech is boring to do you." Andrew heard an angry-sounding woman say. Andrew opened his eyes immediately coming face to face with the woman he guessed was the Director, recognizing the voice from Lainur's call earlier. "So do you enjoy sleeping during important information Master 49?" Her voice sounded like it could freeze fire cold and the glare she was giving him could melt the north pole.
Andrew sputtered, at a loss for words, before deciding on spite and snark. "Sorry, I've been through a rather stressful kidnapping recently." He said with a smile which held no mirth. "I'm a little out of it right now. Sorry, Director." The final word was filled with as much vitriol as Andrew could muster. He wasn't normally so spiteful, but he was dreaming so who cares, he thought.
And with those words, he saw the Director's face turn into one of undignified rage. "Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Olga Marie Aminusphere. Out! Out get out!" She screamed at him, and before Andrew knew it, he was pulled from his seat and bodily thrown by the woman in an impressive feat of strength through the open door and landed right at Mash's feet. He heard the door seal shut.
Andrew was completely dumbfounded before he started laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened. A white-haired woman who otherwise looked like she was at most in her late 20's, who was at best five and a half feet tall, and definitely on the skinny side. Had just lifted him, a 6'2" male weighing almost 300 pounds and had thrown him at least 6 feet! He couldn't do anything but laugh at the strange turn his dream had apparently taken. Her exploding on him just moments before made it even better.
Andrew stopped laughing as he saw Mash looking down on him. "Senpai did you do something stupid?"
Andrew let out another, much shorter laugh before speaking as he started to get up. "Yes, Kouhai. Yes, I did." He said, bearing a wide and frank smile.
Andrew heard a sigh escape from his Kouhai's throat. "Stand up properly, Senpai. Let's get back to your room. It seems that you won't be joining the first mission." Mash said.
"That he won't my dear Miss Kyrielight, not with how mad he made the Director." Andrew heard the familiar voice of Lev Lainur, one of the few people in this dream he really liked.
They both turned to the green man coming out from a door a little away from the main door.
"Oh hey, Professor!" Andrew said, greeting the well-dressed man with enthusiasm. He pointed to the ball of fluff on Mash's shoulder. "Hey, is Fou your pet?" He said, being curious about the creature and not giving any shits about the bitch who had just thrown him out of the room.
The man shook his head. "No, that thing is not mine. But think it was Romani that found it wandering around the facility one day, we wanted to throw it out, but the Director took a liking to it. Convinced by Romani, it could be some sort of mascot for us. Anyway, I got a good laugh from what you said to the Director, haven't seen her so riled up in a while. But it seems your banned from this mission Andrew, but there is always a next time cause I don't think this is going to be the last one." Lev said as he left Andrew, Mash, and Fou alone outside of the control room.
"Come Senpai, I'll go with you up to your room," Mash said.
"Alright Kouhai, lead the way," Andrew said, pep in his step as he followed her back.
Xxx
"It was nice to meet you Senpai, but I need to return to the control now, I want to watch the A-Team Rayshift," Mash said as they reached the door to Andrew's room.
Andrew smiled as he spoke. "It was very nice to meet you too, Kouhai~," He said. "And thank you very much for everything you've done for me today. See you soon!"
Mash nodded goodbye as she and Fou left together, a small blush on her face. As she turned the corner.
Andrew turned to the side and entered his room.
Where he came face to face, with Romani sitting on his bed eating a strawberry cake, with a laptop on his knees.
"Oh, Doctor Archaman, I wasn't expecting you to be in here," Andrew said, not really finding it all that strange. Dream logic, after all!
The doctor put down his spoon of strawberry cake and looked somewhat sheepishly apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't know that this was your room. I normally use this place to get away from others, and Da Vinci was starting to get a little nagging. But weren't you supposed to be down in mission control ready to Rayshift?" The Doctor asked.
"Oh, I'm banned from the mission," Andrew explained nonchalantly. "I closed my eyes for what I'm pretty sure was a literal second, and she got up in my face, so I just told her the truth, and she threw me out." Andrew paused for a moment before adding "And I mean she literally, bodily threw me out of the room."
"You made the Director mad didn't you?" Romani said, with a deadpan voice. It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yes indeed!" Andrew said, smiling wide. He had no respect for the woman who had ordered his kidnapping.
With his answer, Romani just laughed. "You're just like me, she yelled and threw me out earlier to since I couldn't help with anything as the machines are better at seeing the vitals of Mages inside the Rayshift Coffins than me."
Andrew blanched at the name. "Coffins?"
"Hey, don't look at me I didn't name them something so stupid, the previous Director did," Romani stated.
That caught Andrew's attention. "Previous Director? You mean Bitchy McShehulk didn't start this?"
Andrew heard a snort coming from Romani. "No, the previous Director was her father Marisbury Aminusphere, she took over after he seemingly disappeared, people thought he committed suicide, but not me. I knew the man from before he created Chaldea and I think somebody forced him to run away."
Andrew barely had to think before he responded. "Do you think it was the current Director's doing, or…?" he said.
Romani shook his head immediately. "No, Olga didn't do anything, she was a daddy's girl all the way, while she is a bad person she isn't capable of that kind of betrayal."
Andrew let out a short "Ah, ok." before he realized something. "Wait, her name is Olga?" He said, starting to laugh. He hadn't really realized it before, but now that he had it made sense why she was so violent with a name like that.
"Yeah, Magi don't have the best naming schemes." But before Romani could talk any more a beeping sound came from the doctor's wrist. "Sorry going to have to take this. Hello?"
"Romani, we're going to start the Rayshifting soon. Could you come in case there's an emergency?" Came Lev Lainur's voice from the holographic phone. "The A-Team's in perfect condition, but B-Team on down is less experienced, and they're displaying some slight abnormalities." The Professor told the doctor. "It probably comes from anxiety. The inside of that Coffin is like a cockpit."
"Hey Lev, I feel bad for them. Why don't you give them some anesthesia?" He responded.
"Yeah, hurry up, will you? If you're in the main infirmary, then you can get here in two minutes." Lev finished, the hologram disappeared, and Romani sighed.
"Don't let me hold you up Doctor Archaman," Andrew said once the call had finished, not wanting to get in the way of a doctor helping people.
"Yeah, I should go, but I'm at least going to be five minutes late, by being here. But, don't call me Archaman, call Dr. Roman, my friends do that, for we're friends aren't we, my patient."
"Alright, Dr. Roman. I'll see you around." Andrew said with a smile. Man, this was a long dream.
"Sure thing Andrew, come around to my infirmary, and I'll treat you to some cake." And as the doctor finished speaking the light inside the room went out at once. "Wait, why did the light just go out?"
Xxx
Reaction theater:
Me: Picture of Fou.
Passive: Wow, we got a mascot. And it is adorable.
