Okeanos | Chapter I
Adam/industrious
The island was a beautiful impossibility.
A lush, tropical paradise the size of a stadium, with pale beaches and palm trees swaying in the slight breeze. The steady waves of the ocean crashed against the shore in familiar, hypnotic motion, darkening the sand to a muddy brown that faded in a steady gradient to mustard yellow.
Adam traced the course of the latest wave, trying to drown his beating heart with the rush of the waters. He caught sight of a small crab approaching his booted foot; the sand he stood on was loose and dry and had swallowed his shoe just past the sole. But as his eyes followed the tracks marking the creature's path, he saw yet another pillar jutting half-buried by the tide, and felt his heart race just a little more, the small progress he'd made washing away like the very waves with which he had tried to calm himself.
White marble, some part of him noted, with the fluted column and Ionic capstone that had always reminded him of an unfurling scroll. The stone was old - far too old to be some mad developers' work or a mere homage to the ancient days. The island was littered with similar Greek ruins - frescos and marbles depicting stories he had eagerly devoured as a boy.
And yet the sun (provided he didn't look too closely at the sky) and the palms and sand all spoke of the Caribbean. Impossible.
It was, unfortunately, by far the smallest impossibility he had encountered in the last day. And yet it felt more real, more tangible than any of the literal magics or hurriedly rushed explanations that he'd already undergone.
Taking another deep breath, Adam forced himself to stare at the column. To fix it in his mind and accept the reality of it. He had already blocked out most of the sound around him, focusing on the water and the waves over the arguments and discussions of his companions.
"This is real," he said to himself. "This is happening. I can do this." Near the pillar, a chipped bit of marble bore an intricate carving of a serpentine head. He inhaled slowly, counting to five as he did so, and puffing out his cheeks, exhaled nine. "I
can do this."
His heart rate finally returned to a normal state, and with steady, deliberate slowness, he turned his back upon the endless ocean, and strode back to the tiled ruin where his friends still stood.
"Sorry," he called out, when he was close enough that he didn't have to shout to be heard. The four people he knew were still in discussion with the two he didn't, and he had no wish to interrupt. "I just… it's a lot."
"You holdin' up okay?" Dory called out. The man had grown a beard since Adam had last seen him, short brown hair peppered with a bit of grey; he wasn't even the oldest one present.
"It's weird," he said by way of answer, accepting a peck from his fiancee as he rejoined the group. "It has to be like 90 degrees, but I'm not even sweating in this," he gestured at the uniform all but one of them wore - a white tunic with a black strap just below the shoulders and a belt at the waist, black trousers, and boots.
"The fabric has some basic magic worked into it that keeps a constant temperature inside of it. It's not all powerful, but it's pretty effective," the young man to whom his friends were deferring said. Adam had tried to memorize his name, but he'd never been great with names even under normal circumstances.
Ritz, he thought.
Like the cracker.
"Anything you need us to go over again?" Dory asked. "It's a lot at once, but…"
Adam shook his head. "I've got the basics down, I think. Just… needed to process."
Ko let out a sarcastic hum, even as she rested her arm against his shoulder. He reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. "Oh this is gonna be good. Go on, tell us one of your cracky tales."
"Thanks, darling," Adam responded, matching her playful tone exactly. "Such confidence. Very wow."
"Quit the damn memeing," Toby interjected, his arms crossed, pushing his glasses further up his scowling face. "The very survival-"
Adam and Dory both held up a hand, before the latter deferred to the former. "I can summarize, Toby," Adam said, his words quick, trying to disrupt the other man's rant. Toby had been the most… passionate of them, since getting here. According to one of the… apparitions (he wasn't going to call them "Servants" - that was just a godawful term), he'd tried to destroy his impromptu holding cell.
And in any case, Toby's last attempt at an explanation had involved enough Inside Baseball that the others had practically fallen over themselves to clarify every other sentence.
"Excuse me, Adam-san," the pink-haired woman asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. Her name, at least, he could remember - Mash. Hard to forget, especially given the weird fetish armor and strangely practical-looking shield. She was also apparently naturally pink-haired, too - no sign of dyeing. Proof they really were in an anime. "But I thought his name was 'Bennett.'"
"He likes his nicknames," Toby muttered darkly. "This one's mine, so you'll just have to remember it."
"...Isn't Ben already a nickname?" Ritz murmured, and shook his head.
"-In any case," Adam said. "Here's our situation as I understand it. I'm not going to use any jargon because frankly, I don't remember any." He took another deep breath, as much to steady himself for what was to come as to make sure he wouldn't run out.
"We're in that damn lootbox game you keep playing-"
"FGO-"
"And we have to reverse Carmen Sandiego all over everywhere by finding the actual factual Holy Grail-"
"Not actually the Holy Grail; we're looking for lesser grails that-"
"And we do this by using our magical tattoos-"
"Command Seals-"
Dory aggressively made a 'time-out' T in Toby's direction. "Ey! Let him finish."
