Servants of Remnant

Chaldea is gone, but the memories remain. A world, filled with fairy tales, monsters and men. A history unlike any other. Sometimes… a hero is needed. From another world, from another time. Not all of them are great, not all of them are 'good'. But when the world needs a hero, these Servants answer the call. Perhaps only one, perhaps many do. These are the tales of many timelines. The 'Servants of Chaldea' who come to Remnant.

EMIYA

Darkness reigned over the landscape, both black and blood red… Perfect. He'd be able to blend in easily here. Kiristugu EMIYA stood alone at the mouth of a cave, staring off into the distance, his eyes being drawn towards the pools of black tar that slowly spat out demonic beasts.

To put it lightly, this place made him feel sick. The threat it posed alone was more than enough cause, but at this critical juncture, one lone Assassin wasn't going to be able to gun down every monster in this land. There was also the small matter of being unable to actually stop them from spawning, but a few explosives could probably change that.

Raising his hood and pulling up his mask, he made ready for reconnaissance. Master was here, somewhere in this world. There was no Gaia tugging at his existence, no Alaya ordering him to attack, the mana was abundant, especially here. He needed to make contact with others from Chaldea, because if he'd survived that explosion, then there were others who had as well.

He leapt over the landscape, jumping from rocky outcropping to rocky outcropping, ever time he did, looking down at the many monsters below, categorizing them in his mind and making plans on how to kill them. They weren't uncountable, but he hadn't seen demonic beasts in such great numbers ever before… save for the Demonic Front, where the mother of monsters herself had been creating children in an attempt to overrun Uruk.

After a good thirty minutes of exploration northward, or at least what he presumed to be north, EMIYA finally came to a halt, landing atop a red cliff and looking up, towards the crystal castle that sat in the middle of a valley. Just looking at it, it held both a strange beauty, yet unspeakable wickness. He had his target.

Jumping down, he landed silently in the valley, and began running towards the crystal castle, dodging demonic beasts along the way. They couldn't sense him, his high rank in Presence Concealment being worth some good here, so long as he didn't move to strike, he would be forever hidden from his enemies.

His run towards the crystal castle was unimpeded, and when he reached the bottom he stopped to look skyward, eyes scanning for any form of entrance… Windows. He saw stained glass windows on high. Someone, or something, had made this castle home. A king or queen of a land of beasts.

The cynical part of his mind was about ready to guess he'd find Arturia Alter in this castle, but decided against it. It was highly unlikely for that Servant to be here, and if she was, he would have sensed her presence. It took several large jumps, but scaling the castle was easy enough, landing by the windows, he put his back to the stonework between them, and peeked his head just enough around the corner to look inside.

Everything was tinted purple by the glass, but inside lay some sort of grand hall, a table running down its length, and at its head was a grand throne with no occupant. Perfect, but the window was only going to open if he broke it, so he had to find another entrance.

Leaping higher up the castle, he grabbed a ledge and hung off of it with only one hand, scanning the outside from on high… and spotting a rather large and unnatural outcropping, as unnatural as the castle was already. It was enough to stand out, and if he was right…

Letting go of the ledge and kicking off the crystal, he landed on one crystal spire, balancing carefully as his scarf waved in the wind. Looking at the outcropping from a better angle, he felt a pang of satisfaction at the sight of a large door at the point between it and the crystal castle. Leaping off the spire, he landed gently on the strange purple plateau, and slinked towards the doorway. With a quiet push, he opened it, there was no lock, why would there be one? A castle in the middle of monster infested lands, one either had to be brave, stupid… or held dominion over these creatures. Enough that they would never strike at the castle.

Closing the door behind him, EMIYA kept to the shadows, slinking between them as needed. Even with his high Presence Concealment, he couldn't afford to be spotted out in the open, so moving forward he stuck to the standard procedure of infiltration.

The winding twists and turns of the castle weren't helping that, but he had a good enough memory to recall his way to the exit. He even managed to find the doors that led to the grand hall he'd seen before, if he wanted to try a different escape route should things go south. But it was only after ten full minutes of silence, did he hear a single, echoed step.

EMIYA paused, listening closely as the steps continued, followed by others. At least two other individuals besides the first. Now he had something. Looking up, he tried to find an outcropping… no dice, he would be stuck on the same ground they walked, so here was hoping his concealment held out.

