The Calm Before the Storm

The briefing room was a scarcely used space, at most as an impromptu meeting room by the heads of the departments. Yet that alone didn't guarantee the room to be used, as there are actual conference rooms available within Chaldea. Today was not one of those days, as the third joint training session between A Team and B Team had concluded, with all 16 of them being informally debriefed by the Director that had supervised the simulation. It was also used to brief them earlier that day, along with the previous times they all practiced together.

This was another spur of the moment thing that happened. As B Team began working through their arsenal, their own sessions caught wind of the members of A Team. One thing led to another, and now both teams were preparing themselves for when the time comes for them to tackle a Singularity. A Team being the first on ground, and B Team watching over them as well as being their backup.

Ayako herself was resting inside this briefing room, sitting on a desk that had its back to the wall. Still dressed in the Chaldean Combat Uniform, a now wet towel around her neck and a half empty bottle of water just to the left of her, its cap lost somewhere in the process. Half of A Team had already left the room, along with a third of B Team, while the rest were recuperating alongside with her.

"Ayako." She turned to her right, seeing the tall flamboyant member of A Team leaning on the desk she was sitting on. His own pink hair was damp from their simulation.

"Hey, Pepe. You need me for anything?" she asked with a brow raised. They haven't interacted much since she urged Ophelia to talk with Mash, so it was out of the ordinary for him to approach her.

"No, I don't." he answered with a shake of his head. "I'm just here to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Yes." He turned his gaze away. Her own followed, eventually seeing Ophelia and Mash talking with one another. Awkward. But earnest.

"Ah, yeah. That." She nodded with a smile, happy with the progress made no matter how small it was.

"She was so, so stubborn whenever I urged her on. And even when I accompanied her, it seemed like her efforts only met a brick wall." He said with a sigh, his right hand combing through his hair, pushing it to the side.

"I guess she just needed a woman's intuition." She said with a teasing smirk.

He scoffed at her remark, though his following chuckle conveyed his feelings accordingly. "I'm sure an adult's opinion would've mattered just as much."

"Ouch." She clutched her heart, the back of her other palm planted on her forehead. Her lips quivered, slowly devolving into a snicker, until she eventually laughed heartily. Laughter that was joined by the taller man beside her.

"What are you two talking about?" A concerned blonde asked as she approached them, her furrowed brows more pronounced.

"Just a budding friendship that we're nurturing." Ayako replied, nodding to the sight.

Koleen's pink eyes followed the direction, and her brows lightened at the scene that she too was witnessing. "That's nice."

"It damn right it is." Peperoncino said with a delighted smile.

If hell was a frozen landscape instead of the blazing inferno it was traditionally depicted as, then the world outside was hell on earth. That was the thought that ran through Ayako's mind as she stood by the large window, and all she could see was an infinite wall of snow and ice. The frozen storm had ravage Chaldea, just after her wave had arrived, and it only got worse from there. She could barely make out the horizon. And Candidates Kappa were supposed to arrive in the next couple of days? She wasn't religious by any stretch of the imagination, yet even she would pray for their safety. They'd need it.

"Is this bad?" and right beside her, looking at this hellish storm alongside her, was Helix.

"How stormy do you think Antarctica is?" she asked him, not taking her eyes off of the storm.

"Uhm, I'm not sure. It's a cold desert, so it's windy, right?"

"Yes. In fact, it's quite stormy around the continent." She said to him. "But, we're high up here on the Vinson Massif. It should be relatively stable. High winds, yes. But no storms. Especially not like this."

"Do you think this is a bad sign?" he asked her.

"What, you think I'm superstitious?" she asked back.

He shrugged his shoulder. "I don't know. I don't know how you magic people live." She chuckled at his definition.

"Between you and me, Sinclair… I think shit's about to go down." She relayed to him her feelings.

"It's your gut telling you this?" he asked her, crossing his arms over his chest.

She nodded. "And my gut feeling's never been wrong."

"Well, thanks for planting that pit down my stomach." He said with a discomforted grimace.

"You're welcome." She responded, chuckling at his disturbance.

"Let's hope that your gut's wrong on this one." Helix said, as he turned to the side and walked off, going about his day.

She stayed where she was, staring off into the white abyss. This havoc that was raining down on them. The uncontrollable storm. And sighed.

"I hope I'm wrong too." She all but whispered to herself, before she walked off down the opposite hallway.