There was a moment of silence, broken only by Ko and Spencer's muffled laughter. Ritz and Mash looked horrified, for some reason.
"By using our magical tattoos," Adam repeated for emphasis (and only a little out of spite), holding up his left hand. On the back of his palm, a sigil that looked like three nested triangles, their borders broken by six spiraled rays like a rifle barrel, glowed faintly red.
"To summon historical heroes to do the actual heavy lifting, since we don't have the mana pools to do it properly."
"It's not a 'mana pool'; it's another nervous system that only exists in the sou–ow, damn it!" Toby rubbed his arm where Dory had taken the time to smack him, muttering curses at his companion.
"And we're currently in the Age of Sail. With pirates." Adam glared at the other man. "That cover everything?"
Dory let out a brief, nervous chuckle. "Pretty much."
"There is
so much nuance missing here," Toby ground out, "that you basically said 'automobile' and referenced a Prius to describe an RV. That's how far off you got while still being
technically accurate."
"... so… yes, that's everything relevant then."
The sound of Toby's hand hitting his forehead was better than most music. Not all. But most.
"It's close enough for a rush job," Dory sighed. "We can get more relevant details as we get to them. It's a lot, and it's convoluted." He looked to Ritz for a moment, before glancing down at the fitbit-like watch on his wrist that they'd all been assigned. "Provided we're close enough to a leyline to summon, we should probably get that done sooner rather than later."
Adam paused as something he hadn't remembered occurred to him. "...Wait. How do we know which heroes to summon? And can I call dibs on anyone?" He didn't have anyone in particular in mind, but given just a minute to think….
"Yes and no. Do you have something belonging to that hero, directly affected by that hero, or so tied to that hero that holding the object immediately brings
only that hero to mind?" Toby asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Well. Drat. Still though.
"Yes," Adam's reply matched Toby's. "When we got
teleported through dimensions in our sleep, I just so happened to bring along
exactly just an artifact. I've got the… uh… thing…" he tried to think of a decent example, and frowned as his sarcastic jibe lost all momentum.
"Do you have your watch?" Ko asked consideringly. "If you focus on Einstein's reaction to the Manhattan Project, you
might be able to get him. Might be a little too modern, but…" She trailed off as he raised a bare wrist and waggled it.
"There could be something in the supplies," Adam pondered thoughtfully.
"You mean the supplies that were already packed and ready to instantly head out, that were packed
before we even arrived in Chaldea? Not fucking likely! Which means that congratulations!" Toby spread his arms wide. "We're playing the Hero Lottery, which is a complete crapshoot! Unless you're like me, and think that's a
stupid idea, then look to this
awfully convenient mess of Grecian ruins near us. Not to mention that if memory serves, we'll be finding…"
And then his high-strung friend went hard into inside baseball again. Maybe Toby would realize he stopped listening in five minutes, but whatever the game portrayed, their very presence meant things had changed. According to Spencer, they weren't even supposed to have started on this island - things were already off-kilter. They were in a dynamic stochastic model and Toby was certain that things were static, despite all available evidence.
"Alright," Spencer said, startling Adam by speaking up, "times up, let's do this. I'm just gonna Leeroy Jenkins this and hope I don't get someone evil."
"-Yeah, no, fuck that have fun I'll be right back." Toby rattled off without even pausing for breath. And with that, Toby was off, running at a fairly decent clip towards another set of faux-Grecian marbles, further into the treeline.
"Damnit-! " Dory hissed under his breath before nodding at the suddenly concerned Mash, "Don't worry, I got him." Quickly jogging after the man, he yelled, "Damnit Toby! I
know you've seen Jumanji-!"
Ko threw the two teenagers (because of course they were teenagers) an apologetic look. "Sorry, guys. I wish I could tell you we're less neurotic when our lives aren't at stake, but… that would be a lie."
"Don't worry," da Vinci's (actually da Vinci! A trans da Vinci which… good for her?) voice came over the communications, though the audio quality was a bit crackly.
"You should have seen Nero. Trust me, even with all the other craziness you've brought? It's all rather tame in comparison to her."
That… just raised further questions. But going down that rabbit hole wouldn't do any good for the moment.
The cross-like shield Mash carried was set against the ground, and despite how delicate Mash seemed to be with the thing, Adam still felt the impact on the ruined floor tiles.
Reaching into his pocket, Spencer drew out a set of the cue cards they'd been given, adjusting his glasses as he did so. The long-haired man audibly gulped, shaking his head, before taking a deep breath. As he began the chant, Adam looked at the shield - with every line, it began to glow with a pink light, gaining in strength until the final, blazing crescendo, bright enough that Adam had to look away. It faded quickly, though Spencer still had his arm raised up to block the light.
Only when it had fully faded did the other man lower his hand, holding it where part of his tattoo had faded. He wobbled on his feet slightly before catching himself, then looked down at the person standing on the shield.