He snuck quietly towards the footsteps, tracing them until he managed to catch sight of his targets. A brown skinned man in a black jacket, and a more tanned and larger individual following after someone. He didn't catch their profile, having already passed the intersection when he had caught sight of the group. So if he wanted to, he had to take a chance.

Moving up quickly to the corridor, he peeked around the corner, watching the two men follow a woman with white hair, wearing a black dress… He'd found the Queen.

The silence between them wasn't good, since that gave no information, so he would have to follow until someone started talking if he actually wanted anything. Already he had an idea how to deal with all three targets, but he couldn't prepare to attack just yet… not yet.

So follow he did, for several minutes at that. Maintaining a good distance behind the trio until they came up upon what appeared to be dungeon doors… and the 'Queen' stopped.

"This is the woman Watts?" she spoke. For such a dark creature that seemed similar to a human, her voice was actually far more human than he'd expected it to be.

"Yes, I took the liberty of incapacitating her when I had the… surprise of her appearing in front of me in my lab," 'Watts' gave. Interesting… the prisoner was a woman who'd appeared inside the laboratory of the well dressed man. He wasn't a Magus then, but a scientist.

But he quickly ran over a checklist of who this woman could be, given the circumstances he had reason to believe she was one of the Servants present at the time of the explosion… or worse, the Master. But it was any of those, he'd have to get them out… great.

But there was one person it could be, and if it was her, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to save her.

"Interesting… I'll have to find a use for her somehow," the 'Queen' said softly, the threat already causing Kiristugu to consider his course of action… at least until he heard the voice.

"What do you even want from me?" he frozen at that voice. His worst fear realized.

Iri was here, she was here and she was locked up in that cell. Almost instantly his hand went for the calico on his belt, but he stopped himself. He couldn't afford to drop his Presence Concealment here, and the Calico likely didn't have to stopping power to even slow down that woman.

"Why whatever you can provide… and I can tell, you'll provide me quite a lot…" the Queen spoke calmly, almost tauntingly. He needed Iri not to lash out right then and there, or else this was going to get a lot harder.

A chance that quickly vanished as he heard her grunt of annoyance, and felt the charging of prana… and then a moment later a second source of it, his head perked up. The Queen was a Magus. He had his opening.

He summoned the Contender, and he felt his Presence Concealment drop rapidly. He had one shot, right here, right now. Whipping around the corner he held the Contender with both hands leveled at the queen's center of mass… and as both men were turning towards him… he pulled the trigger.

The shot ran out, reverberating as it shot directly through the queen's cloth, and she fell to her knees, all her prana consumption dropping as he pulled one hand off the contender and raised the Calico, pulling it up and firing wildly down the hallway. The big man raised his arms as Watts ducked behind the big man… just in time to get blasted out from behind him by an orb of light fired from inside the cell as bullets pelted the large man.

Kiritsugu quickly noticed that he wasn't bleeding from them, he was simply taking them, the bullets bouncing off some sort of force field layered over the man's skin. The queen on the floor was panting and she turned her head towards him, her literally white skin and red eyes looking at him with bloody murder.

Watts grunted as he banged against the wall opposite the cell door, and Kirisugu made the Contender vanish, and did the same with the Calico, pulling out his combat knife and raising it. He still had one more surprise…

"Try to keep up with me…" he muttered… before his body blurred, everything slowed to an absolute crawl for him and he rushed forward, dancing around the large man and stabbing him rapidly, idling noting his dagger wasn't piercing that force field around him, so it wasn't magic… but after about twelve more slashes, he started seeing blood. He then whipped his head towards the queen, her eyes still to where he had been and pulled out the contender once more, leveled with her head.

He canceled Chronos rose, and in that instant, the big man actually screamed as half a dozen cuts emerged on his skin, the field around him breaking as the queen whipped her head towards him… just as he pulled the trigger, putting a second Origin round between her eyes, black blood spilling out as she fell limp, the scientist yelping as he quickly jammed his knife into the lock on Iri's cell.

"Don't talk, run!" he ordered, ripping the dagger out just as the big man swung around with a clenched fist. He flipped backwards before throwing his knife at the man, who dodged it, causing it to fly down the hallway… before Kirisugu vanished and grabbed his knife mid flight directly behind the man, stabbing him in the back twice as Iri barreled past him as fast as her legs could carry her… huh, she was still wearing her casual dress, not the Dress of Heaven.

