A/N:
I didn't think I would get into mobile games. Even when I heard about Grand Order from my friend who's a total Type Moon slave, I wasn't all that interested. Then it came out on NA, and suddenly here I am wondering where all my free time and some $500 went.
And now here I am, writing a fanfic about it. Oh boy, as if I don't have enough on my plate already.
Please read below for an unnecessary amount of disclaimers that will hopefully keep this fanfic from being as hated as my other one:
This fanfic will be not be based on any of the story arcs featured in Grand Order; rather, it'll be more based on my personal "adventures" with the game and the servants who I happened to roll. If anything, this story will only be loosely based on the story arcs as they appear in order in Grand Order. In addition, the only servants who will be featured (due to the fact that there are so many characters in Grand Order, even on the NA version) will be 4-stars and 5-stars and whoever else I like enough to have featured in this fanfic. Please don't get offended if your favorite servant doesn't show up here (or be offended, it's up to you, really).
I am not a Type Moon slave, and I do not know the Nasuverse in and out. The world in which this fanfic is set, therefore, will not strictly be set in a Nasuverse-like setting, though I will try my best to make sure that this fanfic follows Nasuverse lore as closely as possible, so if there are any mistakes in terms of lore, by all means feel free to correct me and I will try my best to make revisions wherever possible (unless I specifically say I want certain things to be the way I write them). I foresee myself making plenty of mistakes when it comes to this, and most likely what will end up happening is that I will simply be inserting my own headcanon into this fanfic due to my relative lack of intimacy with the characters and their designs, so whenever you get triggered that I miss or screw up some details about how certain things should be, try not to be and just remind yourself that this is only a fanfiction written by a guy who's never even watched Fate Zero in its entirety. (I should really get on that.)
If you know me from other stories, you will know that I have a tendency to write very strong OC main characters. This fanfic may or may not be an exception to this trend. At the time of writing this Author's Note, I still don't know my OC's design or even name, so whatever follows after this is just a shot in the dark, both for me as a writer and you as a reader. So if you're the kind who absolutely detests OC's that even hint at being Gary Stu's or Mary Sue's or whatever else fanfic lingo exists out there to denote overpowered original characters, then this fanfic is probably not for you.
Finally, because I am mainly concentrating most of my efforts on writing another fanfic, this story will not be updated frequently - at best, I only see myself updating this story maybe once a week. Who knows, maybe I may even end up abandoning this story too if I just feel like I can't spare any time for it at all. But for now, at least, while I've got this little extra bit of fire in me to at least start this story, I'll see how far I go before that fire burns out.
(EDIT 3/27/18)
The above portion of this A/N was written when I first published this fanfic under the FGO archive. Upon insistence from one of my readers, I've since moved it here to the FSN archive instead, so everything above the edit tag is seven months old and thus outdated.
I now intend to update this fic on a semi-regular basis, now that I've gotten the feel for how I want to pace my own writing and the direction in which I'd like to take this fic. I also intend to base the arcs of this fic on those seen in Grand Order, but with a personal twist to them and perhaps some original content as well, though I'll have to see how that pans out.
Everything else, however, is still up for grabs.
-Akyuu no Joshu
A sharp clack rattles the air of my office as I set down the phone receiver back down onto its port.
Damn those idiots over at that one trucking agency...their drivers are good, but the goddamn people who handle their logistics are ass. Maybe if I used that agency more often for more of my shipments, I'd consider giving the guy who runs the place a call and tell him to fire half his office staff, because they hardly do shit. Thankfully it's only that one trucking agency, all the other ones I work with aren't bad. At least, not as bad as this one.
I make some last few notes with a red pen on the delivery order papers in a few manila folders, now that I've yelled at them to give me their container delivery times. This one's tomorrow at nine in the morning, this one's at ten, and this one's also at nine. This one got pulled over for MET examination, so we'll set that aside for now. With these notes written, I gather them up, stack them neatly together, and lean over to the racks of manila folders I've got standing on a separate desk next to my main desk, and I file those folders accordingly by my self-designated reference numbers.
