Chapter 1

Hyoudou Issei was a strange person by any person's way of reasoning, and no he wasn't some kind of pervert. For some reason whenever he was around women he didn't look at them like objects like many of the friends he had once had in school did. He instead saw them as something that could potentially kick his butt. It probably had something to do with his dreams.

When he was younger, he started having dreams of massive fires and death. Every time the only thing he could feel after he woke up was a deep desire to help those whose faces he could not see. His parents had eventually taken him and his younger sister Sakura to a mental health doctor, and the only thing the man could think of was reincarnation and residual memories from a past life where the poor boy had some form of deeply held survivor's guilt.

Needless to say, his parents were not overly impressed with the man. They didn't even let the man talk to Sakura about her strange love for fire and lizards, even though that was tame compared to her brother's issues. The boy started to do everything he could to help people, at no cost to them. He actually got his young light-scented friend Irina on board with playing "hero," but such childhood friendships do not usually end up continuing very closely should one move away. Irina was one such "tragic" child-hood loss.

You may notice that she smelled like light to the young boy, and that is because he could smell whenever there was something unusual about a person. Now don't ask what light might smell like, because it is something you really have to experience for yourself to understand.

The boy was wandering around town the day after his friend had left and he saw an old man talking to a bunch of young kids. It took him only a second to realize that the guy was some sort of deviant who needed a good swift kick to the head. He was too young to do that though, so he found the nearest policeman to do it for him, somehow knowing that something terrible would have happened if he had stuck around to listen to the old man.

Shortly after that his adopted teen brother had started to distance himself from his family. The blond-haired and red-eyed young man still kept in contact with those who had taken him in and taught him love and morals that he hadn't possessed early on in life. Though Issei couldn't figure out why his brother Gilgamesh had moved to the Middle East after graduating, especially considering the fact that he looked neither middle-eastern nor like he was going to convert to one of the three major religions in that area.

As Issei grew, he could not figure out many of the things about himself, like why he wanted to help anyone who asked him to do anything for him, because he was pretty sure that he wasn't a genie. The other was the smelling thing. The poor boy first went to Kuoh Academy when it opened up for boys to attend because his parents wanted him there to be able to keep an eye on his sister when she would start to attend the next year. The first day he had walked in the door, he had smelled numerous over-powering scents and there seemed to be something near the gate. He had managed to shake it off and power his way through the day until it had become normal.

He had gradually started to go around helping people in any way that he could, and he found that he had a knack for fixing equipment around the school and had somehow ended up with the moniker of "fake janitor." His two best friends Matsuda, the schools most talented sports star, and Motohama, a boy who had somehow ended up with the ability to know what is wrong with something with a single look when he was wearing his glasses, which were given to him by his great-uncle, who was a self-proclaimed magician, usually followed him and helped him out, and Issei found it odd that he could do basically the same thing as Motohama, but without glasses. The three of them quickly became renowned as heroes in the school, often times being the ones to corner any pervert that tried to pull anything funny at school. Considering the fact that Matsuda was already an eighth dan in about six different forms of martial arts while working almost twenty others up into the dan rankings at a fast pace, Issei was also incredibly strong and durable because of his desire to help people carrying him to great lengths to be able to achieve that goal, and Motohama was also able to see a person's weaknesses with just a look, enabling him to use an improvised form of pressure-point therapy on his friends and victims alike, the three of them were able to do quite a bit of non-lasting damage to any who would dare be rude to the girls of their school.

The boys had just finished off with one of their "discussions" with one such pervert when Issei felt someone was watching him, and he had stopped momentarily to look up into the window of the old-school building. The red-headed young woman Rias Gremory was looking at him, and he could smell her and her friends even at this distance. The other two stopped as well and looked at the stunning woman looking at them curiously. Issei had never understood it, but he was drawn to her for some reason, despite the fact that she smelled like a weird combination of Honey, Entropy, and something else that he couldn't seem to identify. The red-headed foreigner smiled at them and nodded her head to them in acknowledgement, and Issei's two partners bowed politely to her and pulled Issei into one as well. When they looked up again, she was gone. They smirked to each other and then ran to get to class so that they wouldn't be late.

Afterwards Issei was approached by a young girl he had never seen before, and she asked him to take her out on a date. Issei's response was less than stellar for someone who wanted a date, "Can I bring my little sister along? My parents are going to be out on a date of their own and want me to look after her."

Surprisingly enough, the girl smiled, "Yes you can."

He bowed his head to her and said politely, "I will be looking forward to it."

After she started walking away he pumped his hand in the air, because despite his good reputation, no girl seemed to want to actively pursue him. So this was a first for him, and as he almost skipped home that night, he called his two friends and told them what had happened. They instantly wanted all the details, and he told them what little he knew. Something about it didn't sit right with them, so the bald martial-artist sports star convinced his glasses wearing friend to help him stalk Issei the next day to make sure everything would go well with their buddy on his first date.

Issei's parents also permitted it while reminding him that his brother was coming by for a visit within the month. His little sister almost started jumping around because she was going to be able to go into town with her beloved big brother. He went to sleep that night with a smile on his face because of his impending date, and for the first time in a long while, something was different within his dreams.

