Okeanos | Chapter VI
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okeanos Part VI
Bennett
The doors to the observation room slid open with only the slightest sound, and Bennett had a feeling that if it weren't for the fact that non-critical damage wasn't an important repair to make, it would have been soundless.
"What are you doing out of the med bay? You're going to hurt yourself worse if you aren't careful." Leonardo da Vinci turned away from her console, arms crossed over her chest as she gave Bennett a look that was halfway between a glare and a concerned older sister, one that somehow made his wounded leg throb with a harsh ache.
The nerve center of Chaldea was full of frenzied activity, the few remaining technicians of Chaldea typing away at terminals, writing data readings down in hardcopy notebooks, or any number of other things that he simply could not be arsed to keep paying attention to.
"The other option was to brood," Bennett said. "And at least in here—"
"—Toby!" the speaker crackled with Spencer's voice - although the man was slushing his syllables enough to be a convenience store specialty. "You said you'd buy mimosas, Toby! You'oweme mismonsas~"
Abby, who had until this point remained relatively silent next to his right side, ready to grab him if his crutch failed and he stumbled, tugged on his sleeve. "Um… what is a mimosa?"
"An alcoholic drink," da Vinci answered. "Usually served with brunch."
"... and... what, then, is 'brunch'?" Abby asked, her forehead crinkling in confusion.
Oh gods above what the actual fresh hell had they gotten into without him this time.
"New round!" came another voice—one he absolutely recognized, but had never heard speaking in anything but Japanese. "Finish your mugs ya scallywags, or it's a forfeit!"
Bennett turned towards Dr. Roman and da Vinci, and was suddenly glad for the bandage keeping his right eye covered and closed, otherwise his eyelid would be madly twitching for all to see.
"What. The hell. Am I listening to."
"We welcome you back to our program, already in progress," Ko said - her words thankfully crisp, if a bit crackly from their connection across time and space.
Wood slammed into wood as Dory's voice came over the comms. "About time! Also, hi Toby."
Roman's fingers danced across his command console, windows popping in and out of existence as flashes of data that Bennett couldn't decipher for the life of him filled the screen. "I'm trying to get visual, but there's a lot of interference," he grumbled. "Until then-"
"Violence!" proclaimed a very loud Indy. "Is the last refuge of the incompetent!"
"... Nooooot so sure we need a visual here," Bennett hedged. "Y'all have access to their vitals, right? Maybe even, uh… blood alcohol level?"
"That is an oddly specific request," da Vinci said, one eyebrow raising in question.
"I know a drunk Spence when I hear one, and In—Adam is already getting loud. So either it's a party, or something dumber."
"We challenged Drake to a drinking contest!" the man in question continued to shout.
… they WHAT!?
"—he always shouts into the communicator," Da Vinci sighed. "I'm going to have to write a macro for it later, I just know it…."
"He's… he's not serious, is he?" Bennett could feel the bottom dropping out of his stomach, and was suddenly glad Abby was there to help him stay upright. "Please tell me he wasn't serious about the drinking contest. Drake has a Grail. They don't win that, they can't win that." There was one last bastion of sanity, wasn't there? "Ko, please tell me they're not serious about a drinking contest with Francis Drake."
"I got Fionn on standby, no worries," she said with infuriating calm. "They're not gonna accidentally shut down their livers or anything."
"It can't be that bad, right?" Roman scratched at the back of his head. "They're drinking grog, which is, what? Four percent?"
"Closer to twelve," da Vinci murmured with a sigh.
"It's horrible!" Mash sounded nearly hysterical. "Even Senpai is drinking... and we're both underage—"
"—bullshit!" several voices broke out. From both sides of the temporal divide.
"—and why couldn't we have just had a fight like normal? You should put a stop to this Doctor!"
Bennett could only sigh. He was gone for, what? A few… actually, now that he thought about it, he wasn't a hundred percent sure how long he'd been unconscious and/or asleep. As far as he knew, he had only been gone for a short while.
And in that small period of time, everything immediately went to shit. Of course.
"... fine," Bennett bit out. "Alright. Screw it. Drinking contest. Please say it's on terms that we have a chance at winning."
"Last man standing! Last man standing!" Indy chanted loudly.
"Oh. Okay." Staring at the console, Bennett desperately wished he was there so he could give the man a proper side-eye. "So if those are the terms, then why exactly haven't you just knocked her over?"
"This isn't my first rodeo." Indy said, suddenly sounding a lot more sober than Bennett had initially taken him for. "Plus, there is a small army of pirates acting as refs. And also secondary participants." There was a short pause, followed by a large gulping sound.
"Okay, but just, bear with me here," Bennett said, trying and failing to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation because of the large bandage over the right half of his face. "You could do the simple arithmetic of 'Smith Territory plus replenished Command Spell equals the pirates pose no threat."
"Don't look at me," Ko said impassively, the sound of her cracking one or another of her joints repeatedly coming through as loud pops over the communicator. "I wanted to stab her."
"That's what I said!" Mash agreed, before immediately backpedaling. "Well, not exactly that…"
"See?" Bennett said to Dr. Roman and da Vinci with a wave at the console. "Simple solution, right there."
"Oh come on, Toby," Ko's eyeroll was audible enough that he knew she was doing one, even without being able to see it happen. "I can't just stab people every time I want to, this isn't middle school. They're gonna be fine, Dory and Drake are hashing it out diplomatically, kinda-"
"—cis Drake!" Indy cried out again. "...Chug. Chug. Chug…!" Soon there was a veritable chorus joining in, urging the Rider to drink—and more quickly than the others.
"Getting her drunk won't work, Indy," Bennett insisted. "She has a Grail, it'll just keep her at 'drunk enough to have fun, not so drunk she's incapacitated'. She won't get-"
A further slam of wood on wood came over the comms, and Bennett almost jumped where he stood.
"STAND CHECK!" Dory's voice followed the slam, and moments later the sound of many people all getting to their feet rang out.
Followed swiftly by a somewhat louder thump.
"...Little brother is out," Ching Shih called.
"No no 'm good, pumme back'in, coach…."
"Out," the Chinese pirate queen chided him gently.
"Auntie's right, duckie." Bennett could practically hear Drake's predatory grin. "Not looking too good for Chaldea if their first line o' defense is a spinster and her pet lightweight..."
"Silence, virgin," Ching Shih declared. "I will trade barbs with you later."
"Virginity'san artificial construc'reated t'shame wimmin!" Spencer belted out.
"... somebody get me a chair, please," Bennett said with a groan, awareness of the ache in his leg growing with every second he listened to this… this. "This could take a little bit."
Two more of Dory's "STAND CHECK!"s later, Jeanne came by with Jamaica, freshly walked in the simulator. Bennett looked over to see how Abby was handling the canine's nearness, knowing her fear of dogs, and could only double-take at Dory's 23-pound ginger cat, curled up in Abby's lap and purring away like a madman.
"Hey, Dory? I think your cat adopted Abby."
There was a surprisingly long pause before Bennett saw a shifting in what few, incredibly grainy visuals they'd managed to get set up. "Then she is a wonderful safe girl and I am happy for her and Ron. Be careful, he likes to find a spot and lick, especially inside your ears."
Abby froze for a moment, pulling her hand back from the cat, and stared at the console with wide eyes. Her jaw worked for a moment before a small ginger paw reached up, hooked its claws around her finger, and pulled her hand back down where Abby had been petting Ron, who then went further and meowed at Abby when her hand just sat there on his fur.
Bennett, for his part, couldn't help but wonder when the cat had gotten in the room in the first place.
The first traces of video finally came through Chaldea's feed, courtesy of Mash's shield being placed upright in the same position for an extended period of time. The feed was grainy, staticky, and was more "gray fuzz with shapes that might be people'' than anything else. But when put together with audio, it was enough to catch Adam practically inhaling his mug, with large quantities of grog splashing onto his face and neck.
"...that fellow has decent technique," Jeanne noted. "He's pacing himself while encouraging Drake to drink faster."
"Since when did the Maid of Orleans become an expert on drinking contests?" Bennett murmured under his breath.
Jeanne blushed. "I wasn't always so venerated," she said, looking away, her hands playing with the cuff of her shirtsleeve. "I was raised a simple farm girl… who could drink nearly everyone in her village under the table."
Oh. Right. Servant hearing.
Another uneventful 'STAND CHECK!' passed, with no nobody of note failing to keep their balance. (The few pirates Bennett could hear falling on their asses and cursing up a storm were not people of note, despite what their delusions of grandeur may have made them believe.)
The video feed had cleared up just a bit in the past round or two of drinking, to boot. While the quality was nothing to write home about, the fact of the matter is that there was quality to remark on in the first place. That said, they still couldn't make out much more than the immediate area around the group of Masters; the feed's mapping cut out so abruptly that one pirate in the middle ring showed up as a floating head and pair of disembodied arms.
"...hey, Drake," Indy's voice broke in. "Say 'but why is the-'"
"Rum gone!" Spence leapt on the other man's sentence. "Say why is the rum always gone!"
"You wot?" Courtesy of the video feed, Bennett got to see Drake leaning forward, brow furrowed, but not quite in anger. Confusion, maybe? It was hard to tell, given that he wasn't there in person. "You bastards do somethin' to the rum while I wasn't lookin'?"
"It's a reference," Dory's voice, now slightly slurred, broke through, "And it works really well with your accent and station," He let out a small chuckle. "If you could do it to shut them up?"
"But why's the rum gone." She, on the other hand, was clearly not amused.
"With more drama!" Spencer cajoled loudly.
"Don't push it," Dory and Drake deadpanned simultaneously.
"I get that reference!" Dr. Roman suddenly exclaimed, standing up quickly enough to shove his chair away from him as he pointed at the screen. Bennett and Abby exchanged a look of utter disbelief, while da Vinci quietly chuckled and excused herself.
In between the continued drinking and the next 'STAND CHECK!', courtesy of Dory, she returned with a tray of beverages in hand.
The Caster made the rounds of the room before finally depositing a trio of coffee mugs in front of Dr. Roman, Bennett, and her own station, and then placed a fourth mug (which, Bennett saw, was filled with hot chocolate) in front of Abby. A moment later, she dropped a small sauce cup of pills in front of Bennett.
"Just some acetaminophen," she said to him in a low voice. "No opioids right now."
"Ah… uh, thanks," Bennett said, feeling suddenly awkward. Thoughtful, that, but… also not the problem. "I, uh… I, kinda don't drink coffee."
As the pleasant smile melted off of da Vinci's face, Bennett got the feeling that this was absolutely the wrong answer.
"I am Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci," she replied frostily. "You. Will drink. My coffee."
Bennett wasn't ashamed to admit that under the Caster's stare, he was thoroughly cowed. And so, he picked up the coffee mug, blew a bit of air on the surface of the liquid to cool it off, and took a sip. It was…
Not terrible. Surprisingly so, in fact.
Just to be on the safe side, Toby took another sip. Nope - still not terrible, he thought, returning to take a third sip.
"I still don't like coffee," he muttered under his breath. It was maybe a little cold in the command room—and it was a hot beverage. No reason not to, and he did need a liquid to take his pills with. He could dry swallow, but...
"...I'llm'kean'ception'jus'dis'unce."
Da Vinci threw up her hands. "There's no helping you is there?!"
"I'll drink your coffee, maestra!" Ko piped up immediately.
"You hate coffee more than I do!" Bennett bit back.