He ducked as the big man tried to elbow him in the head, jumping back as Iri panted behind him. He pulled up the Calico again and began firing as he started taking steps backwards. The big man threw his arms up again… but this time the Scientist got in the way, throwing out his arms and eating as many of the bullets as he could with a forcefield of his own. He noticed behind them, the body stirring… great, even a bullet directly to the head hadn't worked.

He rounded the corner before launching after Iri, sweeping her off her feet with a yelp of surprise before launching himself down the hallway as fast as he could. The original exit plan wasn't going to be fast enough now.

"Brace yourself," he muttered to her, as Iri threw her arms around his neck, hanging on for dear life. Screeches were starting to fill the halls, monsters coming to either the defense or command of their 'queen'. Of course.

Barreling into the throne room, Kirisugu look at one of the stained glass windows, before taking one hand off Iri, pulling the Calico up and firing, bullets spraying through the window and shattering the glass, revealing the blood red land and sky once more. Taking a moment, he then launched forward, his wife clutching his neck with both arms and one arm around her back, the calico in his other hand as he slammed his foot onto the windowsill and launched forward, landing atop a crystal spire again before jumping off of that into open freefall, feet first as the wasteland below came alive.

Monsters were pouring towards the castle, wolves, bears, gorillas, griffons and more all heading directly towards him and Iri. She closed her eyes as she hung on, just as a swarm of black birds flew up towards them.

Kiritsugu opened fire, bullets from his calico tearing through the smaller birds, but the largest of them took them with ease, opening its beak to try and eat him alive. He grunted, and the world blurred again, his speed increased, and he used that time to plant his foot on the demonic bird's beak, and then running across its head and onto its back, using the Calico to spray bullets through its wings before leaping off his new launching pad, canceling his Time Alter again.

The bird behind him squawked in surprise as it started to fall from the sky with all the new holes in its wings. Iri opened her eyes once more as the cloud of creatures continued to fly towards them. He'd underestimated the queen's command over them, he'd assumed that the Origin Round would be enough to stop it… he needed…

Iri held onto him tighter, channeling her prana into him. That's right… he had her by his side. And he would do anything to protect her. Just as several Griffons flew at him, beaks and claws outstretched, he made his next move.

"Chronos Rose," He muttered… and in an instant it was all a blur again. To the beasts and to any observer, it was as if one moment he was there, and the next he was not. To him, he'd bounced between the griffins, putting bullets between their wings before jumping to the next. Iri's magic filled him, the magic of a Holy Grail… and with this much, he could do for a long time.

Ten, twenty, thirty, fourty, he bounced around the sky, through the swarm and spraying bullets every way he went, he needed to reach that plateau nearby. Only a few hundred meters to go. He kept going, his Servant container starting to crack under the strain of holding up his Noble Phantasm for so long, even with Iri's magic filling him. But he had to, just hold on a little bit longer. Five more seconds at least.

He made it in four, finally landing on the plateau and canceling his Noble Phantasm as behind him, monsters fell from the sky, screaming, dying, splattering against the ground or landing in pools of black tar. He panted, feeling his own Spirit Origin cracking again.

"Don't push yourself so hard…" she whispered in his ear, another spell on his hand as the wounds within his origin started to mend. The hooded assassin turned towards her, even if she couldn't see it, there was a smile on his face. He turned his head towards the castle as he set down Iri. They'd made that great escape in less than a minute, the monsters still heading towards the castle, having been called to their queen's aid. Iri looked towards the castle, holding her hands over her chest as her clothes blew in the wind. Kiritsugu finally lowered his hood, moving his mask and standing beside her, joining her as they looked out over the castle.

In the window he had broken, there she stood, all alone. Anger in her eyes even from this distance, and the storm building above her castle was evidence of that power she still held. He wasn't sure if the Origin rounds had worked at all, or if this was her power after them… but it was a start. They had to get going while they could.

"Iri…" he started, and she turned towards him with a soft smile.

"I know… let's get out of here Kiri," she said, walking over to him and hugging him. He allowed himself to smile for just a moment, slowly picking her up again and starting to walk south… before breaking back into a run, then leaping between the rocks. It would take time, they had a lot of ground to cover, but they would escape this land of monsters.

They would find their Master, their allies and return. And then he could put another bullet in the mother of the monster's brain. He wasn't one to leave a job unfinished… and this one was only just beginning.