The workshop she had picked now looked like the workshop she had back home. If her workshop back home also had a sterile feel to it. But it sufficed for the moment. She too would want a workshop much closer to their rooms, just as Ayako had requested. For now, it served its purpose, with the stack of tomes she has on her desk and the now bubbling cauldron she had requisitioned. Some sort of potion she was brewing to help her for their future encounters.

She closed the large tome in her hands, a resounding thud filling the room, and sighed tiredly. Ayako's worries were infectious, and now here she was trying to do something to help herself in the coming days. She pushed the book onto the table and stood up from the chair, moving towards the cauldron. The deep ruby color bathing the room with its light in an otherwise dim atmosphere. A simple Draught of Vitality to help her less than desirable constitution.

Not that she was sickly, but compared to the rest of B Team she was a bit behind.

She stirred the cauldron with one hand, looking at the watch on the other. 23:47. Just under midnight. Which meant that she was nearing 12 hours of just being inside this cramped room. She chuckled, noticing that she was playing into the witch stereotype. But it was a given. She wasn't just a witch here; she was the American Witch. At least that's what has been spreading about her since Basic Training. Not like she could deny them. That is exactly what she was, despite people's preconceptions as to what a witch was.

She closed her pink eyes as her hand stifled the budding yawn. She was really pushing it today, more so than she's ever done before. It made sense, in a way. Back home, she did this out of curiosity most of the time. Now, right here, if she really understood what Chaldea stood for, then humanity is on the line. She doesn't know why exactly, only that it is, and that was why Chaldea exists.

But that didn't mean she was going to keep going. She looked back at her watch, and nodded. The moment the hand reaches the 12th hour, then the draught she was brewing would be complete. And after that, she will go back to her room, and collapse. If she can get to her room and not pass out on the way. Regardless, looks like she was skipping breakfast tomorrow.

Meanwhile, somewhere else within Chaldea, the Japanese woman that had been plaguing Koleen's thoughts was also wide awake. But unlike the pink eyed American Witch, Ayako was not alone. For the Renaissance genius was there as well. In fact it would have been odd if she wasn't, since they were in her workshop after all. And when the two of them were together, it was to finish the project they both started. From one genius of the renaissance, to the daughter of a pioneer. If anyone had connected the dots (which a handful have done so), they would've figured out what it was the two were working on.

And it was laying on the table, fully on display as they completed the finishing touches.

"Now this is the kind of masterwork I expected us to accomplish." Da Vinci commented, wiping the nonexistent sweat from her chin.

Ayako simply looked down on the body with a frown that didn't sit well with the Servant. "What, you don't believe so? This is amazing craftsmanship. And coming from a modern human? It's an exceptional creation."

"Eh…" Ayako shrugged, taking the towel that dangled off the table and wiped her face. "I'd honestly like to hear what mom would say about it."

"What? What about my opinion?" the Servant asked, somehow sounding heartbroken.

She smirked at the comical face Da Vinci was putting on. "No offense, Da Vinci. You're a genius, after all. But you're not my mom."

Da Vinci's mouth hung open for a good minute, before her stare turned to a more serious looking one. Brows furrowed, bearing an expression that one would not want to see on the Mona Lisa. "This might seem out of bound, but it seems like you rely too much on your mother, Ayako."

Ayako rolled her golden eyes at the accusation, despite understanding where Da Vinci was coming from. "It's not that I cling to her so much, at least I don't think it is. It's just that this right here" she gestured to the puppet. "all came from her. Everything I'm good at, all came from her teachings. So, it's no surprise that I'd like to know what my teacher would think of this."

"When you put it like that, I understand." Da Vinci said with a nod. "But trust me. This is a Masterwork, with a capital M."

Still Ayako sighed, holding the back of her neck uncomfortably. "Let's hope it all works out in the end. I've never made one for another person. Let alone that person being in the dark about the whole arrangement."

"Don't worry. Once she gets over it, if anything does happen then she will no doubt thank you for it." The Caster said, waving off Ayako's worry.

"How confident are you in something actually happening?" Ayako asked, locking eyes with the Servant.

"Very." She answered without skipping a beat. "I'm sure you've notice that storm outside? That's not natural."

"Then what is it?"

"That, I'm not too sure yet." Da Vinci replied with a grimace. "There are many possibilities, theories as to what it actually is. But nothing even remotely concrete."

Ayako sighed tiredly, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. "Well, I guess it's time to call it a night. I'm exhausted."

"Come back anytime!" Da Vinci said, waving her salutations to the young Japanese woman.

"I might just do that." She whispered, though she was certain Da Vinci could still hear her. She'd need a stable supply of materials if she were to make the puppets for herself, let alone the other people within Chaldea.