A small, middle-aged Chinese woman, her hair held in place by an elaborate jade-and-gold hairpin reminiscent of a crown, stepped off the shield and into the sand, a tiny monkey perched atop her shoulder and a dao at her hip. As the small animal looked around, chirping all the while, its tail curled around itself, hiding part of the intricate embroidery on the woman's emerald green jacket, which was belted closely at the waist by yellow silk.
"Servant Rider, Ching Shih of the Red Flag Fleet," she spoke with a quick, clipped voice. "I take it you're my Master?"
"... if we could not use the word 'master' that would be great," Spencer said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and still looking unbalanced. "But otherwise yeah, sure, why not… I need to sit down."
The pirate smirked up at him like the cat that ate the canary, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling. "Of course, little brother. You need to keep your strength up for what's ahead of us."
"You… you did it." Adam said dumbly, staring at Ching Shih and Spencer both. "It - you -"
"Motherfuckin'
MADAME CHING?!" Ko erupted, whooping loudly and slapping Spencer on the back. "Fuck yes! Good on ya, Spence, we're in a pirate AU with
The Pirate!" She turned to the apparition with a fiendish grin and bobbed in a half-bow. "Morning, ma'am. Glad to have you with us."
Ching Shih's smile matched Ko's tooth for tooth, a gold-capped canine incisor glittering in the hot Caribbean sun. "Oho~? My legend is known in America too, is it?"
"Well, Canada, in my case, but-"
"I feel kinda nauseous. Is that normal?" Spencer asked, taking a seat on a nearby section of ruined wall, Ritz coming over to check on him as he did. Ko's smile faded.
"Y'all right?" she asked.
"I felt that way after summoning Heracles for a bit," the boy said, squeezing Spencer's shoulder comfortingly. "It should pass."
Concern for his friend warred with his own unease at the entire situation, and Adam forced himself to look away, taking a jerky step forward.
"I'll go next," he said. "Be- before I lose my nerve."
His hands shaking, he brought out his own set of cue cards - he'd been too busy paying attention to what Spencer had done to actually hear the words the other man had used.
"Hee- Heed my words," he began, standing before Mash's shield. He squinted at the words, his trembling enough to blur the letters until he held them steady with both arms. He tried to project his voice, to force confidence into it. "My will creates your body."
All the doubts and disbeliefs he'd held came rushing back. This was insane. Absolutely insane. It was impossible.
But he'd seen Spencer do it already. He was already standing on an impossible island, and wearing clothes crafted by Leonardo da Vinci himself - herself? Herself.
"And your sword!" he all but shouted. "Creates my Destiny!"
Adam couldn't help himself, and muttered "the pen is mightier," before realizing what he'd done. Disrupted his own rhythm.
Letting go with his right hand, he made an expansive gesture before the shield, a dramatic flourish from his brief time doing middle school drama. He'd never been a great actor, but the gesture felt right, at least. He angled his finger towards the sky, as if pointing out a particularly important factor during a seminar.
"I hereby swear," Adam thought he was getting into the meter of it now, building up steam, the fingers holding the card rubbing together to keep the next lines at eye level. "That I shall be all the good in the world. That I shall defeat all the evil in the world."
He'd never tried something that ambitious. He'd made it his life's mission to try and diagnose a singular evil, in the faint hope that it would be repaired. This - everything he was doing, everything that they were going to be doing, was so much bigger than that now.
"Thou Seventh Heaven, clad in the three great words of power," Those words came easier, their meaning unknown but impressive sounding. His voice rose to a crescendo as he belted out the final phrase, the first command.
"Come forth from the circle of binding, Guardian of the Scales!"
The brief silence as his words faded seemed to stretch for minutes, punctuated only by the rustle of wind through the palm trees. Adam's knees were shaking - had nothing happened? Had he failed?
Almost in answer to his unspoken question, the red sigil on the hand pulsed red, heat rising from it with an almost burning intensity as the innermost triangular shape faded like a scar. The angular glyphs circumscribing the shield flared with verdigrisian light, a dim white pillar rising to envelop the shield's center. Faster and faster they spun, the light brightening with each rotation, until it shone like a beacon, harsh and pure, too painful to look at directly. Adam covered his eyes, turning away but the light burned through closed lids, the man forced to stare at the brilliant red of his own illuminated blood vessels, his heart racing against his chest.
When the light finally faded, there was a portly man standing upon the cross-shaped shield. Standing head and shoulders above him, the gentleman looked down upon Adam with large, bulbous Tom Baker eyes, set within a full Stephen Fry face. A pale violet George Washington-esque coat draped his frame over an ivory shirt and orange-checkered vest, his hands loosely hanging at his side.
Adam's brow furrowed, caught between awe and confusion at the result of his incantation. He'd done it - but who had he called from the vasty deep?
The spirit's hands made a grasping motion, a perplexed look appearing on his face, as if he didn't know what to do with them; he glanced downwards before a long, slim cane of pale wood shimmered into existence between hot-dog wide fingers. He smiled then, the expression as filled with delight as a child, before fumbling the object, the cane clattering upon the shield like a steel drum.
