"Entre-vous!" Polis Telgrim cheerfully called out, and Ms Sarah entered again, carrying a clipboard and a furtive look.
The coordinator of America's emergency provisional government was a slick fellow; lean, tall, and athletic, who seemed immaculately dressed in his striped shirt, solid black vest and tailored pants, while his blazer hung from a hook along one wall. Of course, he had a handsomeness to him too, with his sleek black hair and measured gaze from under his glasses, all of which gave him an air of cleverness, as he sat, half hunched over his desk, one arm propping his head up as he stared at the wooden board half covered with black and white stones.
Go was a game of intelligence, and only the truly intelligent knew how to play. It was a game of cunning and foresight, rather than cheap pattern recognition like in Chess. Mastering Go meant being able to manipulate both the battlefield and your opponent to create maximum benefits. It was a perfect game for him, save for that ugly Asian name. 'Go', whatever the hell that meant. Far East goobledy-gook. When he had time, he would make sure to rename the game into something more respectable.
It was this posture that Telgrim's assistant found him in, and with pursed lips, she resignedly reported:
"There's been an unexpected development."
"Don't get dramatic on me, Sarah. Tell me," Polis said, before he set a black stone down.
"The task force you sent to neutralise the woman and her accomplices has been annihilated."
That got him to look up from his game. "...Annihilated?"
"Yes. We're still piecing together the events, but it appears the task force succeeded in eliminating a local radical group, but were in turn slaughtered by… something."
Sarah removed a stack of photographs from her clipboard to hand to her leader, "These are from the preliminary investigation."
Telgrim thumbed through the various images of the dead and the destroyed, while his subordinate continued speaking.
"The girl matching the description of your APB was reported being at the scene, but we haven't found her body. It's likely she survived."
"It appears that way… and this damage… this circle…" Telgrim whispered harshly, standing up as he stared at a photo showing a pattern on a basement floor. "Of course, she managed to live long enough to summon a Servant."
Sarah was never quite sure why Telgrim used different terms at different times when he spoke of the same things, but she knew he was referring to the familiars the Security Bureau used, such as the giantess. Speaking of which…
"If she's armed with such, we can send out your own, sir?"
"That'll be up to me," Telgrim countered, before sitting down heavily. He put both hands on his desk, reasserting his grip on the world. "Using Berserker right now is the wrong course of action and will send the wrong message. She'll break half the city looking for our fugitive. No - send out the Special Team with the lesser familiars and their support vehicle. The girl only has one Servant, no matter how good it is. I'll bury her in numbers."
A Servant.
A veneration of a human being, coated in the amber of history and set upon a throne outside time and space. Never aging, always peaking. A bright light so awe-inspiring and incomprehensible that their return to the physical plane could only be allowed by pouring a fragment of their being into one of seven containers.
O had the fealty of such a being, who could tear men apart with her strength alone, leap great distances, and command water, not even speaking of whatever other skills had been appended to her class.
This was a figure of legend.
And O's first order was to help bandage her wounds. It was laughable.
"Ah, it's no big deal, Master," her Saber remarked candidly, as she circled clean strips of cloth around the wounds around O's legs, as the latter sat, her one arm hiking up the skirt so that her slashed white legs were exposed. "I'm a veteran, so I've done my part in the past patching up brothers-in-arms when the fighting is done. All hands on deck, right?"
"It's a sorry start, all the same," O said, somewhere between observing and apologetic.
Obviously, the two had run for it after Saber's summoning. In a strange bout of inspiration, O directed them to the edge of the city, where the nearby storm wall raged. The once posh department store they were holing up in was probably quite a sight in the day. The ground floor had a sumptuous grand staircase that served as an appetiser for the rest of a shopper's experience, with every floor onward dedicated to all sorts of upper class commodities. Several floors upwards were dedicated showrooms full of dressed mannequins, another full of trinkets, and a top-floor restaurant.
Of course, now it was pried free of nearly everything of value. The oak furnishings had been pulled from the walls and bannisters, the mannequins stripped naked, all the furniture carried away, the food and the cutlery taken… even the children's section lay empty, an implication that bothered O to a degree.
