Author's Note: The fic-within-a-fic segments are written to be intentionally clunky and cringy. I hope readers find them entertaining despite the colourful prose.

Chapter 6 Content Warnings: Mind control, canon-typical violence, stalking. Wiggling a bit more into sadism, but you're reading a Meltryllis story. I don't know what you expected.


Chapter Six: Wave Function Collapse

Meltryllis floated on the surface of a digital sea.

This wasn't the first digital sea she encountered. She could recall that byproduct of a long-dead civilization clearly. Nor was it even the second digital sea, the one she remembered as an ink spill slowly staining the fabric of humanity and nothing more.

This digital sea was different. The horizon line changed by the time she resurfaced; the Icelandic harbor she dove into had been replaced with an nearly empty expanse. Endless water rolled under a cloudy sky. There was a faint glow off in the distance, a collection of lights sitting just above the waterline. She swam against the sea currents, pushing herself towards the glow.

Robin groaned softly in her arms as he blinked awake, remarkably calm for a man stranded in the middle of the ocean. Her mild admiration evaporated as he asked the most banal question imaginable: "Where are we?"

"The North Sea." She put more power into her thighs, fighting through the frigid water.

His shoulders shifted and his waterlogged hood twisted, clinging to the side of his face. She imagined he was trying to look at her. "Kinda funny that you know that."

If this man hadn't meant so much to her critic, she would have dumped him into the depths of the sea right then. She tossed her hair back instead, shaking loose beads of water. "The NPC wanted me to load the North Sea file. The only logical conclusion is he did it himself as soon as he got access."

Robin didn't snark back. He must have realized her reasoning was perfect.

The last time she had seen Arnault, or Arend, or Arnaldur, or whatever he was calling himself now, he had taken over Sanson's body. The system had locked the NPC out of the Simulator controls earlier. By using her critic, the NPC would be able to bypass those protections and load up any Location Data he wished. It was a ruthless but efficient strategy.

That left the question of why the NPC wanted to access the North Sea data so desperately. Her only ally in solving that mystery was the sorry excuse for an Archer floating in her arms. It was doubtful he knew more than she did. On the other hand, there was nowhere for the man to run away to. If he wanted to escape this simulation, he had to help her.

"I suppose I should ask you how you're feeling," she said, raising her voice over the waves.

"Like shit." The brightness in Robin's voice annoyed her. He should have been terrified that his survival depended on her benevolence. "But at least I'm not being melted down by a virus this time."

She gritted her teeth as he called her bluff so casually. "I could have drowned you hours ago."

"And you didn't because?" He gingerly yanked his hood free, staring back at her with soaked hair and a sour frown that didn't match his tone. "What the hell gives?"

"The NPC would have killed you if I hadn't intervened," she replied, leaving his first question intentionally unanswered. Summarizing her rash decisions so directly felt reassuring. She tightened her still-flimsy grip on Robin as she lunged forward, cresting another wave.

His miserable face didn't flinch. She wasn't stupid, but neither was he. He still didn't have all the answers that he wanted. Truthfully, she wasn't able to articulate them; her decisions back at the dock were successful but not grounded in reason. Had the NPC put Sanson's sword through Robin, the Archer would have woken up back the medical office once she fixed the simulator. And yet, in that fevered moment, she decided his survival was more important than securing the system access point.

"I'm going to find a place for us to stand on. The NPC hasn't been swimming this whole time," she announced. Her legs felt heavy. She needed to solve this problem as soon as possible. Her incomplete draft still awaited her on the other side.


The lights weren't quite what Meltryllis expected; they were atop an industrial building, wrapped in a lattice of exposed pipes and supported above the water by towering pillars. The mysterious glow had been an oil rig. She wrinkled her nose as she swam under the structure, trying to ignore the foul-smelling water. It was the antithesis of all things beautiful.

Robin dismissed his cloak with a quick gesture and slipped out of her arms, leaving embers of fading mana trailing behind. He treaded water beside her, bobbing unevenly at the surface while she floated effortlessly.

