Servant Zero
AN: I've been asked a few times now why Louise is missing the knowledge the Grail is supposed to grant servants about the modern world and Grail War. Rin will essentially explain this next chapter, but, as it's bothering quite a few people, I'll briefly explain here for anyone who feels hey need to know right now. According to Saber in Fate/Zero, servants receive this knowledge upon materialization (i.e. when they are placed in their containers). The amnesia the Heroic Spirit Louise is experiencing was caused by something which happened just after materialization, so she lost these memories as well (since they were implanted in her during materialization). What exactly caused Louise's amnesia will be addressed completely much later in the story, and I don't plan on spoiling it, but there is a reason for it.
Realizations
She had panicked.
Louise had stumbled into Fuyuki's Costume Emporium, pushed inside from behind by her traitorous familiar, only to find three pistols trained on her from less than five mails away. At that distance, she knew that even a single bullet could easily kill her. It was not the first time she had seen death – it was, after all, her family's responsibility to see to matters of justice within their lands – but she had never faced her own death. Looking up the barrels of the revolvers pointed towards her, she realized that, with a single pull of the trigger, any one of the men facing her could end all her hopes and dreams here and now.
She would never see Cattleya again, or Eleanor, or her mother, or her father. She would never become a great mage worthy of her family name. She would never prove all of her detractors wrong. No. Instead, she would die, struck down in a strange land so far from home that her family might never even know what had happened to her. And that was not how Louise de la Valliere had wanted her story to end.
So, she had panicked.
One of the men threatening her had yelled something, but she could not heard him over the blood rushing through her ears. Her wand was already moving, flashing forward to point at the trio who threatened her. A second voice ordered her to do something, but she had already opened her own mouth.
"Fireball!"
The resulting explosion, centred just in front of the leftmost pair of her assailants, hurled those two policemen through the front windows of the costume shop, while a third officer was sent tumbling over the counter-top near the front door. He did not get up.
Shelves fell over, and costumes were thrown every which way throughout the store. Louise closed her eyes and mouth, as a wave of black smoke and dust engulfed her. Then the front door of the costume shop burst open, and Louise heard the footfalls of more officers charging into the store. That was about when Louise realized what she had just done.
She had attacked three police officers who were just doing their jobs. Certainly, they were pointing their pistols at a noblewoman, but her familiar had pushed her into the middle of a crime scene. That they would misunderstand her intentions was completely unsurprising. Then she had completely lost control of herself, acting in a manner which did not in any way befit a daughter of the Valliere family. If mother were here, she would be ashamed of Louise.
Although the idea of idea of being treated like a criminal galled her, Louise wondered if she should just turn herself in to the police officers. This was, of course, a barbarian land far from the Brimiric kingdom where she had grown up. She knew neither the customs of this country, nor whether its justice system met the high standards set by Tristain's crown. Even so, surely, whatever noble held the right of high justice in these lands would appreciate Louise's unique circumstances and offer her leniency.
Without warning, Louise had been summoned to some nonsensical land, unlike anything she had ever heard of before. Impossibly high towers filled the horizon, metal carriages which moved without horses sped through the streets, and even the number of moons in the sky was wrong. Indeed, had it not been for the unholy compulsion her familiar had placed upon her last night, forcing her to run through the streets wearing nothing more than a bright, red hat, Louise might have fallen to her knees and cried when she realized what seemed to have happened to her. Instead, of course, as she still had three more hours of running left to go, she just kept on sprinting through Fuyuki City's residential district, singing a cheery hymn about the beneficence and unfailing wisdom of the Holy Founder.
After all that, who could possibly blame her for being on edge – for panicking when faced with three pistols pointed at her from point blank range? Yes. If this was a land of justice, where a noblewoman was treated with the respect befitting her station, then she would surely be forgiven upon explaining her circumstances. Perhaps, the noble governing this territory might even be willing to help her return home.
As the smoke from her fireball spell began to clear, billowing outward through the windows the resulting explosion had shattered, one of the officers who had charged into the shop spotted her, and pointed his pistol at her.
"Drop that whip and... is that a stick? Whatever. Drop the whip and the stick, or I will shoot."
Louise let the whip she had been carrying fall from her left hand without hesitation. She had meant to return it anyway, so there was no point in holding onto it. She would have preferred not to let go of her wand, but, eventually, she was able to bring herself to gently place it on the floor. After all, if she expected to be treated as a noble, then she was obliged to cooperate with the local law enforcement officers.