He looked around the waste land he had found himself in. The sky, which seemed to be in a perpetual state of smog-induced twilight, held great gears that turned slowly and continuously, the reflection of this strange scene was in the thousands of swords and other miscellaneous weapons he could see stuck in the ground around him. He felt that they were all important, but he couldn't figure out why. He turned and saw a man sitting on the only hill that was visible through the smoke, clouds, and fire that hung around the edge of this world. His black and red clothed back was leaning against a gold and blue sheath being held up by a pair of crisscrossed and somewhat similar looking swords. His white, windswept hair was pointed backwards, and he seemed to be reading a book that was open in his lap, with a pile of cards and various different game pieces sitting next to him, haphazardly "organized."

Issei started to walk towards him, when he heard the strange man speak, "You know, Master, it isn't all that nice to keep me locked up in here when there could be danger."

Issei made to say something, but he was rudely punted back into consciousness by his little sister shaking him, rather roughly, to get him up for his "big date."

-SFD-

The day started off with the usual breakfast-time family antics, I am sure that you all at least know some of them. The mad scramble to figure out how the eggs are going to be cooked, or whether there even will be eggs or something else, like a western cereal that Issei's mom had taken a liking to; the coffee being too hot for one parent and too cold for the other; and which child would get the bathroom first. The fact that this wasn't a school day was actually the reason for the mad dashing around the house. Issei's two friends were certainly amused by the family's antics from the positions they took up outside the home to stalk Issei on his date.

Issei finally got out of the door while holding his sister's hand, and his two friends sticking to the shadows behind, but he knew they were there because of their unusual scents, Matsuda smelt almost like an animal and constantly sweaty, and Motohama smelt like a bunch of old books. Part of the reason he had accepted the date was because the girl smelt much more strongly of light than his old friend Irina, though something seemed off about it somehow. He made it to the bridge near the shopping district of the town, and was given a strange pamphlet by a young girl who was dressed weirdly and smelled like a bat.

He looked it over, it had a weird symbol on it and words that cause him to raise his eyebrow and say, "Your wish will be granted, hmm? Weird." He stuffed the paper in his pocket and smiled at the young light-smelled girl approaching him.

She smiled gently back, "Hello, Issei."

He smirked slightly as his sister jumped up and down, "Hi, Miss Yuuma!"

She smiled at the excited young girl, "You seem more excited than your brother for this date."

Issei nodded slightly, then started shaking his head at Sakura's antics, "She doesn't get to go into town very often."

The black-clad girl smiled and reached out her hand to Issei so their date could start. Issei took her hand and gradually began the slow process of showing the girl the town, such as it was. His two friends both thinking that it would have been a very sweet date, if they still hadn't sensed that there was something off about it. The feeling of wrongness the two had increased when the girl took a brief break to call some of her friends and didn't display any of the usual behaviors of a girl on her first date gushing to friends about how great it was.

After a long day on the pathways and looking into the shops around town, the five people ended up in the park, and this is where the fateful question that decides the life of all the different versions of Hyoudou Issei comes up. Issei is sitting on the bench with Yuuma, Sakura is playing with the water in the nearby fountain, and Matsuda and Motohama are hiding out in the bushes nearby.

Yuuma stands up and, after pulling Issei up, asks, "In honor of our first date, will you die for me?"

The two friends instantly start to make a move forwards, and they both end up stabbed from behind and shoved into the pavement near their friend. He turned to her with a questioning and horrified look. His sister screaming as she is also suddenly stabbed by a backwards thrust of a spear made of light that had appeared in Yuuma's hands. The girl transformed before his eyes into an older woman with massive black-wings bursting out of her back, her clothes shredding and reforming in almost an instant into something very inappropriate for younger eyes. A detached part of his brain said that if his younger sister wasn't currently face-down on the pavement with a hole in her chest he would have been covering her eyes and telling the woman to put some clothes on. He never got the chance to do or say anything as two spears suddenly jutted out of his stomach and chest at the same time.

As he was falling to the ground he heard the man and woman behind him chuckle darkly, the trench-coated man saying, "That was fun, we should do this more often."

The woman and Yuuma rolled their eyes at the man and say at the same time, "Come on you bloodthirsty old-fart."

They all leapt off the ground, leaving the four humans to die in pools of their own blood. Issei looked at the faces of his friends and sister who had already lost the fight for consciousness but not death. He remembered the pamphlet in his pocket, and called out to the only person he could think of, "Help us, Rias Gremory."

The pamphlet started to shine as it slowly slid from his fingers. A circle inscribed itself on the ground next to him, from which appeared the most beautiful girl at the school, Rias Gremory. A pair of black, bat-like wings were on full display on her back after she had appeared to see them all lying there, close to death.

The young woman started to move toward Issei, but he grabbed her leg in a vise-grip and coughed out, blood running from one corner of his mouth "Please, help them first." And with that last bit strength, he finally expired, letting out the final gasp of the dead.

Rias shook her head as she looked sadly at the young boy, "I am sorry, I could not have gotten here sooner."