"Yeah," she conceded, and he could see her grin through the grainy image that they'd finally managed to keep stable, "but I don't hate it more than I love the bragging rights of having imbibed a da Vinci."
"This is good!" Abby's sudden exclamation drew attention off of Bennett's reticence to drink the coffee (long enough for him to take his pills with another sip). "What is it?"
"Hot chocolate!" da Vinci answered, a beaming smile on her face. "Do you like it?"
"Aye, Mistress Vinci!" Abby beamed, moments before her expression turned pensive. "Whence came it, this chocolate?"
"It comes in many different forms," Dr. Roman sighed around a sip of his coffee. "I'll be happy to show you more later."
With the increasing fidelity of the feed, Bennett was able to make out more and more of the area, to the point that he could get an accurate enough headcount of the pirates if he'd cared to. He could even tell that the two closest to the center of the circle (and the crates being used as a great, big table, explaining what that mug slammed down onto) were Dory and Drake, the former on a taller wooden trunk, the latter on a barrel sunk into the dirt. The rest fanned out around them in rough semicircles, Masters and Servants in a closer clump, while the pirates spread relatively far, almost in an encircling position.
Except for Ritsuka, who was consistently getting dragged further back from the center by Mash, only to shrug her off and get back to his drinking.
Smith, it seemed, had gotten his hands on some whiskey, and was now attempting to explain to a politely-nodding William Tell why it wasn't as good as the stuff back home.
It was inevitable that, at one stand check or another, the singing would begin. It was pirates and drinking, it was going to happen. It just so happened to be stand check number six.
"—do you do with a drunken sailor~?" Indy had apparently introduced the entire fleet to this song, and the rest of the crew was more into it than the main party was.
"—shave his belly with a rusty razor, shave his belly with a rusty razor, shave his belly with a rusty razor—"
"EAR'LY IN THE MOR-NIN'!"
Not only was the decidedly unsober crowd painfully out of tune, with unwitting key changes nearly every other syllable, but Fionn and Ko had to be different, and were using completely unrelated lyrics that didn't even seem to be in English. The translation function was nearly seamless, but it apparently couldn't handle singing.
"I can't tell what's worse," da Vinci sighed. "That there is absolutely no harmony here, or that for all that the quality of the singing is terrible, the lyrics are surprisingly good."
"Hey!" Ko broke off, offended, "we're still in tune, they can do what they want."
"-with the cap'ins daughter! Put'im in the cabin with the cap'in's daughter~"
"SENPAI—!"
"—IN THE MOR-NIN'!" Ritsuka bellowed along with the rest, draping an arm over Mash's shoulder.
Indy's strategy, such as it was, had apparently fallen apart, as the brown-skinned man was now visibly swaying along with the lyrics. With a mighty effort, he planted his boots on the table, excess grog splashing out from his mug, and began to conduct the gang with wild, exaggerated motions.
"Lock 'im in a room with disco music!" he belted out the lyrics. "Lock 'im in a room with disco music! Lock 'im in a room with disco music!"
"He's gonna fall," Dr. Roman muttered. "In three, two…"
"Lock 'im in a room with disco—"
WHUMP.
"One." Dr. Roman punctuated all this with a messy slurp of his coffee, drawing a harsh glare from da Vinci.
And yet, despite all of that...
"EAR'LY IN THE MOR-NIN'!"
The singing continued unabated.
Despite himself, Bennett finally failed to suppress a grin and chuckled as Ko trotted over to get her fiance back on his feet. He clearly wasn't the only one: he could see on the display that Dory had started laughing riotously at the sight. And while Bennett managed to bring his own laughter under control shortly, he also didn't have the alcohol in his system that Dory did, who was still chortling as he brought his mug of grog up to his mouth. He drank too early, and his continued laughter sent the liquid escaping his nose, throwing him into a coughing fit.
It was a blink and you'll miss it moment: Drake swiftly rose from the barrel upon which she'd been seated and crossed over to Dory's side, seating herself upon his trunk before giving the man a few quick smacks between the shoulder blades, her timing clearly showing she'd done this before.
"Easy there," she said as his breathing steadied out. "Can't 'ave the reaper taken' ya afore I do!"
Dory laughed a bit. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to be taken out by choking. I'm planning to top you fair and square."
Drake guffawed at that, laughing loud and strong before returning to her drink. It didn't escape Bennett's notice, though, that Drake was still sitting next to Dory on his wooden trunk, and he couldn't help but worry at that.
The next stand check came, and by this point, most of the sailors were on the ground. From his perspective, Bennett wasn't sure if they were dead, drunk, or yes.
"So I don't drink," Ko said, passing Indy off to Fionn with a sigh, "so I might not be the best judge of this, but, uh… they're startin' to look a little worse for wear, here, doctor. Should I intercede before Dory pukes on the target, or-?"
"Please tell me how to take care of Senpai," Mash pleaded with the control room, propping up her slightly wobbly Master with both arms even as her face burned with embarrassment. "Nothing like this happened when it was just the two of us…."
Behind her, Ko shared an amused look with her servant.
"Ah, don't fret, my girl," Caster Cu materialized beside Mash, scooping up a discarded mug with one hand and ruffling Ritsuka's hair with the other. "Master will be fiiine—this is just part of becoming a man!"
"Oi," Ko objected, pulling the mug out of his unresisting grip and pointing a finger up at him. "Stop stealin' drinks. If this turns into a double cross we need every sober ass-kicker we can get."
Yup, Bennett thought to himself, as Cu laughed her off with more empty reassurances and immediately got pulled into some kind of verbal pissing contest with Fionn. Ko had common sense. Thank. God.
Contrary to Mash's concern, Ritsuka looked… well, pretty fine, as far as Bennett could tell. Sure, he had an arm slung over a beet-red Mash's shoulder, and a really gregarious smile on his face. But his cheeks were only barely pink, whereas Bennett would've expected him to be a bit more red, if he was actually as drunk as he was acting.
If Bennett had to take a guess, he would wager that whatever poison resistance Ritsuka's contract with Mash conferred upon him also had an effect on alcohol. The stuff was, after all, a poison. Just one whose effects people tended to, you know. Enjoy. Usually. Which meant that, whether he was conscious of it or not, Ritsuka was playing it up to get closer to Mash.
And judging by the white-knuckled grip Dr. Roman had on his coffee mug's handle, the girl's father in all but name knew it too.
"STAND CHECK!"
"Hand check?" Spence queried, his head perking up from Ching Shih's knee.
The remaining competitors all hopped to their feet. And Bennett's heart leapt in his throat when Drake visibly stumbled, only for Dory to reach up and catch the pirate before she could fall.
"Ah!" Dory gave a sudden sound of surprise as he caught Drake, stepping forward a few times to rebalance the two of them, still holding Drake while he did so. A beat passed, then another, before Drake chuckled a bit, though she still made no moves to get out of Dory's grasp.
The man shifted his grip on the captain as he unsteadily sat back down, a hand brushing through her vibrantly pink hair as she settled half in his lap. Blue eyes meeting his as she draped herself over his thighs.
"Guess tha's it, eh?" She flashed Dory a vicious grin, all teeth and cheer. "Guess ya won then, stargazer. You can take anything you want— my ship, my treasure… me?"
Dory let out a strangled sound. "Eh-ya-you-ah-"
"We seek the Grail!" Ko and Mash shouted, leaping to their feet in shared panic.
"...Raincheck," Dory said, shutting his eyes and nodding, a finger coming up to press lightly against the captain's lips. "Grail first. Raincheck on the rest of those. But, the Grail, please."
Yes, good, Bennett thought. Priorities. Then a little tidbit that he'd almost forgotten crossed his mind. Wait… didn't Drake store the Grail in…? Oh no.
Drake's grin widened, and she shoved him headfirst into her cleavage. "Don't bite~" she teased, before Dory abruptly pulled away.
Caught in his teeth was the rim of a great golden chalice.
Bennett swung his gaze around, hoping beyond all hope that Abby hadn't been watching Dory's brief bit of 'apple' bobbing in marshmallow heaven, and oh no her eyes were glued to the screen—
A pair of hands covered Abby's eyes right before Bennett could move to do so himself. He turned a bit further so he could actually get a full look with his one good eye, and on meeting Roman's gaze, mouthed a 'thank you' in his direction.
"Okeanos' true Grail has been secured," da Vinci announced. Bennett had the feeling it was a bit of a tradition, at this point, given that all of the various technicians in the control center had seen the same feed.
"Finally," Ko whispered, sounding like she'd just put down the world's heaviest suitcase. Then she laughed, and turning toward Fionn and Indy, she leapt to embrace the latter, leaving the former trying and failing to make repositioning his hug-ready arms look casual.
"Roman," Dory grunted, his Southern accent suddenly thick on his tongue, and his hands were - okay, Bennett would have definitely been covering Abby's eyes if Roman hadn't already beaten him to it. "Toby. da Vinci. Whas mah wordin'? How we doin' this?"
"Go to!" Abby whined, trying to gently prise back Roman's fingers - to mixed success, if his whimpers of pain were anything to go by. "Goodman~! Mayn't I see the cup of Christ?"
"Get Fionn to use his Noble Phantasm on you," da Vinci instructed Dory. "We can't have you slurring your words for this. As for the wording…" Her shoulders slumped a bit. "I was never a wordsmith, I'm afraid."
"Allow me," the Irish Servant offered, crossing over from his space beside Ko and splashing a trickle of water onto Dory's face (and Drake's chest, but who was keeping track of that?). "Now, aspiring gigolo, repeat after me…."
"We do not slut-shame in this friendgroup~" Spence moaned, but nobody present was listening.
"I wish...
Butterflies took flight in Bennett's stomach as he looked upon the Grail held in his friend's hands. This was… a wish. An honest-to-goodness, non-Rhinegold wish. This wish had to be airtight, no room for error.
"...for the engravement upon the souls of the Chaldeans as many Magic Circuits of the highest possible quality as allowed by the full potential of this Grail, and with minimal deleterious effects resulting from this process..."
The wording continued on for some time, clauses and contingencies that the lawyer in him couldn't help but admire even as his heart sank with every syllable. As Dory spoke each word, the Grail grew brighter and brighter, and the others in the room's gazes grew more and more fixed on what was happening.
As for himself… he took advantage of the other's lack of attention to limp away, while his friends took their first true leap beyond the mundane world. What reason did he have left to be there, anyway? After all… well. He was…
His usefulness was spent.
Maybe he should've stayed.
As he limped down the hallway, one hand resting on the smooth metal walls of Chaldea, dog at his heels and Abby at his side, part of him wanted to turn around. To go back to the command room. To take up a seat beside Dr. Roman and Leonardo da Vinci, offer whatever help he could.
Should he stop?
Even with the expected sequence of events all out of whack, he could still help steer things back on track, course-correct enough to bring everything back in line with a semblance of what he'd expected to be the case. But…
He should turn around.
But at the same time, he knew that was just ridiculous. There were too many variables at play, too much he didn't know. He was intelligent, he knew that—but if Leonardo da Vinci was chess, then he wasn't even tic-tac-toe. Compared to a genius of that caliber, what was he?
He should've been there.
It was hard, but he had to be honest with himself. He'd been dead weight the entire time he'd been in Okeanos, a dark part of his mind whispered as he limped back to his room, crutch echoing too-loud in the empty hallway as it impacted the floor. Now, suffice to say that his status as a burden had only intensified. As it stood (and if he was being honest with himself, as far as both Dr. Roman and da Vinci were likely concerned), he was a worse encyclopedia.
