Fate/Broken Order
Chapter 1
-Inciting Incident-
⸨~ ~ʘ~Ω~Ʊ~Ӝ~Ʊ~Ω~ʘ~ ~⸩
It all came back into fore like mud. Thick and murky, making the present situation hard to parse through. The air smelled of ash and fire, mixed in with a sour scent of seared flesh and blood. There was sound, mixed together into an unclear cacophony.
Aldia could only blink to clear her unfocused vision. Lie there, among the rubble and flames, as her mind was catching up. Though, why that was necessary in the first place was something she though of.
Murky and muddled senses, seeing double, hard time discerning sounds. That spelled out concussion as the likeliest culprit. Something, somewhere down the line, must have struck her in the head really hard.
It came back steadily. The entry to the chamber where some of their number were meant to proceed with the Rayshift. The A-Team. Aldia was of the Reserve, as the lack of that unappealing plug suit indicated. Actually, she'd insisted on being on reserve just to avoid wearing one. She'd have to thank Olga for entertaining her obstinate request.
Thinking back, that just might have contributed to saving her life.
In a few precious seconds, before the explosions went off across the room, Aldia had gotten a brief window to prepare. Many Visions of Death had presented themselves, more than she'd ever perceived at once, her own included, making her hesitate for a precious moment. She was too far away, had too little time to do anything.
All she could do with her limited time was let out a curse as she strongly shove one other Master Candidate nearest to her away from the closest explosion, erasing her Vision of Death for the moment.
All the time she had left was used in a Reinforcement spell on her own body a split-second before everything went to hell. Obviously, she'd survived the explosions occurring but two meters from her position. But clearly not well enough, if her head was hit that badly.
Aldia, lying on her front, tried to get up but found great resistance as she instinctively winced. With curious nonchalance unfitting the current situation, she turned her head. Her left arm was trapped- crushed, more like -beneath heavy rubble.
An effort to move her fingers were useless. Any muscle, really. Blood pooled from beneath the rubble. The bones had been shattered all over its length. Her left arm was well and truly beyond saving.
"Shit!" Aldia cursed lowly through gritted teeth. That hit to the head must have broken her concentration just enough for her arm to get pulverized by the rubble after she fell.
Then she blinked. Or tried to. Something else felt... off. It took her a second to realize that her field of view seemed strange.
Her body strained from effort, not helped by her awkward position, as Aldia brought her still functional arm to the front so she could feel her face.
The issue became quite clear very quickly.
The reason she couldn't see anything from her right eye was because something was lodged deep in the socket. Felt like a sizable shard of glass.
"...Fuck me." This time the curse was more subdued, but still quite irate. The Mage's Association wasn't going to be happy to learn that a Mystic Eye had been lost, probably irrevocably.
Aldia didn't care about her Mystic Eyes of Death Prediction being damaged personally, but she certainly wasn't looking forward to the Association being up her ass at the loss of something so valuable.
With them 'I got caught in an explosion' was not an acceptable excuse, for some god damn reason. As if they expected her to be beyond such a "mistake".
It was almost like knowing that Death was coming, seeing it a few seconds before it occurred, was not the same as being able to 100% do something about it. Pretentious assholes.
At least she still had one. Being blind would suck.
She let her magic circuits in her right arm activate as she took hold of the shard of glass with her Reinforced hand and in a single solid pull ripped it out with merely a wince. Conventional wisdom told to not just yank stuff out of your body, and she already felt blood begin to flow down her face, but leaving the shard there would just make things harder later.
She focused some mana to the gaping wound in her face to stymie the bleeding and do some accelerated healing, just enough to not be in any more danger of bleeding out as she would be in a bit.
Her arm was uselessly broken, and trapped under rubble. Her position was too awkward to move the heavy rubble by force, so that left a singe, uncomfortable option to free herself.
Again, Aldia let her circuits flare into action throughout her body as she reinforced her form. Except one part in particular.
And then, in full knowledge what she was about to do was beyond reckless, she started pulling.
Aldia angled her body away from her broken limb and focused the weight of the rest of her body to serve as leverage. Even as her face strained under pain that actually properly registered as such for once, she couldn't stop thinking how much easier this would be with something to hold on to as an anchor.