And with that, so ends my daily morning work routine. Now time to get some lunch.
As I get up from my chair, I swipe my right hand from left to right, like I'm handling a large touchscreen monitor. In response, a non-standard light blue rune pops up out of thin air before me, showing me a set of four small panels. They don't have any words or letters, just symbols, and one of them has a familiar power symbol. I tap it, and my fingers physically get stopped by the panel floating in the air before me, which blinks with a brighter shade of blue for a moment to confirm my selection as the other panels shimmer out of view rather nicely and beautifully. The panel I've selected then drops down a list of three more options, labelled "Turn Off Peripherals", "Power Down Computer", and "Shut Down All", in that order. I tap the second option, and my Windows 7 operating system gives me its usual farewell screen and powers down, and the monitor automatically turns itself off once the computer is fully powered down.
Heading down the stairs to head into my kitchen, I open the refrigerator up to see if I've got anything left that's worth cooking that'll fit my appetite this afternoon. My eyes are quite disappointed at what they see when they peer inside - a few strips of bacon inside its mashed up and deflated plastic bag, several heads of lettuce and carrots, a few bottles of 99-cent Coca-Cola, Seagram's, and Cherry Sprite that are all half-drunk, and one last unopened package of Ham and American Cheese Lunchables.
Sometimes I ask myself if I'll ever graduate from having super kiddie tastes. And every time I do, I always tell myself, nope, not happening.
It's not like anyone else lives here, so why should I care what the contents of my fridge look like? The only person who's ever going to look into it on a regular basis is me.
Still, this isn't necessarily a good stock to make lunch out of, unless I make some weird fusion cuisine stuff that I honestly don't want to do. And I already ate two Lunchables yesterday because I was feeling too lazy to go out and buy groceries after the shitshow I trudged through during work, so eating that last one is out of the question, simply because I like variety in my life, more than I like being lazy. Talk about inadequate reasons for motivation...
I check my rice cooker. Purple rice, mixed with cooked slices of mushrooms inside. I've been putting in efforts to make my diet healthier over the years - maybe it's a side effect of growing older, but I can't confirm - and part of the efforts have been dedicated to expanding my rice intake from just plain old white rice to other types of rice. One recipe I saw online suggested mixing in mushrooms that can cook along with the rice, and since I like mushrooms well enough, I did just that, and I don't have a single regret since. So I do have plenty of rice, and when I check the cupboard right above my rice cooker, there's a few stubby shakers of furikake, or rice seasoning. I've lived entire days off nothing but rice and furikake before, so pulling the trigger on this is trivially easy for me, but I resist. I'll be a proper adult and go buy some goddamn groceries so that I don't have to feel like a downright degenerate who lives on nothing but Lunchables, rice with furikake, and Cherry Sprite.
With this in mind, I swipe my hand from left to right in front of my chest again, and the set of four panels pop up again. This time, I tap the panel on the far left, which has a simple calendar icon on it, and while the other panels shimmer away as usual, this panel rises up slightly and drops down another list of panels - which holds some eleven more panels that drape all the way down to the floor. It's like clicking on the full menu on the start button of a Microsoft Windows operating system. Only cooler, I suppose.
I tap another panel that says "Agenda", and that, too, opens up another, thankfully much tinier list of panels, only three this time, which say "Reminders", "Notes", and "Shopping List". The specificity amuses me. I tap "Shopping List", and everything goes away, in favor of one empty panel that floats before me, waiting for my command.
"Grocery shopping. We need...let's see..." I open my fridge back up again. "Swiss cheese, barbecue sauce, garlic, clovers, onions, apples, peaches, bananas, Chipotle ribs, ham, samgyupsal, short ribs, and kimchi."
The panel records everything I say, and when I'm done, I tap the panel again, and it blinks in confirmation and sweeps itself away, bringing the previous panel back up. I take both hands this time and swipe them shortly together, and the panel list squeezes itself in and disappears, shimmering out of sight. I glance back into my fridge, and in the bottom shelf of the right fridge door, I spy my half-consumed bottle of Sayuri.