"Damn," the man muttered in a rumbling Scottish accent before looking up once more. "Oh. Right. Hallo there!"
With all the deliberate speed of a man encountering a bear, and ignoring the voices behind him, Adam raised his hand and waved. "Hi?"
"Hallo!" the man repeated, more jovially, reaching down to pick up his cane. "I suppose you'll be wanting me name then. Right then…" The man gave a little bow. "According to tradition, you may call me 'Caster,' but-"
'Caster' opened his mouth once again, but Adam was forced to turn around as Dory and Toby's argument moved into all out shouting at the newcomer's appearance.
"—know, the gacha sucks. Deal with it. We have to compatibility-summon and hope." Dory said, his hand locked around Toby's wrist, not quite dragging the other back towards the group, but only just. "Nothing you'll find here is gonna be remotely specific enough for you to pinpoint someone useful anyways."
Apparently, the two had come back from their little expedition empty-handed.
"You want me to hope?" Toby practically shrieked, his face red. "To
hope? You know what that kind of thinking gets you?!
This!"
The last word was guttural; his finger shook so bad that Toby was pointing more in the general vicinity of Caster than at the man himself. He reached down and picked up what looked like half a coconut and proceeded to throw it off into the distance as hard as he could. And he kept doing that with anything he could pick up and was unfortunate enough to be near him.
Fujimaru Ritsuka
"There's a bit of a situation."
Never great words to hear, especially given the stakes. But words Ritsuka had gotten used to hearing on a nearly-weekly basis. He looked up at Dr. Roman curiously, trying to judge the severity of this latest emergency.
"We've discovered the next Singularity."
Good. Also terrifying. But progress.
"And, uh... there are five more Masters that arrived last night."
Ritsuka straightened up in surprise. "What? You mean…?" A part of Ritsuka felt hopeful at this. Each of the Singularities he'd made it through thus far, it had felt like he was just… muddling along. Doing his level best to tread water and not screw things up for everyone. Yes, he'd heard from both the various Servants in those Singularities and
from Dr. Roman and da Vinci that he'd done well. But it didn't change the fact that he still felt
like a failure, like the absolute last resort. Because he was
the last resort, and nothing he ever told himself was going to change that.
Even so, he also couldn't help the slight bit of resentment forming. It had been just him so far, and… it was horribly selfish of him to think this way, but he'd been enjoying the attention. Roman and da Vinci treated him like family at this point; they were the older siblings he'd never had. And his relationship with Mash… that one vexed him, and was tied up in all sorts of other confusing thoughts and emotions that he didn't want to try and unpack right now.
Ritsuka shook himself out of his thoughts. That didn't matter right now; there were more important things to think about.
The summary had been strange even by the standards of Chaldea. They'd literally appeared out of nothing in various bedrooms, just as confused as Romani and the more domestic Servants were, with information that Dr Roman seemed to think could only have been obtained via some level of Clairvoyance. After having been vetted by Emiya and the others, they were on the verge of deciding whether to trust them, when the next Singularity had been discovered.
And now they had to be briefed alongside Mash and him.
"Where are they?" Ritsuka asked.
"One of the intact lounges," Romani answered. "Come on, Mash will meet us there."
Chaldea's lounge areas, once cleared of debris following Lev's initial sabotage, hewed strongly to the base's overall ultra-modern design philosophy: the entire room felt like it had been assembled elsewhere, and then just slid into place. Low white coffee tables, white chaises and armchairs... all of which were somewhat lacking in cushioning, if Ritsuka was being completely honest. He'd caught Romani napping on one of the chaises a few times, and still wondered how he managed to get comfortable on it.
Romani held up a hand to stop Ritsuka just outside the half-open sliding door to the lounge, cracked so they could see inside. Sure enough, as Romani said, there were five of them.
Two of them sat next to each other on one of the chaises, their eyes closed, leaning against each other with hands clasped. The man was… Ritsuka wasn't sure, actually. Indian? Filipino? Maybe Malaysian. He would be the first to admit he hadn't seen enough people of other ethnicities in Japan to be able to tell them apart, so he had to fall back on what he did know: the man was Asian, and he wasn't Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. The woman was white, an incredibly pale brunette, with a strong jaw and sharply-defined cheekbones.
Two more of their number stood together, and while they chatted amiably, he could see the tension in how they carried themselves. One of them, a man with graying brown hair and a well-trimmed beard… Ritsuka got the feeling that he had something he wanted or needed to be doing
right now, and that standing and waiting for something to happen was murder on him. His companion was a scruffy, square-framed brunet, with glasses and an outgrown mane of shaggy, sleep-tousled hair. He looked a little weak at the knees, and only half from nerves. The other half Ritsuka couldn't be sure of, but it looked an awful lot like excitement.