Me: Mash
Passive: We got us a Sakura here.
Me: [Showing Olga and her father's name]
Passive: It's like a Japanese person trying to come up with English sounding names. *Gets thrown out of reaction*
Me: The lights going out.
Passive: Well the other shoe just dropped.
Chapter 3 - Singularity F
- Location
- Denmark
"Hey, Dr. Roman do you have a flashlight or something?" Andrew asked, not really concerned with the situation.
"Yeah, my band can function as one, but why did the light go out? It couldn't be a power outage, that has never happened since the creation of this facility, and if the main generator had gone out the backup should have activated immediately." But when Dr. Roman finished speaking redlight returned visibility to the room and a male voice like the one from the simulation spoke. "Warning. Warning. Fire detected in Main Control Room and Power Generator, unable to connect to backup power, please turn on manually." The male said and began repeating.
And now with the red lights going Andrew could see Dr. Roman's panicked face. "Shit, we need to go to Main Control now and see what happened." He said hastily as started running past him and to the door which opened an emergency power probably running through them.
Andrew was about to follow the Doctor before remembering what the Professor had said earlier and thrown open the closet door to find his knife. With Instant Reinforcement the small blade would be much more effective and would allow him to help deal with whoever started the fire. He then raced out after Dr. Roman, just catching him turning a corner to follow him.
Andrew was always a few feet behind the doctor as they ran due to his head start; he had thought about using the Emergency Evade to boost his speed and catch up but, he decided to save it for later.
Though he did manage to catch up when they reached the stairs that would lead to the correct elevators to the Main Control Room.
They both managed to catch their breaths inside the elevator as it descended downwards and would stop in about half a minute seeing the number on the panel.
"Hey, Doc, any idea what caused this?" Andrew asked.
"Sorry, Andrew but I have no answer to, the question that's why we're going down to Control. The Director should be able to tell us, along with the other operators. Though hopefully, nothing happened to them, at least of all Mash." As he finished speaking the elevator came to a stop. "Let's get going."
Andrew nodded, and got ready to use his Mystic Code based on the situation; if there was an enemy he would cast Instant Reinforcement, and if there was someone injured he would use First Aid. He followed the doctor out of the elevator.
And from there they went to the main door to the Control Room, the door opened up, and the two men were met with a blast of heated air.
"What in the world happened here?" Dr. Roman asked in shock.
And Andrew was asking the same question, before where the room had been blue and clean with the weird Gyroscope. The Control Room looked like a bomb had gone off. With the floor filled with massive piles of rubble composed of massive chunks of rock which seemed to have fallen from the ceiling. And as they looked they heard the automated voice go off again, saying that backup power had yet to be turned on.
"Dammit, why is it still not on." Dr. Roman growled seriousness filling his voice. "Andrew I'm going to turn on the power you search the room for anybody that needs help afterward, go to the Control System right above."
Andrew nodded before he began to scan the room. The heat was sweltering, and the room was filled with smoke. Not seeing anyone, he moved deeper into the area.
Andrew walked around and over the rubble which blocked his vision, the air getting a bit hotter as he moved further inside.
But as he did he finally found something of interest- standing out off the ground were several metal tubes with glass on the front of them. He moved over to one of them and saw a person inside. He was wearing a uniform just like his own. As he looked at him, Andrew saw there weren't any visible injuries, and he was still breathing. So it seemed he was just knocked unconscious. He checked the others and saw that they were exactly the same, and moved on to find others as they would probably be safer inside there than if he took them outside of the probably Coffins that Roman had talked about with Medical functions.
Andrew moved over a little more rubble and came upon a more gruesome sight.
"Oh shit, shit, shit, shit!" was all Andrew could really say as he made his way over the rubble over to Mash. "Mash, Mash! Are you still conscious?" He asked he reached the girl who was currently underneath one of the massive stone blocks. He couldn't tell if she was still alive or awake from this angle.
Luckily he saw her turn her head to the side her eyes looking at him, a weak smile appeared on her face. "Senpai." Andrew heard her say weakly.
Andrew was now right next to her upper body with Fou next to him "Fou, Fou." The tiny creature said.
"Okay, okay, shit, uh…" Andrew scrambled for what to do before remembering he now had access to magical spells and decided to use them. He activated his Circuits and cast First Aid on Mash, hoping it would help her at least a little bit while he figured out how to get her out from under the rubble. "This should help a little bit." He said.
"Thank you for, that Senpai. I feel a little better now. But what are you doing here you need to leave, you can't save me." Mash said a tone of acceptance in her voice.
Andrew replied instantly. "Fuck that!" Andrew said "We've got magic!" before casting Instant Reinforcement on himself and began trying to lift the block from the side in order to allow Mash to get out. But try as he might he could not lift the rock weighing too much and him having no proper leverage. But Andrew could only touch the stone for so long as the thing was burning hot. He punched the rock in anger.
"Sorry, Senpai, I'm going to die, I can feel my organs failing I have about five left, and you need to leave before-"
Mash's voice was cut off by the male computer voice speaking again. "Backup power has been activated, sealing the main door, engaging programmed orders. Searching for an available Master candidate."
"-that." The girl finished her sentence.
Andrew cursed under his breath. With the computer sealing off the fire from the rest of the facility, no one in here with him would be able to get help. "Dammit…" he said. He looked back at Mash before using First Aid on her again. "I know you've already given up Mash, but I won't. Just wait a little bit longer. I'm going to see if I can find anything to help you out from under there." He said, trying to be as reassuring and confident as possible. He had to believe what he was saying to make her believe, after all.
"Thank, you Senpai it's nice to have another care, that's why I like you're the most human person that I know here. But don't waste your time. And I'm sorry if it weren't for me you wouldn't have been trapped." Mash said.
"Master candidate found, inputting Rayshift coordinates, January 31, 2004, A.D Fuyuki Japan." Said the automated voice.
Andrew had no idea why that time specifically, though he did recognize the location. The place where the Holy Grail War occurred. Which meant whoever was getting Rayshifted was going to have to deal with that mess. "Mash, don't you dare blame yourself for this." He said to the girl still under the rubble. "Unless you caused this yourself, it isn't your fault. I would have been here either way." He told her. He couldn't stand the idea of someone thinking like that.
Mash just smiled at him, and Fou gave a sad, fou to the situation. "Commencing unsummoning, please all personnel clear the area. Unsummoning starting in three, two, one. Begin Rayshift."
As the voice finished Andrew's vision changed from the burning to a seemingly spiraling blue vortex. And then he saw darkness.
Xxx
Andrew opened his eyes, and he was still standing straight up and looked around. He was no longer inside the burning Control Room, but instead, he was standing in a burning and ruined street. Holes filled the roads, buildings were broken, cars smashed.
It looked like he had wakened in some form of hellscape.
