Fate/LOGOS
Chapter 2: Beckoning of the Grail
It was a dark, cold night in London. The ghostly full moon stood out against a desolate, nearly starless night. The artificial lights of London kept most of the stars from showing their true brilliance, and some of the brighter ones were still far from radiant due to the mist-filled atmosphere.
It was late. Very few people were awake, and even fewer outside on such a chilly night. It wouldn't surprise anyone if it began to snow in a few days. The temperatures were steadily dropping to the point that it would be a bigger wonder if it didn't begin to snow.
Among those people who were awake were Waver Velvet, better known as Lord El-Melloi II and Bazett Fraga McRemitz. They were currently in a handsomely furnished study, with scarlet drapes and shiny mahogany furniture. It was a total contrast to his rather rustic bedroom filled with his video games and assorted memorabilia.
The contrast was quite natural, given the fact that a person's home reflects his inner workings. Even though he had grown a great deal since the Fourth Holy Grail War, at his core he was still Waver Velvet.
Currently, he was looking pensively outside the window, a flute glass full of sparkling clear liquid in hand. Swirling the contents carefully, he looked across the Thames towards the collection of buildings with a clock tower prominent against the misty moonlit background.
The Clock Tower. The headquarters and main branch of the Mage's Association. From the outside, it was nothing but a normal museum to the eyes of normal people. But deep within the bowels of the earth, beneath the museum lay one of the oldest, richest and undoubtedly the most divided union of mages ever to exist.
"And the most elitist." Velvet thought.
He was quite agitated by the situation. A certain someone was acting quite strangely. Well, the person was already peculiar, but it was a brand of strange he never thought he would associate with that person.
He could hear Bazett tapping her shoes lightly on the floor. It seems she was getting impatient, but was keeping a calm disposition since she was here on his request and also since she was equally worried about the person in question.
He took a sip of the sparkling liquid, his eyes not leaving the Clock Tower. He heard the door to the study open with a gentle creaking sound. He would have to get that fixed.
He looked around, but to his disappointment only to find his pet invention, Maid Golem.
The Automaton of mercury glided gracefully into the room and bowed to both of them before saying, "The Young Master apologizes for his delay and says that he would be here shortly."
"About bloody time!" Velvet muttered in an undertone.
Bazett just sighed and stood in attention. After a few moments, during which Velvet drained his flute glass and placed it on the table beside the comfortable armchair he was sitting on, light footsteps were heard from the hallway beyond the door.
The door opened again, and in came a young man who looked around eighteen or nineteen years old with neat black hair, pale skin and black eyes wearing a puffy white cotton shirt and white pants. He had a slender figure and gentle features, but his appearance on the most part could be described as 'generic'.
Velvet thought that even if a complete stranger came from nowhere and claimed to be a relative, on first sight most people would find a family resemblance in his appearance. Indeed, Velvet had been raising this young man as his nephew for ten years and had faced multiple remarks about how much they resembled each other.
"Good evening, and I sincerely apologize for keeping you waiting." He said with a courteous bow and a mysterious smile playing on his face.
"Why the hell did it take so long?" Velvet asked in an irritated voice.
The young man looked like he was pondering something for only a second before regaining his poise, "Oh, yes. I didn't notify you beforehand, did I?"
"No, you didn't. You just asked to meet me and Miss McRemitz urgently." Velvet said.
"Well, I apologize again. Indeed this is important, but I guess it was ill mannered of me to ask for a rendezvous at this hour without any prior explanation." He said graciously, "I would like to announce to the two of you, who have so generously worked as my pseudo-parent figures that I have decided to... um, "leave the nest", as they say."
Velvet froze for a moment and then shot up from his seat and Bazett looked at him with a stiff expression.
"What is this nonsense?" Bazett demanded, speaking for the first time.
"Yeah, what do you mean by "leaving the nest", Felix?" Velvet said, his fists clenched.
"Simply put," the young man named Felix stated, "I am intending to leave London by myself. My need for being looked after has exhausted."
"You can't!" Waver said forcefully, "Do you have any idea how hard we have worked to protect you from the Association?! If you leave without finishing your training, or without one of us to watch after you-"
"That is where you are wrong." Felix cut across him. "I am now fully capable of taking care of myself. You know full well that very few Magus alive can match me, and I have ways to escape the few of them who can."
"But why are you leaving?!" Bazett asked, outraged.
Felix gave a good-natured laugh in response before speaking. "Well, I have already attained all the pleasures of Heaven, and suffered all the evils of all of Hell. The only thing left is to gain dominion over all the evils of all of Hell."