The last of their number also wasn't alone, though his company wasn't human. The bespectacled man, who Ritsuka could only describe as mousey, was cooing and fussing over… a dog. A small dog, sitting in his arms, and tilting its head up to lick at either his glasses or at—
"What is Boudica-san doing here?" Ritsuka whispered to Romani, who gave him a raised eyebrow.
"She found the dog." Ritsuka quirked an eyebrow of his own in response and looked back inside the room. He had to admit, he wasn't actually that surprised at Boudica's reaction. It was
a cute dog.
"What can you tell me before I go in there?" he asked Romani.
"The two sitting down," Romani pointed at the couple. "Engaged. His name is Adam. She only gave what I assume to be a pseudonym. Said to call her Ko." Ritsuka shot the doctor a flabbergasted look. "I know. Anyways. Beard is Jacob. Needs a haircut is Spencer. The one with the dog is Bennett."
"Okay," Ritsuka said, pointing from left to right. "Adam, Ko, Jacob, Spencer, Bennett."
"Adam knows nothing
about Chaldea, or the Moonlit World in general," Romani continued. "The rest all do, in varying amounts. Jacob and 'Ko' are versed in the basics. Spencer is working off more in-depth knowledge. And Bennett…" Romani grimaced as he trailed off. "We're hoping at least some
of what he said is wrong. So far, it's not looking likely. Which is mostly
a bad thing."
Ritsuka struggled to imagine something worse than their current circumstances; it wasn't as if the Incineration of Humanity left them much else to lose. What, were there going to be even more Singularities than the seven Lev had mentioned?
At least most of them knew more than he had at the beginning - he'd applied for the internship because the stipend would have more than covered his tuition, and they'd paid 5000 yen for the blood test. Even a basic knowledge of magic or Chaldea put them at a similar level to the proper masters that had arrived before him.
"What about where they came from?" Ritsuka asked. "I thought the rest of the world outside Chaldea was, well-"
"We don't know," Romani interrupted. "That's a problem for another day. Right now, we have a Singularity to solve, and the fortune of five more Masters to throw at it. And to be honest… I'd sleep better knowing it's not just you and Mash on your own out there."
Or maybe they could go instead and give Mash a break. The bitter thought crossed his mind for just an instant before Ritsuka shook his head to dispel the crazy thought. It wasn't fair to expect that of them. He could barely believe the thought crossed his mind at all. All there was to do was take this in stride and accept having new coworkers in the field.
"... right." Ritsuka took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, then let it out in a deep sigh. "Alright. Wish me luck!" With that, he stood, pushed the door open the rest of the way—
"-and that's when I told him, that is
the horse you rode in on!"
Um. What in the world was he walking in on?
"I hope it's not a bad time?" He stepped into the room, fully aware of all the eyes on him. He parsed confusion, realization, and… respect?
That last one left him warm in ways he wasn't sure how to fully describe.
"Master!" Boudica gestured for him to go over towards her. "Come pet the dog!" Even as Boudica said that, her fingers never left the dog's cheek, and the animal was trying to angle its head to lick her fingers even while Boudica scratched her cheek.
"The dog's name is Jamaica," the man holding her said, before passing the dog to Boudica and walking up to Ritsuka. It hadn't been obvious from a distance, but he was just barely
taller than this other man. "You must be the Master of Chaldea."
"Ah, yes!" Ritsuka replied, very
thankful that he was probably the best student in his year for English. He'd probably need to start wearing a translation talisman around Chaldea, though; da Vinci-chan sometimes forgot that not every
human was a polyglot. "Ritsuka Fujimaru. It is a pleasure to meet you. Um, did the dog arrive with you?"
"Near as we can tell, we showed up with what was on our beds," the one with the beard said, bowing slightly, "My cat, Ron is somewhere in the base, he showed up with me. Please keep an eye out for a fat orange tabby."
"You are… Jacob, yes?" At the nod, Ritsuka let out a slight sigh, both of relief and frustration. "My apologies, but I have not heard anything."
Jacob sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Entirely fair; thank you, though."
"Again, my apologies," Ritsuka said with a bow, drawing on every second of his many, many hours of experience working retail. "In the meantime though, we should become familiar with each other?"
"Then introductions I guess." Bennett, whose dog was once again firmly in his arms, used the animal's snout to point at his other companions. "The two who wish they had time to get a room are Adam and Ko. And the one who thinks a mule is a horse is Spencer."
"Okay, I know
you still heard me say the rest!" the shaggy-haired one retorted with an indignant shrug and an outstretched hand.
"He didn't," Bennett said, nodding towards Ritsuka. Wait, thinks a mule is—ooh, that
was what he meant by that bit, it was the punch line to a joke! Okay, Ritsuka saw what was going on there.
English was hard.
"It is a pleasure to make everyone's acquaintance," Ritsuka said to them with a bow. "Where are all of you from, by chance?"
"I'm Canadian; they're all yanks," Ko said with a soft smile and a stretch, putting a hand on her fiance's shoulder and shaking him gently awake. "Ah- Americans, that is," she clarified, looking back at Ritsuka apologetically.
