I don't own Fate. Fate is the property of Type-Moon, and no financial gain is made from this or is sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Frozen Memories

Prologue

"Subject E-0057…" the words trickled through a haze, and she opened her eyes weakly. "…the removal of extraneous elements is complete."

Dimly…through a haze…pain…? What was that? She tried to move, only to receive no response from her limbs. It all felt familiar, as though something…like…this…why was it that she already felt resigned?

What was resignation anyway?

What was familiar?

There was metal around her – her (?) – shaped like spiders – spiders (?) – and with their limbs driven into her flesh. What…were…limbs? Dimly she heard numbers being shouted in the background, and felt the metal spiders pumping something in and out of her. What were numbers?

"Conceptual anchors indicate stability values in the negative." The words slipped through the haze. "Proto-geometric stabilization will proceed as needed. Neural topology is scrambled at non-optimal values. Adjust as needed."

She felt something sliding into (?) her…it was like…like…white-hot…what was 'hot'? It felt like something was cutting into her, and she felt…what did she feel? What was 'feel'?

"Nervous activity detected." The words slipped through. "Brain activity confirmed."

"Apply sedative."

"Negative…pain is irrelevant."

"Neural damage may be exacerbated otherwise. Apply the sedative."

"Understood…ORACLE is ready."

"Connect…purge unnecessary information in time with neural adjustment and proto-geometric stabilization."

"ORACLE is connected. Applying sedative…"

Cold…what was cold? What was flowing into her neck? What was a neck anyway? Why…did she…feel like sleep? What is sleep?

"Set the proto-geometric configuration to Domain…"


Blue eyes slowly opened, and the young girl shifted slightly. Her entire body hurt, or rather felt sore, as if she'd scrubbed too hard on her skin while taking a bath. Shifting some more, the young girl sat up, and rubbed at her limbs. She blinked and tilted her head at the faint silver lines crisscrossing parts of her arms. Raising a hand, she tugged on her smock and looked down. There were lines there too…

A sharp burst of pain caused her to wince, and a hand rose to her head. There was a bandage there, wrapped around her head. Black hair (?) fell to her shoulders, with white streaks like ice on rock wildly running through them. She blinked again.

"Oh hello!" someone cheerfully said, and she turned her head sharply to the side. Standing in the doorway was a girl of about her age, with long white hair and red eyes. "You're awake! You've been asleep for three days now, and I was getting worried that you'd never wake up."

"Three days…?"

The white-haired girl nodded. "Yup..." She confirmed. "…it's been three days since grandfather had you brought here."

"I-I see…"

The white-haired girl coughed and sat down on a chair beside the bed. "Anyway…" she began. "…my name's Illyasviel von Einzbern, but you can just call me Illya. What's your name?"

The girl blinked, and shook her head slowly. There was another burst of pain, and again her hand rose to her head. "I don't know." She said slowly. "I don't know who I am, where I'm from, or why I'm even here."

"I see…" the other girl – Illya – said with a tone of sympathy. What was…sympathy anyway? "…in that case I'll give you a name!"

"Eh?"

"Let's see…" Illya said theatrically while looking the other girl over. A few moments later and her eyes homed-in on the ice-on-rock pattern of the other girl's hair. Her eyes lit up. "…I know! Your hair looks like it's been frosted over, so Frost it is!

"F-Frost…?" the other girl asked.

"Yup…!" Illya affirmed with a nod. "Frost von Einzbern…let's be friends, alright?"

A smile (?) tugged slightly at the other girl, no Frost's lips. "Okay…" she said softly. "…I think that I'd like that…Illya…"


"Einzbern…Einzbern…EINZBERN!" the blonde shouted and finally physically grabbed her friend to shake her awake.

"W-w-what?" the flustered girl spluttered as she awoke. "Edelfelt…what's the problem? Did something happen? Did I miss something?"

"It's almost nightfall." Luviagelita 'Luvia' Edelfelt said with a roll of her eyes. "And the town's going to be crawling with ghouls…again."

"This is why I told you we should have just pounded the town into dust from a safe distance." Frost von Einzbern complained while sliding back the bolt of her Glock 17. It slid back home with well-maintained precision. "But no…we have to do it the old-fashioned way."

Luvia muttered something unflattering under her breath. "And pray tell…" she began coldly. "…where were you supposed to get something like that?"

Frost muttered something just as uncomplimentary under her breath, and Luvia smirked. "I'm going to get you back for this." She warned the blonde, even as the Sun finally set. The silence lasted for a few more moments, and then snarling could be heard from outside of the abandoned house they were sheltering in. Frost checked her Heckler and Kock MP5.