I squeeze my hand, and the recording panel pops up again.
"And Sayuri," I add and the panel blinks again in confirmation before disappearing again.
This morning's work was busy, so I head downstairs to my garage to open the door up so that I can reach my mailbox - mail comes by at ten in the morning every day, give or take half an hour - it depends on the driver and how much mail they're carrying, really. It's convenient, though, since I can just make lunch and check my mailbox while it's cooking and come back up to sort the mail while eating. Today, I have been able to enjoy no such luxury, but mail is important, especially for my business, so it's not like I have a choice.
It's another beautiful day out here in Southern California. An everlasting, uplifting blue sky marred only slightly but artistically with streaks of white feathers that we humans like to call clouds, the sun beaming down radiantly as can be. I nod hello to my next door neighbor, a very kind, elderly black man who loves to spend nice and quiet afternoon days on the driveway of his townhouse unit sitting on a porch chair and reading either the newspaper or a book on Sundays in one hand with a bottle of Angry Orchard's in the other - or in the porch chair's cup holder. He used to work for Raytheon, retired now - we've had a couple of pleasant conversations before about defense systems and what the United States is working on next; myself being somewhat of a military technologies enthusiast, it's obvious that the two of us share a common interest worth talking about together.
Closing the mailbox cover and pushing it up, making sure to set the little red flag that's standing up against the mailbox down, I walk back into my garage while sorting through the letters. Since I'm already dressed to go out, I'll just sort the mail right here and put them down on the stairs just past my door so that I'll remember to take them up with me back to my office.
The last letter catches my eye - specifically, the seal stamped boldly and almost menacingly on the front. The seal itself is so big that the delivery address - that is, my address - is literally squeezed along the very right of the letter in handwriting. I recognize both of them, the seal and the handwriting. This is from the Chaldea Security Organization...or just Chaldea for short.
I now feel bad for the USPS guy, and everyone else who had to handle this letter. With a few exceptions, most members of well-established magical lineages and families aren't all that acclimated to modern culture. Olga's, well...just the same way, I guess.
Leaning against the shotgun door of my Mercedes E-300 Sedan, I set the other letters and catalogues aside on the hood of my car to open this one from Chaldea and read it.
Olga-Marie Animusphere
Chaldea Security Organization Headquarters
Dated 17th April, 2017 A.D.
Dear Mr. Chang Gyun Augustus Il,
I currently write to inform you of dire news - Dr. Romani Archaman and his team has informed me that through SHIVA, they have detected the imminent development of an S-Class singularity in your immediate vicinity. While details about this singularity are still being researched by Dr. Archaman and his team, we can provide several general details for you now: this singularity should be enough to cover an area that occupies not only your current town of residence of Tierra del Illamas, but also the adjacent several towns of Nelson, Archibrod, and Watson Estates, and the southern half of the major city of Los Angeles. And as expected of an S-Class singularity, you must be prepared to fight Wanderers, along with possible Rogues.
It is for these reasons that, upon the authority of the Animusphere Family, I have authorized the deployment of Team A Leader Matthew Kyrielight and have dispatched her to rendezvous with you on the early afternoon of 19th April, 2017. For the purposes of this assignment, she carries in her possession the Guardian Heroic Spirit Summoning System, or the 'FATE' device. I strongly recommend that you prepare for her arrival by completing the steps necessary to revise your current magical position as a 'Master'. Once you have rendezvoused with her, immediately complete a contract with her so that she may be able to assume her Demi-Servant status and begin working under you as your Servant and activate FATE.
I am under the assumption that you are familiar with the FATE device and system; if not, please refer to Ms. Kyrielight for advice on its use. And having taken your current living circumstances into consideration, I have also decided that you will easily be able to accommodate the Heroic Spirits you summon as Servants through FATE and thus will not be providing you with financial support, but Chaldean reinforcements are on standby at your disposal, should you deem it necessary. Again, please refer to Ms. Kyrielight for further details about this matter.