But before he had time to contemplate further he heard a voice screaming. "Master get down!"
A second later a person was in front of him, knocking him to his knees, and a split second later he heard the sound barrier being broken and the area was bombarded by something.
Andrew looked up to see who had knocked him down and saw a woman in a strange outfit holding an absolutely massive shield. More importantly, it looked like that woman was- "Mash! You're okay!" he said, happy and a bit confused.
"Master, please be quiet and stay down until the Archer has stopped his bombardment," Mash said, with a commanding tone of voice, but the moment she did. The barrage of presumably arrows stopped as they heard another explosion. "I can no longer feel the presence of an enemy Servant, Master they seemed to have disengaged," Mash said as she stood up properly and Andrew got a good look at her.
Andrew barely had to glance at what she was wearing to know that it was completely impractical, what with all the most important parts of her body being exposed, but he put that to the side for now as he hugged the girl in relief. "Oh thank God you're okay," he said quickly, before remembering he was hugging someone he'd known for about an hour, causing him to let go and pull back. "Sorry about that…" He apologized sheepishly. "I was just really relieved to see that you weren't..you know…"
Andrew saw Mash smile at him the same she had when he had first met her. "It's okay Senpai, I'm okay now, and I'm happy to see that you're alright too. But first, let's leave this place before we continue talking." Mash said and before Andrew could say anything Mash grabbed him with her free left hand and jumped out the crater he had just now noticed the bombardment of arrows had created. He swallowed a lump of spit at that, for if those had hit him, he would have turned into mush.
They landed outside out the crater and Andrew was let out of Mash's grip. There they were greeted by a loud. "Fou!" as Fou came running towards them and jumped onto his shoulder.
"How did you get here little guy?" Andrew asked the little white fluff ball on his shoulder. "Actually, how did any of us get here for that matter?"
"It seems that we were taken here by the Rayshift, Senpai."
"I guessed that was probably why, but I thought you needed to use one of those Coffin things to do it?" Andrew asked, before realizing something. "Hey wait, what's up with the outfit and the shield?"
"You see Senpai." Mash was about to begin talking but, stopped as they heard a beeping sound that Andrew had heard before this time it was coming from Mash's wrist. "We're getting a call from Chaldea Senpai." Mash placed her shield on her back and answered the call. But instead of the small blue screen like with Dr. Roman and image was projected in front of them. And speaking of the good doctor.
"Right, I finally got through! Hello? This is Chaldea Central Command Room? Do you read me?" The protection of Dr. Roman asked though it was kinda static and flickery like a bad tv screen struggling to receive a signal.
"This is Mash Kyrielight, a member of the new A-Team, I've completed the shift to Singularity F along with Master Potentielle 49 Andrew Murphy," Mash said in clear military fashion. "Rayshift compatibility, Master compatibility are both at satisfactory levels."
"So, Andrew got Rayshifted along with you Mash, it's good to see that you are both okay." Dr. Roman said, with happiness in his voice.
"Doctor, do you know what happened over there? And where we are?" Andrew said. "Oh, and we have Fou with us as well for some reason." He added.
"Huh? So our dear mascot is Rayshift compatible didn't know that. On our end I can clearly say that we were sabotaged, Da Vinci found remnants of shrapnel here in the control room, from a bomb. But before that why are you wearing such an outfit Mash, I didn't raise you to wear such things."
"I transformed into this. I couldn't protect Senpai wearing Chaldea's uniform."
"Wait, what do you mean by transformed Mash? Did you hit your head? Or was it…"
"Dr. Roman please be quiet." Mash interrupted the man. "Please check my condition you will understand the situation better."
"Your physical condition? Wh-Whoa, whoa, whoa WHOA!" Dr. Roman yelled, in what seemed to be shock. Though as Andrew heard their conversation, it felt like they had completely forgotten he was there.
"Wait, what's happening?" Andrew asked, confused. "What's wrong with Mash's condition?" Worry bled into his words.
"Ah, sorry for ignoring you Andrew, but nothing is wrong with Mash's condition, heck she is even better than normal. Physical strength, Magical Circuits, everything's improved! You're not so much a human, but-"
"Yes, I'm a Servant now." Mash finished his sentence.
Andrew was somewhat more confused now. "Wait, how did you turn into a Servant? I thought you had to summon them and then they were your, you know, servant."
"Ah, I don't remember how it quite happened, but it seems I survived the rock by fusing with a Servant. To investigate and resolve Singularity F, a Servant had been summoned in advance by one of the Masters. But The Servant lost its Master in that explosion and was doomed to vanish. But at the last second, before we both died, he offered me a contract. In return for his abilities, I had to find the cause of the Singularity and eliminate it." Mash explained to Andrew and Roman.
"A Heroic Spirit and a human fused… A Demi-Servant. That's Chaldea sixth experiment. I see, so it finally succeeded. Does this Heroic Spirit still have his consciousness?" Dr. Roman asked.
"No, he gave me his combat abilities and then vanished," Mash told him. "He never told me his true name. So, I don't know which Heroic Spirit I am. Nor what kind of Noble Phantasm I'm holding. At this point there's too much, I don't know."
Andrew listened intently. "So, what do we do now?" He asked, not wanting to stay in the blasted hellscape they had escaped into.
"We find the cause of Singularity and Rayshift you back home to Chaldea." Dr. Roman said. "But, I'm sorry to spring this on you, Andrew. But while Mash is now Humanity's most powerful weapon."
"I don't know about most powerful," Mash mumbled in response.
"While they are strong Servants have a weakness in common, and that is their Master, that provides them with Prana to function. And from the data, I'm gathering you're now Mash's Master going by those Command Seals on your left hand."
Andrew looked down at his left hand in surprise to see the red markings tattooed on the back of his hand. "Wait, when did these show up?" He asked, confused.
"Those showed up when your contract with Mash was established. Crch, crhc." Roman said, but his voice was interrupted by static.
"Doctor you're breaking up. 10 seconds until the connection is lost."
"Right, there is a strong Leyline reading from about 1,2 miles from your location. Go there the extra power will help stabilize-" The connection was cut before Dr. Roman could finish talking.
Andrew nodded, mostly to himself, before speaking. "Alrighty then. Let's go find that Leyline." he paused for a moment. "Um, can you tell which way it is Mash? The Doctor's directions weren't very descriptive," he asked his newly contracted Servant-and wasn't that a weird thing to think.
"Yes, I do Master, I studied the maps of Fuyuki before the explosion, so I know which Leyline he is talking about." Mash stated.
"Alright then, lead the way," Andrew said.
"Hope on my back Senpai I shall carry you to our destination faster than you can run yourself." Mash offered.
Andrew was dumbfounded for a moment at the suggestion before remembering the difference between a Servant's Strength and a human's. And considering the Director's earlier actions, he really should have guessed size does not equal strength when magic is involved. "Alright." He said simply, trusting she knew what she was doing.