Still, second by second, she heard the useless muscles audibly strain, heard her shoulder pop out of its socket, and eventually the sound of wet tearing as her flesh started to rip under the constant, increasing pressure.
As sweat trailed down her brow, with one final pull that caused the fabric of her uniform to tear apart she released a brief scream through gritted teeth. Aldia finally rolled over, ripping her left arm messily from her torso.
Her breath came out haggard and heavy. Even Aldia, with her frankly ludicrous tolerance for pain, reeled from the agony. Just for a second. She didn't have the luxury to suffer. Not yet.
Shakily, but certainly, Aldia forced herself to her feet(pointedly ignoring the new pool of blood starting to form under her), and witnessed the totality of the destruction. Broken coffins, some probably with bodies(alive or dead) inside of them, rubble much like what she forcibly freed herself from, and fire. So much fire. The entire room was colored by it.
Fire... she could use that.
She could try to stop the major bleeding from her now empty shoulder with mana, same as her eye, but it would take too long and be too costly in short term. So she had to be a bit more conventional. For a given degree of the word, anyway.
It was not hard to find a spot of exposed metal near a particularly strong fire. Aldia stumbled her way to it, ignoring the intense heat, and gave it a light touch with the back of her hand, recoiling instantly. The metal was burning hot.
"Perfect," Aldia remarked breathlessly, as she prepared to do the third stupid thing she'd done within the minute.
She aligned her side properly, and pushed the remains of her shoulder against the searing hot metal. Once more, the pain registered, forcing Aldia to grit her teeth to avoid screaming out loud as her flesh sizzled against the metal surface.
'Don't get lost in it!' Aldia reminded herself, forcing her focus away from the searing, continuous agony. Leaving the wound in contact too long was even worse than what she was after. In a few more second, she forcefully pulled away. Some flesh was left behind, sticking to the metal. The acrid smell was unpleasant.
Getting her now ragged breathing under control, Aldia tenderly felt the remains of her shoulder. Based on just feeling, she deemed the emergency cauterization adequate. She surged some mana to the area for some auxiliary healing so it wouldn't accidentally kill her anyway.
Dr. Archaman would certainly lay into her for this later, but Aldia wasn't too concerned with the man's probably correct medical opinion at the moment.
At least she wasn't about to drop dead. Then again, her window into predicting Death was usually short, only a time-frame of a couple seconds, so there was still time to be unpleasantly surprised.
Something trying to kill her? She could stop that. Bleeding out and succumbing to her injuries? Less in her control.
"Focus," she reprimanded herself for getting sidetracked. She tried to think, remember. Where she was. Where she had pushed the other Master Candidate.
"Should be around," her eyes surveyed the area, "there!"
Stumbling onward, it wasn't too hard to find them. A girl, probably younger than Aldia by a few years. Teenager, maybe? Red hair tied to a side-tail and dressed in the female uniform Chaldea provided. Aldia still obstinately stood by her choice to wear pants rather than a skirt.
Did she have a name? Probably, but Aldia hadn't cared to learn it. She faintly recalled a single attempt at forced conversation the girl initiated, but Aldia wasn't in the mood to reciprocate.
'What was her number?' Aldia thought to remember at least that much. 'Was she in the thirties? Forties? Was she one of the ten civvies? No, probably not. She didn't have that confounded look in her eyes.'
Seems she couldn't recall even that. Well, not like it was that important.
Her condition, on the other hand...
Aldia knelt and checked the girl's pulse. It was weak, but she was definitely alive. For now. She also seemed to be breathing lightly. That was promising.
What was less so was the rubble burying her lower body from waist down. Much like her arm had been. That was... probably not good.
Her mind was showing signs of exhaustion, compounded by the harm she'd subjected to herself. So parsing information as it came was a bit hard. The intercom was spewing some automated phrases, but in the moment she had trouble computing the meanings in them. Probably emergency jargon, because something certainly had gone to hell.
From the corner of her vision she saw movement as her hearing registered yelling.
She shook her head to clear the film of incomprehension that was starting to form.
'Focus!' she ordered herself. 'Now is not the time to lose coherency!'