Ordinarily, the deserted building would have had its very air flooded with dust, making breathing an exercise in agonizing asphyxiation, but one floor had doubled as a jewellery store. Some gems had been taken, but common sense had won out at some point in the past, and the looters who descended upon the building understood that the end of the world paid no value to pretty baubles.
Filling a diamond with prana made it a quick and dirty core of a bounded field that pushed out all the dust in the air, letting her breathe easy for a little while. Doubtless the thing would crumble in a matter of hours, given how badly tuned it was, but O knew this wasn't the time to complain about quality.
The magus herself had to spend several minutes on a dusty counter, her bleeding legs dangling to avoid rubbing her wounds on anything, while her Saber astralised and snuck out in order to return with a case full of medical supplies.
While the Saber bandaged her Master, the two traded information, as much as they were willing to give.
"So, you've called me to some foreign country, except it's been squished all tiny like so it's no bigger than Kyoto, and it's still shrinking unless you can find something that belongs to the local head, huh? He's an ass, right?"
"You killed his men, if that's any metric you can work with," O grunted as her Saber cinched the last bandage tight, before pacing off, fingers wrapped around her chin.
"Well, I'm no stranger to dealing with the aggressor, though all said, it's a bit strange for me to be the big fish. I'm more used to being picked on and winning against the odds, but here, I just totally wiped out all the ashigaru…"
"Don't worry, our enemy also has a Servant. She's quite formidable looking, if it will make you feel better," O dryly replied, though it was enough to return an assuring thumbs up from her Saber. She was getting a sense of what sort of person the swordswoman was, despite the brutal slaughter she had carried out.
Really, at this point, O was cataloguing every detail her Servant was giving away, in order to work towards an educated guess about the Saber's true identity. Partnerships with Servants were tenuous things. Having Command Spells was in itself implicit proof that an all-powerful legend made flesh wasn't necessarily going to be in the mood to listen to some pissant human ordering him or her around. She remembered… she remembered someone periodically regaling her with stories of his own association with a Caster-class Servant, as well as examples of other participants in a war. Sometimes it worked, and many times it didn't.
A Servant's identity was a powerful weapon, in the right cases. For the right type of paranoiac magus (that is, the successful ones), it was the basis of an insurance policy, in case the Servant wasn't being too agreeable. This was something a Servant would know, too. All O could do for now as try and learn what she could about her Saber.
That she likely hailed from Japan, that she seemed to have experience with warfare, that she was a skilled fighter, that she could manipulate water…
"Your hair."
"Hm?" Her Saber hummed, and turned to look at her summoner.
O spied the strips of blue that mixed with the greater black locks. "Do you have divinity?"
"Ah, this?" Saber laughed, and rubbed her pony tail in emphasis. "What do you think it means?"
"Usually, it's a sign that a Servant's lineage includes a god," O cautiously suggested. Saber just chuckled at that.
"That'd be nice, but naw. Still, you probably worked out I'm from Japan, right? It shouldn't be too hard to figure out the source of my sanctity."
"I see." O hoped the question was a playful challenge, rather than backtalk. Fair was fair, though, it was perhaps too soon to ask those sorts of questions. So O simply put it to the side, candidly asking, "And you weren't historically recorded as a man, correct?"
Saber nodded in understanding. "Oh, yeah - that does seem to happen a lot, doesn't it? Well, no worries, they certainly didn't make that one where I was concerned!"
"Well that's a relief," O smirked. "I'll need some help getting changed out of these rags," she said, gesturing towards her skirt and jacket. Both were covered in various tears from the explosion earlier. Given she was essentially a fugitive now, it was best she found something that didn't exclaim 'had been in battle for survival'.
"Lucky you, I saw something in a backroom when I was zipping around here," Saber said with her own grin, as she pointed a thumb backwards over her shoulder. "Looks like it got overlooked."
Hotel Lotus wasn't quite a hotel anymore, though its service kept acting like it was. In that way that was endemic to society, it was a congregating place for those who were once incredibly wealthy and currently still as abjectly useless in function as they were before they were trapped in this strange America. Here, they hid, eating assorted bird livers and drinking bubbly alcohol, while hoping they were still important people.