Mash took the shield off her back, and Andrew hugged his arms around her body carefully avoiding touching her breasts. Using her other arm to hold her shield up Mash began forward through the streets of the burning city of Fuyuki.
After running for a few minutes as fast as she could with Andrew on her back, Mash spoke up. "Senpai, We will soon reach the point Dr. Roman specified."
"Okay," Andrew said simply due to how fast they were moving.
"Have you seen the state of city Senpai?" Mash asked suddenly.
Andrew took a quick look at his surroundings. "Everything is on fire or demolished or both." He concluded after just a quick look around. There wasn't that much else to say about it.
"Yes, according to our data Fuyuki was an average harbor city in Japan, and there was no such record in LAPLACE of a disaster such as this happening in the city in 2004. It's quite concerning." Mash stated.
"Laplace?" Andrew asked, not having heard the term before. He was pretty sure he remembered something about Laplace's Demon from something a while ago though.
"Ah, yes LAPLACE is the archive device that stores the information of the past gathered by SHEBA by observing CHALDEA." Mash explained.
"Sheba?" Andrew asked, having heard the term thrown around before.
"Ah, yes you haven't caught fully up to speed on how Singularity F was discovered-"
"KYAAAAA!"
Whatever Mash was about to say was canceled by a woman's scream coming from nearby.
"A scream? Somebody is an alive and in danger Senpai." Mash said.
"Let's go help 'em out." He replied without a moment's hesitation.
"Yes, Senpai," Mash responded as they ran towards where the scream had come from. ANd as they did they could hear the women yelling.
"Why does this always happen to me, I don't deserve this. Where are you Professor Lev please help me!"
And they came upon Olga Marie fending of what looked to be a group of walking skeletons.
"Wait, is that the Director?" Mash asked in surprise as they watched the woman fire of small black balls from her index finger. "Master, what are my combat orders?"
Andrew thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "Alright, put me down here then run in and grab the Director and bring her back here. We can deal with the skeletons once she isn't surrounded by them." He said, putting aside his own disdain for the woman. Just cause he didn't like her didn't mean he wanted her to die.
"Your orders are accepted Senpai," Mash said, putting Andrew down on the ground after that she jumped down to the Director.
It didn't take long for Mash to complete her task, as Andrew heard a shout of. "Kyrielight what in the world! Waaaah!" And a few seconds later Mash placed the Director right in front of Andrew.
"I shall deal with the skeletons Senpai," Mash said quickly before she left again.
After that, the Director came out of her confusion and stood up looking directly at Andrew.
"You." Her voice was filled with scathing scorn.
"Me," Andrew said with a smirk.
"You, how did you?" She demanded an answer to a not so obvious question from Andrew.
"How did I what?" Andrew only had to partially feign his confusion.
"While it's obvious to see that Kyrielight became a Demi-Servant, and I'm curious how to the experiment finally worked. I want to know, how a low-class Magus like yourself became her Master." She was looking directly at Andrew's hand where his Command Spells were.
"I honestly have no idea," Andrew said, figuring the truth was the best thing to say. "I had been trying to help her before we Rayshifted, and as soon as we showed up she was a servant, and I had this." He held up his left hand.
Olga Marie just scoffed. "Obviously your lying only High-Class Magi are able to become Master's it's obvious you forced yourself on the girl."
Andrew saw red at the comment and was only barely able to stop himself from decking the white-haired woman right there and then. He then remembered something he had been told earlier and activated his Circuits. "Does 30 Grade A Circuits count as 'High-Class'?" Andrew asked. He then looked directly into Olga's eyes and- before he could say more he heard Mash's voice speak up.
"I was the one the who forced the contract Director Olga Marie," Mash said, and Olga turned round to face the girl now turned Demi-Servant.
"What did you say?" Olga responded.
"I'll explain how it happened. That way we can understand each other's situation better." Mash then went on to explain to Olga Maire what happened with Andrew assisting telling what from his point of view. "And that's how we were Rayshifted and found you, Director. Also, you're the only other human we have seen here Director. For if you got Rayshifted, that means the other Master candidates must have too." Mash said hopefully.
"I'm sorry to say, but that won't be the case. For you see, Me, you and him we were all outside the Coffins when we got Rayshifted. While Rayshifting flesh and blood outside of a Coffin isn't impossible the success rate is just much lower. Meanwhile, all the other Master were inside their Coffins they have breakers that make sure they can't Rayshift if the success rate is below 95% So we're are the only ones here from Chaldea right now." Olga Marie explained.
"So no reinforcements, huh…" Andrew said, somewhat disappointed that he would be stuck with Olga and couldn't get her to go boss around the other Masters, but he was also happy that they weren't also stuck in this mess.
"I wouldn't say that exactly. You see I was looking for a Leyline Terminal, to access more magical energy and contact Chaldea and set up a base. Now we just need to find the access point." Olga Marie stated.
"It's right beneath your feet Director," Mash told her.
"Right, I knew that. Anyway, since this is an emergency, I'm going to approve the contract you have with Kyrielight. And with you having Command Seal, you should be able to summon an additional servant or more depending on their strength. Now I just need to draw a summoning circle, and I'm going to set up with your Noble Phantasm as the catalyst Kyrielight."
Andrew was surprised. "Wait, I can have more than one Servant at a time?" he asked, realizing he apparently knew nothing about this actually worked.
"Yes, as long as you have the Prana to sustain them you can. Though I would recommend more than five at the time as the strain could kill you, more so with stronger Servants. Now give me the shield and let me get to. As the shield seems to have the concept of heroes gathering around it, tied it. shall serve as excellent Catalyst to any hero who will answer the call to help humanity." Olga said as she took out a piece of chalk from her clothes and drew a complex looking magic circle on the ground, with extreme skill. "There now to place the shield." She said, and as she did, the circle around them lit up, and the area around them changed.
"This is… The same as the summoning experiment chamber at Chaldea." Mash said as she looked around with wide eyes.
Andrew really should have gotten used to things suddenly appearing or changing by now he thought, but he wasn't. At Mash's comment, he asked: "Wait, really?"
"Yes, it is Senpai, the Director must have connected the summoning circle to the FATE system, Chaldea used to summon Da Vinci, by using my shield to do so, I wonder how she did it," Mash said with curiosity.
"Now to summon a Servant you just need to." Olga was however cut off by the holographic image Dr. Roman appearing.
"CQ, CQ. Hello, hello? Okay, the connection's back!" Dr. Roman said. "Good job, you've secured the connection Andrew and Mash, now we can communicate and send rations to you through the Rayshift."
"Huh?! Why are you running the show, Romani!? What about Lev? Where's Lev? Put Lev on!" Olga interrupted the doctor and began howling at him.