Her trek back to her room was done in almost complete silence. Only the whir of the ambient machinery somewhere deep within the facility, carried by the pipes and wires beneath the walls. The lights that lit the hallways were dimmed, both to preserve energy and to keep the crew's circadian rhythm in check. If she were to see anyone walking around, most of the time it would be the skeleton crew working under the graveyard shift. A handful of people she's gotten to know across her tenure in Chaldea were at times seen walking down these halls.

A certain pink eyed blonde was not one of them.

As she rounded the corner, she saw the back of Koleen, walking towards the direction of their rooms. Or at least, she was. The blonde was leaning on her shoulder on the wall, slumped and tired. She seemed completely out of it. A couple of ideas formed in her mind as she thought of the ways she could approach her friend. In the end, she settled for normalcy, closing in on the blonde and planting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't even flinch, which was a surprise to her as Koleen glanced to face her. Eyes lidded, expression lax as the pink eyes eyed Ayako's form.

The blonde sighed, as her eyes closed. "Ayako. Hey." Her body began swaying as she relaxed in Ayako's presence.

"Kalls, a late night?" the blonde nodded slowly, the tension in her body dissipating in Ayako's hand.

"Mhm." Mindlessly Koleen leaned her head on Ayako's shoulder, bearing her weight onto the Japanese woman.

Ayako sighed, patting her friend's back. "Alright, let's get you back."

She reinforced her body with a quick rune, and carried the taller blonde in her arms as she continued on her way.

"Look, Kalls. We didn't do anything." Ayako said to her friend beside her. "It's not my fault you forgot your card in your workshop."

Said friend had her face in her hands, with a deep shade of red coloring her ears. She cried out, muffled as they were. "It's embarrassing! You saw the worst of me!" her muted reply pushed through her hands.

Ayako rolled her eyes at that remark. "I doubt they really were."

"The only person to ever see me like that was my mom." She said, her hands moving down off her face, though they still cupped her chin and cheeks.

"It's just like a sleepover. It's fine." Ayako commented with another chuckle.

"I've never had a sleepover."

"Neither have I. So it was a first for the both of us! Ha!" she patted Koleen's back excitedly, causing the blonde to cry out in embarrassment. Her other hand rose to wave at the person that had left the room they were about to pass. "Professor. It's been a while."

A while was heavily understating it. Aside from that interview session, she has not once spoken with the man who could be considered a friend of her mother's. Hell she was lucky if she could catch a glimpse of him, most of the time she'd see him at the corner of her eye.

He smiled at their approach, a light welcoming smile. "Aozaki. Bertrand. I see the both of you have become well acquainted."

"Well we kinda stand out like a sore thumb, so we gravitated towards each other." Ayako said back with a nod.

"Do we?" Koleen asked as a look of worry flashed on her face.

"A little bit." The hand that was patting Koleen's back moved to her farthest shoulder, and she was drawn into a half hug. "That's what makes us such great friends."

The blonde American giggled. "I guess we do. We have to stick together."

"That we do, Kalls."

"So what have you been doing, Professor?" now it was Koleen's turn to ask the elusive man. "You must've been very busy, we hardly saw you since the interview." She all but relayed Ayako's thoughts.

He chuckled at the question. "I've just been making sure things will go smoothly, should the time come." He turned his gaze to the side. Though they were in the deeper section of the complex, they had gotten their bearings to know that where he was staring was where "outside" was.

A chill ran up Ayako's spine, and all of a sudden a pit landed in her stomach. "Yeah, it feels like it's going to be soon." She commented.

"Then it's a good thing we've been training through all of this." Koleen said with a clap of her hand.

"That you have. Well, I best be off. Duties to fulfil." He nodded to the both of them, walking past to where they had come from.

With his departure, they continued onwards deeper down the corridors, occasionally greeting the other Master Candidates and crew members along the way. They had one destination in mind, and that was the American Witch's workshop. Koleen had to manually input her password to unlock the door, but there was nothing else standing in her way. Inside, everything was just as she left it. The now calm cauldron still filled with the concoction she brewed the night before, along with the tomes on her table. And of course, her pass that was in the middle of the desk.

"There you are." She said, hurriedly walking towards it, her arm already reaching out to pick the card she had forgotten. She breathed a sigh of relief to herself, sliding the pass around her neck and sticking it inside her breast pocket. With nothing else in mind, she made way to leave, but stopped when she noticed the troubled look on her friend's face, just standing there in the open doorway. "Ayako? What's wrong?"