"I was wondering what this was," he reflected. His eyes traced the rig's legs, his body sinking lower under the water as he lifted his chin to follow them upward. He shifted back before his head went under. "Guess it's a man-made sea monster."

Those last words stung. She spun to face him, her shoulders kicking up a wave in his direction. "Never sully Leviathan with your tongue again!"

"God," he coughed, spitting out the water. "Chill out for a single moment."

She took in a sharp, fast breath as she glared at him. The act was purely for show. She didn't need to breathe. She didn't even need to be in this humanoid shape. If it wasn't for him, she could have shape-shifted into liquid and travelled here effortlessly. Nothing she had done for him had even occurred to the man. There were no apologies or thanks. He simply frowned at her, then started paddling towards one of the pillars.

"Of course you're running away," she yelled, verbally stabbing back at him.

"You said it yourself: there's no way he's still swimming," he called back. "We gotta get up there somehow!"

He grabbed hold of something on the pillar. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and see what he found: bolted to the side was a crude ladder made of rebar. There were no supports around to assist climbers. It had been designed as an afterthought, a last hope for the humans who fell off of the platform.

The climb went slowly. Each step required the Archer to lace his arm around the rebar to brace himself. His body quivered, drained of energy from the hours in the cold water. She was silently impressed that he kept pushing onward. The climb would have been impossible for her; her prosthetics would have slipped off and her arms wouldn't have the strength to hold her up. Of all the tasks sentinels had been designed for, climbing ladders wasn't one of them. He must have realized her predicament as well. He looked down at her from above, wasting valuable time and strength to check in.

"I'll find another way up," she lied with her widest smirk and repeated her point. "I bet you didn't realize there's another way. Humans always prepare multiple access routes. The most obvious path is the one you haven't found yet."

She expected a reaction of frustration or relief. What she saw on Robin's face was something entirely different. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn he looked lonely.

"You think I won't find it?" she taunted him, spreading her arms wide and letting her long sleeves drift through the water.

He said quietly to himself and resumed his climb. If he didn't have the dignity to speak loud enough for her to hear, then his answer wasn't worth dwelling on. She lay back in the water and spread her limbs out as she pondered her next move.

The underside of the rig was an ugly place. Even the water brought no peace; the sounds of drilling equipment reverberated all around her in an abhorrent display. She thought back to Robin's comments about sea monsters. She could call on her authority as Leviathan to seize the platform and drag it to the bottom of the ocean floor. That would bring the NPC directly to her. It would also put her critic at risk.

That cruelty must have been the point. That was why the NPC desperately wanted access to the North Sea file. The plan must have been to trap them in the simulator, seize one of the captives, and then drown the other two using this location. That foolish NPC had picked the wrong High Servant to toss in the deep end.

There was a splash beside her. She rolled upright, wondering if Robin had finally slipped from the ladder. Floating in the water was a confusing piece of equipment: a round foam platform encircled by a rope net, all attached to a thicker cable. The cable ran up to the platform above. Robin peered down at her, leaning on a railing above. He had managed to climb aboard.

"You missed me!" she cried out, loud enough for the man to hear. "I thought myths claimed Robin Hood's aim was unparalleled!"

"I'm tossin' out a net with no specific target in mind," he called back. "Heard rumors about a mysterious sea creature lurking the depths. It would be a shame if something like that got loose on the rig."

It was a silly joke, but she accepted it. She was the star of the punchline.

The cable moved quickly once she looped herself into the netting. Within a handful of seconds, she had been pulled up to the platform. Climbing out was more of a struggle than getting in. Slicing her way out wasn't an option. She slowly wove her legs through the net, her feet ringing against the floor panels as she stepped free.

Robin stared down at her with a confused look, as if he knew subconsciously something was amiss but he couldn't express it properly in words. "Wait! I didn't expect..."

"I'm still taller than my sister, even like this." Meltryllis held her head high. Despite that, she only came to the Archer's shoulders. Her athletic prosthetics shaved at least a foot off her usual height. She had adjusted her jacket to match, pulling the long tails so they wouldn't drag behind her feet. "I wouldn't have been able to swim far with my weaponized limbs."