"Waaahhhhhhh! D-Director, you're alive? And you're unharmed? What the…"
"What is that supposed to mean? Where's Lev? What's the head medic doing in charge?"
"Don't ask me why? I'm fully aware that I'm not cut out for this job." Dr. Roman complained before his face got a bit serious. " But there's is nobody else, Olga Marie. Currently out of the three hundred employees of Chaldea only 21 are still alive and accounted for including Da Vinci and me. The reason I'm in charge is that there is nobody ranked higher than I left alive here." Dr. Roman said with sadness.
"What," Andrew heard Mash say in silent shock as she listened to the casualties.
"Ohmygod," Andrew said at about the same time. 279 people had just died, and he'd been one of the few to survive. Moreover, from what Dr. Roman had said one of those people was Professor Lev, the first person to show him kindness since the whole mess started. The sheer amount of death he had apparently so narrowly avoided being part of weighed heavily on his mind. And he was beginning to realize that this probably wasn't a dream, this had become a nightmare. One that Andrew possibly couldn't imagine. So maybe somehow he had been teleported to another version of fate he didn't know about. He had heard there existed other versions besides the anime. But those were thoughts to deal with later.
Now, he and Mash kinda sat back as Dr. Roman told Olga that Lev had been in the epicenter of the bomb and couldn't have survived.
After that Roman began giving a status report on Chaldea's condition, the summoning of another Servant temporarily forgotten- for now this was far more important information.
He thankfully learned that the other 48 masters were still alive, but critically injured, and had been put in cryostasis until outside medical help could arrive as they didn't have supplies to handle such injuries on their own right now. Though on the bad news Chaldea had lost 80% of its functionality and they were currently putting all their resources into keeping the Rayshift System from breaking down and making CHALDEA and SHEBA keep running.
Though by Olga had changed their mission to just discovering the cause of Singularity F and not dealing with it until external communications are established, and help arrived.
"Thank, you for the report Dr. Romani. Now we're going to continue our investigation of Singularity F, though we're going to summon additional Servants as hostiles have been encountered along with an enemy Servants by Kyrielight. Now I need you to run Chaldea until I return is that understood Romani." Olga Marie finished.
"I hear you, Director, contact me when you discover new information Dr. Roman over and out." The Doctor said as he disappeared.
"This is such a mess," Olga stated.
"Yeah," Andrew said softly; though he hated to agree with her at all, it was hard to disagree that the whole situation had gone to hell.
"Now, before you summon the Servant Andrew, I need to say that I lied to Dr. Romani we're going to clean this Singularity up before another team, arrives for there is no telling when they will come. And I will certainly not have the Association run their claws deeper into my Chaldea and take it from me. Now get to summoning."
Andrew nodded, before realizing something. "I uh, don't actually know how to?"
"Right, you're a completely novice. It's quite simple you just need to pump Prana into the circle and along with the intent to summon. The FATE system is what is doing the heavy lifting."
Andrew got a bit angry at the insult and was about to make a remark, before he realized it was completely true and simply did as he was told, activating his Circuits and channeling his Prana into the circle.
Andrew focused on the circle and forced the intent of calling for help into his Prana; he didn't know if it worked at first. But the circle lighting up, confirmed it was working he channeled he felt the drain and realized twelve of his circuits had been drained of Prana and a with that a flash of light appeared blinding everyone in the created base.
As Andrew was blinking his eyes to see again, he heard a female voice speak up. "I am Arturia Pendragon, The Princess of Knights but you can call me Saber Lily."
And standing on the shield, Andrew saw a very different Arturia from the one he knew and had seen in the simulation.
"I ask are you, my Master?"
"Yeah, my band can function as one, but why did the light go out? It couldn't be a power outage, that has never happened since the creation of this facility, and if the main generator had gone out the backup should have activated immediately." But when Dr. Roman finished speaking redlight returned visibility to the room and a male voice like the one from the simulation spoke. "Warning. Warning. Fire detected in Main Control Room and Power Generator, unable to connect to backup power, please turn on manually." The male said and began repeating.
And now with the red lights going Andrew could see Dr. Roman's panicked face. "Shit, we need to go to Main Control now and see what happened." He said hastily as started running past him and to the door which opened an emergency power probably running through them.
Andrew was about to follow the Doctor before remembering what the Professor had said earlier and thrown open the closet door to find his knife. With Instant Reinforcement the small blade would be much more effective and would allow him to help deal with whoever started the fire. He then raced out after Dr. Roman, just catching him turning a corner to follow him.
Andrew was always a few feet behind the doctor as they ran due to his head start; he had thought about using the Emergency Evade to boost his speed and catch up but, he decided to save it for later.
Though he did manage to catch up when they reached the stairs that would lead to the correct elevators to the Main Control Room.
They both managed to catch their breaths inside the elevator as it descended downwards and would stop in about half a minute seeing the number on the panel.
"Hey, Doc, any idea what caused this?" Andrew asked.
"Sorry, Andrew but I have no answer to, the question that's why we're going down to Control. The Director should be able to tell us, along with the other operators. Though hopefully, nothing happened to them, at least of all Mash." As he finished speaking the elevator came to a stop. "Let's get going."
Andrew nodded, and got ready to use his Mystic Code based on the situation; if there was an enemy he would cast Instant Reinforcement, and if there was someone injured he would use First Aid. He followed the doctor out of the elevator.
And from there they went to the main door to the Control Room, the door opened up, and the two men were met with a blast of heated air.
"What in the world happened here?" Dr. Roman asked in shock.
And Andrew was asking the same question, before where the room had been blue and clean with the weird Gyroscope. The Control Room looked like a bomb had gone off. With the floor filled with massive piles of rubble composed of massive chunks of rock which seemed to have fallen from the ceiling. And as they looked they heard the automated voice go off again, saying that backup power had yet to be turned on.
"Dammit, why is it still not on." Dr. Roman growled seriousness filling his voice. "Andrew I'm going to turn on the power you search the room for anybody that needs help afterward, go to the Control System right above."
Andrew nodded before he began to scan the room. The heat was sweltering, and the room was filled with smoke. Not seeing anyone, he moved deeper into the area.
Andrew walked around and over the rubble which blocked his vision, the air getting a bit hotter as he moved further inside.
But as he did he finally found something of interest- standing out off the ground were several metal tubes with glass on the front of them. He moved over to one of them and saw a person inside. He was wearing a uniform just like his own. As he looked at him, Andrew saw there weren't any visible injuries, and he was still breathing. So it seemed he was just knocked unconscious. He checked the others and saw that they were exactly the same, and moved on to find others as they would probably be safer inside there than if he took them outside of the probably Coffins that Roman had talked about with Medical functions.
Andrew moved over a little more rubble and came upon a more gruesome sight.