Waver gasped, he recognized part of what he said as the incantation to summon a Servant, surely...
"You've both felt it, haven't you?" he said, seeing the looks on their faces, "The Holy Grail beckons to us, and I intend to win it to achieve a black miracle."
"What makes you think we'll let you go?" Bazett asked, putting on her leather gloves as Maid Golem whizzed behind Velvet and went into battle mode.
The man chuckled like a child invited to play. "Well, I have very little hands-on experience in fighting, so this might be enlightening."
His carefree attitude really irked both Bazett and Velvet. Bazett thought that he was underestimating her and overestimating his own abilities, while Waver thought that he had failed to make that boy into a proper Magus.
Bazett went into battle stance and her gloves crackled with the Prana she had put into them, the runes glowing the brightest.
"As I incant; thine mercy envelops me!" Felix said aloud, and a dome of Prana came into being around him. Bazett, with speed comparable to a Servant, rushed towards him and hit the dome with all her might.
In normal circumstances, such a low level shield spell would do nothing to protect against her hardened hands. But the Prana in it was so great that she was pushed back. But the shield was broken, and Maid Golem was able to lunge at Felix in the form of a torrent of quicksilver.
Felix jumped out of the way while beginning another spell, "Spirit that rises from beneath to beyond the heavens-"
But the quicksilver changed to ropes of liquid metal and ensnared his arms, legs and torso. Bazett was about to land a blow to knock him unconscious, but he was able to finish, "-infuse vile wrath!"
A violent gale of wind picked up that blew back an unsuspecting Velvet into the wall behind him and knocked him unconscious. Bazett was merely pushed back as she used her arms to shield her head and bent her knees to keep her center of gravity low so not to get blown away.
Maid Golem, being a Mystic Code tied to her master promptly disintegrated into mercury and Felix was released.
"Felix!" Bazett cried as she saw him attempt to jump out of the window.
"Farewell." He said as he made to jump. But Bazett was able to get hold of the back of his shirt.
She was nearly pulled out of the window with him, but managed to keep a hold of him. When she looked down at him, her eyes widened in shock.
Through the back of the collar, she could make out a large red tattoo on his back. Those were, unmistakably, command spells...
"Oh, I almost forgot." Felix said nonchalantly, and Bazett suppressed her urge to hit him because she was likely to fall down three stories with him if she followed through with the impulse. "Please make them stop hunting down Emiya Shirou. I believe Tohsaka Rin and Luviagelita Edelfelt have been requesting the same thing for some time now. All three of them will be an asset to the First Fuyuki Great Holy Grail War."
"How did you find out abou-" Bazett exclaimed as Felix freed himself of his loose shirt and fell down, his descent slowing just before he made impact with the ground.
Bazett jumped down after him, using reinforcement magecraft to harden her body so she wouldn't be injured. He had already started to sprint towards the railings separating the street from the river.
Before she could reach him, he jumped in. But instead of a splash, there was no sound at all.
"What?" Bazett exclaimed as she scrambled to the railings and saw the most preposterous scene ever.
The young man was standing on the steadily flowing water as though it was solid ground. One would notice that he was actually hovering a few millimeters above the surface. It seemed he was using Prana to create a solid platform beneath his feat. Or was he just expelling a steady stream of prana from his feet that neutralized the effect of his weight? Only he could tell at the point.
"Cheerio! Please give my sincerest apologies to Lord El-Melloi for me, I bet that really hurt!" He said with the same cheerful air.
"Felix!" Bazett was able to uselessly cry as he dropped into the water.
She know that he wouldn't just drown or pass out from hypothermia, so it was useless hoping for him to somehow wash up ashore.
Maybe it was time to go back to that accursed city of Fuyuki. She and Lord El-Melloi would need to arrange matters with the Association. It would be easy enough to feed them false information as an Enforcer and such a respected Lecturer.
But she was still worried. Those names he had mentioned... How did he know that much? The boy was never let outside, and nor would Lord El-Melloi would ever tell him about the Fuyuki Holy Grail War.
Nothing was adding up. Nothing made sense.
So there was really no choice. Fuyuki must hold the answers. To think that she would have to reopen those old wounds. And she didn't know what Lord El-Melloi would do, given his unusual dislike for Japan and everything and everyone Japanese.
Only time would tell.
END
Please review! I'm not really experienced with action scenes, so this was probably a little messy. Constructive criticism is always welcome!