Turning her head, Aldia met eyes with a young man. Dark brown hair, a kind of a clueless look in his alarmed blue eyes.
'Ah,' she thought. This one she did recall. The one tossed out of the meeting for not paying attention. That must have saved him from all this madness.
Her exhaustion showed once more when it took her a moment to realize the boy had spoken.
"H-hey, are you okay?!"
Aldia wanted to smack the kid upside the head, just a bit, for asking such a stupid question.
Instead, she said, "I'll live." The 'probably' was better left unsaid.
Aldia straightened up, now very aware that she dwarfed the young man in height, as she did most people. Unusually for her, the boy showed no reaction to her size, instead focusing on the half-buried girl on the floor.
"Is... is she..." he moved to help but Aldia grabbed him firmly by the shoulder.
"I'll handle it," she stated as evenly as her condition allowed. "Look for others, some wouldn't have died instantly!"
She would know. She saw the certainty of their Deaths before they had any clue anything was wrong. The rest? That was a vain hope, considering how she herself had ended up. But it was something.
"R...Right!" The boy took her order with a determined look and ran off to look elsewhere. At least he didn't seem to give into panic.
'Good kid.'
Focusing back on the other fellow survivor, Aldia prepared herself. Her circuits once more flared into life, empowered by her family Crest. Coordination would be a bit weird without depth perception, not to mention the discomforting blind spot on her right side, but she had to just deal with it.
Now in a much better position, removing the rubble wouldn't be as much of a challenge. Her body Reinforced, she grabbed onto the largest piece. Its surface was hot, but nowhere near what the metal had been. She could deal with that.
Mana surged through the muscles of her arm, as she hefted and tossed the piece of rubble aside as if it was tenth its size. The same was promptly replicated the next piece, and the one after that. Casually showing strength, even with her considerable size, should not be capable of.
Many Magus families thought little of Reinforcement. It was a difficult utilization of magic most considered wasteful to invest in due to how physical it was. Aldia's family disagreed on that notion. It was the only thing Aldia could agree with when they were concerned.
It would have been faster with both arms. Granted, slow and steady was good too. Any hasty mistake might be a bit too dangerous for the girl she was ostensibly trying to save.
Once things were cleared enough, Aldia dared to pull the girl out. The first thing that caught her eye was not promising. Her legs looked really beat up, her black stocking ripped up enough to show heavy bruising. Nothing was pointing the wrong way, small mercy, but she was definitely injured.
Then finally her mind cleared enough to acknowledge the blaring intercom.
Coffin Vitals: Masters Baseline not reached.
Rayshift requirement not met.
Upon finally letting the automated message sink in, Aldia could only look around the flaming wreckage. 'No shit.'
Searching for qualifying Master... 3 Found.
'Wait, what?' The heavily injured Magus could only balk. Just three? And the ginger girl counted, in her condition? Aldia counted in her condition?!
Candidate No. 13, Vivaldia von Grimm reset as Master.
Aldia grimaced at the system using her full name.
"Hrm...Wha...Where..."
The disfigured magus blinked, looking down at the young woman as she began to rouse.
Candidate No. 31, Gillian Kelley reset as Master.
Candidate No. 48, Ritsuka Fujimaru reset as Master.
'Well, at least I have the names for those two,' Aldia allowed herself to muse. '...which one's which though?'
Unsummon Program, start.
"...Come again?" Aldia uttered in slight shock, convinced she had to have misheard.
Spiritron Conversion, start.
...
The system was still about to Rayshift them? Under these circumstances?!
'...Oh no.'
Aldia barely could let out a curse before her very being was broken down to her very components of her soul as she was jettisoned into the past.
⸨~ ~ʘ~Ω~Ʊ~Ӝ~Ʊ~Ω~ʘ~ ~⸩
"GAH!"
Upon manifesting physically, it went to figure that of course she would appear a good five meters in the air. Normally, she would be able to right herself and land with a semblance of grace.
Unfortunately, she was down the weight of an entire limb, so her ability to compensate for her lost mass was utterly shot. To add insult to the literal injury, when she gracelessly struck the earth it was straight on her hastily cauterized shoulder.
