A/N: Alright, the last chapter was definitely longer than I wanted, so I'll be moving toward shorter chapters regardless, I think. In the previous chapter, I made a mistake when I forgot that UEG uses credits rather than proper paper cash. Whoops. I'll probably fix that whenever I get on the next revision cycle. Also, looking retrospectively, I found the last chapter a bit too jumpy for my comfort. So uh, let's do less of that here. Remember that October 20th is Shirou Day, be there or be square.

Drago - X6627 - Yeah, that's actually fair. Tbh I always liked adding the side stories for depth.

teckbears1 - Oh crap, I didn't actually notice that mistake. Yes, I meant Alaya, but I'll fix that later.

Guest - Indeed, they seem to have landed themselves in quite a predicament.

Anon - Mmm. I have to say that it's certainly an exciting idea… If my schedule gets less hellish, I may consider adding such additional writing projects.

Darth Kyuubi kurama - Don't worry; I do plan on doing so even despite the workload I have at the moment. I somehow find a way to finish it at some point, and I still have plenty of ideas for where I want to take this story.

Avarth - Definitely, there is a fun time trying to balance the power between Fate and Halo, which is also why I am generally conservative with more advanced magics (as opposed to shared perception and minor usages of Excalibur, Time Alter, and Tracing.) Also comes with the added bonus of balancing out people more accustomed to Fate and people more used to Halo. Though, the demographics probably lean toward Fate fans more than Halo fans. Given how I write this, there is a natural tendency to focus on the Fate cast rather than the Halo side. Probably more Halo-centric stuff will happen once they reach the age they become Spartans and definitely by the time the Covenant arrives.

Regarding Naomi-010, I'll admit that I was thinking more about Daisy-023, but I was also aware of Naomi's situation. As for your concern about your reviews possibly being a bother, they really aren't, and it definitely is fun for me to address most reviews. So don't worry about it.

Here's the legal stuff: I don't own Halo, or the Fate/stay night franchise.


The Mage

1835 Hours, December 11, 2517 (Military Calendar) / Reach

Why here? Of all places? Shirou wondered why. They had walked into a bounded field. It seemed so poorly set up, nothing like the one set up around the Emiya residence or the Bloodfort Andromeda that Rider had set up around Homurahara...

Shirou thought that it might have been because they were tired. Their senses are less finely attuned to their own physical surroundings and even less to the world of magic. In this sense, it was a perfect recipe to bump into something they didn't expect.

A pregnant pause enveloped the group as they stood frozen, trying to figure out what the most optimal path to proceed was now. Shirou felt a few beads of sweat form and descend his face, with a few even making it into his eyes. Forcing the Magus to wipe off the sweat with his arm. Turning around, he faced his three compatriots.

He looked into Saber's dazzling eyes, into Rin's eyes that communicated her true thoughts more than her mouth from time to time, into Illya's that masked a great degree of pain, something that he had learned during his travels with his sister.

"What now?"

Rin bit her lip and sighed, "Well, they must know we're here now. Any competent Magus would know…."

Shirou gave the nod; the logic was sound. Their options were running away or staying here for the Mage to come to them. Shirou wanted to run away, but he knew they needed some form of help. Help would buy them at least a few days to recuperate from their escape.

"Shirou," Artoria looked at him with concern, "I suggest we wait. Wait for them to come to us. Conserve our energy so that we may use it if we resort to a fight," she added sagely, experience with rationing resources was certainly she was skilled with, though Shirou swore that he heard someone's stomach growl right after she finished her statement.

So here they stood, in the middle of the archway in the dead of night on the planet, Reach. It was quiet tonight, for the far-distant future, this is not what they had expected it to look like. To some extent, Shirou believed that the cities of the future were ones that never truly slept. That was true, and they could undoubtedly see vehicles pass by every once in a while, but it still was quite jarring.

They all tensed as a doorknob positioned on a nearby door began to complain of being used in the dead of light. Artoria pulled out her baseball bat, which she had found somewhere while they were on the run. She held it close, preparing to whack whoever dared cross her. Shirou prepared himself for the worst as a door to their immediate left opened to reveal the dwelling of whomever they had just trespassed.

If Shirou was expecting an upper-class Mage that resembled the likes of Luviagelita Edelfelt, he felt severely disappointed, as instead, they seemed to come across what looked like a deadbeat dad wearing a wifebeater and looked as if he hadn't adequately shaved in quite a long time.

The greasy man seemed to have sagged over his eyes, but Shirou didn't blame him; it was late at night, "Kids, Halloween was two months ago. There are no treats here," he deadpanned. It made Shirou wonder if they actually hadn't alerted anyone at all and that they had just encountered a beer belly that had been throwing out his empty bottles.

Illya tried to take the lead by smiling at the man, but Rin rested her finger on Illya's lips, silently instructing her to keep the silence. It was a critical moment, but everyone in the group silently acquiesced to Rin's handling of the situation.