"I resemble that remark," Bennett said.
"-wasn't asleep no evidence how dare you," the formerly slumbering man mumbled without a pause, before his eyes focused on Ritsuka and he raised a hand in greeting. "...Hey. 'M Adam."
"Hello. Um... is the word not 'resent'?" Ritsuka asked, glancing back at Bennett.
"Ah, no. Toby's agreeing with her," Adam said, his words still slightly slurred. "Don't worry about it."
"I see? I think?" Ritsuka gave a self-deprecating chuckle, a hand coming up to brush at the back of his head. So wait, which was it, Toby or Bennett? "My apologies, most of my work with English is from tourists. A normal conversation is a bit more hard."
A knock at the door to the lounge interrupted whatever was to be said next, and Ritsuka turned to see Mash standing in the half-open door.
"Ano, Dr. Roman mentioned that one of the new Masters was looking for his cat?"
"Oh thank goodness, you've found him?" Ritsuka blinked twice before taking a few steps back, shocked by just how quickly Jacob had moved from his prior position towards the door.
"Yes, but—eep!" Mash was bumped to the side a moment after she entered the room, as Heracles nudged her out of the way so he could kneel under the doorway. The Berserker stood to his full height, staring at the five new Master candidates, all of whom had frozen at the sight of him. A moment later, he brought a massive hand to the back of his head, and sent his fingers questing through the veritable mane of hair he had back there.
His hand emerged a moment later, with what could only be a cat cradled gently in the palm of his massive hand, which he extended towards the group.
Heracles rumbled as Jacob laughed quietly, crossing the remaining distance quickly to pick up the orange, Garfield-like lump of a cat, crooning at it as he scratched its ears. "Thank you." The cat was pulled into the man's arms and cradled like a baby, immediately grabbing its owner's forearm and proceeding to lick it.
A lot.
"Oh my god, we have a Lurch."
Adam sounded almost in awe. Heracles let out a low grumble that Ritsuka could tell was more befuddlement than anything else.
"We don't, Fujimaru-kun does," Ko murmured.
"...Indy," Spencer said quietly and slowly, eyes wide; Ritsuka was not clear at first who he was referring to. "Ko. Please. Do not. Mock Heracles. While I
am in a ten mile radius. It's not a safe distance, but at least I'll have time to pray to whichever god I decide on before we all die
."
Well, Ritsuka thought, even if their common sense was more comparable to that of Liz or Nero's, at least it seemed like they all knew how to keep level heads in a crisis?
Now, watching them squabble and panic infinitely worse than he had in that ashen Fuyuki, Ritsuka wanted to kick his past self for his optimism.
Bennett/October
It was one thing to endlessly throw Saint Quartz into the gacha machine and hope for the rainbow orbs. It was something else entirely to go into the gacha, and know that your life—and maybe
every other life ever—hinged on a literal cosmic lottery. So far, they'd gotten a possibly-strong, but unproven Rider… and a semi-modern Caster. A man who he could see sitting in a parlour, sipping at absinthe with a pince-nez perched on the bridge of his nose. Too old to have done something truly incredible or marvelous to earn his place… too
young to have gotten there by dint of raw power. In other words?
A
thoroughly useless Caster.
Maybe this next one...
Dory did his best to wipe the blood from the corner of his eye; whomever he had pulled, just summoning them had made the veins on his arm and neck bulge and gotten pained noises from him through the summoning itself. The mere fact that he couldn't recognize the individual was a sign that-
-something. It meant something. Wait, there was something. They'd said Saber. Okay, he could work with this. Saber, recognizable, but—nothing.
The Saber had announced… um.
Their class, only to cut themself off when Dory staggered. He'd waved it off though, and asked the Servant to dematerialize, make the load easier. Before then, he'd gotten a good look at the Servant, and it had been… it wore… it...
Dammit. He tried to think about who could do that sort of thing, but found he couldn't even remember one of them. Worse, though; he
knew, deep in his bones, that there were
at least two… and try as he might, their
names eluded him. Even with his memory and knowledge, there were so many that
could have it that he didn't,
couldn't know about-! Who knew, it could even be like when...someone pretended to be… someone else-!
Agh! No, not worth it. This was a waste of time, energy, and the most precious resource of all:
time. There were better things he could be thinking about.
Ko was approaching the shield, now, looking almost as worried as he felt. Adam gave her an encouraging grin and two thumbs up - and, of course, the Ye Olde Englishe fop next to him just
had to mimic him. This. This is
exactly why he didn't want to have to summon blind. Yes, there were good results, like a Saber that was so strong they were painful to sustain. The mostly-faded Command Seals on Dory's hand were a testament to just how
lucky he'd gotten.
And that was the crux of the issue.
He got lucky. Because Sturgeon's Law was explicit: ninety percent of everything,
everything, is
shit. Dory had gotten lucky and hit the ten. And then there was Adam and his utter fucking
nobody, standing there, not even
trying to understand what was happening, making flippant little remarks when it was
literally life or death that he actually try and
get this, and then proceeding to go and bungle his
one chance to get out ahead of this mess.