"Oh shit, shit, shit, shit!" was all Andrew could really say as he made his way over the rubble over to Mash. "Mash, Mash! Are you still conscious?" He asked he reached the girl who was currently underneath one of the massive stone blocks. He couldn't tell if she was still alive or awake from this angle.
Luckily he saw her turn her head to the side her eyes looking at him, a weak smile appeared on her face. "Senpai." Andrew heard her say weakly.
Andrew was now right next to her upper body with Fou next to him "Fou, Fou." The tiny creature said.
"Okay, okay, shit, uh…" Andrew scrambled for what to do before remembering he now had access to magical spells and decided to use them. He activated his Circuits and cast First Aid on Mash, hoping it would help her at least a little bit while he figured out how to get her out from under the rubble. "This should help a little bit." He said.
"Thank you for, that Senpai. I feel a little better now. But what are you doing here you need to leave, you can't save me." Mash said a tone of acceptance in her voice.
Andrew replied instantly. "Fuck that!" Andrew said "We've got magic!" before casting Instant Reinforcement on himself and began trying to lift the block from the side in order to allow Mash to get out. But try as he might he could not lift the rock weighing too much and him having no proper leverage. But Andrew could only touch the stone for so long as the thing was burning hot. He punched the rock in anger.
"Sorry, Senpai, I'm going to die, I can feel my organs failing I have about five left, and you need to leave before-"
Mash's voice was cut off by the male computer voice speaking again. "Backup power has been activated, sealing the main door, engaging programmed orders. Searching for an available Master candidate."
"-that." The girl finished her sentence.
Andrew cursed under his breath. With the computer sealing off the fire from the rest of the facility, no one in here with him would be able to get help. "Dammit…" he said. He looked back at Mash before using First Aid on her again. "I know you've already given up Mash, but I won't. Just wait a little bit longer. I'm going to see if I can find anything to help you out from under there." He said, trying to be as reassuring and confident as possible. He had to believe what he was saying to make her believe, after all.
"Thank, you Senpai it's nice to have another care, that's why I like you're the most human person that I know here. But don't waste your time. And I'm sorry if it weren't for me you wouldn't have been trapped." Mash said.
"Master candidate found, inputting Rayshift coordinates, January 31, 2004, A.D Fuyuki Japan." Said the automated voice.
Andrew had no idea why that time specifically, though he did recognize the location. The place where the Holy Grail War occurred. Which meant whoever was getting Rayshifted was going to have to deal with that mess. "Mash, don't you dare blame yourself for this." He said to the girl still under the rubble. "Unless you caused this yourself, it isn't your fault. I would have been here either way." He told her. He couldn't stand the idea of someone thinking like that.
Mash just smiled at him, and Fou gave a sad, fou to the situation. "Commencing unsummoning, please all personnel clear the area. Unsummoning starting in three, two, one. Begin Rayshift."
As the voice finished Andrew's vision changed from the burning to a seemingly spiraling blue vortex. And then he saw darkness.
Xxx
Andrew opened his eyes, and he was still standing straight up and looked around. He was no longer inside the burning Control Room, but instead, he was standing in a burning and ruined street. Holes filled the roads, buildings were broken, cars smashed.
It looked like he had wakened in some form of hellscape.
But before he had time to contemplate further he heard a voice screaming. "Master get down!"
A second later a person was in front of him, knocking him to his knees, and a split second later he heard the sound barrier being broken and the area was bombarded by something.
Andrew looked up to see who had knocked him down and saw a woman in a strange outfit holding an absolutely massive shield. More importantly, it looked like that woman was- "Mash! You're okay!" he said, happy and a bit confused.
"Master, please be quiet and stay down until the Archer has stopped his bombardment," Mash said, with a commanding tone of voice, but the moment she did. The barrage of presumably arrows stopped as they heard another explosion. "I can no longer feel the presence of an enemy Servant, Master they seemed to have disengaged," Mash said as she stood up properly and Andrew got a good look at her.
Andrew barely had to glance at what she was wearing to know that it was completely impractical, what with all the most important parts of her body being exposed, but he put that to the side for now as he hugged the girl in relief. "Oh thank God you're okay," he said quickly, before remembering he was hugging someone he'd known for about an hour, causing him to let go and pull back. "Sorry about that…" He apologized sheepishly. "I was just really relieved to see that you weren't..you know…"
Andrew saw Mash smile at him the same she had when he had first met her. "It's okay Senpai, I'm okay now, and I'm happy to see that you're alright too. But first, let's leave this place before we continue talking." Mash said and before Andrew could say anything Mash grabbed him with her free left hand and jumped out the crater he had just now noticed the bombardment of arrows had created. He swallowed a lump of spit at that, for if those had hit him, he would have turned into mush.
They landed outside out the crater and Andrew was let out of Mash's grip. There they were greeted by a loud. "Fou!" as Fou came running towards them and jumped onto his shoulder.
"How did you get here little guy?" Andrew asked the little white fluff ball on his shoulder. "Actually, how did any of us get here for that matter?"
"It seems that we were taken here by the Rayshift, Senpai."
"I guessed that was probably why, but I thought you needed to use one of those Coffin things to do it?" Andrew asked, before realizing something. "Hey wait, what's up with the outfit and the shield?"
"You see Senpai." Mash was about to begin talking but, stopped as they heard a beeping sound that Andrew had heard before this time it was coming from Mash's wrist. "We're getting a call from Chaldea Senpai." Mash placed her shield on her back and answered the call. But instead of the small blue screen like with Dr. Roman and image was projected in front of them. And speaking of the good doctor.
"Right, I finally got through! Hello? This is Chaldea Central Command Room? Do you read me?" The protection of Dr. Roman asked though it was kinda static and flickery like a bad tv screen struggling to receive a signal.
"This is Mash Kyrielight, a member of the new A-Team, I've completed the shift to Singularity F along with Master Potentielle 49 Andrew Murphy," Mash said in clear military fashion. "Rayshift compatibility, Master compatibility are both at satisfactory levels."
"So, Andrew got Rayshifted along with you Mash, it's good to see that you are both okay." Dr. Roman said, with happiness in his voice.
"Doctor, do you know what happened over there? And where we are?" Andrew said. "Oh, and we have Fou with us as well for some reason." He added.
"Huh? So our dear mascot is Rayshift compatible didn't know that. On our end I can clearly say that we were sabotaged, Da Vinci found remnants of shrapnel here in the control room, from a bomb. But before that why are you wearing such an outfit Mash, I didn't raise you to wear such things."
"I transformed into this. I couldn't protect Senpai wearing Chaldea's uniform."
"Wait, what do you mean by transformed Mash? Did you hit your head? Or was it…"
"Dr. Roman please be quiet." Mash interrupted the man. "Please check my condition you will understand the situation better."