At least a reference book didn't mouth off to you when you needed information.
He looked to the right, gritting his teeth in frustration as he had to swing his head all the way to the side, his right eye still patched and bandaged. Abby looked up at him, her expression wilting a bit at whatever emotion showed on his face. He scowled, turning down the next hallway, only to clip his shoulder on the corner. He stumbled and fell, his glasses flying off and down the hallway, crutch landing painfully under his body, his wounded leg sending a solid bar of molten agony shooting up his spine.
"Goodman!" Abby half-yelped, half-gasped, coming to a stop and kneeling down in front of him. Bennett didn't reply, breath frozen in his chest, the sudden shock of pain overwhelming him. It was only when Abby shook his shoulder that he looked up at the young Servant and drew in a shaky breath, and let her take his outstretched hand with both of hers. She supported his weight and pulled him upright effortlessly, bringing him back to the wall so he could lean against it while she retrieved his crutch and glasses, his good leg bearing the whole of his weight.
He should have stayed? He should have gone back? He should've been there?
Who was he fucking kidding.
"Here's your—Goodman, y-you're bleeding!" Abby pointed at his hand, and Toby instinctively looked to his dominant hand, his left, eyes falling upon his depleted Command Spells (because he wasn't stupid enough to overcap a valuable resource, nor was he foolish enough to give what had happened a second chance. If he'd been smarter about it, fueled Abby with a Command Spell the moment battle started…). But no, it wasn't his left that was the problem. It was his right hand, where the gauze and medical tape covering his IV wound had peeled off, his scab coming with it as blood started to flow.
"It's nothing," he murmured, pushing the gauze back into place to stop the flow of liquid, and careful not to let a single drop escape. Trustworthy as the leadership of Chaldea may be, it was still an organization ultimately beholden to the Mages' Association. And all it would take was a single drop of his blood for them to—
Bennett paused, thoughts running through his head. His eye flicked down to his right arm, to the two bandages there: one on the back of his hand, yes—but another, that lay in the crook of his elbow. That he remembered as having been there from the moment he'd woken up, with the IV still inserted into the back of his hand.
"Goodman?" Abby sidled up to him and pulled on his sleeve, a slight frown pulling at the corners of her mouth as she stared at him, eyes slightly wide.
"Not here," he murmured, glancing at the walls, the ceiling. <Or at least not out loud,> he continued as they kept moving. <Abby, were you watching when I was in surgery?>
<A-aye, Goodman,> she replied. <But it… it was—>
<You don't need to focus on the details,> he thought at her hurriedly, before audibly sighing in relief once his good eye fell on the nameplate just across the hallway: his name, on the door. Abby helped him across, and as he laid his palm flat on the scanner and awaited the door's opening, he continued. <There's only one thing I need to see if you can remember: did they give me any blood from a bag, with a tube going into my arm?>
The door slid open, and Abby helped him get over to the bed. He fell down, hand going to massage the aching muscles in his left leg pulling double duty, and missed Abby's response in the process.
<S-sorry,> he told her, mental 'tone' a tad sheepish. <I wasn't… nevermind. What'd you say, Abby?>
<Two, there were,> she said. <Bags of blood.> The girl shuddered a bit, hugging her stuffed bear tighter. Bennett put a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off briefly as she took his crutch and laid it against the wall next to the bed, before hopping up onto the mattress herself and leaning into his left side. <Be it of import?>
<It…> Bennett trailed off, marshaling his thoughts. <It could be. Did you see where they got it from, Abby?>
<The good Doctor's office, behind lock and key,> she said back.
<... then yes, it's important.> He turned and lay back on the bed, though not before grabbing one of the pillows and putting it under his right leg to elevate it. <Listen closely. Here's what I need you to do…>
Bennett's plan rested on a few assumptions. First, that there were separate crews responsible for observing the Singularity based on time of day. Second, that the man in charge—namely, Dr. Roman—would be working the shift with the highest chance of actual events occurring. Third, that the busy shift was the day shift. And fourth, that people on the night shift were less responsive the deeper it got into the night.
So it was that Bennett set his alarm for three in the morning, and snapped awake from the anxious half-sleep he'd been in for the past several hours. His dog, Jamaica, gave him a dirty look at the noise, before she promptly kicked Bennett in the side, lowered her head back down to the mattress, and snored. He gave a sigh of relief that he wouldn't have to disappoint a dog that wanted walkies, but also murmured an apology to the canine for having to leave her alone, if only briefly.
On the other side of the bed, Abby rolled off the top of the covers and made her way to the other side of the bed, a frown pulling down her lips and a worried crease in her forehead.
"It is the time?" Abby asked, hugging her teddy bear tight with one hand as she pulled Bennett's crutch off the wall with the other.
"Yeah." Bennett reached for the crutch; Abby handed it to him before moving closer to help him up. He had to hold back his grimace. He'd been lamed like this before, and it had been a wretched, miserable time. The reminder that something like this was… was permanent, now, if perhaps not to this extreme…
He shuddered, then shook his shoulders loose. This plan was on a time limit, and he was wasting enough of it already.
"You're gonna have to go astral for this, Abby," Bennett said, offering the girl an apologetic frown. "If it's just me walking around on cameras, it looks like insomnia. We do still have to hope no Servants are nearby, but still…"
Abby nodded, but her shoulders slumped in dismay moments before she astralized. To all appearances, Bennett was alone.
<Alright. Abby, can you guide me back to the infirmary?> Bennett asked. <My eyesight is bad enough with both eyes…>
<Um… a left out your door, and a right when I say? I can check ahead when there.>
<That works,> he replied back. And then, after crossing the hall so he could keep his bad leg near the wall, he set off.
Even the process of just walking down the hall was a tedious, tiresome thing. Every step took time, much longer than it should, and the amount of raw work involved? Step forward with bad leg. Move crutch forward with it. Lean forward into crutch to keep weight off of bad leg, and keep arm on wall to help stabilize. Move good leg. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. It was a rhythm he wasn't used to; even when he theoretically should have been used to it, when he'd last had his bad leg operated on, it hadn't lasted long enough to accustom himself to the set of motions.
Sir Limpsalot hobbles again, a corner of his mind, reserved for dark and self-deprecating humor, provided. And he was back for good, the following thought came, sending his mood plummeting even further.
<Turn right up here!> Abby's voice rang in his head, stopping Bennett before his thoughts could start in on a downward spiral. He took the turn slowly and carefully, not wanting to trip over the corner like he had earlier. That might draw attention, and that was exactly the opposite of what he needed right now.
<How much further up?> Bennett asked. His shoulder was already starting to cramp up, and the odd gait was murder on his pelvis. And all of this was pointedly ignoring the rod of molten metal that was his right leg, a pain that he would rate at a solid seven out of ten, going on eight.
<Fifth door on the other side!> Abby replied, to which he bit back a groan. He simply had to drag himself over there, bit by bit, step by step. It hurt. Lord oh mighty, it hurt. A part of Bennett's mind yelled at him that this whole thing was stupid, that he should just head back to his room and get some sleep. That there was no goddamn point in taking this gamble—because in some ways, that's what it was. But at the same time, he told himself, something had to be done. It had to happen eventually. And here he was, not immediately useful in any other capacity, nor useful as anything more than a warm body in the foreseeable future.
Fuck. That.
Finally, finally, Bennett arrived at the doors to the infirmary-slash-medbay. The door sprung open, this particular facility not being under lock and key of any kind due to the fact that it had independent security on all the items that truly mattered, and Toby hobbled his way inside.
The door had barely been closed for half a second before Abby materialized, immediately helping him sit down on the wheeled chair by the computer console reserved for the attendant's use.
"I'll be fine," he bit out before Abby could fuss over him, recognizing that look in her eyes and the way she made sure to stand close to him. "Just… just give me a minute." He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. In, out. In… out. The pain would pass. Already it was dulling, without any weight on his leg.
If only he could've gotten some opioids, he thought to himself. But no. Lucidity was important here. And he didn't want to get himself started on dependence, either, not in a situation as dire as the Grand Order. That wasn't a risk he was willing to take.
"Alright," he said, as much to himself as to his companion. "Abby, where did they store the blood?"
"Down… here." She'd crouched down to be eye level with the large, lower drawer of the large medbay desk as she spoke, and when she opened it up, Bennett saw the large, securely-locked fridge, and heard it humming away. He wasn't close enough for a good look, and he was absolutely not going to risk hurting his leg worse by going down on one knee to see it better. Besides, it wasn't exactly necessary.
"Can you get it open?" Bennett asked. This whole plan hinged on Abby's abilities as the Silver Key being more than just metaphorical, after all.
"Mayhap?" Her brow furrowed in concentration as she looked at the locks, and extended her fingers towards them. At the slightest thing he felt, a sensation that could best be described as 'a string tugging sideways on his brain', Bennett closed his eyes and looked away. Something told him he could probably get away with watching whatever Abby was doing, but that was not a risk he wanted to take. Moments later, he heard an electric whirr, followed by a click, and a second after that, the refrigerator opening.
"H-here," Abby said as she stepped back, one hand held protectively over the center of her forehead. Bennett offered her a thankful smile before using his crutch and good leg to wheel the chair closer, and inspected the desk briefly before leaning his crutch against the wall and grabbing what looked to be a penlight.
"Thank you, Abby," he said, giving the girl a half-hug with one arm before turning his attentions to the fridge. He shone the penlight's beam into the fridge, carefully eyeing the labels on its contents. Medications in vials sat on the shelves set into the fridge's door—a couple of whose names he could swear he recognized, but now wasn't the time for that—but the real prize was in the main body of the fridge itself, on two of the lower shelves. Neatly-arranged blood bags sat in the back, labeled, organized, and sat so that the label could be read at a glance. The upper grouping was arranged by blood type.
The lower grouping, though, was arranged alphabetically by surname.
This was blood taken from the Masters of Chaldea, rich in their magic and all the more valuable for it. This was what he had come here for, and Bennett's eye flicked carefully over the labels before settling on the few he wanted. He leaned over, good leg on the floor keeping the chair steady, right arm perched on top of the refrigerator, and left hand carefully, oh so carefully, retrieving four blood bags.
Wodime, Kirschtaria read one pair.
sem Void, Daybit read the other.
Bennett pushed the chair back and swung the door of the refrigerator closed, worry gnawing at his guts as he saw the lock engage automatically. He was fairly certain an alert was on its way to Dr. Roman's personal console, letting the man know that somebody had accessed a secure area in the medbay. It wasn't going to be the only one he got either, he thought as his eyes turned to the heavy door at the far end of the medbay.
"Time for step two," he said both to himself and to Abby as he put the penlight back onto the desk, searching for what else he'd need. A few moments later and he came away with medical tape and a scalpel, still sealed in sterile packaging, which he tucked away into a pocket for the moment. Bennett transferred the blood bags to his right hand and picked the crutch back up in his left, which he used to help him stand up. He hobbled over to one of the beds in the medbay, and hung the blood bags up on an unused IV stand before turning towards the other end. "Abby, can you get that door open?" He let go of his crutch for a moment, his weight keeping it in place as he pointed to the sealed door.
"Mhmm," Abby murmured, face downcast as she hustled around him to the door.
Bennett didn't look away this time as she opened it… but the odd, oil-slick stains on reality that accompanied her power didn't actually hurt to look at, this time. That probably should have worried him, Bennett thought to himself. But he didn't have the time for that.
