The Pledge
For the sake of this world… for what remains, for what is left… I have no choice… We have no time, no way out… except for this one. I… bid all of you farewell… perhaps for just now, perhaps forever… Holy Grails, grant my wish… Mahapralaya!
Mandricarido
He was looking down, yet he was standing tall… on top of a table, in the middle of some sort of study. He was looking down at the girl who'd summoned him, with an oath and a title, her 'Guardian of Snow'.
This was, quite literally, the last way he had ever expected to be summoned, given that he hadn't expected to be summoned at all until the day Gudao had returned, his friend. But here he was now, so… he'd fallen back on the age old question.
"I ask of you… are you my Master?" he asked… but then he realized, something was wrong. He spoke, but he didn't, his words came out, but didn't hear anything. He kept his gaze on the girl, who responded to his words as if she had heard them.
"M-Master!?" she sputtered, trying to pick herself up… oh great she was in a nightdress, what time was it? His eyes drifted to his left, where he saw the man in white carrying a book, a smirk beneath his mustache… he swore he'd heard this story before from another Rider… What was her name? It'd been so damn long… Ah, right, Medusa… oh…
"What did he say Weiss!" The man snapped, closing the blank covered book he was holding with a snap before setting in on the desk behind him, and walking towards the girl, Weiss.
She had a moment of panic as the man spoke, and Mandricardio leapt off the table and landed in front of the girl, and held up his sword… he'd made zero sound doing so, yeah, something was very, very off. The man stopped however, so the desired effect had occurred, he'd gotten him to stay away from the girl.
He took that moment to look at his wooden blade, and his eyes gazed down towards his hands… he was partially see through, well joy. That was just perfect. Given the complete lack of actual sound he was producing, he likely wasn't solid at all, so that likely meant his efforts at the moment were seriously running on the hope this guy wouldn't literally walk through him.
The man stalled for a moment, and behind him he could feel the girl finally get up, her bravery seemingly restored by his efforts. But that bravery quickly vanished as the man powered forward, his smirk restored as he did, infact, literally walk through him. Mandricardio turned as the man passed through him, and Weiss gasped, he watched as the man just grabbed her by the wrist, before spinning her in front of him gazing at the back of her hand. Likely looking for command seals. He huffed, and held onto her before looking at Mandricario.
"State you name," he ordered, and Mandricardio grit his teeth… this guy wasn't his Master, but he clearly couldn't stop him from harming his actual one… dammit.
"Mandricardio, Rider," he spat, but the man didn't respond. He did however look down at Weiss.
"What did he say Weiss," he ordered, before returning his eyes to him with it. He recognized the look in the man's eyes… that glint of greed.
"M-Mandricardio, Rider," she stuttered out, fear clearly evident in her voice… so she could hear him, but evidently the man could not… but both could see him thankfully. Better than the alternative all things considered. But the situation was looking really crappy.
"Ah, one of the Argonauti Neos, and even better… the Seeker himself… perfect," the man said, a smirk evident on his face as Mandricario raised an eyebrow. Hold up, he was actually remembered here? Hell he'd been the intended summon… probably, but clearly not for his original tales… no he was being remembered for his role as part of Jason's crew in Atlantis. And the title of Seeker… just Seeker, not 'Seeker of Durandal'... ok, this shit was sketchy. No one should have known about their stories, not in this day and age… wait.
He slowly turned away from the man and girl, to look towards the book on the desk, but a snap of fingers turned his attention back towards the man with his Master. He'd solve that problem later, the current problem first.
"Now then Seeker, I have a couple questions for you, and you are going to answer them, understand," he ordered, and Mandricardio just grit his teeth… and looked towards his Master. She clearly had no idea what was going on, hell she likely had less of an idea of the situation than he did.
"Let her go and I'll talk," he said, posturing with his sword towards the man, who didn't even flinch, since he was very well aware just how empty the gesture was with his current state. He tapped Weiss his his hand, and she gulped and spoke.
"He said if you let me go, he'll talk…" she said quietly, and the man just huffed, and refused to let go.
"No, she is my daughter, so I'll do as I need to. Now then first question," he started.
"I said let her go, and then we talk!" he said roughly between tightly grit teeth, but the man didn't care, since he clearly couldn't hear him, and the girl didn't share, likely because it would incite the man's wrath… the man who claimed to be her father. Resemblance was there, but seriously, who treats… nevermind, he knew enough crazy relations from Chaldea to know that this was really rather tame. Still didn't mean he liked it at all.
"I want to know about how to seek Saint Quartz," the man ordered… that had not been the question he expected. Mandricarido paused, that really was a hell of a question… but for the sake of his current master, he thought about it, hard.