"Hello, mister, we came here because there's a strange air around here–" started Rin, giving him a bit of a knowing smile, "I'm sure you know something about it–"

"Air?"

"She means Prana, silly," Illya decided to interrupt. They didn't have time to play cat and mouse with information, which was probably what his sister was imagining.

The man's eyes widened the size of saucer plates, seemingly now teaming with comprehension of whom the children actually were. Maybe the Bounded Field was more to deter the mundane than to keep other Mages out? After a few seconds, he glared at Illya and held his finger to his mouth, "I don't know what you're here for, but get in. You don't casually break the Concealment of Magecraft just like that."

As they hurried inside, Shirou swore he heard him mutter: "Fuckin' kids these days."

The house's interior seemed much like the house Rin used to live in. The interior seemed to be taken from the late twentieth century, with traditional wooden furniture and tables still littered around the department. Shirou walked around the hallway while the man seemingly rushed to the kitchen to grab something.

Hearing a faucet run in the background, he saw that some portraits of what seemed to be long-decreased Mages appeared to line the interior. Shirou thought he recognized a few faces but could not tell who they were. He had encountered many on his travels, but he didn't tend to remember most of their names unless they stood out in particular for him.

That was until Rin came across a portrait of a woman that looked all too familiar, "Hey, wait a minute! –"

Shirou approached Rin and took a look for himself. It was a woman who seemed to be in her mid-forties when the portrait was made? There wasn't really anything special about her by wizarding specials; she looked a little bit higher class than the man they had just met. A blue outfit screamed that it had been woven from the finest silk from the east.

Braided golden hair tied back by blue ribbons, much larger than the ones that Saber regularly wore in Fuyuki… A pair of brown eyes and a smirk communicated a haughtiness that seemed to be getting on Rin's nerves as she appeared to outwardly radiate anger that even Saber approached to ask what was wrong. Putting everything together, Shirou figured out who this mysterious figure was…

Oh.

Illya seemed to chuckle at Rin's misfortune of being unable to escape the ghosts of their past and, of all the spirits, a certain Finnish Mage. She turned to Shirou and leaned in his ear, "Shirou, I think we should give her some space."

Sounded like a great idea, so Shirou, Rin, and Saber decided that it would be a good idea to just head over to the living room, where their host seemed to set up some food. It smelled pretty good. Not as good as Sakura's or when Rin cooked Chinese, but it smelled good enough given their current situation.

Their host was already eating his food, his elbows squarely on the table, with his eyes, focused on the recent entrants, "So–" he scratched his chin and then his neck, "I didn't know that the Mage's Association was now employing children to communicate their messages."

"We're not from the Association, sir–" Artoria began.

"Bullshit," the man interjected, "I can count the number of Mages in New Alexandria on my two hands. I know each and every one of them. They would have all called ahead."

Illya silently used the mental link to communicate her general amusement; Maybe he should have noticed that his bounded field isn't exactly subtle, onii-chan.

Rin silently entered the room, seemingly done with whatever debacle she had with a still portrait from the twenty-first century. She took a seat and silently observed the current discussion.

Shirou jumped into the discussion, "So, that makes you the Second Owner of this city?" It wasn't an unreasonable leap in judgment; either this man was keeping track of all the Mages in the city, or he was just the Second Owner.

"Clever kid," he spread his arms to emphasize his statement, "You got me." He chuckled a bit to relieve some of the tension that had built up in the room, "Oh man, where are my manners?... My name is Willshtine Edelfelt Beroholm. Second Owner of New Alexandria, which means whenever the Root decides to do cosmic crap every five years, I'll be there to give the Clock Tower paperwork."

Shirou was going to be honest; this man was already a massive improvement over most of the Mages he had met. Deciding to reciprocate with the identity that his reincarnated self had acquired, "Rikuto Ryuudou."

The others soon followed with their own identities. With Saber starting first, "Alis Morgan."

"Asami Ryuudou," chirped Illya, pointing to Shirou, "He's my brother." Shirou groaned about his sister's annoying tendency to declare that whenever he met someone new.

Rin pointed to herself and eyed the man, "Akane Sayjou." Shirou wasn't sure if Rin had come up with the name just now or if she had indeed been given that name in this life.

He seemed to nod and reached down to his chair and seemingly pulled a tablet out of nowhere; Shirou was seriously wondering if the man was sitting on it. After a couple taps. He looked up from the tablet before muttering a swear word. After a few more moments, he gave a sigh. "It took me a while to figure out how you're supposed to spell that. One thing is for sure; you're not from the Association."

Narrowing his eyes, he gave each of them a glance, "What's your business here, then? It's not common for most families to return from the mundane."

"We need your help."