Aldia truly hated her utterly accursed luck.
Biting down the pain spearing through her mangled side, Aldia slowly forced herself to her feet, having to just hope that impact hadn't made her wound worse.
What she first saw of her surroundings was fire. Again. On a city-wide scale this time, so points for variety.
"So... this is Fuyuki, huh?" She asked the air just to confirm to herself she could. Her breathing was heavy and labored, no small part due to the absolute torture she had subjected herself to in order to free herself and then not die from that very process.
…In hindsight, she probably would have been Rayshifted even if she just stayed put.
"Fuck." The subdued curse left her lips with habitual ease.
Oh well. Her arm would have been as useless regardless. Live and learn.
"Now, focus!" The reprimand helped her focus back on the situation. "Okay, first need to get in contact with Chaldea."
She raised her communicator bracelet- oh wait that arm was gone...
Aldia had to swallow down the urge to let loose a list of unsavory words. Instead she just let her breath hiss through her teeth.
'Right, so communication is out. Fantastic,' she groused internally. But still, she had to focus on her priorities "Need to find the other two."
Easier said than done. Considering the situation, they had to have been Rayshifted into different locations because this was not protocol. Aldia would know, she actually read the damn manual! It was the driest read of her life and filled with enough jargon to confuse an omniglot, but darn it she had consumed that damnable text.
Hell if she could remember a tenth of it though.
There was a problem though. Aldia had no clue of her surrounding except that it screamed 'Dangerous' in big neon lettering. That were on fire. And since this place was apparently causing the time-space continuum to essentially commit suicide, she expected that the fire wasn't all she needed to be worried about. She was gravely injured and exhausted, not in condition to fight to her fullest unless truly pressed and desperate.
The solution was simple. Aldia would have to do what she was brought in to do as a Master Candidate.
She'd need to summon a Servant. A Heroic Spirit from the past to serve as a powerful familiar.
'Easier said than done.'
…Or perhaps not.
As Aldia surveyed where she had landed, among the standard Japanese housing, she spotted something not too far off. A building that stood out considering the locale.
A large, very western looking mansion.
When she moved to investigate on a gut feeling, she quickly found her magical senses pick up a sensation she recognized. There was a bounded field around the mansion. Or at least there had been, before whatever the hell happened in this city to fuck it over so totally had ripped it to shreds. But the traces remained.
Which mean that Aldia had to begrudgingly thank her luck for once.
A Bounded Field marked the mansion as a household of a Mage. An that meant it would likely have a hopefully abandoned Workshop.
Gathering her wits and strength Aldia stumbled her way over, her now imbalanced body still throwing her off. When she reached the door she unceremoniously kicked it down. Normally she'd be a bit more considerate, but she had been through a lot already and was fresh out of fucks to give at the moment.
She couldn't ignore how she almost lost balance doing so. She'd need to get used to how her center of balance had changed.
Now, Workshops worked better if they were closer to base soil, especially near ley-lines. She didn't know if the mansion counted, but that still meant that the most likely place for a Workshop was a basement layer.
It took a bit to find a way down, hidden like any proper entry to a Workshop should. It probably had a mechanism to open the way, but Aldia just brute-forced it and broke her way through.
In the hidden basement, she found exactly what she was looking for. A Workshop stocked with all the materials she would need to actually perform a Servant Summoning Ritual. Normally Aldia would probably be using the Fate Summoning System Olga Marie had mentioned in her orientation speech, but without communications or contact with Chaldea that was right out.
"Have to do this old-school then," Aldia grumbled. She wasn't as excited at the concept of summoning a legend from history as she probably should. Since she had no catalyst conveniently on hand she had to rely on compatibility and pure chance. It was a total crapshoot what kind of Servant would arrive.
Aldia really wasn't keen on finding out what kind of Servant would have compatibility with her of all people. But there was no time to waste.
The most time-consuming part was creating the summoning circle. Aldia could do it from memory easily enough, but having to use her non-dominant hand really slowed the process down. She reinforced the circle with some of her own blood to act as a conduit, lacking much else on hand.
Finally, after almost twenty minutes of preparation work, Aldia was ready. Which just left the chant.