Saint Quartz was just… well it was the crystallization of concepts. Holmes had once called it 'A Stone with Divine Power', so he really wasn't sure why… getting the stuff wasn't easy, he'd been out of a few supply missions but the stuff normally was just… sort of found in singularities, lostbelts, just sort of things they ran into randomly and picked up along the way. There really wasn't a sort of 'seeking' to it. But, that was finding it. He knew that the generators regularly spit the stuff out in small quantities every week. Sometimes it was as low as three crystals over the course of a week, but occasionally when something strange was going on, he really didn't pay attention, but the amount of Saint Quartz that just seemed to materialize around the generators go ludicrous, he still remembered the time where nearly three hundred of the crystals had just seemingly spawned in the generator room, and had to be rapidly removed before the sheer weight of them crushed the generator. That had been fun.
"You find it, it's as simple as that, you explore and you find it on occasion, it manifests in the world in places of power… about all I know," he lied, not wanting to explain to this man the method Chaldea actually got most of its Saint Quartz, and when the man nudged his daughter she relayed what he said, and huffed.
"So they really are found that way… hmm… Second question Seeker. Tell me every use of Saint Quartz… all of them that you know," the man ordered, and Mandricardio just grit his teeth, and closed his eyes… he really, really didn't want to, but without a body he just… couldn't do anything other than this to ensure his Master's safety.
He lowered his head and spoke. "Energy replenishment, summoning, and healing," he muttered.
"He said that they can be used for Energy, summoning and healing," Weiss responded, shortening his own, already short response, and then a sound, a terrifying one, hit his ears… slowly, he raised his head, Weiss looking at her father as he started chuckling…
"Energy… hehe…" the chuckle, turned into laughter, and Mandricardio could only stare as the laughter practically turned into a cackle. "Ah! Perfect," he concluded, before looking directly at Mandricario, that glint in his eyes was not just greed. For a moment, he thought it was madness...but it wasn't
Whatever this man was, he was far from mad, o no, he was completely sane and sound of mind… what he was consumed by was Greed and Envy.
"Final Question, Mandricardio," he said, using his name this time. That worried him… "Tell me the location of Chaldea."
With that one word, everything went silent, as Mandricario's eyes went wide… everything slowed to a crawl as he took a step backwards in actual, legitimate fear. This world was not the old earth, he knew that. There should have been nothing of Chaldea, the idea that there even was remnants of Chaldea was unthinkable, unfathomable… and yet… that book.
Silence reigned for several seconds as he raised his sword once more, he swore, if he wasn't a flipping ghost at the moment, he would have been sweating bullets. As it stood, in his silence, all he could do was stare with anger towards this man. His unyielding greed and his envy… of Chaldea itself.
"Good damn luck, it's long gone. If it ain't destroyed, I hope you're ready to scour the depths of the damn ocean!" he barked out.
"The bottom of the ocean!? Destroyed!? Father what are you?" Weiss started panicking as the man grit his teeth.
"Do not lie to me, I don't care about the second Chaldea!" The man ordered, and everything went cold in an instant again… no… "Where is the original."
He nearly dropped his sword… this was insane, did he really think there was anything to even find!? He knew of Arjuna's power, he'd literally unmade the world and then remade it, it was likely there wasn't even anything there… gods damn it, but he'd said final question he had to… 'Sorry everyone…'
"Mount Meru, Antarctica," he said, very slowly, before adding on. "Now release her,"
"Mount Meru, Antarctica… he… he wants you to let me go." Weiss repeated, and the man huffed, before roughly letting go of her and walking towards his desk, through Mandricardio again.
"The bottom of the world then. Hmph, no wonder it was never found," he complained, before picking up the book again, dammit. "Go to bed Weiss, and take him with you… and if you say anything of this to anyone, I will not hesitate to rescind my… kindness." the man threatened, and Weiss, very quickly, held her wrist before running out the door… and he followed her, not wanting to be in the same room as this guy any longer.
She ran, all the way to another room in this bigass manor. So he'd been summoned by a rich girl with a crazy father. Typical Magi… so why hadn't he tried to summon him himself, Command Seals would have worked just as well as this… stupid ghostly state he was in… or had that been the intent? Was there something up with his own daughter's magic that made her a better choice for summoning a Servant for his intention… but the idea that all he wanted was information… gah, this made no damn sense!
The girl closed the door, slamming it into his face, but he just floated through it. "Are you going to be alright?" he asked, knowing at the very least, she could hear him.
"Who in the name of Oum even are you!?" she screamed at him, throwing a pillow off her bed at him, which, as expected, passed through him and hit the door with a fluffy noise.
"Someone who, if it weren't for the fact I'm currently kinda a ghost, would have saved you from him, just what the hell was all that about!?" he shouted back at her, and she picked up another pillow.
"You are asking me, I don't even know who you are! Why are you a ghost!?" she threw the pillow at him again, and like the first it just passed through him and hit the door.