"Your physical condition? Wh-Whoa, whoa, whoa WHOA!" Dr. Roman yelled, in what seemed to be shock. Though as Andrew heard their conversation, it felt like they had completely forgotten he was there.
"Wait, what's happening?" Andrew asked, confused. "What's wrong with Mash's condition?" Worry bled into his words.
"Ah, sorry for ignoring you Andrew, but nothing is wrong with Mash's condition, heck she is even better than normal. Physical strength, Magical Circuits, everything's improved! You're not so much a human, but-"
"Yes, I'm a Servant now." Mash finished his sentence.
Andrew was somewhat more confused now. "Wait, how did you turn into a Servant? I thought you had to summon them and then they were your, you know, servant."
"Ah, I don't remember how it quite happened, but it seems I survived the rock by fusing with a Servant. To investigate and resolve Singularity F, a Servant had been summoned in advance by one of the Masters. But The Servant lost its Master in that explosion and was doomed to vanish. But at the last second, before we both died, he offered me a contract. In return for his abilities, I had to find the cause of the Singularity and eliminate it." Mash explained to Andrew and Roman.
"A Heroic Spirit and a human fused… A Demi-Servant. That's Chaldea sixth experiment. I see, so it finally succeeded. Does this Heroic Spirit still have his consciousness?" Dr. Roman asked.
"No, he gave me his combat abilities and then vanished," Mash told him. "He never told me his true name. So, I don't know which Heroic Spirit I am. Nor what kind of Noble Phantasm I'm holding. At this point there's too much, I don't know."
Andrew listened intently. "So, what do we do now?" He asked, not wanting to stay in the blasted hellscape they had escaped into.
"We find the cause of Singularity and Rayshift you back home to Chaldea." Dr. Roman said. "But, I'm sorry to spring this on you, Andrew. But while Mash is now Humanity's most powerful weapon."
"I don't know about most powerful," Mash mumbled in response.
"While they are strong Servants have a weakness in common, and that is their Master, that provides them with Prana to function. And from the data, I'm gathering you're now Mash's Master going by those Command Seals on your left hand."
Andrew looked down at his left hand in surprise to see the red markings tattooed on the back of his hand. "Wait, when did these show up?" He asked, confused.
"Those showed up when your contract with Mash was established. Crch, crhc." Roman said, but his voice was interrupted by static.
"Doctor you're breaking up. 10 seconds until the connection is lost."
"Right, there is a strong Leyline reading from about 1,2 miles from your location. Go there the extra power will help stabilize-" The connection was cut before Dr. Roman could finish talking.
Andrew nodded, mostly to himself, before speaking. "Alrighty then. Let's go find that Leyline." he paused for a moment. "Um, can you tell which way it is Mash? The Doctor's directions weren't very descriptive," he asked his newly contracted Servant-and wasn't that a weird thing to think.
"Yes, I do Master, I studied the maps of Fuyuki before the explosion, so I know which Leyline he is talking about." Mash stated.
"Alright then, lead the way," Andrew said.
"Hope on my back Senpai I shall carry you to our destination faster than you can run yourself." Mash offered.
Andrew was dumbfounded for a moment at the suggestion before remembering the difference between a Servant's Strength and a human's. And considering the Director's earlier actions, he really should have guessed size does not equal strength when magic is involved. "Alright." He said simply, trusting she knew what she was doing.
Mash took the shield off her back, and Andrew hugged his arms around her body carefully avoiding touching her breasts. Using her other arm to hold her shield up Mash began forward through the streets of the burning city of Fuyuki.
After running for a few minutes as fast as she could with Andrew on her back, Mash spoke up. "Senpai, We will soon reach the point Dr. Roman specified."
"Okay," Andrew said simply due to how fast they were moving.
"Have you seen the state of city Senpai?" Mash asked suddenly.
Andrew took a quick look at his surroundings. "Everything is on fire or demolished or both." He concluded after just a quick look around. There wasn't that much else to say about it.
"Yes, according to our data Fuyuki was an average harbor city in Japan, and there was no such record in LAPLACE of a disaster such as this happening in the city in 2004. It's quite concerning." Mash stated.
"Laplace?" Andrew asked, not having heard the term before. He was pretty sure he remembered something about Laplace's Demon from something a while ago though.
"Ah, yes LAPLACE is the archive device that stores the information of the past gathered by SHEBA by observing CHALDEA." Mash explained.
"Sheba?" Andrew asked, having heard the term thrown around before.
"Ah, yes you haven't caught fully up to speed on how Singularity F was discovered-"
"KYAAAAA!"
Whatever Mash was about to say was canceled by a woman's scream coming from nearby.
"A scream? Somebody is an alive and in danger Senpai." Mash said.
"Let's go help 'em out." He replied without a moment's hesitation.
"Yes, Senpai," Mash responded as they ran towards where the scream had come from. ANd as they did they could hear the women yelling.
"Why does this always happen to me, I don't deserve this. Where are you Professor Lev please help me!"
And they came upon Olga Marie fending of what looked to be a group of walking skeletons.
"Wait, is that the Director?" Mash asked in surprise as they watched the woman fire of small black balls from her index finger. "Master, what are my combat orders?"
Andrew thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "Alright, put me down here then run in and grab the Director and bring her back here. We can deal with the skeletons once she isn't surrounded by them." He said, putting aside his own disdain for the woman. Just cause he didn't like her didn't mean he wanted her to die.
"Your orders are accepted Senpai," Mash said, putting Andrew down on the ground after that she jumped down to the Director.
It didn't take long for Mash to complete her task, as Andrew heard a shout of. "Kyrielight what in the world! Waaaah!" And a few seconds later Mash placed the Director right in front of Andrew.
"I shall deal with the skeletons Senpai," Mash said quickly before she left again.
After that, the Director came out of her confusion and stood up looking directly at Andrew.
"You." Her voice was filled with scathing scorn.
"Me," Andrew said with a smirk.
"You, how did you?" She demanded an answer to a not so obvious question from Andrew.
"How did I what?" Andrew only had to partially feign his confusion.
"While it's obvious to see that Kyrielight became a Demi-Servant, and I'm curious how to the experiment finally worked. I want to know, how a low-class Magus like yourself became her Master." She was looking directly at Andrew's hand where his Command Spells were.
"I honestly have no idea," Andrew said, figuring the truth was the best thing to say. "I had been trying to help her before we Rayshifted, and as soon as we showed up she was a servant, and I had this." He held up his left hand.
Olga Marie just scoffed. "Obviously your lying only High-Class Magi are able to become Master's it's obvious you forced yourself on the girl."
Andrew saw red at the comment and was only barely able to stop himself from decking the white-haired woman right there and then. He then remembered something he had been told earlier and activated his Circuits. "Does 30 Grade A Circuits count as 'High-Class'?" Andrew asked. He then looked directly into Olga's eyes and- before he could say more he heard Mash's voice speak up.