The illusion of prestige was still strong, though. The obscurity of the building helped keep the lobby clear for the most part, and free to be occupied by just a few wicker chairs and low tables, while white marble floors and columns kept the place bright and airy, so long as one did not look out the window.
Behind the hotel's front desk was a man named Harold Farrington, a decently groomed young man with a relatively clean maroon uniform. His duties as concierge were technically functional, but really were more vestigial these days. Most days, the hotel's residents rarely ventured down to the lobby, remaining holed up in their rooms or the service rooms peppered around the place. Farrington, Lotus's front yard guard dog, hence had little else to do than listen to the radio, and the government blathering on about how nice they were.
Since yesterday, the airwaves had gone nonstop about a major insurgency that had been put down. There had been survivors, however, who were armed and extremely dangerous. Some chinawoman and a hag, given the way the only identifying mark given was her hair colour. It honestly sounded like something out of a pulp rag - "Baba Yaga and her Yellow Devil". Of course, the odds of a bad magazine being in the Lotus was next to nothing, not even speaking of runaway revolutionaries. So it was that Harold Farrington paid little attention otherwise to such reports, and remained bored of his job. Still, for a roof and a seat at the hotel kitchen, standing around, being bored was worth it.
Even if no one came. Though oddly enough, a new body sauntered onto the disused steps of the hotel.
"I need accomodations," She simply said, and it was enough to get Farrington almost slipping in his chair before rising up, to drink in this rare sight. As a lone man in a marble sea, a human face was welcome, and a pretty one moreso.
Her black skirt and boots were highlighted by a red belt that had a tail dangling off her hip like a rope, and she wore a white shirt that was subtly highlighted by gold piping, though it was all swamped by a great coat that didn't quite hang off her body properly. It was a shame. With the right coat, it really would have showed her off properly instead of all but hiding her frame. Still, it played off her white white-brimmed hat that she had piled all her hair underneath. It really showed off her neck. All told, her clothes were a strange combination of expensive, yet outdated, in a way that provided maximum comfort and little notice. She looked for all the world like a delusional princess trying to hold onto her dignity.
Of course, it wasn't like Farrington was ogling. He was being a respectable concierge and making proper eye contact. Yes.
"O-Oh, absolutely," he stammered, and pushed over a record book. The woman leaned over, reached out a slinky arm and put down her name.
Heloise D'arcy Beaumont. What a name.
"W-well, if you have any luggage, I can call for someone to carry it? I mean, not that many people these days have much…"
"I'll carry it myself," Beaumont said, and raised a sack, barely bigger than a purse. It was a sad bag, but he couldn't blame her for finding her way here with little.
"Just one other thing, I'll need some collateral for your stay."
The woman's brows narrowed, and her lips pursed in this fascinating way. "Is that so?"
"Money's becoming less useful, but our hotel accepts contributions of food and drink, of a certain quality, so…"
"It's no problem," Beaumont simply said.
"What do you mean?" Farrington asked. His paranoia began acting up, as he wondered if the woman was going to draw a gun on him, like something out of a detective novel. But those worries passed the moment he found himself falling into her yellow eyes.
"There's been arrangements," She insisted, and Farrington knew she had to have been correct.
"Truly."
"There's been arrangements," She repeated. "Just let me in as a guest, and look after my needs. It will be alright."
"If you say so," the concierge agreed, and swallowed to keep his rising fascination at bay. "I'll show you to your room, then. We still have some wonderful suites available to our finest guests."
O fell back onto the bed in her suite and felt her back scream in a combination of agony and relief. The paranoia of being observed, whether by the Security Bureau or perhaps by some local would-be mugger had dogged her, but the rich clothing was all available, and it gave her enough of a disguise to let her approach the first well-to-do establishment she had stumbled across.
For now, she was making a lunge towards the city's hypothetical centre, and the Empire State Building was more a monolith now, rather than a curiously tall rectangle on the horizon.
O turned her head to look across the satin sheets, out the glass doors to the balcony, over the railing overlooking the open central courtyard, the soiree below, and onwards to that tower that was her objective.
"Bwuh-bleh? What is this? It's gross!"