"Same idea." He waved quickly at his own body. He still hadn't resummoned his cloak. "Now that you've mentioned your sister, I can't help but think this would've been a touch easier with her."

"And what does that mean, Matcha?" She extended out a leg, ready to shift her bladed prosthetics back with a burst of mana.

"You don't have Presence Concealment. She does. That's all." He frowned at her aggressive gesture, then returned to a neutral expression as she pulled her leg back. "Don't change your legs or shift into spirit form or do anything else that uses mana. I have no idea what kind of security this place has."

"Then shouldn't security be alerted because you used this?" She leaned in to examine the winch that pulled her up. It looked like a boring physical panel, a simple array of switches and wires with no greater purpose. But if a clipboard could be an access point to the simulator's systems, everything here was suspect.

"I gave it a once-over before I fiddled with it," Robin said with a sigh. "It wasn't alarmed or anything. Remember this place is based on a Chaldean installation. They're more worried 'bout mages or rogue Servants than someone knocking around levers. They must be sniffing out stray mana somehow."

A harsh realization dawned on her; if he didn't want her to act like a Servant, there was only one thing he wanted her to act like. She tossed her head back, staging her accusation as dramatically as possible. "You want me to pretend to be human."

He shrugged with the slightest of smiles, ignoring how offensive the suggestion was. "Guess that's true."

"Ridiculous," she scoffed back.

A door opened in the distance, followed by a low rumble of two voices in conversation. One of them sounded like Sanson. She couldn't make out the exact words being said, but his pattern of speech didn't match the way she remembered her critic talking. The NPC still had control.

"We ought to split up." Robin spoke in a whisper. His voice barely hid an intense edge. At least he was invested in their circumstances. "It'll give them more targets to chase. Makes it easier to divide and conquer."

"You expect me to find you again in this godforsaken dump?" she asked, giving him a sidelong glance. Even without his full array of gear, he still was a master thief. There was a chance he'd vanish forever, never to be seen again, abandoning her and Sanson in the simulation.

A grim thought like that never came up when she was drafting stories. Then again, they were highly idealized.

"Would you believe me if I said I trusted your observation skills?" he asked. He shifted his feet, ready to run as soon as she gave the word.

"Ha! Never." She turned her back to him. If they were dividing and conquering, she needed to run in the opposite direction.

"Find me once you lose them." His fingers reached for a cloak that was no longer there. Finding nothing was his cue to run. His footfalls were impressively silent, as if he were running across a forest floor covered in fresh leaves.

Finding her grace under pressure was more challenging. She darted forward, her metallic feet clanging loudly against the floor panels. It gave her location away immediately; the distant voices turned to shouts. She had seconds to rewrite the outcome.

Shifting her form to fight back and end this now would use mana and trigger whatever security system Robin was concerned about. She needed a better solution. Scattered about were pieces of deep sea drilling equipment. She was smaller in this form. In theory, she could hide nearby and go unnoticed.

She grimaced at her options. Hiding was the coward's way out. Fighting on center stage was where she truly shone.

The shouts grew closer. She needed to decide now.

She wasn't going to hide. She would observe the scene from a place they wouldn't think to look.


Wave Function Collapse

A silver-haired man ran into the room, panting as he frantically took in the scene with a maniac intensity.

It was empty. It shouldn't have been empty. There had been two people here moments before. He was certain he had heard them talking from down the hall. They had been familiar voices. Voices belonging to people he doomed to drown in the depth of the ocean.

They were threats against his existence. Assailants who would have destroyed him if given the chance. Now he was trapped on this metal island with them.

He remembered hearing a set of heavy footsteps running away. Only one set, though. He looked up with a gasp, expecting a swift death to come from above. Nothing was clinging to the ceiling. He stepped around in a circle, hoping that the change in perspective would reveal a hidden truth. Still nothing. It was as if his assailants vanished into thin air. One of them had pulled a trick like that before, back when he tried to kill them the first time.