The Summoning Incantation was, really, a formality. The exact words themselves mattered little. The intent did. A plea sent out to the Throne of Heroes, though no proper self-respecting Magus would dare to actually admit the chant was a 'cry for help' so to speak.
Good thing Aldia had little respect as a Magus. She really needed that help.
Still, no need to not make it personal for emphasis.
She held her right arm out and let her mana surge through her circuits, her blood in the circle activated it, and she began the ritual.
"Through misery and misfortune I cast the die."
"May it land on whatever face it may!"
"Through sacrifice of my flesh and blood, here I stand!"
"Anointed Heir to the lineage of van Grimm!"
"For ancestors for whom I care naught!"
The circle started to glow and release mana into the very air as Aldia's voice gained strength with each word. She pushed past her injuries. Past the dull pain she could barely acknowledge. Past the exhaustion brought on by her condition.
"Death walks with me as a friend, overseen by my own eye."
"I walk this lonesome path of evermore."
"Broken, but unbowed! Mind and soul reinforced!"
"I care not for the heights of Heaven!"
"Nor for the depths of Hell!"
"A future torn asunder is my reason, uncaring of mortal sin!"
The mana in the air hummed and billowed like a small tornado, the glare of the summoning growing too intense for Aldia to bear, eyes squinting at the light. But she refused to fully close her eyes, even as the very space around the circle felt ready to burst from accumulated power.
"Join me in arms against an enemy unknown!"
"By my side face oblivion in defiance!"
"Struggle with me against the dying of the light!"
"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill."
"Repeated till the end of time."
"Answer my call, Legend of Humanity's Past!"
The light burst out and everything loose in the Workshop was sent scattering about by the sheer intensity of the mana erupting into existence. This time Aldia had no choice but to cover her eyes, or be blinded.
"Ah~," A smooth, regal voice spoke in an even tone from the swirl of magical energy. "Such words of misery. Yet filled with such determination! How could one such as I resist such a summons? You desire me by your side? So be it!"
The light broke apart, almost as if shattered like broken glass, and soon transformed into a red substance that splattered across the area, but leaving Aldia herself clean.
A familiar scent reached Aldia's nose.
The metallic scent of blood.
It was then that Aldia first saw the one she had summoned.
A woman with a pale complexion, luscious white hair, and a full figure that was emphasized by her frankly revealing outfit that looked like a bastardized(yet strangely appealing) mix of a noble's dress, fetish gear, and lingerie. Held elegantly in her long-nailed hands was a metal staff of intricate, somewhat menacing design. And covering the upper portion of her face was a black opera mask that gave the illusion of straight horns growing from her head.
The woman's yellow, seemingly glowing eyes with slits like a serpents were locked onto Aldia's single remaining one.
"Assassin Class. Carmilla," the woman spoke with soft but absolute confidence. She then smirked slightly, and that one tiny gesture radiated a twisted balance of effortless allure and casual cruelty. "I hope you dare not disappoint me, Master."
…
So, Aldia's summoned servant, by compatibility, was a probably literal vampire.
Okay. Sure. Fine. Just her god damn luck.
Chapter 1 - END
⸨~ ~ʘ~Ω~Ʊ~Ӝ~Ʊ~Ω~ʘ~ ~⸩
Author's Notes:
Well, this rabbit hole has been nice to fall in. Back to writing after a long time and this is what I choose to subject myself to?
I truly must be insane.
The Fate series has always been a thing I liked, so when I finally caved into Gacha hell of low pull rates, especially after shelling actual money into it, I was there to stay. Gods, do I love this game.
Anyway, OC-insert. You know how this song and dance goes. You've read fanfiction before. Fem-protag is also given an identity of her own, because she deserves it, damnit!
Funny thing, Carmilla was actually my first Four Star at the very start of my adventure, so it just seemed appropriate to give the Bloody Countess some spotlight over some of the Fate mainstays. So now she's one of the Main Characters!
Also, if Aldia seems to under-react to some seriously horrific injuries, don't you worry! That is absolutely on purpose! There is a reason she can tear off a limb and just go "Well, that hurt a lot." instead of having a shock induced seizure.
-C-Hablerie, Master of Chaldea