For your convenience, please allow Ms. Kyrielight to handle all after-action reports; for this assignment, I would rather you focus on the assignment's objectives at hand, for the scale and threat of it are too great to take lightly. And speaking of objectives, I will inform Ms. Kyrielight of new and updated objectives as we continue to monitor the singularity's conditions, and she will relay them to you for you and your Servants to complete. Should you have any inquiries, please first direct them to Ms. Kyrielight; she should be able to handle most of them, and if not, please contact Dr. Archaman or Ms. Da Vinci.
Your rendezvous location and time with Ms. Kyrielight are listed below the signature. As this is the first time she is traveling to the West Coast of the United States, please make sure to meet her in a timely fashion.
Sincerely,
Olga-Marie Animusphere
2nd Chaldeas Security Organization President
April 19th...would be today. Talk about a sudden development. I'm not reading the script for an anime, am I? And I just finished Youjo Senki, too. Good anime, by the way, ten out of ten would recommend.
Sighing a little, I fold up the letter. I immediately recognize the address - it's at a big recreational park in the adjacent town - more like city - of Nelson called Nelson Park...surprise surprise. I understand why they would pick that place, since it's a big open area where you won't look suspicious at all just hanging out by yourself, since lots of people meet there anyways for weekly sporting games like pickup basketball, soccer, tag/flag football, or baseball, besides the rest of the ton of people who go visit the park simply to have picnics or take walks along the park's extensive walking paths. The problem is that Nelson Park is actually surprisingly big, in no small part due to the hills that divide the park more or less into three almost distinct sections that could all be parks in their own rights.
Not that that's going to be a problem at all in the first place. I just like to think about stuff...contemplate why things are the way they are. I'm well aware that my constant thinking has made some people I know very angry in the past - and one of them just happens to be the one who's penned this letter I've just read.
Then it seems that my agenda for today's been set in stone for me, which honestly is something of a relief. What's going to come after that won't be. Another singularity? It hasn't been that long since I handled another one further up north, specifically in Northern California. Had to take a week off work to go handle that, and with no compensation from Chaldea because Olga's the biggest tight-ass in the world when it comes to both the Chaldean treasury and the Animusphere family fortune. It's not even the pile of work that I found stacked up electronically in my office, waiting for me when I returned home from that previous singularity that pisses me off, it's the fact that the leader of this organization that employs me as a contractual mage, who not only is extremely wealthy on her own as a successful spokesperson on the subject of global magic propagation to the various first-world countries around the globe but also is the heir of one of the most influential and richest families on the face of the planet, won't send me a fucking check for a week's worth of lost income. And this isn't supposed to be some kind of anti-patrician commentary about how the 1% always hoard their money, I just think Olga is an asshole for drafting me for a singularity that isn't even in my area and refuses to compensate me for lost time at my own personal line of business, beyond my monthly contract of employment with Chaldea, simply because she cited my drafting as "justified in the context of an imminent S-Class singularity".
Which means she probably won't compensate me for what's about to happen here, too, but I guess I wouldn't mind that too much, since it's right in my own town of residence. I'll just have to remember not to get her a quart of Häagen-Dazs if and when I get summoned to Chaldea.
I'm ranting now. And I do that a lot...to myself. Normally that'd be a problem, but I've gotten pretty good at keeping my rants to myself and not bothering other people with them. Partially because usually, for about three hundred and sixty five days of the year, I don't have anyone to rant to. It's better that way, though, honestly.
I check the time - it is now roughly a quarter past one, and the time of the rendezvous is scheduled for two o'clock. I've got some time, so since I'm going to be meeting with Miss Kyrielight, it's probably a good idea to tidy up and at least make an effort to look presentable - she is, after all, one of Chaldea's most trusted and most valued employees, and to make a bad impression on her would mean an almost-certain pay cut on my contract, despite my contract not expiring until the last day of the year. Damn sub-clauses...sometimes I wonder if being a businesswoman wouldn't suit Olga's career a little bit better.