"I was the one the who forced the contract Director Olga Marie," Mash said, and Olga turned round to face the girl now turned Demi-Servant.
"What did you say?" Olga responded.
"I'll explain how it happened. That way we can understand each other's situation better." Mash then went on to explain to Olga Maire what happened with Andrew assisting telling what from his point of view. "And that's how we were Rayshifted and found you, Director. Also, you're the only other human we have seen here Director. For if you got Rayshifted, that means the other Master candidates must have too." Mash said hopefully.
"I'm sorry to say, but that won't be the case. For you see, Me, you and him we were all outside the Coffins when we got Rayshifted. While Rayshifting flesh and blood outside of a Coffin isn't impossible the success rate is just much lower. Meanwhile, all the other Master were inside their Coffins they have breakers that make sure they can't Rayshift if the success rate is below 95% So we're are the only ones here from Chaldea right now." Olga Marie explained.
"So no reinforcements, huh…" Andrew said, somewhat disappointed that he would be stuck with Olga and couldn't get her to go boss around the other Masters, but he was also happy that they weren't also stuck in this mess.
"I wouldn't say that exactly. You see I was looking for a Leyline Terminal, to access more magical energy and contact Chaldea and set up a base. Now we just need to find the access point." Olga Marie stated.
"It's right beneath your feet Director," Mash told her.
"Right, I knew that. Anyway, since this is an emergency, I'm going to approve the contract you have with Kyrielight. And with you having Command Seal, you should be able to summon an additional servant or more depending on their strength. Now I just need to draw a summoning circle, and I'm going to set up with your Noble Phantasm as the catalyst Kyrielight."
Andrew was surprised. "Wait, I can have more than one Servant at a time?" he asked, realizing he apparently knew nothing about this actually worked.
"Yes, as long as you have the Prana to sustain them you can. Though I would recommend more than five at the time as the strain could kill you, more so with stronger Servants. Now give me the shield and let me get to. As the shield seems to have the concept of heroes gathering around it, tied it. shall serve as excellent Catalyst to any hero who will answer the call to help humanity." Olga said as she took out a piece of chalk from her clothes and drew a complex looking magic circle on the ground, with extreme skill. "There now to place the shield." She said, and as she did, the circle around them lit up, and the area around them changed.
"This is… The same as the summoning experiment chamber at Chaldea." Mash said as she looked around with wide eyes.
Andrew really should have gotten used to things suddenly appearing or changing by now he thought, but he wasn't. At Mash's comment, he asked: "Wait, really?"
"Yes, it is Senpai, the Director must have connected the summoning circle to the FATE system, Chaldea used to summon Da Vinci, by using my shield to do so, I wonder how she did it," Mash said with curiosity.
"Now to summon a Servant you just need to." Olga was however cut off by the holographic image Dr. Roman appearing.
"CQ, CQ. Hello, hello? Okay, the connection's back!" Dr. Roman said. "Good job, you've secured the connection Andrew and Mash, now we can communicate and send rations to you through the Rayshift."
"Huh?! Why are you running the show, Romani!? What about Lev? Where's Lev? Put Lev on!" Olga interrupted the doctor and began howling at him.
"Waaahhhhhhh! D-Director, you're alive? And you're unharmed? What the…"
"What is that supposed to mean? Where's Lev? What's the head medic doing in charge?"
"Don't ask me why? I'm fully aware that I'm not cut out for this job." Dr. Roman complained before his face got a bit serious. " But there's is nobody else, Olga Marie. Currently out of the three hundred employees of Chaldea only 21 are still alive and accounted for including Da Vinci and me. The reason I'm in charge is that there is nobody ranked higher than I left alive here." Dr. Roman said with sadness.
"What," Andrew heard Mash say in silent shock as she listened to the casualties.
"Ohmygod," Andrew said at about the same time. 279 people had just died, and he'd been one of the few to survive. Moreover, from what Dr. Roman had said one of those people was Professor Lev, the first person to show him kindness since the whole mess started. The sheer amount of death he had apparently so narrowly avoided being part of weighed heavily on his mind. And he was beginning to realize that this probably wasn't a dream, this had become a nightmare. One that Andrew possibly couldn't imagine. So maybe somehow he had been teleported to another version of fate he didn't know about. He had heard there existed other versions besides the anime. But those were thoughts to deal with later.
Now, he and Mash kinda sat back as Dr. Roman told Olga that Lev had been in the epicenter of the bomb and couldn't have survived.
After that Roman began giving a status report on Chaldea's condition, the summoning of another Servant temporarily forgotten- for now this was far more important information.
He thankfully learned that the other 48 masters were still alive, but critically injured, and had been put in cryostasis until outside medical help could arrive as they didn't have supplies to handle such injuries on their own right now. Though on the bad news Chaldea had lost 80% of its functionality and they were currently putting all their resources into keeping the Rayshift System from breaking down and making CHALDEA and SHEBA keep running.
Though by Olga had changed their mission to just discovering the cause of Singularity F and not dealing with it until external communications are established, and help arrived.
"Thank, you for the report Dr. Romani. Now we're going to continue our investigation of Singularity F, though we're going to summon additional Servants as hostiles have been encountered along with an enemy Servants by Kyrielight. Now I need you to run Chaldea until I return is that understood Romani." Olga Marie finished.
"I hear you, Director, contact me when you discover new information Dr. Roman over and out." The Doctor said as he disappeared.
"This is such a mess," Olga stated.
"Yeah," Andrew said softly; though he hated to agree with her at all, it was hard to disagree that the whole situation had gone to hell.
"Now, before you summon the Servant Andrew, I need to say that I lied to Dr. Romani we're going to clean this Singularity up before another team, arrives for there is no telling when they will come. And I will certainly not have the Association run their claws deeper into my Chaldea and take it from me. Now get to summoning."
Andrew nodded, before realizing something. "I uh, don't actually know how to?"
"Right, you're a completely novice. It's quite simple you just need to pump Prana into the circle and along with the intent to summon. The FATE system is what is doing the heavy lifting."
Andrew got a bit angry at the insult and was about to make a remark, before he realized it was completely true and simply did as he was told, activating his Circuits and channeling his Prana into the circle.
Andrew focused on the circle and forced the intent of calling for help into his Prana; he didn't know if it worked at first. But the circle lighting up, confirmed it was working he channeled he felt the drain and realized twelve of his circuits had been drained of Prana and a with that a flash of light appeared blinding everyone in the created base.
As Andrew was blinking his eyes to see again, he heard a female voice speak up. "I am Arturia Pendragon, The Princess of Knights but you can call me Saber Lily."
And standing on the shield, Andrew saw a very different Arturia from the one he knew and had seen in the simulation.
"I ask are you, my Master?"