The red-head held out her hand, in which were four blood-red chess pieces and three of them were glowing brighter than the other. She place one of them on the chest of each of the people there, the dimmest one going on Motohama. She then spoke something as a magic circle formed beneath each of them, "You will now live your lives for my sake, and I for yours. You will be my servants and I your master. Arise as servants of house Gremory."

The pawn pieces sunk into their targets, and seconds later black wings similar to hers appeared from three of their backs, while the wounds on all of them instantly started mending themselves. She instantly ran over to Issei, wondering what had gone wrong so that he wasn't a devil. She saw that her connection with him was stable, and he had somehow been enhanced like the others, despite staying human. Though what held her attention wasn't any of that; what was holding her undivided attention was the way he was healing. She moved aside his shirt and saw that she hadn't missed her guess, and his wounds were almost completely filled in with steel blades, which were slowly converting back into unblemished flesh.

A deep and sarcastic voice startled her, "What are you looking at Rias Gremory?"

She instantly looked wildly about, "Who are you, and were you the one to do this to them?"

She heard a dry sounding chuckle, "Kind of hard to kill one's own host, don't you think?"

That caused her to look down and realize that the voice was coming from a blinking white light on the back of Issei's right hand, "A Sacred Gear?"

She could almost hear the smirk, "Indeed, I am the reason why the boy didn't turn into a dark-kin like you."

She looked at the blinking light in astonishment, "How, and is it your power that is healing him that way?"

The older sounding voice snarked, "Why would a magician reveal all his secrets to the first pretty girl to ask him?"

She scowled at him with a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks, "Please just answer the question, considering you are within my new servant."

[Sigh] "So impatient. Yes it is my power causing him to heal that way, and the reason why he didn't turn into a child of darkness like you is because my presence is both extremely powerful and overwhelmingly human. When your pawn entered him, my presence changed the nature of the pawn so that it follows the rules of Heroic Spirits and Servants, instead of the rules of your kind's peerage system, to a degree."

She looked at him intrigued, "What is this other system?"

"The piece changed so that instead of being able to promote to one of the four different chess classes, the boy will be able to change from an unclassed servant into one of the twenty Servant Classes that Heroic Spirits can be summoned as, and they are Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Berserker, Ruler, Avenger, Alter Ego, MoonCancer, Foreigner, Shielder, Saver, Gunner, Faker, Gatekeeper, Watcher, Beast, and Boxer."

Her eyes widened, "What exactly are Heroic Spirits?"

The voice seemed to contemplate the answer for a second, "Something not native to this universe, so you really wouldn't have a comparison, but they are the spirits of legendary heroes, villains, monsters, and gods that have passed from life and become enshrined in a realm outside of time and space that is called the Throne of Heroes. Upon being summoned they essentially get a portion of their power poured into a container that is fashioned after the body they had in life, and they become the top class of familiar, many times stronger than their summoner. If they disagree with their summoner's vision, they usually end up killing their summoner so they can return to the Throne."

Rias looked stunned, both by what was said and the fact that his abnormal healing method had finished, "How strong are the two of you then?"

She could, again, almost hear the smirk, "He is an unclassed Servant with no legend tied to this version of him. What do you think that means?"

Rias contemplated it for a second, "That he is weak."

The voice drawled out, "Very astute of you, but he is only weak by our standards. Physically he would be able to go toe-to-toe with the higher end of those who are considered middle-class in your society, and magically, his power is nothing to sneeze at, even by the upper end of you high class dark-kin, but it is still only the barest portion of the power which I possess, even in my most basic form as a Sacred Gear."

Rias asked, "Then what about you?"

She heard a dry chuckle, "After having three Sacred Gears fuse with me, I became the top Heroic Spirit, and a being that is technically more powerful then Great Red."

Rias' eyes widened to comical levels, "Why place yourself in him then?"

She could almost hear the shrug, "Boredom. There is no version of Hyoudou Issei that does not lead an interesting life."

Rias' left eyebrow twitched slightly, "Perhaps we should take this somewhere that isn't half-coated in blood?"

The voice almost seemed intrigued now, "Where would you propose that?"

Rias looked at him skeptically as she formed a magic circle near her ear, "My clubhouse, where else, did you think I was just going to leave my newly resurrected servants lying in pools of their own blood, or take them home with their blood-stained clothes and leave them there wishing this was all just some bad dream?"

The voice sounded impressed, "Considering the fact that that is what almost every other version of you usually does with the boy? Yes."

Rias snorted as she finished contacting Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko, "Then those other versions of me were failures as both kings and people."

She almost didn't catch what he said in watching her peerage appear before her in a new magic circle, "Indeed."

Her friends saw what had happened, and Akeno raised an eyebrow, "Need help carting them off to the clubroom Rias?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, Akeno. Can you please each grab one of them and help carry them into the circle?"

The three of them nodded slightly, and Akeno picked up Motohama, Kiba picked up Matsuda, Koneko picked up Sakura, and Rias gently picked up Issei and the others saw the dull light on the back of his right hand, but they did not question it yet. They moved back to the circle on some unspoken signal, and vanished from that place, a residual spell causing all the blood that was in the area to disintegrate into ash.