"I-it's open." Abby's voice was quiet, shoulders hunched and facing away from him as she held both hands over her forehead. Bennett stopped next to her and pulled the medical tape back out of his pocket, letting the crutch carry his weight for the moment. He teased out a length of tape, tore it off, and then repeated, letting the two strands hang off of his right thumb as he reached up to pull Abby's hands away from her forehead. "Goodman, d-don't—!"
The empty keyhole set into Abby's forehead, the physical representation of her connection to Yog-Sothoth, greeted him. Something seized in his gut as he looked at it—a sense of malaise, that this was wrong, that it should not be here, accompanied by pinpricks of pain at the back of his eyes, bandaged and open both, growing as he continued to look. He squashed those feelings as he pulled the medical tape off of his thumb, and covered the keyhole on Abby's forehead with two crossing strips.
"There," he said, favoring Abby with a smile. "Better?" Abby blinked at him, then reached a hand up to her forehead, an odd expression on her face as she ran her fingers over the medical tape. "Now c'mon, we do need to hurry up a bit."
"... okay." Abby gave a nod before she stepped in front of Bennett to push open the door, holding it so he could get past.
Beyond it was another hallway, and the door closed behind them with a hiss. He plodded down the surprisingly long hall, feeling the temperature drop as he went, and had to stop briefly when he couldn't suppress a shiver. Bennett tested the door at the end, and was surprised to find it wasn't locked. Something about that… didn't feel right, he couldn't help but feel. But he didn't have time to worry about that.
The door opened, and Abby and Bennett walked into Chaldea's cryo-storage. Around them stood occupied Coffins, their cryo-stasis functions engaged when Flauros' bomb detonated in the Rayshift chamber. Markings at the top of each Coffin identified its intended occupant, and his good eye shifted from Coffin to Coffin, scanning, searching. He walked deeper into the room in pursuit of his goal.
And finally, he found it. Seven Coffins, set against the far wall, with direct connections to power hookups—an extra precaution in case Chaldea came under attack once more. Seven Coffins, their occupants the true designates for the saviors of the Human Order. But only one of them mattered, to him. He stepped up to the Coffin of the Fifth Master of Chaldea, Akuta Hinako.
Or should he say Zhenren, Yu Mei-ren?
"This is the one," he told Abby as he retrieved the scalpel from his pocket, and tore open the sterile paper. "Abby, can you get it open, and then—"
"The cafeteria is that way."
The sudden voice directly behind him prompted a violent flinch, almost a full-blown stagger in its own right. He grabbed and held onto the IV stand and his crutch with white-knuckled grips as he tried to steady himself, dropping the scalpel in the process, the rush of blood loud in his ears as he tried to get his suddenly-pounding heart back under control.
Fuck, he thought. He knew it was only a matter of time until somebody caught wind of everything and came looking. But of all the people for it to have been? This was just about the worst case scenario.
"H-how long have you been watching?" Bennett asked, silently cursing the hitch in his voice as he turned to regard the Servant behind him.
The only response he received was the raising of one eyebrow, and the single flattest look he'd ever had the displeasure to receive. Right. Should have expected that. Still, he needed to at least try and maintain some control over this…
"Since the moment I started moving. Got it." He was fishing for a response, he knew. And his amateur attempt wasn't likely to work either. But he needed something to go off of. Anything. His still-silent watcher was not a monolith, or a simple 'follows orders' type. He could be reasoned with. Convinced. Maybe.
He hoped.
The Archer crossed his arms, but did little else. Combined with the Servant's closeness… well, Bennett would hope nobody could blame the sweat that started to bead on the back of his neck. But if he wasn't going to say anything else, or take action whatsoever?
"... well, if you're not going to stop me." Bennett turned to look over his shoulder. "Abby, can you get the cryo—?"
A black-shafted arrow sprouted an inch from Abby's nose, drawing a scared yelp from the girl. Knowing who had launched it, that miss had been completely deliberate, some part of his mind noted. The calm, rational, thinking part.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Bennett yelled in the Counter Guardian's face. "She's a child! She's the same age as Illya, for heaven's sake!"
Something behind his eyes tightened, and the bow in the Archer's hand twitched before the man went utterly still.
"...That's strange." His voice was very, very, very calm. "She doesn't look twenty."
"Don't get pedantic with me, you know exactly what I fucking meant," Bennett spat. "She is a child."
"You'll notice she hasn't discorporated." The man's voice was rather dry. "Nor have I eliminated a rogue Master caught in a highly restricted area."
"Yes, because while you're absolutely stupid, you're not dumb," Bennett bit back. "Oh, and how much of your not shooting me is actually you, and how much is the Counter Force pressing down on your ar—"
The sudden stagger and shift in his position registered before the pain hit. The sudden spike of agony reminded every other nerve in his leg that yes, you are wounded, you are in pain, and removed his brain's ability to just tune it out. When he collected himself again, he noticed he was on the ground, crutch and IV stand crossed in front of where he lay.
"Goodman!"
Bennett's breath left him as he felt that ethereal tug, numbness creeping into his fingers.
"Abigail Williams," Emiya's tone, the tips of the man's boots scant inches away from Bennett's face, hadn't changed in the slightest. "You may be able to destroy me. But every iota of power you call upon will only kill him more quickly."
"I-it's okay Abby!" Bennett rushed the words out, and bit back the sigh of relief as the drain from the Master-Servant link faded. He pushed himself to one knee, his bad leg splayed out behind him as he reached for his crutch. A moment later though, he felt a pair of powerful hands on his shoulders lift him to his good foot, saw a quick kick spinning the crutch upright to rest against EMIYA's arm, and could only blink in mild shock as that crutch swiftly found itself seated under his left arm again. The IV stand with the blood bags, on the other hand, had been rather pointedly left on the ground.
"Now," EMIYA said, brushing non-existent dirt off the front of Bennett's uniform. "Let's try this again."
From where, though? Bennett had to ask himself. He knew his current position all too well: he didn't have Circuits like all of the others did now, he wasn't in the Singularity, his Serv—Abby would be better off not fighting, and the only thing he still had to offer was his knowledge. And even that was a finite resource; the moment he had no more left to give, what reason was there left for him to be here? A last-resort backup Master, if all else fails, but… that was it. No, he couldn't just give EMIYA everything.
But the problem was, he had to give the man something. The only question was how obtuse he could be while both getting to the point and not tipping his hand...
"Have you seen the files, dossiers, or at least pictures of the various Master candidates in here?" Bennett asked, waving a hand at the area around them.
"I take it you're going somewhere with this," EMIYA replied, his tone clearly saying he was losing patience with this conversation. Okay, Bennett thought, he was going to have to pick up the pace a little bit…
"Master candidate five," he said nodding at the cryo-pod he'd tried to have Abby open. "Akuta Hinako. Pretty… generic all around. No real strengths, no real weaknesses. And from the quote-unquote backwater of Japan. So what exactly qualified her for Chaldea's A-Team?" He phrased it as a question, hoping that the way he said it, plus his tone, would get the man thinking.
"Am I supposed to start with 'Animal, vegetable, or mineral,'" EMIYA asked. "Or are you going to get to the point?"
"You're not fooling anyone," Bennett replied. "You're thinking about exactly what I told you. No standout qualifications, Japanese name to deter the average Magus, and she does not look Japanese. You are Japanese, you know what another Japanese person looks like, and she does not."
"I'm going to count to ten, Bennett. Ich. Ni. San—"
Fuck, wait, no—
"She's your opposite number!" Bennett blurted out. "She's one of Gaia's Counter Guardians! The only reason she didn't just instantly get healthy again is from suppressing herself so much so she could go unnoticed. That's why the good magus blood," he said, waving at the blood bags hanging off the downed IV stand. "Jump her regen like a car battery."
"...huh," EMIYA paused, his face pensive. "I'll be sure to let Doctor Roman know. Now, you have an appointment with a hospital bed. And you're running late."
"Wait, what—"
The same grip that had effortlessly picked him up off the ground earlier now had him slung over the Counter Guardian's shoulder. The part of his mind that wasn't utterly dumbfounded and stunned into silence absently noted that EMIYA probably had a lot of experience carrying injured people this way, given how his leg was very pointedly not expressing its displeasure right now.
"Come along, Abigail. We're lucky that your fool of a Master didn't tear a ligament getting here. If he gets out of bed in the next two days, I want you to sit on him until he stays put."
"V-very well, Goodman Archer!"
Bennett's last actual, proper feeling before his internal monologue devolved into cursing and anger was his disappointment and self-recrimination at the relief he could hear in Abby's voice.
But when Archer returned him to the hospital bed, he had to admit: Marisbury definitely sprang for the comfy beds, good sheets, and—
Bennett's return to the waking world was both comfortable and uncomfortable. Comfortable because, just as his last thought had been before practically passing out again: Marisbury definitely sprang for the good stuff. For all that this bed was in the infirmary, it was quality.
And uncomfortable because he'd fallen asleep with his glasses on, and the lenses were pushing rather painfully against his face.
He groaned a bit as the dull ache from his leg hit him, now that he was awake, and pulled off his glasses to clean off the schmutz that had probably gotten there from being pressed against his skin for at least part of the night. He put them back on—and froze.
There was a woman at the left side of his bed, nearer the door. One he'd never seen before, but that he still recognized almost instantaneously. She wore a light shawl over a blue turtleneck; long brown hair, pulled back into a braid, lay over a shoulder and across her lap. Her own glasses sat in front of eyes that seemed brown at first glance, but flashed crimson when they shifted across the page of the book in her hands and the light hit them just right.
He scanned her closely, his focus going from the book, to her eyes, and back to the book. He watched her eyes carefully as she turned the page, scanned the small, soft smile on her face as she feigned being engrossed in the narrative, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.
Bennett took a deep breath in to steady his nerves, holding for a count of three before exhaling.
"It's easier with Chinese and Japanese, isn't it?" Bennett ventured. The woman paused, before her gaze languidly turned to him. "T-the people-watching, I mean," he clarified. "With text going top-down instead of left-right."
"Mm." Her reply could've been anything—an affirmation, a denial, a pleasantry. A threat. "Do you often start conversations this way, Mister Bennett?"
"How else am I to start one with you?" Bennett hedged. "Akuta Hinako."
She closed her book with a quiet clap of paper against paper, and while her gaze never seemed to meet his eyes, he could feel the weight of her attention.
"How did you know?" Her voice remained mild, almost absent. She, however, was decidedly not. Despite himself, Bennett couldn't help the slight gulp that preceded his words.
"If I didn't already know, I wouldn't have been able to tell." And that was the truth, he supposed.
To both her questions.
"And who else knows?" Her short, neatly clipped nails rested lightly against the rail of his bed.
"Chaldea knows only Akuta Hinako," he replied, being careful to keep his voice steady and level. "They learned enough to know to wake you, and nothing more."
"Mmmm," she noted. She let her hand fall from the bed's railing, and regarded him a moment longer. Then, without any further ado, she stood and walked towards the door of the med bay, pressing the button to open it.
She stopped at the open door, a hand on the frame, and favored him with one last look.
"Thank you," she said, so soft that he could have imagined the words.
And then she left.
Underneath the blanket, Bennett's hand unclenched, the heat fading from his Command Spell as blood slowly beaded from the half-moon cuts his nails had carved in his palm.
Bennett
The doors to the observation room slid open with only the slightest sound, and Bennett had a feeling that if it weren't for the fact that non-critical damage wasn't an important repair to make, it would have been soundless.