Again, another chill ran up her spine, the involuntary shiver obvious to Koleen. The Japanese redhead shook her head, a frown marring her face. "I don't know."

This was the first time she ever stepped foot in the hangar. In fact, she didn't even know that there was a hangar in this mountain-entrenched Antarctic base. Granted, there wasn't really much inside, with only two small fixed wing planes, a single large transport helicopter, and half a dozen specially made six-wheeled trucks parked inside. Only one of those planes looked like it had seen use across its existence, no doubt to scout out the perimeter of the base, though it too had been sitting in the hangar for too long thanks to the raging storm. But none of those vehicles were why she was there the first place.

No, it was the still functioning wreck that had arrived the night before.

It was a bit disingenuous to call the transport aircraft a wreck, but with its wing falling apart, it wasn't exactly wrong either. Again, it was a miracle that it had managed to stay intact long enough to arrive and safely transport the new candidates, as its systems reached its limit when it landed. The crew had difficulty even getting the transport to the hangar. Considering the state it was in, it was in no condition to fly back out.

Which meant that the candidates were staying, regardless of their aptitudes. The pilot himself had already intermingled with the rest of the crew, taking his place amongst them now that his main mode of transport was out of commission. He seemed to be taking things in stride, from what Ayako's observed from the entrance.

Her gaze swept its way through the hangar before it landed back on the VTOL aircraft, barely holding together. Without a word, her feet began moving, carrying her closer to the aircraft. When the distance was closed, her hand touched the scratched and battered shell, and hesitated. For a brief second her thoughts wondered to the crew that was inside the hangar, but quickly disappeared. They were here at Chaldea, if they hadn't gotten used to magecraft by now, then they would sooner or later. So, she began tracing on the outer plating.

ᚲ ᚱ

Kenaz, of the Torch. Reið, of the Journey. The two runes flashed a dim soft light, before it dissipated into the metal. "Greina."

And a wave, pulsating from her hand through the manufactured design, and caming back to her. Like some form of sonar. In less than a second, the entirety of the aircraft was known to her. Its make, its brief history, and most importantly what it had gone through with the storm. She grimaced, her hand lifting off of the metal as if it had become too hot for her. Her other hand, moving to her neck, massaging it as her body felt a flash of what the aircraft experienced. It was only a flash, so it didn't last long, but she remembered it almost vividly.

She shook her body to rid herself of the sensation, a shiver still running up the hand that touched the metal. But it wasn't the cold of the storm that was bothering her. She took a few steps back, distancing herself from the plane, the grimace on her face still readily apparent.

"Anything wrong?"

She turned behind her, seeing the pilot approach her with his arms crossed over his chest. An elderly pilot that stood a full head and a half taller than her, yet she could see the man carried with him experience and confidence. He looked worried. Whether at the plane, or at her, she wasn't sure.

"How was the flight here?" she responded with a question of her own, her hands reaching for her pockets.

The pilot's hard gaze shifted to the plane, and he chuckled. "It was a rough flight for her. She wasn't built for storms of that caliber."

"And not for you?" she asked with a curious glance back to the aircraft.

"Girl, I've been flying back in '44. The skies over in Western Europe were far more frightening to me than some storm." The elder pilot boasted.

She questioned the validity of that statement, internally at least. But she prodded further. "Then how was the storm for you?"

"I flew low, to minimize the damage if the storm would bring us down."

"That, doesn't sound safe." She said unsurely.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Safer than flying high. Storms are at their most dangerous when in high altitudes. Besides, it wasn't that much of a problem with a VTOL."

"Did you have any other problems?" she questioned.

The look on his face grew more uncomfortable, as he tried to recall the flight to the base. "The turbulence didn't feel bad, at least in my experience. But I couldn't see anything."

"What do you mean?"

"The snow and hail pretty much blanketed everything. The radar was nonfunctioning. I had to rely on the GPS to keep track, and even that wasn't a guarantee." He explained.

"How much did the storm cover?" she asked with worry.

"I told you. Everything. And with it being so late, it was just darkness in front of us." He said with a final nod.

"I see. Thanks. And it's good to see you arrived safely." She said back with an acknowledged nod.

Ayako immediately turned on her heel and made her way out of the hangar, the elderly pilot's reply was muted as she retreated into her mind. The shiver that crawled up her spine sticking to her like a parasite. She kept her pace steady, trying not to rush down the corridors and occasionally waving past the crew as well as the other Masters. She kept walking, and walking, her destination clear in her mind. A good distance from the hangar, and when she finally arrived, she walked in without bothering to knock.