Then a second man grabbed Louise from behind and pushed her to the floor, fastening a pair of steel cuffs around her wrists. As Louise's face was pressed against the floor, her eyes widened, filling with shock and indignation.
They had all certainly seen her wand. How dare they treat a noblewoman like this?
Furious at the man who had presumed to press down upon her back in a wholly inappropriate manner, Louise bucked upwards, sending the man atop her flying.
"Stay on the ground and don't move," another officer demanded, but Louise was in no mood to listen to him.
She had been coming along willingly, and these plebeians had presumed to manhandle her, as if she was some common tavern wench.
Climbing to her feet with some difficulty, given the handcuffs restraining her, Louise opened her mouth to chastise the brutes, when yet another one of them had the gall to try grabbing her from behind. Fortunately, while far larger than the young mage, her assailant moved so slowly that he might as well have been standing still. Effortlessly, Louise dodged his clumsy blow, and tripped him, sending the man falling to the floor with a loud crash. That was when the first shot was fired.
Louise heard the loud bang of a revolver firing only an instant before she felt something impact against her side. Abruptly, she realized that she had just been shot, so why couldn't she feel any pain?
Mystified, Louise craned her head downwards, trying to get a look at where she had felt the bullet impact, and saw nothing at all. There was no blood, and she could feel no pain. How was that even possible?
Two more gunshots sounded, and she felt two more impacts, but, once again, the bullets seemed completely harmless. Had she somehow become invulnerable?
Then, without warning, her familiar's irritating voice screamed at her from inside her own head.
Caster! What the Hell are you doing?
"Familiar?"
Louise stepped out of the way of a pair of police officers carrying batons, who had decided to flank her, kneeing the one who had come at her from the left in the stomach, and then leaned backwards beneath a wild haymaker from a third officer, so that she could grab her wand from the floor. As her hands were still cuffed together, Louise fumbled with the wand a few times before managing to grasp it, but, honestly, her attackers were so slow that she could probably have taken a break for tea between their punches.
Don't familiar me! I told you to quickly and quietly knock out a few police officers and grab Derflinger, not to start some sort of battle royale with every officer in the area. And how did you manage to end up in handcuffs?
"How do you even know that? I don't see you anywhere."
While questioning her familiar, Louise straightened back up, and slid past a follow-up blow from the police officer who had been in front of her before stomping on his right calf. The officer who had been shooting her had apparently put away his gun and retreated towards the door, pulling out some sort of small, black box with a metal pole attached to it. He was talking into the device, but Louise could not make out his words over the rest of the noise in the store.
I'm looking through your eyes, of course. What did you expect me to do when I started hearing gunshots? The first explosion was bad enough.
Louise's eyes widened, as she landed a high kick on the only one of her current assailants who was still standing. Her familiar could look through her eyes? A mage could, of course, look through the eyes of her familiar, but Louise had never considered that a familiar might be able to look through her master's eyes as well.
"Hey, girlie," Derflinger spoke up, interrupting her thoughts. "If you're here to rescue me, could you pick up the pace a bit. I think I'm starting to rust over here. Also, you should know, when you talk to yourself, it makes you sound a little crazy."
"Shut up, you stupid sword! You should be more grateful to the person who almost died to get you back."
"Maybe I'd be more grateful if she wasn't the same person who abandoned me here in the first place, and what do you mean 'almost died?' They didn't even scratch you."
Furious, Louise stomped over to her insolent sword.
"I was shot three times! That-That definitely should have killed me, or at least have hurt a little bit!"
"Yeah. I'd have thought so too, but I guess either you're a lot tougher than you look, or those bullets were a lot weaker. Either way, I'm pretty sure you can't say that they almost killed you."
Louise heard a telepathic groan from her familiar.
Caster, stop screwing around. Obviously, a normal police officer isn't going to be able to so much as scratch a divine mystery. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you don't know that?
This was part of the reason why Louise hated her familiar. She always talked as if everything she was saying would be completely obvious to anyone who was not an utter moron, but nothing she said ever made any sense at all. What did God have to do with bullets bouncing off of Louise? Did her familiar honestly expect Louise to believe that God had popped by to personally offer her some sort of divine protection? Whatever. There was no point in even discussing religious matters with that heretic. However, her familiar was right about one thing: she needed to grab Derflinger and flee before any more of those brutes who had assaulted her arrived. There was only one problem.
Louise looked down at the sword in front of her and frowned.
"I'm not sure that I can carry both you and my wand with these hand cuffs on, and I'm not leaving my wand."