Which was
exactly what he'd wanted to prevent! Even as Ko prepared to summon, he thought to himself. He couldn't get a catalyst, that was out of the question. There
had to be an answer though, some way to keep this whole thing from being the real world equivalent of getting nothing but Black Keys, Mapo Tofu, shirtless Kirei, and a Saber Gilles... but for
keeps.
"Ye first, o silver, o iron… o stone of the foundation, o archduke of the covenant. Hear me, in the name of our great ancestor! Let the descending winds be as a wall..."
Hang on. The words she was saying… right, right. There was more than one way to translate the summoning aria, and the differences didn't really make a difference. Kiritsugu was right when he said the aria was unimportant.
Except.
Except for the exception. Except for the additional lines that can constrain the summons, filter out the results. The extra lines that could
guarantee that you only get a Berserker. They couldn't be the
only ones, he realized. There had to be more than just that, put in there by the original three families to game the system in their favor. Logically speaking, there
had to be six more.
And if there were another six?... that might work. A Hail Mary, yes. But maybe—
"... and be thou the hands that protect the balance!"
A flash of light pulled him from his musings, and he returned his attention to the summoning circle. As the light died down, he saw the Servant that Ko had brought forth… and felt the final dregs of hope drain away with it.
"Savior of Erin, lord of the renowned Fianna, granted victory by Nuada! Fionn mac Cumhaill! … has arrived."
… no. No, no, this was—
The tall spearman took a goo-goo-eyed Ko by her still-outstretched hand, and brushed a kiss against her knuckles. "I'll be counting on you, Master."
"Likewise, ya flash bastard! C'mere!" And without another word, she pulled him into a hug, slapping him hard on the back and laughing.
Damn it!
A Lancer was good. The Knight classes were all strong, just by default; even the
weakest Saber was still going to be useful in a fight because
Saber. But of all the
possible Lancers to summon? All the potential 'I win' buttons available in that class?
She had to get
Blondie McSpook!?
God. Fucking.
Damn it!
"I
said we should have used catalysts," he ground out, addressing nobody in particular; Ko and Indy certainly weren't listening, they were chirping at one another about the chaff they'd managed to pull. "But
no. We had to go and roll the
fucking dice, didn't we!" He kicked a coconut laying on the ground, watching it roll down the beach and into the sea. "I wanted a catalyst. I
could try to refuse and not do my summoning yet, but something tells me that's not an option!"
"Oh, sure it is," Dory started with a cheer, "if you can get your card to not be rejected from Catalysts-R-Us in McDoesn'tExist, Nowheresville."
"Dory-" Ko said warningly.
"You have
no excuse to be making light of this situation!" Bennett yelled, rounding on him. "You rolled the gacha and got
lucky!"
"A). Don't
feel lucky." Dory pointed at the still smeared blood on his face, before ticking off a second finger. "B? The Perfect is the Enemy of the
getting stuff done."
"I think I did pretty well for my first time," Indy muttered darkly.
"Indy?" Bennett looked in his friend's direction, dismissing the movement he saw out of the corner of his eye. "Let me spell this out for you: until you can listen to everything I say and not
wimp out,
you don't get a vote. Your opinion has less value than –"
"Toby-!" Dory snapped, grabbing him by the shoulders; his grip grew stronger the longer he held on, the man's fingers digging into his collarbone - but underneath that was a rough tremble in his hands. "
Stop. Breathe and stop. Tell me, do you have an alternative to this? If you-ough-!"
His words were cut off by a sudden coughing fit, harsh and wet as he swayed, desperately covering his mouth. Ritsuka leaned forward to grab him, only an instant too late before the armored figure reappeared in a flash of light, catching him before he fell.
"Fionn?" Ko asked. Before she'd finished the word, her Servant was already unhooking the waterskin that hung from his belt behind him and carrying it over to Saber and their Master.
"Just my luck to get summoned as a Lancer again," he mused, crouching beside them. "Were I in the Caster container… ah, it's a shame."
"A shame what?" Saber half growled, facing their fellow Servant.
Even now, staring directly at the Saber, hearing their voice, Bennett couldn't place it. Whenever his eyes went to try and land on a recognizable physical characteristic, they just
slid off. Try as he might, he
could not fix any details of the Servant into his mind. Which made it easier to pay attention to what
actually mattered here: his friend.
Who was definitely
not in great shape.
"A shame," Fionn said, popping the narrow lid off the skin and tipping it gently over his hand, "that I only have the water to work with. As I am now, I can only heal his physical wounds; dealing with their source is another matter. There, now," he added, holding his cupped palm up to Dory's lips. "Drink."
The already pale-skinned man now had even less color than he had had before, the blood still drying on his cheek. Splotches of faint bruising were starting to appear along the parts of skin not covered by his own uniform as Dory coughed into his hand.