I head back upstairs, not bothering to shut my garage door, since this town that I live in, Tierra del Illamas, is one of the safest and wealthiest towns per capita in the States, most certainly along the West Coast. I live in a townhouse unit that's practically in the center of our gated townhouse complex, and should there ever be someone suspicious snooping around, I'll know. I like taking care of my neighbors - it's a habit that I've developed quite well over the years...one of the things I'm always proud of. Is it weird that I don't think of myself as a particularly altruistic individual? Well, then again, mages in general are just weird people to begin with...many of them, that is.
Taking about fifteen minutes, I quickly shower and change my outfit - some casual black pants with plenty of pockets, a light, plain white shirt that says "WE, THE PEOPLE, THE MACHINE, AND THE BROKEN" in slanted, capitalized black letters, and a white hoodie jacket that has the kanji 滅 in light red on the back. I also don some black fingerless gloves that's starting to fray at the ends of the finger outlets, and I put on a black snapback with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on the top of the visor and white letters outlined with red that say "SAY WHAT AGAIN!" on the front. Briefly stepping into my bathroom to give my appearance a quick lookover, I brush my short-ish bangs apart and fix my cap so that it's perfectly centered on my head.
I've only ever heard of Miss Matthew Kyrielight. Other than the unusual discrepancy between her gender and her name, I have heard of nothing but good things about her. A talented human who obtained through the Grand Order incident a year ago the power to become a Demi-Servant, a unique cross between a human and a servant - a unprecedented phenomenon that puts her in, well, a unique position among the mages of the world all on its own. Even without this peculiar quirk, she is apparently a very hard worker, selfless and unfaltering, and most importantly, tested by trials of fire, pain, and suffering. But, like I said, I've never actually seen her in person, not even so much as a photo of her - I'm sure this is to protect her identity from potential rival magic organizations throughout the world who wish to "employ" her talents for various other goals and ends.
They say that it is always a great honor and privilege for anyone who is fortunate enough to meet her, let alone work with her for an assignment. I'll hold my judgment until I actually meet her for myself - but at least the prospects are looking good. I know what it feels like to have to meet with people whom you already know you're not going to get along well with, and truth be told - that shit sucks. Depends on the people, though, to be fair.
I hit the light and stop at the top of the stairs of my three-story townhouse unit, looking around on this top floor at the bedrooms here. Admittedly the details given to me on Olga's letter aren't very...well, specific, since I don't know how many Heroic Spirits whom I'll be summoning as my Servants will show up in the first place. This place has three rooms, the master bedroom and two smaller guest rooms, and I'm using the master bedroom as both my office and my bedroom. I would have preferred to use one of the smaller rooms, since I'm one of those very weird people who like smaller, more confined places as living quarters, but the efficient monster in me that prioritizes efficiency over all else as much as possible has turned me to the dark side with this issue and has compelled me to put my office and my bedroom together into one room, since it can easily accommodate the space I need for both - plus, it even comes with its own bathroom, which is equipped with a dedicated shower stall rather than a bathtub. So as far as the rooms are concerned, I can only accommodate two Servants, and after that, well, I suppose it'll be a fight for who gets to sleep on the floor and who gets to sleep on the couch. There could be a very real chance that I'll have to invest in another new home entirely just to be able to provide adequate living quarters for the Servants who'll be showing up...and it'll definitely complicate matters as time goes on, assuming more Servants join us to participate in this upcoming singularity.
Heading down the stairs all the way down to the garage, with the keys to my Mercedes already in the left pocket of my black pants, my phone in my right, and my wallet in the big pocket on my right pants sleeve, I slide into the driver's seat, start the engine with a simple push of a button, and back my car out of the garage, pressing a button on the garage door opener device clipped to the right foldable visor to shut the door, and wave goodbye to my neighbor, who waves back.
Now that I think about it, I've never asked for his name. And even more weirdly, he's never asked for mine. How interesting.