The Doctor

0800 Hours, December 12, 2517 (Military Calendar) / Reach

If you asked Doctor Catherine Halsey to list the worst incidents to occur to an ONI project, this would rank high on her list. Four Candidates escaped. She had expected casualties of the training, but escapes were less desirable for both the Office of Naval Intelligence and herself.

She was alone, so no one could see the expression of frustration on her face at the moment. Four children arranging an elaborate escape attempt in only a few months was impressive, to say the least. Ackerson definitely would not be allowed to catch wind of this. Lest she wished for her higher-ups at ONI to keep this program a failure and try to move to more ineffective or brutal methods.

She pursed her lips, overviewing the report handed over to her. The escape was rather well planned out. She first decided to overview the flight itself. The investigative team had been somewhat puzzled for the first few days until one of the lower officers uncovered a tunnel underneath a tile in the floor. Looking at the photographed evidence, that tunnel must have been dug almost religiously for months. How had they not noticed?

Her questions continued to rise as she moved on to the following picture, which revealed that a sewage pipe that had led to the outside had been breached. A tunnel exit lined up almost perfectly with one of the areas where the pipe was exposed. No doubt, they managed to break through the metal casing of the tube and crawled outside toward the river. All without being noticed at all…

She then remembered the weather conditions present on that day, "Clever… choosing a day at which we would be least able to pursue you and detect your escape…." She had to admit that it was a relatively well-devised plan.

She knew those four candidates were exceptional given their rather unique abilities, which she was told had amounted to better reflexes, durability, and strength than the average human. She admittedly knew less about the "Mages" than she found optimal. Nevertheless, the last thing she wanted to do was to have the Chaldean sub-division of ONI breathing down her neck.

Pushing away those thoughts, she turned toward the recent reports of the teams sent out to capture the trainees. Halsey was brilliant; she had put transponders into the very clothing of the trainees for tracking purposes. But it seemed all that led them to a dumpster in a back alley in New Miskolc.

Clever, yet again. But it seemed that the four were too smart for their own good. Halsey was lucky that credits were tracked meticulously. So it is quite a relief that the credits stolen from the adjacent store were followed to a High-Speed Rail station in the city. Team A had confirmed sightings of the quadruple but had managed to lose them.

No matter, they had thought. They would just intercept them at the train's destination in New Alexandria; getting audits of the transactions made with the credits wasn't hard. But something really did confound Halsey. They had also eluded an entire ONI team and disappeared off the train without any sightings. It was a disturbing predicament.

The scientific prodigy began trying to network her neurons to be investigative and speculative. Why might they move toward New Alexandria? Had they duped them all and simply boarded another train?

The answers suddenly became clear. The only way off for the children was realistically the space elevators and getting transported with bulk cargo, where it was unlikely they would be found upon inspection. New Alexandria was such a heart to Reach that they would least expect it. In a sense, it was almost too obvious of a location. Maybe they were banking on her sending more forces to guard the more minor space elevators in the smaller cities. No, the children were in New Alexandria…

This brought her the conundrum that they had managed to elude the ONI operatives sent after them three times. Halsey's headache suddenly began to abate. Clearly, this was already the groundwork for a very dynamic fireteam. A seamless level of integration that was enough to counter multiple operatives at this age was nothing short of miraculous.

There would be no punishment, so to speak, when they were eventually captured and brought back to base. Nothing was worthwhile for her to punish them excessively. Incentives and disincentives are how you play with people. Thinking independently and proactively was what she needed. It would have to be suitable for children as motivated as driving them to break out and go through every hoop. But she had time to think about it.

Halsey picked up the phone that stood on her desk. It had been worn away quite a bit due to all the slamming she had done when she kept hearing that the search teams were coming up empty. This time, she confidently picked it up and began dialing the number of a man that she knew and trusted.

"Harold?"

"Catherine, this better be important…"

"I'm requesting additional funding for a smaller facility for some of our more exceptional candidates."

"...granted."


Unknown Date / Unknown Location

"Are the materials ready?"

"Of course they are…."

"I was just checking, Anton. Getting discovered this late would be such a waste."

"Yep. Boss really is a smart cookie."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he's a young guy, but he's already being a pioneer in getting the message heard."

"That's fair. I don't think people really thought about delivering all the ordinance via a straight shot toward the second heart of the UEG."

"Honestly, I don't know how I feel about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in the old days, we used to kill UEG politicians and soldiers. Sometimes we even called ahead to the area where citizens should evacuate before we delivered the payload. Whatever happened to that?"

"It died with Colonel Payne, Anton."

"Yeah, but sometimes I can't even sleep with what we're all doing now… What happened to the virtuous freedom fighters fighting against a tyrannical government lightyears away?"

"That is why they died; they tried to have the cake and eat it. Wash their hands of responsibility and think that only killing the people on top would get something done. Just be glad that I'm handling the job, Anton. Goodnight."

"May God have mercy on your sou—"

[Connection Closed]