"What did you find out?" the voice of Kagiso brought her back down, as her vision cleared itself.

She didn't even realize how cloudy her vision was until she sat down inside the B Team conference room. She rubbed her eyes for a good few seconds before she looked back up and met the gaze of her team. All seven of them, looking at her with varied expressions.

"Ayako, are you alright?" Koleen asked, her hand placed on Ayako's shoulder.

"I'm fine." She replied with wavering confidence. "Just, I'm real sensitive."

"Yeah, we could tell." Abel said unamused. "What did you find out?" he repeated Kagiso's question.

She hid her irritability well as she answered. "Nothing." She said gravely. "I saw nothing. I asked the pilot, and he too saw nothing."

"Wait, hold on." The British man said with his palm raised in a placating manner. "Go back a second. What do you mean nothing?"

"I mean literally nothing." She repeated, punctuating each word. "There was nothing. Just, nothing. When I scanned the plane, all I got was nothing, except pain from the storm."

The response from everyone else was silence. They all looked at each other, trying to gauge what the others were thinking. "But we can still see horizon." Mstislavsky said, probably looking the most concerned of them all, belying his intimidating stature.

"It might not be real." Dunya said with a prominent frown. "The horizon we see is there, but not. What we see with our eyes might not be what's actually out there."

Ayako nodded at Dunya's explanation. "The pilot told me he saw absolutely nothing, aside from snow and hail hitting the windshield in the cover of darkness."

"And that darkness was probably his mind justifying the nothingness. The void." Wei said, leaning his elbows on the table.

"We need to tell the Director about this." Abel said to Dunya.

"She probably already has ideas on what's happening. So is the whole of A Team as well. But I will write up a report." She said back.

"This storm is really putting all of us, not just our team, on edge." Kagiso commented as a trickle of sweat trailed down his face. "How about you, Koleen. Did you find out anything about the Candidates?"

"Yes. I did." The blonde sounded parched. She took a sip of water for her dried throat before elaborating further. "They didn't even get much time to rest, immediately screened the moment they arrived late last night."

"And?"

"There was only one Master Candidate from the ten Candidates." She closed off with a nod.

"Bringing us to 48 Masters." Ayako rounded off. "Two shy from the Director's target."

"She wanted 50?" Dunya asked incredulously.

"That's what the Doctor told me." She added. "Do you know who anything about this person?"

Koleen shook her head. "Only that he is-"

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND

The blaring alarm of the klaxon resounded three times with shades of red, and all of their thoughts were halted. They all looked up to where the where the sound came form; a speaker that was connected onto the ceiling. Then again, they all looked at each other.

Ayako sighed, clenching her hands into fists as she stood up. "Looks like this is it."

Dunya followed behind, with Mstislavsky right next to her. "Well, looks like the report's going to be put on hold."

"Согласовано." he said, planting his fist into his open palm.

"Time to show the world who we are." Abel said with confidence, and a hint of arrogance.

"No need to bulrush through this." Said the Chinese mercenary as he joined them.

Patrick nodded in agreement. "Remember. We are B Team. We act as one."

"Of that, we are in accord." Kagiso said as he stood to his full height.

Koleen got up slowly, trying to calm her breathing that was slowly growing erratic. "Yes. Looks like it's time."

It was time indeed, for the first of many anomalies had emerged to disrupt the Human Order.

It was time indeed, for Chaldea's Grand Order to finally commence.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

that section, from the hangar onward, took a long while to come through. remember what i said last chapter? this is what i was talking about. but, i am proud of the end result.

contrasting that, i pretty much got the next three chapters done and ready. not because i planned on that, but it had to be split up otherwise, it would've felt too bloated when the time came. like serious, it doubled any other chapter by that point. if any of you guys ever read any of my other fics, you'd know that i'm not averse to long chapters. (Nightsilver Tales in particular is rather chaotic in that regard, some chapters being around 1.5k, some reaching more than 10k.) but i'm trying to keep the chapters for PotP to be around the same length, give or take 1.5k each.

also, we see a glimpse at the end there that some might question. i'll get into it in detail in the coming chapters, where he will make his first appearance.

anyways, on to the reviews!

Emiya: thanks again dude! glad to see you're enjoying!

King0fP0wers: there are some minor differences in how she deals with her puppets, but yes for takes after Touko. and that too, is a question that she is not looking forward to the answer of.

thanks again for dropping by, leave a review if you don't mind,

and i'll see you all next time!