The heavy electric guitars of Mick Gordon blast from the stereo of my car as I cruise down the main street to get to Nelson Park. Being a weekday, and at this time, traffic is great, with the only obstacles to a smooth, continuous drive being the traffic lights and intersections. It's probably really weird to other people when they realize that some metalhead is blasting heavy rock from a Mercedes, but I've seen stranger things. I've got my mind on other thoughts to begin with, like why Olga, to this day, doesn't believe in modern human technologies concerning instant communication. That letter she sent, she could have easily just sent me an email instead and given me more days to prepare for Miss Kyrielight's arrival. Not that my house is a complete mess - I'm not clean freak with OCD about always keeping everything tidy, but it's a good feeling knowing that I live and work in a home that isn't completely fucking trashed. One of my childhood friends whom I've known since technically elementary school lives like a slob, and I don't envy him whatsoever. But returning to Olga, she just refuses to do it. They know my email address, I've seen it specifically registered in their records when I asked them to show me the last time I was there, but...mages. Especially those from the big families, the "one-percenter" families, as I half-jokingly like to call them. At the very least, I'm grateful that Olga sent that letter through international priority mail, otherwise there would've been no way for me to know this, and I'm not exactly confident that Miss Kyrielight has any of my contact information, and in such a case, it would not surprise me at all if that were due to Olga's classic negligence of providing a dispatched Chaldean employee with adequate contact information, because she always assumes that everyone knows each other in Chaldea - which couldn't be any more wrong. Being the President of Chaldea, one could say that she's too busy working on other crap and tending to her own daily agenda to really sit down and get a firm grasp of just how huge of an organization Chaldea has truly become.
And I don't expect her to any time soon. Disappointing, but...not worth blowing my brains out over. Some things, maybe, but not this one.
I drive into the positively massive parking lot of Nelson Park - the park designers certainly had good foresight to give the park ample parking, given the size of this park. Take a shot every time I say the word "park" - and I'd laugh at myself if my own last name were Park, too. As it's still mid-afternoon, there aren't that many people here, so I help myself to a spot right next to the park, nearest to the two baseball fields that face each other in perpendicular fashion. I get out and lock the doors to my car, crossing over a strip of grass to step onto the sidewalk as my Mercedes beeps once to confirm my lock. I've already checked the time through the digital clock on the top of my car's dashboard, which would be 1:52pm. Meaning that, in order for me to not be late, I would have roughly eight minutes to search for and locate Miss Kyrielight. Enlightening math, let me tell ya.
Eight minutes is clearly not nearly enough time to search the entire park, not one of this size, anyway. As much as I like doing things the good old-fashioned way, these circumstances call for some extra assistance. I haven't sensed anyone with a magical signature in my detectable vicinity, which means that if Miss Kyrielight is indeed already here and waiting for me, she's disguising herself very well as an ordinary human being.
Which shouldn't be surprising, if you think about it. She was, at one point, human. Or so they say, at least.
I almost lazily raise my right hand and snaps my fingers. The crack that gets produced due to the sharp friction I generate between the flats of my middle finger and thumb reverberates, sending sound waves in all directions around me, and I listen for any magical frequencies that bounce back. And sure enough, almost instantly, one does bounce back - meaning that she is very close to me. I face the direction in which my snap points me, and there, at a bench about, let's say, forty meters to my left, along the sidewalk, sits a girl with neck-length light purple hair with monstrously long bangs that hide her glasses, allowing only her left eye, which is also purple, though a richer shade of it, to peek out and down at her lap, on which a very long-haired pet that clearly is not a species indigenous to normal animal existence. It looks like a cat, though. Just with a huge mane, a tail that seems to be made out of nothing but locks of flowing white hair, and with rabbit ears that turn gradient blue up towards the tips and magenta innards.
It's also wearing a capelet. How fancy.
Finding my person of interest, I walk over to her. And as I do, once I get within, say, twenty meters of her, she looks up slowly, straight up at me.
And that's when I realize one thing, and just one more thing.
Like me, she wears glasses.