"What are you doing out of the med bay? You're going to hurt yourself worse if you aren't careful." Leonardo da Vinci turned away from her console, arms crossed over her chest as she gave Bennett a look that was halfway between a glare and a concerned older sister, one that somehow made his wounded leg throb with a harsh ache.
The nerve center of Chaldea was full of frenzied activity, the few remaining technicians of Chaldea typing away at terminals, writing data readings down in hardcopy notebooks, or any number of other things that he simply could not be arsed to keep paying attention to.
"The other option was to brood," Bennett said. "And at least in here—"
"—Toby!" the speaker crackled with Spencer's voice - although the man was slushing his syllables enough to be a convenience store specialty. "You said you'd buy mimosas, Toby! You'oweme mismonsas~"
Abby, who had until this point remained relatively silent next to his right side, ready to grab him if his crutch failed and he stumbled, tugged on his sleeve. "Um… what is a mimosa?"
"An alcoholic drink," da Vinci answered. "Usually served with brunch."
"... and... what, then, is 'brunch'?" Abby asked, her forehead crinkling in confusion.
Oh gods above what the actual fresh hell had they gotten into without him this time.
"New round!" came another voice—one he absolutely recognized, but had never heard speaking in anything but Japanese. "Finish your mugs ya scallywags, or it's a forfeit!"
Bennett turned towards Dr. Roman and da Vinci, and was suddenly glad for the bandage keeping his right eye covered and closed, otherwise his eyelid would be madly twitching for all to see.
"What. The hell. Am I listening to."
"We welcome you back to our program, already in progress," Ko said - her words thankfully crisp, if a bit crackly from their connection across time and space.
Wood slammed into wood as Dory's voice came over the comms. "About time! Also, hi Toby."
Roman's fingers danced across his command console, windows popping in and out of existence as flashes of data that Bennett couldn't decipher for the life of him filled the screen. "I'm trying to get visual, but there's a lot of interference," he grumbled. "Until then-"
"Violence!" proclaimed a very loud Indy. "Is the last refuge of the incompetent!"
"... Nooooot so sure we need a visual here," Bennett hedged. "Y'all have access to their vitals, right? Maybe even, uh… blood alcohol level?"
"That is an oddly specific request," da Vinci said, one eyebrow raising in question.
"I know a drunk Spence when I hear one, and In—Adam is already getting loud. So either it's a party, or something dumber."
"We challenged Drake to a drinking contest!" the man in question continued to shout.
… they WHAT!?
"—he always shouts into the communicator," Da Vinci sighed. "I'm going to have to write a macro for it later, I just know it…."
"He's… he's not serious, is he?" Bennett could feel the bottom dropping out of his stomach, and was suddenly glad Abby was there to help him stay upright. "Please tell me he wasn't serious about the drinking contest. Drake has a Grail. They don't win that, they can't win that." There was one last bastion of sanity, wasn't there? "Ko, please tell me they're not serious about a drinking contest with Francis Drake."
"I got Fionn on standby, no worries," she said with infuriating calm. "They're not gonna accidentally shut down their livers or anything."
"It can't be that bad, right?" Roman scratched at the back of his head. "They're drinking grog, which is, what? Four percent?"
"Closer to twelve," da Vinci murmured with a sigh.
"It's horrible!" Mash sounded nearly hysterical. "Even Senpai is drinking... and we're both underage—"
"—bullshit!" several voices broke out. From both sides of the temporal divide.
"—and why couldn't we have just had a fight like normal? You should put a stop to this Doctor!"
Bennett could only sigh. He was gone for, what? A few… actually, now that he thought about it, he wasn't a hundred percent sure how long he'd been unconscious and/or asleep. As far as he knew, he had only been gone for a short while.
And in that small period of time, everything immediately went to shit. Of course.
"... fine," Bennett bit out. "Alright. Screw it. Drinking contest. Please say it's on terms that we have a chance at winning."
"Last man standing! Last man standing!" Indy chanted loudly.
"Oh. Okay." Staring at the console, Bennett desperately wished he was there so he could give the man a proper side-eye. "So if those are the terms, then why exactly haven't you just knocked her over?"
"This isn't my first rodeo." Indy said, suddenly sounding a lot more sober than Bennett had initially taken him for. "Plus, there is a small army of pirates acting as refs. And also secondary participants." There was a short pause, followed by a large gulping sound.
"Okay, but just, bear with me here," Bennett said, trying and failing to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation because of the large bandage over the right half of his face. "You could do the simple arithmetic of 'Smith Territory plus replenished Command Spell equals the pirates pose no threat."
"Don't look at me," Ko said impassively, the sound of her cracking one or another of her joints repeatedly coming through as loud pops over the communicator. "I wanted to stab her."
"That's what I said!" Mash agreed, before immediately backpedaling. "Well, not exactly that…"
"See?" Bennett said to Dr. Roman and da Vinci with a wave at the console. "Simple solution, right there."
"Oh come on, Toby," Ko's eyeroll was audible enough that he knew she was doing one, even without being able to see it happen. "I can't just stab people every time I want to, this isn't middle school. They're gonna be fine, Dory and Drake are hashing it out diplomatically, kinda-"
"—cis Drake!" Indy cried out again. "...Chug. Chug. Chug…!" Soon there was a veritable chorus joining in, urging the Rider to drink—and more quickly than the others.
"Getting her drunk won't work, Indy," Bennett insisted. "She has a Grail, it'll just keep her at 'drunk enough to have fun, not so drunk she's incapacitated'. She won't get-"
A further slam of wood on wood came over the comms, and Bennett almost jumped where he stood.
"STAND CHECK!" Dory's voice followed the slam, and moments later the sound of many people all getting to their feet rang out.
Followed swiftly by a somewhat louder thump.
"...Little brother is out," Ching Shih called.
"No no 'm good, pumme back'in, coach…."
"Out," the Chinese pirate queen chided him gently.
"Auntie's right, duckie." Bennett could practically hear Drake's predatory grin. "Not looking too good for Chaldea if their first line o' defense is a spinster and her pet lightweight..."
"Silence, virgin," Ching Shih declared. "I will trade barbs with you later."
"Virginity'san artificial construc'reated t'shame wimmin!" Spencer belted out.
"... somebody get me a chair, please," Bennett said with a groan, awareness of the ache in his leg growing with every second he listened to this… this. "This could take a little bit."
Two more of Dory's "STAND CHECK!"s later, Jeanne came by with Jamaica, freshly walked in the simulator. Bennett looked over to see how Abby was handling the canine's nearness, knowing her fear of dogs, and could only double-take at Dory's 23-pound ginger cat, curled up in Abby's lap and purring away like a madman.
"Hey, Dory? I think your cat adopted Abby."
There was a surprisingly long pause before Bennett saw a shifting in what few, incredibly grainy visuals they'd managed to get set up. "Then she is a wonderful safe girl and I am happy for her and Ron. Be careful, he likes to find a spot and lick, especially inside your ears."
Abby froze for a moment, pulling her hand back from the cat, and stared at the console with wide eyes. Her jaw worked for a moment before a small ginger paw reached up, hooked its claws around her finger, and pulled her hand back down where Abby had been petting Ron, who then went further and meowed at Abby when her hand just sat there on his fur.
Bennett, for his part, couldn't help but wonder when the cat had gotten in the room in the first place.
The first traces of video finally came through Chaldea's feed, courtesy of Mash's shield being placed upright in the same position for an extended period of time. The feed was grainy, staticky, and was more "gray fuzz with shapes that might be people'' than anything else. But when put together with audio, it was enough to catch Adam practically inhaling his mug, with large quantities of grog splashing onto his face and neck.
"...that fellow has decent technique," Jeanne noted. "He's pacing himself while encouraging Drake to drink faster."
"Since when did the Maid of Orleans become an expert on drinking contests?" Bennett murmured under his breath.
Jeanne blushed. "I wasn't always so venerated," she said, looking away, her hands playing with the cuff of her shirtsleeve. "I was raised a simple farm girl… who could drink nearly everyone in her village under the table."
Oh. Right. Servant hearing.
Another uneventful 'STAND CHECK!' passed, with no nobody of note failing to keep their balance. (The few pirates Bennett could hear falling on their asses and cursing up a storm were not people of note, despite what their delusions of grandeur may have made them believe.)
The video feed had cleared up just a bit in the past round or two of drinking, to boot. While the quality was nothing to write home about, the fact of the matter is that there was quality to remark on in the first place. That said, they still couldn't make out much more than the immediate area around the group of Masters; the feed's mapping cut out so abruptly that one pirate in the middle ring showed up as a floating head and pair of disembodied arms.
"...hey, Drake," Indy's voice broke in. "Say 'but why is the-'"
"Rum gone!" Spence leapt on the other man's sentence. "Say why is the rum always gone!"
"You wot?" Courtesy of the video feed, Bennett got to see Drake leaning forward, brow furrowed, but not quite in anger. Confusion, maybe? It was hard to tell, given that he wasn't there in person. "You bastards do somethin' to the rum while I wasn't lookin'?"
"It's a reference," Dory's voice, now slightly slurred, broke through, "And it works really well with your accent and station," He let out a small chuckle. "If you could do it to shut them up?"
"But why's the rum gone." She, on the other hand, was clearly not amused.
"With more drama!" Spencer cajoled loudly.
"Don't push it," Dory and Drake deadpanned simultaneously.
"I get that reference!" Dr. Roman suddenly exclaimed, standing up quickly enough to shove his chair away from him as he pointed at the screen. Bennett and Abby exchanged a look of utter disbelief, while da Vinci quietly chuckled and excused herself.
In between the continued drinking and the next 'STAND CHECK!', courtesy of Dory, she returned with a tray of beverages in hand.
The Caster made the rounds of the room before finally depositing a trio of coffee mugs in front of Dr. Roman, Bennett, and her own station, and then placed a fourth mug (which, Bennett saw, was filled with hot chocolate) in front of Abby. A moment later, she dropped a small sauce cup of pills in front of Bennett.
"Just some acetaminophen," she said to him in a low voice. "No opioids right now."
"Ah… uh, thanks," Bennett said, feeling suddenly awkward. Thoughtful, that, but… also not the problem. "I, uh… I, kinda don't drink coffee."
As the pleasant smile melted off of da Vinci's face, Bennett got the feeling that this was absolutely the wrong answer.
"I am Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci," she replied frostily. "You. Will drink. My coffee."
Bennett wasn't ashamed to admit that under the Caster's stare, he was thoroughly cowed. And so, he picked up the coffee mug, blew a bit of air on the surface of the liquid to cool it off, and took a sip. It was…
Not terrible. Surprisingly so, in fact.
Just to be on the safe side, Toby took another sip. Nope - still not terrible, he thought, returning to take a third sip.
"I still don't like coffee," he muttered under his breath. It was maybe a little cold in the command room—and it was a hot beverage. No reason not to, and he did need a liquid to take his pills with. He could dry swallow, but...
"...I'llm'kean'ception'jus'dis'unce."
Da Vinci threw up her hands. "There's no helping you is there?!"
"I'll drink your coffee, maestra!" Ko piped up immediately.
"You hate coffee more than I do!" Bennett bit back.
"Yeah," she conceded, and he could see her grin through the grainy image that they'd finally managed to keep stable, "but I don't hate it more than I love the bragging rights of having imbibed a da Vinci."
"This is good!" Abby's sudden exclamation drew attention off of Bennett's reticence to drink the coffee (long enough for him to take his pills with another sip). "What is it?"