O pushed herself up to sit cross legged and saw her Saber reel back from a bottle she had taken a swig from, which was part of the meal O had ordered sent up. The label was expensive and had been still in operation in the year 2016 (what did that even mean?).
"Fermented grapes, with a gas added to it. It's a prestigious sort of alcohol from Europe," the magus explained, as she watched her Servant walk about. It seemed she was the sort to fidget with her whole body. Staying astralised must have been an annoyance.
"It's official. You Westerners are weird," Saber said, face scrunched as she held up the bottle and read the French. "Sake is clear and straightforward, but apparently you people drink liquid burps or something."
"You'll have to make do."
Saber chortled in a combination of amusement and resignation, and slid into a chair, while kicking up her feet on a glass table in the large room and pulling her sword free to let it stand against the arm rest.
"So, what's our next move?"
"I'm not entirely sure," O admitted, but nodded her head out the window. "But sooner or later, you'll have to fight her, I think."
Saber followed her master's gaze and saw the shape of a gigantic girl patrol the streets of the city from between two buildings before she went out of view. She whistled.
"Not that I'm scared of her, but it would be bad tactics to match brute force with that, especially since I'm a Saber. Finesse can't match up against raw strength all the time - especially when that strength can flatten a city. To be honest, I think I would make a better Rider or Caster in retrospect. Not that I'm a wimp with a sword, but you don't sink a ship with an oar."
"Fair enough," O accepted. At this point, she was running blind. She suspected that someone of her pedigree would have been railing at taking suggestions from a 'mere' summon, but all the girl knew was that Saber was a seasoned warrior.
"I honestly think she's using her Noble Phantasm all the time," Saber added, "And well, unless you want me to suck you dry..."
"What do you want, then?" She asked instead.
"If we're going to be fighting that big thing, I'd probably want to team up with as many other Servants as possible. Splitting its attention is going to keep us more alive in the long run."
O frowned in thought. "You're not expecting me to summon another Servant, are you? There's a reason why Masters rarely maintain more than one."
Saber's own eyebrow quirked, "Really? But I'm not holding back on my link, and you're certainly not feeling bothered by it. You should have plenty of power to spare."
The silver haired girl blinked, surprised. Saber hadn't been holding back? But even after the two spells she had cast… she still wasn't feeling any encroaching exhaustion, or the burning of circuits being taxed.
"I'll… consider it," O quickly excused, pretending that her sudden thought about a second Servant was all that had been on her mind.
"You could always kill that Servant's master," Saber suggested. "Of course, whether we can get around her, plus storm the castle at the same time…"
"It's not something we can do with just the two of us. We'll need more help just to handle the fake government's army."
"Who do we ask, though?" Saber pondered aloud, more to feed O's train of thought than anything, and the magus eventually came upon one idea.
"The insurgents at the warehouse we left learned about Servants from an underground figure, someone called The Spider."
"'Ruling from the centre of his web of power'!" Saber laughed. "So inventive."
"Truly," O agreed. "If he - or she, I suppose - is willing to take something stolen from Polis Telgrim and sell it to his enemies, we might find common ground with them."
"If you can find them, though."
"We'll have to start somewhere. We're in a hotel full of rich and bored people. Someone might talk," O said, before falling back onto her bed and closing her eyes. "For now, I'll hope I can at least have six hours to not think about anything. Saber, turn off the lights."
The Japanese girl rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"
"I'm flesh and blood. Please attend to my mortal needs. Why, I could die in my sleep without enough rest."
"Fine, but bet that this will blow up in your face later," Saber sniffed, and looked for the switches for the lamps.
"Master!"
Saber screamed into O's ear, jolting the magus awake at the same time the darkness of the room was pierced by a shaft of light emanating from the front door being kicked in.
Though her senses and awareness were not entirely roused, O still managed to roll off the bed, and conveniently into Saber's arms. A complaint on the bridal carry, as she wasn't exactly a damsel in distress, only wound up sliding down her throat as O was swung about so that Saber could sprint for the open balcony doors.
Over her Servant's shoulder, O saw a misty, shadowy caricature of a man storm into the room, and raise a rifle at the escaping pair.
"Damn it," O swore.
She probably had only managed three hours at this point.