"You heard my name, what do you not know who I am?" he asked sarcastically, and she just threw a third pillow at him, to no effect.
"No! I have no idea what any of that was about! What the hell is Chaldea, what the hell are Saint Quartz, why the heck was my dad laughing like a maniac because of what you had me tell him!" she shouted at him again, grabbing the last pillow as he continued shouting at her.
"I don't know why your dad was going crazy, and wait what?" he processed words about Chaldea as the pillow flew through his head. "Pause, time out, you have, no idea, what Chaldea is, Nothing about, anything your dad was saying."
"No! No I don't! And now I have your stupid voice stuck in my head you dolt! Stop shouting!" she shouted at him… Oh she couldn't actually hear him, what he was trying to say was transmitting over the Master-Servant link… oh… oops.
"Ok, ok, I'll be quiet but… you really know nothing? Not even a bedtime story? Myth, legend? Anything?" he asked quietly and Weiss just crossed her arms and turned away from him haughtily.
"No, and why should I," she said to him, and he just rubbed the back of his head, and decided to finally drop his wooden sword, which just vanished before it even hit the ground.
"Well uh… that's kinda hard to explain… I've kinda been dead for over… ehe… about thirty-nine thousand and five hundred-ish years?" he said, giving a rather rough estimate of about how long it had been since he'd originally died… sheesh stealing a horse and trying to attack a naked Roland really, really felt miniscule now in the grand scheme of things.
"Thirty-nine thousand… What! That's absolutely insane," she complained, and he just sat on the floor, actually he sat on one of the pillows, not that it did anything really.
"Hey, when you got nothing better to do but wait in the afterlife for a friend to return with nothing but a couple of other heroes ,and a guy who's literally holding the afterlife together on his own Ego, determination and willpower, as company, all you can really do is wait and count how long its been. Trust me, if you're dad is gonna go looking for Chaldea, chances of him finding anything is pretty much nil." Mandricardio complained. Gilgamesh really was just holding the throne together off what Mashu had called it 'spit and duct tape'... and Ego, a lot of Ego and willpower. Mostly Ego he was sure. Actually sticking along for the ride this long was a serious test of will. It wasn't that others were determined, many others were determined people trying to wait it out to join in on the day Gudao returned… but a moment's lapse, a bit of doubt, any doubt at all, and off into the void you went on such a fragile throne. Everyone left was literally there on the sheer, unbridled hope that Gudao's return was coming. Eventually.
"Wait what?" Weiss asked, really confused, and he just waved her off.
"Not actually important, but point is, I've been dead for a long ass time, I still am, and now I'm a ghost rather than a formless spirit, simple?" he explained… and she nodded slowly. "Ok good, that covers that problem, problem number two… uh… "So what the hell was your dad on about 'rescinding his kindness?'" he asked, making 'air quotes' gestures for her, and she huffed, crossing her arms again.
"I wanted to go to certain school, my father did not want me too, so he gave me a test, said if I passed I could go. And I passed," she said, as if it was a matter of fact… it was at that point he noticed the pretty little scar over her eye, rather fresh, actually… he had a very good guess where that had come from now, but not his business.
"So… uh…" he rubbed the back of his head. "Hi, I guess?" oh this was awkward.
"Hi," she muttered, and turned away from him. "Get off of my pillows," she said, and he just sighed and got up.
"Since you don't know, I'll try and explain it before you call me a perv or something. I'm bound to you now, so I can't really, leave. I mean I could probably turn invisible, hang on," he paused, and concentrated, and when the girl turned to look at him to ask a question about his words, she clearly couldn't see him, given she started looking around. "Ok so that still works. Point being, I'm your Servant, and you're the Master. I'll follow your orders however I can… which is much less than I normally could, given the lack of a body, but hey, I'll try. It's good to meet you. My name is Mandricardio, Servant Rider… what's your name?"
She walked over to her pillows as he left through the door, deciding to just… stay out in the hallway invisible for now as she spoke. "Weiss Schnee. Remember it," she said, and he smiled as he 'leaned' against the wall before closing whatever passed for his eyes… this was gonna be interesting…
AN: For those who saw last chapter's cliffhanger, which was quite a lot of you evidently, here's the payoff already. Mysteries arise, Weiss is still a Tsundere, Mandricardio is very confused, and this chapter is rather short. But, thankfully, it's the final chapter for the very first day… yes, Everything from Nightingale 2 to this Chapter have all taken place on the same day, starting from the morning in Nightingale 2 and ? (Cu Chulainn), and ending here in Mandricardio. Busy night indeed. And we technically haven't even finished Episode 1 of RWBY yet! The Semester hasn't started! But enough about that, its good to see and hear all of your support, and I hope to see more of it. I've been on a bit of a roll with The Pledge lately, so expect more of it as well. But I hope to hear what you all have to say. Take care everyone!