"Hot chocolate!" da Vinci answered, a beaming smile on her face. "Do you like it?"
"Aye, Mistress Vinci!" Abby beamed, moments before her expression turned pensive. "Whence came it, this chocolate?"
"It comes in many different forms," Dr. Roman sighed around a sip of his coffee. "I'll be happy to show you more later."
With the increasing fidelity of the feed, Bennett was able to make out more and more of the area, to the point that he could get an accurate enough headcount of the pirates if he'd cared to. He could even tell that the two closest to the center of the circle (and the crates being used as a great, big table, explaining what that mug slammed down onto) were Dory and Drake, the former on a taller wooden trunk, the latter on a barrel sunk into the dirt. The rest fanned out around them in rough semicircles, Masters and Servants in a closer clump, while the pirates spread relatively far, almost in an encircling position.
Except for Ritsuka, who was consistently getting dragged further back from the center by Mash, only to shrug her off and get back to his drinking.
Smith, it seemed, had gotten his hands on some whiskey, and was now attempting to explain to a politely-nodding William Tell why it wasn't as good as the stuff back home.
It was inevitable that, at one stand check or another, the singing would begin. It was pirates and drinking, it was going to happen. It just so happened to be stand check number six.
"—do you do with a drunken sailor~?" Indy had apparently introduced the entire fleet to this song, and the rest of the crew was more into it than the main party was.
"—shave his belly with a rusty razor, shave his belly with a rusty razor, shave his belly with a rusty razor—"
"EAR'LY IN THE MOR-NIN'!"
Not only was the decidedly unsober crowd painfully out of tune, with unwitting key changes nearly every other syllable, but Fionn and Ko had to be different, and were using completely unrelated lyrics that didn't even seem to be in English. The translation function was nearly seamless, but it apparently couldn't handle singing.
"I can't tell what's worse," da Vinci sighed. "That there is absolutely no harmony here, or that for all that the quality of the singing is terrible, the lyrics are surprisingly good."
"Hey!" Ko broke off, offended, "we're still in tune, they can do what they want."
"-with the cap'ins daughter! Put'im in the cabin with the cap'in's daughter~"
"SENPAI—!"
"—IN THE MOR-NIN'!" Ritsuka bellowed along with the rest, draping an arm over Mash's shoulder.
Indy's strategy, such as it was, had apparently fallen apart, as the brown-skinned man was now visibly swaying along with the lyrics. With a mighty effort, he planted his boots on the table, excess grog splashing out from his mug, and began to conduct the gang with wild, exaggerated motions.
"Lock 'im in a room with disco music!" he belted out the lyrics. "Lock 'im in a room with disco music! Lock 'im in a room with disco music!"
"He's gonna fall," Dr. Roman muttered. "In three, two…"
"Lock 'im in a room with disco—"
WHUMP.
"One." Dr. Roman punctuated all this with a messy slurp of his coffee, drawing a harsh glare from da Vinci.
And yet, despite all of that...
"EAR'LY IN THE MOR-NIN'!"
The singing continued unabated.
Despite himself, Bennett finally failed to suppress a grin and chuckled as Ko trotted over to get her fiance back on his feet. He clearly wasn't the only one: he could see on the display that Dory had started laughing riotously at the sight. And while Bennett managed to bring his own laughter under control shortly, he also didn't have the alcohol in his system that Dory did, who was still chortling as he brought his mug of grog up to his mouth. He drank too early, and his continued laughter sent the liquid escaping his nose, throwing him into a coughing fit.
It was a blink and you'll miss it moment: Drake swiftly rose from the barrel upon which she'd been seated and crossed over to Dory's side, seating herself upon his trunk before giving the man a few quick smacks between the shoulder blades, her timing clearly showing she'd done this before.
"Easy there," she said as his breathing steadied out. "Can't 'ave the reaper taken' ya afore I do!"
Dory laughed a bit. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to be taken out by choking. I'm planning to top you fair and square."
Drake guffawed at that, laughing loud and strong before returning to her drink. It didn't escape Bennett's notice, though, that Drake was still sitting next to Dory on his wooden trunk, and he couldn't help but worry at that.
The next stand check came, and by this point, most of the sailors were on the ground. From his perspective, Bennett wasn't sure if they were dead, drunk, or yes.
"So I don't drink," Ko said, passing Indy off to Fionn with a sigh, "so I might not be the best judge of this, but, uh… they're startin' to look a little worse for wear, here, doctor. Should I intercede before Dory pukes on the target, or-?"
"Please tell me how to take care of Senpai," Mash pleaded with the control room, propping up her slightly wobbly Master with both arms even as her face burned with embarrassment. "Nothing like this happened when it was just the two of us…."
Behind her, Ko shared an amused look with her servant.
"Ah, don't fret, my girl," Caster Cu materialized beside Mash, scooping up a discarded mug with one hand and ruffling Ritsuka's hair with the other. "Master will be fiiine—this is just part of becoming a man!"
"Oi," Ko objected, pulling the mug out of his unresisting grip and pointing a finger up at him. "Stop stealin' drinks. If this turns into a double cross we need every sober ass-kicker we can get."
Yup, Bennett thought to himself, as Cu laughed her off with more empty reassurances and immediately got pulled into some kind of verbal pissing contest with Fionn. Ko had common sense. Thank. God.
Contrary to Mash's concern, Ritsuka looked… well, pretty fine, as far as Bennett could tell. Sure, he had an arm slung over a beet-red Mash's shoulder, and a really gregarious smile on his face. But his cheeks were only barely pink, whereas Bennett would've expected him to be a bit more red, if he was actually as drunk as he was acting.
If Bennett had to take a guess, he would wager that whatever poison resistance Ritsuka's contract with Mash conferred upon him also had an effect on alcohol. The stuff was, after all, a poison. Just one whose effects people tended to, you know. Enjoy. Usually. Which meant that, whether he was conscious of it or not, Ritsuka was playing it up to get closer to Mash.
And judging by the white-knuckled grip Dr. Roman had on his coffee mug's handle, the girl's father in all but name knew it too.
"STAND CHECK!"
"Hand check?" Spence queried, his head perking up from Ching Shih's knee.
The remaining competitors all hopped to their feet. And Bennett's heart leapt in his throat when Drake visibly stumbled, only for Dory to reach up and catch the pirate before she could fall.
"Ah!" Dory gave a sudden sound of surprise as he caught Drake, stepping forward a few times to rebalance the two of them, still holding Drake while he did so. A beat passed, then another, before Drake chuckled a bit, though she still made no moves to get out of Dory's grasp.
The man shifted his grip on the captain as he unsteadily sat back down, a hand brushing through her vibrantly pink hair as she settled half in his lap. Blue eyes meeting his as she draped herself over his thighs.
"Guess tha's it, eh?" She flashed Dory a vicious grin, all teeth and cheer. "Guess ya won then, stargazer. You can take anything you want— my ship, my treasure… me?"
Dory let out a strangled sound. "Eh-ya-you-ah-"
"We seek the Grail!" Ko and Mash shouted, leaping to their feet in shared panic.
"...Raincheck," Dory said, shutting his eyes and nodding, a finger coming up to press lightly against the captain's lips. "Grail first. Raincheck on the rest of those. But, the Grail, please."
Yes, good, Bennett thought. Priorities. Then a little tidbit that he'd almost forgotten crossed his mind. Wait… didn't Drake store the Grail in…? Oh no.
Drake's grin widened, and she shoved him headfirst into her cleavage. "Don't bite~" she teased, before Dory abruptly pulled away.
Caught in his teeth was the rim of a great golden chalice.
Bennett swung his gaze around, hoping beyond all hope that Abby hadn't been watching Dory's brief bit of 'apple' bobbing in marshmallow heaven, and oh no her eyes were glued to the screen—
A pair of hands covered Abby's eyes right before Bennett could move to do so himself. He turned a bit further so he could actually get a full look with his one good eye, and on meeting Roman's gaze, mouthed a 'thank you' in his direction.
"Okeanos' true Grail has been secured," da Vinci announced. Bennett had the feeling it was a bit of a tradition, at this point, given that all of the various technicians in the control center had seen the same feed.
"Finally," Ko whispered, sounding like she'd just put down the world's heaviest suitcase. Then she laughed, and turning toward Fionn and Indy, she leapt to embrace the latter, leaving the former trying and failing to make repositioning his hug-ready arms look casual.
"Roman," Dory grunted, his Southern accent suddenly thick on his tongue, and his hands were - okay, Bennett would have definitely been covering Abby's eyes if Roman hadn't already beaten him to it. "Toby. da Vinci. Whas mah wordin'? How we doin' this?"
"Go to!" Abby whined, trying to gently prise back Roman's fingers - to mixed success, if his whimpers of pain were anything to go by. "Goodman~! Mayn't I see the cup of Christ?"
"Get Fionn to use his Noble Phantasm on you," da Vinci instructed Dory. "We can't have you slurring your words for this. As for the wording…" Her shoulders slumped a bit. "I was never a wordsmith, I'm afraid."
"Allow me," the Irish Servant offered, crossing over from his space beside Ko and splashing a trickle of water onto Dory's face (and Drake's chest, but who was keeping track of that?). "Now, aspiring gigolo, repeat after me…."
"We do not slut-shame in this friendgroup~" Spence moaned, but nobody present was listening.
"I wish...
Butterflies took flight in Bennett's stomach as he looked upon the Grail held in his friend's hands. This was… a wish. An honest-to-goodness, non-Rhinegold wish. This wish had to be airtight, no room for error.
"...for the engravement upon the souls of the Chaldeans as many Magic Circuits of the highest possible quality as allowed by the full potential of this Grail, and with minimal deleterious effects resulting from this process..."
The wording continued on for some time, clauses and contingencies that the lawyer in him couldn't help but admire even as his heart sank with every syllable. As Dory spoke each word, the Grail grew brighter and brighter, and the others in the room's gazes grew more and more fixed on what was happening.
As for himself… he took advantage of the other's lack of attention to limp away, while his friends took their first true leap beyond the mundane world. What reason did he have left to be there, anyway? After all… well. He was…
His usefulness was spent.
Maybe he should've stayed.
As he limped down the hallway, one hand resting on the smooth metal walls of Chaldea, dog at his heels and Abby at his side, part of him wanted to turn around. To go back to the command room. To take up a seat beside Dr. Roman and Leonardo da Vinci, offer whatever help he could.
Should he stop?
Even with the expected sequence of events all out of whack, he could still help steer things back on track, course-correct enough to bring everything back in line with a semblance of what he'd expected to be the case. But…
He should turn around.
But at the same time, he knew that was just ridiculous. There were too many variables at play, too much he didn't know. He was intelligent, he knew that—but if Leonardo da Vinci was chess, then he wasn't even tic-tac-toe. Compared to a genius of that caliber, what was he?
He should've been there.
It was hard, but he had to be honest with himself. He'd been dead weight the entire time he'd been in Okeanos, a dark part of his mind whispered as he limped back to his room, crutch echoing too-loud in the empty hallway as it impacted the floor. Now, suffice to say that his status as a burden had only intensified. As it stood (and if he was being honest with himself, as far as both Dr. Roman and da Vinci were likely concerned), he was a worse encyclopedia.
At least a reference book didn't mouth off to you when you needed information.