With only mild hesitation, the bearded man struggled past the hacking to slurp up the liquid.
For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. Then, with a warbling phlegmy noise, Dory spat a thick, red-brown wad onto the tile and sand beneath him before taking a slow breath, a trace of color returning to his face. Holding on to Saber's shoulder and looking back and forth between the two Servants, he nodded. "Thank you."
As Saber got him back on his feet, he looked back at Toby, breathing carefully, "Look. If you have a better option. Go for it. But don't take it out on us. Not for humor, not for Adam being out of his depth. Okay?"
"I… okay." Bennett turned and paced, running his fingers through his hair. "I might. Have a plan, I mean. It's not a catalyst, I can't get that, but it's
something."
"And
I am going to sit back down then." Leaning on Saber, Dory shuffled over to a spot by Spence on the crumbled wall and took a seat beside him.
"Okay. You do that." Toby took deep breaths and turned towards Mash's waiting shield, still set up as a summoning circle. "Alright. You can do this. It's just gonna be… right, just… gotta do it."
He stood before the circle and extended the hand engraved with Command Spells. He took a deep breath to compose himself, breathed out slowly… and began.
"Silver and iron to the origin," he began. "Gemstone and the archduke of contracts for the foundation. Let tribute be paid to the great ancestor."
The glyphs upon the shield illuminated, pulsing a soft, arctic blue, interspersed with warm, vivid red.
More than any of them, he knew what risks they would face. There was the future to think about, yes. The next four Singularities had their own threats, challenges to be overcome, hurdles to climb. But none of that mattered if they died here.
None of that mattered if they died to Heracles.
"The alighted wind becomes a wall. The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three-forked road that leads to the kingdom circulates. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Repeat five times. Once filled, simply shatter."
From the center of the shield, orbs of alternating red and blue light emerged, and began to spin, brightness building as they went. So far, so good. The Command Spells
burned, a hot coal in the back of his hand. His hand shook from the effort, and his right eye began to blur from the pain.
Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been concerned. But one thing was certain: his near-encyclopedic knowledge of the
exact events to come had been largely nullified by one simple fact. They were on an island, as opposed to a boat. Every other contrivance that led to Heracles laying hands upon the Ark of the Covenant? They could very well be dust in the wind.
And that was a risk he couldn't take.
"I hereby declare: my will shall create your body, your sword shall create my fate. Abiding by the summons of the Holy Grail, if you accede to this compact, answer me. I shall be all that is good in the heavens. I shall embody all that is evil in the hells." As the light built, he grit his teeth even harder,
hearing them grind against each other.
Even with how apparently powerful Dory's Saber likely was, it would not be enough. Not to handle
Heracles. Not to kill him twelve times, twelve different ways. Which meant they needed another option. To defeat one who had so fallen to insanity, they needed one immune to it, specifically meant to fight it. One who had stood atop the mountains of madness, had their mind opened to the truth of the universe, and kept their self.
There was only one way to
guarantee that the mad hero fell. The time had come. He had one shot at this. If there was a modification to the aria for a Berserker, he could assume there was one for the others. And if he needed the anti-Berserker, there was no better starting place. He had to try.
He had to.
"But descend from those heavens obscured by reason. You, who stares ere long into the abyss; and I, who would guard from its endless embrace."
An imperceptible
something shifted in the light as its hue darkened from blue and red to a ghastly purple. Where before it was bright and pure, now it was something…
other. It left trails in the world, oil-slick stains in the air, as a pervading sense of
otherness filled the clearing. He could swear that there was a faint
voice on the wind, so quiet as to be ignored… and yet.
And yet he could sense it. He could
hear it, a soundless cry from the cosmos.
"From the seven heavens, clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance—!"
The light flared. As the feeling of molten
magma coursed through his veins, and he had to close his eyes… he could swear he heard the sound of a great, ancient key, turning in a rusted lock. And out in the lightless reaches of space, where not even gods dared to tread,
It dreamt.
The light flared before dying down, and he got a look at his Servant.
She wore a voluminous black dress, simultaneously too baggy and too short for her frame, with… what was the word, petticoats? With visible petticoats underneath it. Her outfit was utterly festooned with bows, alternating orange and black, with a hat perched daintily on her head. And clutched under one arm, she carried a worn, well-loved stuffed bear.
Behind him, he could hear Indy's wild, cackling laughter. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he imagined the finger on the monkey's paw curling down.
He had risked it all on a Foreigner. And he had succeeded.
"Hello!" His Servant said. "I'm Abigail… Abigail Williams! I'm a For… um, Foreigner… and you're my Master?"
Only… perhaps he had succeeded too well. Because despite the sudden
heat and nausea confirming just how
powerful his Servant was… he couldn't. He
couldn't.
"... Ffffffffuuuuuuuummmmph!" He bit back the word that so
desperately wanted to escape, practically biting down on his fist to keep from saying it. His whole body shook and shuddered. He wasn't going to say it. Not in front of a child. Don't say it… don't—
Fuck!