Nowhere here was safe. He clenched his clipboard closer to his chest, protecting it from the ghosts lurking unseen. His very life depended on it.

"Beckman, what's gotten into you?" a woman asked as she followed the man into the room. There was an air of calm around her. She was seemingly unaware of the phantoms chasing her companion.

She was dressed in a uniform that almost matched his: a white pantsuit that remained spotless, defiant in the face of the drilling operation. There were two key differences in their appearances: first, her jacket was a mint green instead of Beckman's navy blue. They had been assigned to departments. Second, her uniform had sharp edges, tailored to her exact body shape. His uniform didn't sit properly and bunched up in awkward places, as if he were wearing clothing belonging to someone else.

"It's nothing, Trapayne," Beckman said. He ran his hand through his pale hair, shaking out the strands, then smiled painfully at the woman. "I was chasing nothing."

Trapayne blinked in confusion. The situation didn't make sense to her. She didn't grasp the danger that stalked Beckman. "That was an awful lot of running for nothing."

"Running? I wasn't running. You're imagining things." He spoke in a stressed, halting voice. "Let's go head back."

He turned to leave, then stopped mid-step. He tilted his head, checking for a noise, one that wasn't the background hum of the rig. There was a dripping he couldn't account for. A leak of some kind? He scanned the exposed pipes, no signs of a leak there. He scanned the floor, noting a puddle by the rescue device. He crouched down, inspecting it with his free hand. It was damp.

"The lifting basket has been used recently," he said, rising back to his feet, still holding onto the netting. "Radio Holly upstairs. Ask him to monitor the moon pool. Just in case."

"In case of what?" Trapayne asked. She tapped a button on her earpiece.

Beckman scowled, tossing the lifting basket back to the floor with a wet smack. "Intruders."


Meltryllis watched the scene play out from just out of frame, her back pressed up against a steel girder. It would have been a more thrilling plot beat if the lifting basket had gone unnoticed. It would have to be set up for a future plot twist, she decided. Let the NPC drive himself mad, questioning what happened and focusing on his last, lost battle. She wouldn't be returning to the moon pool or whatever he called it again.

The conversations of her "characters" faded into the rig. She slipped away from the girder and down a corridor that ran perpendicular to their direction. Ducts and exposed columns lined her path. Her movements were slower this time; the noises that betrayed her earlier wouldn't dare repeat themselves.

Beckman. That was the NPC's true name. He must have been using all of those earlier aliases to avoid detection. Chaldea's human staff would have recognized the name Beckman, given he had been based on data from someone in their ranks.

If she were writing this mystery story, she had enough clues lined up to hang a plot from. Her mother was looking for a piece of corrupted data in the simulator. That data was a corrupted Personnel file from a Chaldea research project. The corruption allowed him to manifest in location files he wasn't previously associated with. His data must have been originally associated with the North Sea file. He suggested it without hesitation. That left the question of who he was. She didn't know that, of course.

She stopped in the middle of the passage, flipping the question around in her head. Did the NPC know who she was?

She had introduced herself dramatically as an Alter Ego when they met on the breakwater. But then there was what he said after taking over Sanson: "I always wanted to control an Alter Ego". That "always" didn't make sense if he only learned what an Alter Ego was in the harbor. Not even an hour had passed since they met.

Above her was a speaker box, painted in the same dull beige as the concrete ceiling. Now was the perfect time for her mother to make a grand entrance, revealing she had been watching her daughter struggle this whole time and announcing it was the right moment for her to unveil all of the answers she had been sitting on.

The speaker remained silent.


If you wanted to find a missing bird, you needed to look for him in a tree.

The incorrect origins of Robin's name aside, there was another level to Meltryllis's thought process. The tunnels and passageways of the oil platform were laid out to simulate the grid-like streets of a modern human city. For the crew, the design was meant to relax their minds and remind them of the homes they left back on shore.

For her, the design was trite and uninspired. For Robin? She assumed he'd avoid them completely. If she were writing about the Archer hiding in an urban environment, she wouldn't place him cowering in an alley or an abandoned building. A natural space would suit him better.