The door burst open, a horde of ravening and slavering ghouls charging in…only to have the doorway – along with part of the surrounding wall – blown out in a shower of debris and rotting body parts by a series of claymore explosives. Gunfire and Gandr rounds followed, the two magi – well one magus and one spell-caster actually – following through with extreme prejudice.

The SMG ran dry as the ghouls finally began to slacken, and with a muttered curse Frost holstered it before drawing her Glock and opening fire. "Don't fall behind!" Luvia shouted as she dove into the fray and out into the street. Frost cursed again before following, drawing a KM2000 combat knife and using it alongside her pistol.

Luvia was using her kickboxing skills in conjunction with reinforcement to lethal effect, each punch or kick pulping heads and caving chest cavities in. By contrast Frost was brutally effective, sacrificing finesse in favor of results. Her knife was cutting ghouls to pieces one-handed, while her pistol was useful for both shooting and braining, and once the ammo was spent, was solely used for braining. "There's no end to this..." She muttered as she dispatched a ghoul before throwing her knife into a ghoul's forehead over Luvia's shoulder. "…or not."

That was the last ghoul…until another one of them jumped down from a rooftop and landed behind her. It tried to wrap its arms around the Einzbern girl before biting down into her neck, but Frost simply grabbed its neck first and hurled it down to the ground before her and crushed its head with a booted foot. "Watch your back." Luvia said while retrieving Frost's knife. "I'd rather not have an ally's death on my conscience.

"You should take your own advice then girl." A male voice put in, and Luvia froze as she heard and felt a gun behind her head.

"Enhance…" Frost said. "…you're late…by about a day."

The renegade Dead Apostle Ancestor gave a shrug before withdrawing his weapon and letting Luvia get to her feet. "I got held up." He said. "And besides, haven't you noticed that there are fewer ghouls than there should be?"

"Point…" Frost conceded while cleaning her knife. The vampire snorted and regarded her coolly.

"I've heard about you Einzbern." He said. "And you too Edelfelt. Two young killer-for-hires in the supernatural underground…you've got quite the reputations, which is why I had you two as backup on this job...and you nearly get overrun. It's a bit disappointing really."

"Then you should look closer." Luvia snapped back before turning to Frost. "Frost…?"

The other girl shrugged and pulled out a detonator switch. "Oh hell…" Enhance said with a growing smile.

"Hell is right." Frost said while playing with the switch by tossing it with a hand. "I rigged this entire place to blow during the daytime. Of course there were still ghouls in the shadowed areas, and especially in the underground, but I just had to get my charges on the right spots in the municipal gas lines. Not getting caught was the hard part though…quite tiring to be honest…"

She gave a hard look at Luvia who glared back. "Can we just get out of here and blow the town sky-high?" the blonde asked irritably. "I'm sure our 'partner' has already finished the main business at hand."

"Damn straight I have." Enhance drawled while turning his back. "Come on you two, let's get out of here."


"Do we still have to blow the town up?" Luvia asked. "It just seems so…inelegant to me."

"Far better than cleaning up all those corpses…" Frost argued as the three of them passed an abandoned checkpoint a short distance from the town. "…and going to all the effort of 'correcting' the mundane records in this town. A gas explosion works as a cover well enough. This should be safe enough, I think. Ready…?"

Enhance shrugged without any concern, which he didn't have. As a Dead Apostle, even if he did get caught in Frost's little inferno, he'd probably just come out of it with mild burns and a stoked temper. Luvia sighed and nodded. Frost pushed the trigger.

At first there was nothing, and then in the distance massive flowers and clouds of flame erupted into the sky. "Well…" Frost said as the explosions erupted outwards in an expanding spider-web of destruction across the town, the rumbling growing in volume and beginning to shake the air and ground alike. "…that's that I suppose."

And then the mains exploded. The blast wave was quite visible, and literally sent Luvia and Frost tumbling on their backs several feet. Enhance chuckled at the sight. He'd been forced back too, but unlike the Human girls, the male vampire had managed to stay on his feet.

"Next time you decide to bomb a gas line…" he said with a cheeky grin to Frost and to Luvia who were struggling to clear their heads and to get back on their feet. "…don't forget about how much fuel and how much pressure it's under, got it?"

"Got it…" Frost agreed, deciding to lie back and rest for a moment. And in any case their trip back was on its way, if the sound of helicopters approaching was any indication.

"Is that it?" Luvia asked from where she was lying beside Frost.

"It seems that way." The girl with black and white hair answered, and they shared glances. It started out as muffled snickers, and then it turned to giggling, until finally the two of them were laughing as they lay on the ground, illuminated by the gas fires. Enhance rolled his eyes at the sight.

Humans…


A/N

I was…unsatisfied with how I wrote Heart of Iron, so I decided to rework it. Voila…!

Take a wild guess who and what (condition) Frost is. No seriously, the German and English words for 'frost' are the same.