He looked to the right, gritting his teeth in frustration as he had to swing his head all the way to the side, his right eye still patched and bandaged. Abby looked up at him, her expression wilting a bit at whatever emotion showed on his face. He scowled, turning down the next hallway, only to clip his shoulder on the corner. He stumbled and fell, his glasses flying off and down the hallway, crutch landing painfully under his body, his wounded leg sending a solid bar of molten agony shooting up his spine.
"Goodman!" Abby half-yelped, half-gasped, coming to a stop and kneeling down in front of him. Bennett didn't reply, breath frozen in his chest, the sudden shock of pain overwhelming him. It was only when Abby shook his shoulder that he looked up at the young Servant and drew in a shaky breath, and let her take his outstretched hand with both of hers. She supported his weight and pulled him upright effortlessly, bringing him back to the wall so he could lean against it while she retrieved his crutch and glasses, his good leg bearing the whole of his weight.
He should have stayed? He should have gone back? He should've been there?
Who was he fucking kidding.
"Here's your—Goodman, y-you're bleeding!" Abby pointed at his hand, and Toby instinctively looked to his dominant hand, his left, eyes falling upon his depleted Command Spells (because he wasn't stupid enough to overcap a valuable resource, nor was he foolish enough to give what had happened a second chance. If he'd been smarter about it, fueled Abby with a Command Spell the moment battle started…). But no, it wasn't his left that was the problem. It was his right hand, where the gauze and medical tape covering his IV wound had peeled off, his scab coming with it as blood started to flow.
"It's nothing," he murmured, pushing the gauze back into place to stop the flow of liquid, and careful not to let a single drop escape. Trustworthy as the leadership of Chaldea may be, it was still an organization ultimately beholden to the Mages' Association. And all it would take was a single drop of his blood for them to—
Bennett paused, thoughts running through his head. His eye flicked down to his right arm, to the two bandages there: one on the back of his hand, yes—but another, that lay in the crook of his elbow. That he remembered as having been there from the moment he'd woken up, with the IV still inserted into the back of his hand.
"Goodman?" Abby sidled up to him and pulled on his sleeve, a slight frown pulling at the corners of her mouth as she stared at him, eyes slightly wide.
"Not here," he murmured, glancing at the walls, the ceiling. <Or at least not out loud,> he continued as they kept moving. <Abby, were you watching when I was in surgery?>
<A-aye, Goodman,> she replied. <But it… it was—>
<You don't need to focus on the details,> he thought at her hurriedly, before audibly sighing in relief once his good eye fell on the nameplate just across the hallway: his name, on the door. Abby helped him across, and as he laid his palm flat on the scanner and awaited the door's opening, he continued. <There's only one thing I need to see if you can remember: did they give me any blood from a bag, with a tube going into my arm?>
The door slid open, and Abby helped him get over to the bed. He fell down, hand going to massage the aching muscles in his left leg pulling double duty, and missed Abby's response in the process.
<S-sorry,> he told her, mental 'tone' a tad sheepish. <I wasn't… nevermind. What'd you say, Abby?>
<Two, there were,> she said. <Bags of blood.> The girl shuddered a bit, hugging her stuffed bear tighter. Bennett put a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off briefly as she took his crutch and laid it against the wall next to the bed, before hopping up onto the mattress herself and leaning into his left side. <Be it of import?>
<It…> Bennett trailed off, marshaling his thoughts. <It could be. Did you see where they got it from, Abby?>
<The good Doctor's office, behind lock and key,> she said back.
<... then yes, it's important.> He turned and lay back on the bed, though not before grabbing one of the pillows and putting it under his right leg to elevate it. <Listen closely. Here's what I need you to do…>
Bennett's plan rested on a few assumptions. First, that there were separate crews responsible for observing the Singularity based on time of day. Second, that the man in charge—namely, Dr. Roman—would be working the shift with the highest chance of actual events occurring. Third, that the busy shift was the day shift. And fourth, that people on the night shift were less responsive the deeper it got into the night.
So it was that Bennett set his alarm for three in the morning, and snapped awake from the anxious half-sleep he'd been in for the past several hours. His dog, Jamaica, gave him a dirty look at the noise, before she promptly kicked Bennett in the side, lowered her head back down to the mattress, and snored. He gave a sigh of relief that he wouldn't have to disappoint a dog that wanted walkies, but also murmured an apology to the canine for having to leave her alone, if only briefly.
On the other side of the bed, Abby rolled off the top of the covers and made her way to the other side of the bed, a frown pulling down her lips and a worried crease in her forehead.
"It is the time?" Abby asked, hugging her teddy bear tight with one hand as she pulled Bennett's crutch off the wall with the other.
"Yeah." Bennett reached for the crutch; Abby handed it to him before moving closer to help him up. He had to hold back his grimace. He'd been lamed like this before, and it had been a wretched, miserable time. The reminder that something like this was… was permanent, now, if perhaps not to this extreme…
He shuddered, then shook his shoulders loose. This plan was on a time limit, and he was wasting enough of it already.
"You're gonna have to go astral for this, Abby," Bennett said, offering the girl an apologetic frown. "If it's just me walking around on cameras, it looks like insomnia. We do still have to hope no Servants are nearby, but still…"
Abby nodded, but her shoulders slumped in dismay moments before she astralized. To all appearances, Bennett was alone.
<Alright. Abby, can you guide me back to the infirmary?> Bennett asked. <My eyesight is bad enough with both eyes…>
<Um… a left out your door, and a right when I say? I can check ahead when there.>
<That works,> he replied back. And then, after crossing the hall so he could keep his bad leg near the wall, he set off.
Even the process of just walking down the hall was a tedious, tiresome thing. Every step took time, much longer than it should, and the amount of raw work involved? Step forward with bad leg. Move crutch forward with it. Lean forward into crutch to keep weight off of bad leg, and keep arm on wall to help stabilize. Move good leg. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. It was a rhythm he wasn't used to; even when he theoretically should have been used to it, when he'd last had his bad leg operated on, it hadn't lasted long enough to accustom himself to the set of motions.
Sir Limpsalot hobbles again, a corner of his mind, reserved for dark and self-deprecating humor, provided. And he was back for good, the following thought came, sending his mood plummeting even further.
<Turn right up here!> Abby's voice rang in his head, stopping Bennett before his thoughts could start in on a downward spiral. He took the turn slowly and carefully, not wanting to trip over the corner like he had earlier. That might draw attention, and that was exactly the opposite of what he needed right now.
<How much further up?> Bennett asked. His shoulder was already starting to cramp up, and the odd gait was murder on his pelvis. And all of this was pointedly ignoring the rod of molten metal that was his right leg, a pain that he would rate at a solid seven out of ten, going on eight.
<Fifth door on the other side!> Abby replied, to which he bit back a groan. He simply had to drag himself over there, bit by bit, step by step. It hurt. Lord oh mighty, it hurt. A part of Bennett's mind yelled at him that this whole thing was stupid, that he should just head back to his room and get some sleep. That there was no goddamn point in taking this gamble—because in some ways, that's what it was. But at the same time, he told himself, something had to be done. It had to happen eventually. And here he was, not immediately useful in any other capacity, nor useful as anything more than a warm body in the foreseeable future.
Fuck. That.
Finally, finally, Bennett arrived at the doors to the infirmary-slash-medbay. The door sprung open, this particular facility not being under lock and key of any kind due to the fact that it had independent security on all the items that truly mattered, and Toby hobbled his way inside.
The door had barely been closed for half a second before Abby materialized, immediately helping him sit down on the wheeled chair by the computer console reserved for the attendant's use.
"I'll be fine," he bit out before Abby could fuss over him, recognizing that look in her eyes and the way she made sure to stand close to him. "Just… just give me a minute." He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. In, out. In… out. The pain would pass. Already it was dulling, without any weight on his leg.
If only he could've gotten some opioids, he thought to himself. But no. Lucidity was important here. And he didn't want to get himself started on dependence, either, not in a situation as dire as the Grand Order. That wasn't a risk he was willing to take.
"Alright," he said, as much to himself as to his companion. "Abby, where did they store the blood?"
"Down… here." She'd crouched down to be eye level with the large, lower drawer of the large medbay desk as she spoke, and when she opened it up, Bennett saw the large, securely-locked fridge, and heard it humming away. He wasn't close enough for a good look, and he was absolutely not going to risk hurting his leg worse by going down on one knee to see it better. Besides, it wasn't exactly necessary.
"Can you get it open?" Bennett asked. This whole plan hinged on Abby's abilities as the Silver Key being more than just metaphorical, after all.
"Mayhap?" Her brow furrowed in concentration as she looked at the locks, and extended her fingers towards them. At the slightest thing he felt, a sensation that could best be described as 'a string tugging sideways on his brain', Bennett closed his eyes and looked away. Something told him he could probably get away with watching whatever Abby was doing, but that was not a risk he wanted to take. Moments later, he heard an electric whirr, followed by a click, and a second after that, the refrigerator opening.
"H-here," Abby said as she stepped back, one hand held protectively over the center of her forehead. Bennett offered her a thankful smile before using his crutch and good leg to wheel the chair closer, and inspected the desk briefly before leaning his crutch against the wall and grabbing what looked to be a penlight.
"Thank you, Abby," he said, giving the girl a half-hug with one arm before turning his attentions to the fridge. He shone the penlight's beam into the fridge, carefully eyeing the labels on its contents. Medications in vials sat on the shelves set into the fridge's door—a couple of whose names he could swear he recognized, but now wasn't the time for that—but the real prize was in the main body of the fridge itself, on two of the lower shelves. Neatly-arranged blood bags sat in the back, labeled, organized, and sat so that the label could be read at a glance. The upper grouping was arranged by blood type.
The lower grouping, though, was arranged alphabetically by surname.
This was blood taken from the Masters of Chaldea, rich in their magic and all the more valuable for it. This was what he had come here for, and Bennett's eye flicked carefully over the labels before settling on the few he wanted. He leaned over, good leg on the floor keeping the chair steady, right arm perched on top of the refrigerator, and left hand carefully, oh so carefully, retrieving four blood bags.
Wodime, Kirschtaria read one pair.
sem Void, Daybit read the other.
Bennett pushed the chair back and swung the door of the refrigerator closed, worry gnawing at his guts as he saw the lock engage automatically. He was fairly certain an alert was on its way to Dr. Roman's personal console, letting the man know that somebody had accessed a secure area in the medbay. It wasn't going to be the only one he got either, he thought as his eyes turned to the heavy door at the far end of the medbay.
"Time for step two," he said both to himself and to Abby as he put the penlight back onto the desk, searching for what else he'd need. A few moments later and he came away with medical tape and a scalpel, still sealed in sterile packaging, which he tucked away into a pocket for the moment. Bennett transferred the blood bags to his right hand and picked the crutch back up in his left, which he used to help him stand up. He hobbled over to one of the beds in the medbay, and hung the blood bags up on an unused IV stand before turning towards the other end. "Abby, can you get that door open?" He let go of his crutch for a moment, his weight keeping it in place as he pointed to the sealed door.
"Mhmm," Abby murmured, face downcast as she hustled around him to the door.
Bennett didn't look away this time as she opened it… but the odd, oil-slick stains on reality that accompanied her power didn't actually hurt to look at, this time. That probably should have worried him, Bennett thought to himself. But he didn't have the time for that.
"I-it's open." Abby's voice was quiet, shoulders hunched and facing away from him as she held both hands over her forehead. Bennett stopped next to her and pulled the medical tape back out of his pocket, letting the crutch carry his weight for the moment. He teased out a length of tape, tore it off, and then repeated, letting the two strands hang off of his right thumb as he reached up to pull Abby's hands away from her forehead. "Goodman, d-don't—!"