The rig lacked even a single tree. What it did have was a jungle of pipes, containers and towers covering the top floor of the platform. It was more a maze than an impenetrable fortress; whoever entered this location's data left enough space between the detritus for NPCs to walk around. It remained unpleasant, although in a different way than the moon pool. She could see the sky again, even if the blazing artificial lights drowned out the stars.

Robin may have trusted her observation skills, but they also led her to another conclusion: it was impossible to hunt him down with her eyes alone. All of the brilliance brought equal parts shadow. She needed to stay in the spotlight and let the thief find her instead.

A Thief. Come to think of that , Beckman apparently knew that detail too. The NPC accused Robin of being a thief while bargaining with Sanson. It was a bold statement. The Archer hadn't acted like a thief at that point. His actions were closer to an assassin or a sniper.

There was a flicker of green armor in front of her. Robin swung down from an overhead pipe, landed quietly on a plastic storage container. Her plan had worked perfectly.

"What did you learn?" he asked. While it wasn't unfriendly, Robin's dementor had definitely shifted. A simple person would think of it as terse. Meltryllis considered it more practical.

"While you were hiding, I had the most irresistible scouting experience," she boosted, posing with her shoulders proudly wide and a single hand draped across her chest. The high volume of her body language was juxtaposed against her low voice. "The NPC's name is Beckman. I've concluded he knows us, although I don't remember encountering him before. Matcha, where did you meet him?"

"Eh?" Robin tilted his head, his jaw hanging open in a genuinely dumbfounded expression. "Never met a guy named Beckman before, either alive or dead."

"He described you as a thief to Sanson. I don't recall you telling him that." The details were even more uncanny as she relayed them. She crossed her arms, waiting for his reaction.

Robin looked to the side, probably replaying his recent interactions with Beckman over in his mind. His eyes shifted back to her. "I did steal that clipboard from him."

"Yes, but he called you a thief before you stole it" She rolled her eyes and casually brushed her hair back, accentuating how underwhelmed she felt about his rebuttal. "Not that you would have noticed it, but he also implied knowing Alter Ego Servants before I met him. The only reasonable answer is he somehow met another version of us."

Another version of them, known to a Chaldea staff member, with the details of that encounter locked away deep in Chaldea's database, used as fuel for a long-forgotten research project. She gently pulled at a strand of hair. The wider implications sent a chill down her spine— when was that other Meltryllis from?

"And somehow that meeting got recorded on this computer?" Robin piped up, interrupting her thoughts. "I don't know, missy. Seems strange. But if what you're saying is true, Beckman hasn't met Charles before."

She lifted her head in surprise. She repeated Robin's claim, stumbling a bit on the name Robin used for her critic: "Beckman hasn't met Charles before? What makes you think that?"

"Because he wouldn't have engaged with Charles over and over again if he knew who he was," Robin stated plainly, then tossed in some details to back up his claim: "This Beckman guy should have run away is all I'm saying. You gotta kill a certain amount of people to get into the Throne, right? Charles probably has a higher body count than both of us."

"Combined?" She asked. His casual slight dinged her pride.

He was unimpressed. Maybe it wasn't a slight. "Does it matter?"

For all of Sanson's concerns about being haunted, maybe he hadn't considered what would happen if he met a figurative ghost who didn't recognize him. Her position was similar to Beckman's in that regard. She knew Sanson as the partner of her mother's ex, a polite man who worked at Novum Chaldea's medical office, and offered to read her stories at lovely cafes. Who he was in history didn't matter to her.

If Beckman was based on old data and didn't know the historical Sanson, he would be equally naïve about who Sanson was in Novum Chaldea. It just so happened she had done a lot of thinking about her critic's current life while working on her drafts.

"Maybe consider the emotional impact that the injuries could have in your story and focus more on that." It was one of the first pieces of advice Sanson had given her. It was time to follow through on it.

She lifted her head up and smiled wickedly at Robin. "I know how to solve our possession problem."