The empty keyhole set into Abby's forehead, the physical representation of her connection to Yog-Sothoth, greeted him. Something seized in his gut as he looked at it—a sense of malaise, that this was wrong, that it should not be here, accompanied by pinpricks of pain at the back of his eyes, bandaged and open both, growing as he continued to look. He squashed those feelings as he pulled the medical tape off of his thumb, and covered the keyhole on Abby's forehead with two crossing strips.
"There," he said, favoring Abby with a smile. "Better?" Abby blinked at him, then reached a hand up to her forehead, an odd expression on her face as she ran her fingers over the medical tape. "Now c'mon, we do need to hurry up a bit."
"... okay." Abby gave a nod before she stepped in front of Bennett to push open the door, holding it so he could get past.
Beyond it was another hallway, and the door closed behind them with a hiss. He plodded down the surprisingly long hall, feeling the temperature drop as he went, and had to stop briefly when he couldn't suppress a shiver. Bennett tested the door at the end, and was surprised to find it wasn't locked. Something about that… didn't feel right, he couldn't help but feel. But he didn't have time to worry about that.
The door opened, and Abby and Bennett walked into Chaldea's cryo-storage. Around them stood occupied Coffins, their cryo-stasis functions engaged when Flauros' bomb detonated in the Rayshift chamber. Markings at the top of each Coffin identified its intended occupant, and his good eye shifted from Coffin to Coffin, scanning, searching. He walked deeper into the room in pursuit of his goal.
And finally, he found it. Seven Coffins, set against the far wall, with direct connections to power hookups—an extra precaution in case Chaldea came under attack once more. Seven Coffins, their occupants the true designates for the saviors of the Human Order. But only one of them mattered, to him. He stepped up to the Coffin of the Fifth Master of Chaldea, Akuta Hinako.
Or should he say Zhenren, Yu Mei-ren?
"This is the one," he told Abby as he retrieved the scalpel from his pocket, and tore open the sterile paper. "Abby, can you get it open, and then—"
"The cafeteria is that way."
The sudden voice directly behind him prompted a violent flinch, almost a full-blown stagger in its own right. He grabbed and held onto the IV stand and his crutch with white-knuckled grips as he tried to steady himself, dropping the scalpel in the process, the rush of blood loud in his ears as he tried to get his suddenly-pounding heart back under control.
Fuck, he thought. He knew it was only a matter of time until somebody caught wind of everything and came looking. But of all the people for it to have been? This was just about the worst case scenario.
"H-how long have you been watching?" Bennett asked, silently cursing the hitch in his voice as he turned to regard the Servant behind him.
The only response he received was the raising of one eyebrow, and the single flattest look he'd ever had the displeasure to receive. Right. Should have expected that. Still, he needed to at least try and maintain some control over this…
"Since the moment I started moving. Got it." He was fishing for a response, he knew. And his amateur attempt wasn't likely to work either. But he needed something to go off of. Anything. His still-silent watcher was not a monolith, or a simple 'follows orders' type. He could be reasoned with. Convinced. Maybe.
He hoped.
The Archer crossed his arms, but did little else. Combined with the Servant's closeness… well, Bennett would hope nobody could blame the sweat that started to bead on the back of his neck. But if he wasn't going to say anything else, or take action whatsoever?
"... well, if you're not going to stop me." Bennett turned to look over his shoulder. "Abby, can you get the cryo—?"
A black-shafted arrow sprouted an inch from Abby's nose, drawing a scared yelp from the girl. Knowing who had launched it, that miss had been completely deliberate, some part of his mind noted. The calm, rational, thinking part.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Bennett yelled in the Counter Guardian's face. "She's a child! She's the same age as Illya, for heaven's sake!"
Something behind his eyes tightened, and the bow in the Archer's hand twitched before the man went utterly still.
"...That's strange." His voice was very, very, very calm. "She doesn't look twenty."
"Don't get pedantic with me, you know exactly what I fucking meant," Bennett spat. "She is a child."
"You'll notice she hasn't discorporated." The man's voice was rather dry. "Nor have I eliminated a rogue Master caught in a highly restricted area."
"Yes, because while you're absolutely stupid, you're not dumb," Bennett bit back. "Oh, and how much of your not shooting me is actually you, and how much is the Counter Force pressing down on your ar—"
The sudden stagger and shift in his position registered before the pain hit. The sudden spike of agony reminded every other nerve in his leg that yes, you are wounded, you are in pain, and removed his brain's ability to just tune it out. When he collected himself again, he noticed he was on the ground, crutch and IV stand crossed in front of where he lay.
"Goodman!"
Bennett's breath left him as he felt that ethereal tug, numbness creeping into his fingers.
"Abigail Williams," Emiya's tone, the tips of the man's boots scant inches away from Bennett's face, hadn't changed in the slightest. "You may be able to destroy me. But every iota of power you call upon will only kill him more quickly."
"I-it's okay Abby!" Bennett rushed the words out, and bit back the sigh of relief as the drain from the Master-Servant link faded. He pushed himself to one knee, his bad leg splayed out behind him as he reached for his crutch. A moment later though, he felt a pair of powerful hands on his shoulders lift him to his good foot, saw a quick kick spinning the crutch upright to rest against EMIYA's arm, and could only blink in mild shock as that crutch swiftly found itself seated under his left arm again. The IV stand with the blood bags, on the other hand, had been rather pointedly left on the ground.
"Now," EMIYA said, brushing non-existent dirt off the front of Bennett's uniform. "Let's try this again."
From where, though? Bennett had to ask himself. He knew his current position all too well: he didn't have Circuits like all of the others did now, he wasn't in the Singularity, his Serv—Abby would be better off not fighting, and the only thing he still had to offer was his knowledge. And even that was a finite resource; the moment he had no more left to give, what reason was there left for him to be here? A last-resort backup Master, if all else fails, but… that was it. No, he couldn't just give EMIYA everything.
But the problem was, he had to give the man something. The only question was how obtuse he could be while both getting to the point and not tipping his hand...
"Have you seen the files, dossiers, or at least pictures of the various Master candidates in here?" Bennett asked, waving a hand at the area around them.
"I take it you're going somewhere with this," EMIYA replied, his tone clearly saying he was losing patience with this conversation. Okay, Bennett thought, he was going to have to pick up the pace a little bit…
"Master candidate five," he said nodding at the cryo-pod he'd tried to have Abby open. "Akuta Hinako. Pretty… generic all around. No real strengths, no real weaknesses. And from the quote-unquote backwater of Japan. So what exactly qualified her for Chaldea's A-Team?" He phrased it as a question, hoping that the way he said it, plus his tone, would get the man thinking.
"Am I supposed to start with 'Animal, vegetable, or mineral,'" EMIYA asked. "Or are you going to get to the point?"
"You're not fooling anyone," Bennett replied. "You're thinking about exactly what I told you. No standout qualifications, Japanese name to deter the average Magus, and she does not look Japanese. You are Japanese, you know what another Japanese person looks like, and she does not."
"I'm going to count to ten, Bennett. Ich. Ni. San—"
Fuck, wait, no—
"She's your opposite number!" Bennett blurted out. "She's one of Gaia's Counter Guardians! The only reason she didn't just instantly get healthy again is from suppressing herself so much so she could go unnoticed. That's why the good magus blood," he said, waving at the blood bags hanging off the downed IV stand. "Jump her regen like a car battery."
"...huh," EMIYA paused, his face pensive. "I'll be sure to let Doctor Roman know. Now, you have an appointment with a hospital bed. And you're running late."
"Wait, what—"
The same grip that had effortlessly picked him up off the ground earlier now had him slung over the Counter Guardian's shoulder. The part of his mind that wasn't utterly dumbfounded and stunned into silence absently noted that EMIYA probably had a lot of experience carrying injured people this way, given how his leg was very pointedly not expressing its displeasure right now.
"Come along, Abigail. We're lucky that your fool of a Master didn't tear a ligament getting here. If he gets out of bed in the next two days, I want you to sit on him until he stays put."
"V-very well, Goodman Archer!"
Bennett's last actual, proper feeling before his internal monologue devolved into cursing and anger was his disappointment and self-recrimination at the relief he could hear in Abby's voice.
But when Archer returned him to the hospital bed, he had to admit: Marisbury definitely sprang for the comfy beds, good sheets, and—
Bennett's return to the waking world was both comfortable and uncomfortable. Comfortable because, just as his last thought had been before practically passing out again: Marisbury definitely sprang for the good stuff. For all that this bed was in the infirmary, it was quality.
And uncomfortable because he'd fallen asleep with his glasses on, and the lenses were pushing rather painfully against his face.
He groaned a bit as the dull ache from his leg hit him, now that he was awake, and pulled off his glasses to clean off the schmutz that had probably gotten there from being pressed against his skin for at least part of the night. He put them back on—and froze.
There was a woman at the left side of his bed, nearer the door. One he'd never seen before, but that he still recognized almost instantaneously. She wore a light shawl over a blue turtleneck; long brown hair, pulled back into a braid, lay over a shoulder and across her lap. Her own glasses sat in front of eyes that seemed brown at first glance, but flashed crimson when they shifted across the page of the book in her hands and the light hit them just right.
He scanned her closely, his focus going from the book, to her eyes, and back to the book. He watched her eyes carefully as she turned the page, scanned the small, soft smile on her face as she feigned being engrossed in the narrative, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.
Bennett took a deep breath in to steady his nerves, holding for a count of three before exhaling.
"It's easier with Chinese and Japanese, isn't it?" Bennett ventured. The woman paused, before her gaze languidly turned to him. "T-the people-watching, I mean," he clarified. "With text going top-down instead of left-right."
"Mm." Her reply could've been anything—an affirmation, a denial, a pleasantry. A threat. "Do you often start conversations this way, Mister Bennett?"
"How else am I to start one with you?" Bennett hedged. "Akuta Hinako."
She closed her book with a quiet clap of paper against paper, and while her gaze never seemed to meet his eyes, he could feel the weight of her attention.
"How did you know?" Her voice remained mild, almost absent. She, however, was decidedly not. Despite himself, Bennett couldn't help the slight gulp that preceded his words.
"If I didn't already know, I wouldn't have been able to tell." And that was the truth, he supposed.
To both her questions.
"And who else knows?" Her short, neatly clipped nails rested lightly against the rail of his bed.
"Chaldea knows only Akuta Hinako," he replied, being careful to keep his voice steady and level. "They learned enough to know to wake you, and nothing more."
"Mmmm," she noted. She let her hand fall from the bed's railing, and regarded him a moment longer. Then, without any further ado, she stood and walked towards the door of the med bay, pressing the button to open it.
She stopped at the open door, a hand on the frame, and favored him with one last look.
"Thank you," she said, so soft that he could have imagined the words.
And then she left.
Underneath the blanket, Bennett's hand unclenched, the heat fading from his Command Spell as blood slowly beaded from the half-moon cuts his nails had carved in his palm.
Just as Dory had been waiting oh so patiently to introduce his beloved pirate queen, this is the first of... I wanna say, five? Hang on, lemme count... there's Hinako, then there's the thing, then there's the person, then there's the person again, and then there's the return of the thing... yup. Five moments that I have been painfully waiting to get out to y'all.
But yes. I have been sitting on this for months, waiting for when we got to post this. And it is glorious.
But yes. I have been sitting on this for months, waiting for when we got to post this. And it is glorious.