Caster, just return to your spiritual form, and they should fall right off. Now, hurry up!
Once again, her familiar's advice sounded like complete gibberish. Fortunately, Derflinger made a more practical suggestion.
"Have you tried snapping the cuffs? I mean, you don't look like you're that strong, but that one guy you kicked flew half way across the room."
That was actually a good point. Normally, Louise would never have even considered the idea, but, since Louise's familiar had summoned her, she had performed a number of physical feats which she would have previously considered impossible for her. Running for hours on end, outfighting four large men, while handcuffed and unable to cast any spells, somehow remaining uninjured after being shot: a day ago, Louise was fairly sure that she could not have done any of those things. Louise knew that familiars often gained powers from being summoned, and she had been summoned, even if she definitely was not anyone's familiar, so it might be possible.
Straining her biceps and triceps, Louise pulled apart her arms with all her might, trying to snap the chain which restrained her hands. She winced in pain as the steel biting into her flesh rubbed her wrists raw, but kept on pulling. She could hear the screech of the the chain links binding her tearing. Then, with a final burst of effort, the pink-haired mage snapped the chain entirely, freeing her hands.
Her wrists sent sharp pain signals to her brain every time they so much as brushed against the steel cuffs around her hands, while her triceps and biceps felt as if she had done a million push-ups, but she was free.
Breathing a bit rapidly from her exertion, Louise picked up Derflinger with her left hand and smiled.
"I did it."
"Yeah. Good job, girlie. Now, let's get out of here."
Striding towards the back of the costume shop, Louise opened the door, and came face to face with her familiar. One of the officers at the other girl's feet seemed to be stirring, but a few words in a strange tongue and a wave of her familiar's hand solved that problem. The raven-haired girl was frowning at her.
"Why did you that?"
"What?"
"Why did you break those handcuffs the way you did, rather than slipping out of them using your spiritual form? I could tell that doing it the way you did hurt quite a bit."
Louise scowled right back at the other girl.
"Shut up!"
Why was her familiar always like this? Even when Louise had just done something amazing, rescuing Derflinger and beating up all those armed men, her familiar still looked at her like there was something wrong with her: like she was a failure, a zero. Louise felt tears welling up in her eyes, and forced her eyes shut in order to keep them from escaping. Then, as soon as she was sure that it was safe, the pink-haired mage opened her eyes again, and stared right back at her familiar with a mutinous expression.
"I did the best I could! You're the one who brought me to this crazy place and humiliated me and pushed me into that shop without even giving me any warning! What did you expect me to do?"
Her familiar's eyes narrowed, as her eyes flicked over Louise's face, analyzing and then filing away ever detail of her expression. Then, seeming to have found what she was looking for, the young woman closed her eyes, her shoulders slumped, and she let out a gusty sigh.
"So it's like that, after all then." She cradled her face in her left hand, while her right hand slammed against the brick wall to Louise's left. "Damn it all! What am I supposed to do with a servant like this?"
Sighing again, Louise's familiar took her hand, and began pulling the Tristanian mage along with her towards the end of the alley, where a three mail high brick wall blocked their path.
"We can talk as we walk, but first we'll need to jump over this wall. Leaving this alley the same way we came in could draw unwelcome attention after what you just did. Jumping over the wall won't be a problem for you, will it?"
Once again, Louise felt as if she were taking a test without even knowing what the questions were, while her familiar watched her like a hawk. She wasn't sure that she could jump that high, but, considering everything else she had done recently, it was at least possible, and she definitely would not let herself lose to her own familiar.
"I'll definitely do it," Louise replied firmly, practically daring her familiar to challenge her, but the raven-haired woman only sighed again in response to her assertion.
"Alright then, Caster. Follow me."
Then, sprinting towards the wall, her familiar chanted, "Es ist grob. Es ist klein!"
Her legs lit up by a lattice of glowing, blue lines, her familiar bent her knees and exploded into motion, clearing the wall with at least a mail to spare in an impossibly high jump.
Louise closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I can do this. I can definitely do it. I won't let myself lose to her."
"That's the spirit, girlie. Keep it up, although, you know, she can probably hear you."
Not bothering to reply to the talking sword in her left hand, Louise charged towards the wall at her best speed, and then bent her knees and leaped forward as far and high as she could manage. Incredibly, she not only managed to duplicate her familiar's feat, but even managed to exceed her, flying at least half a mail further above the wall than her familiar had.
"I did it!" Louise exulted, reveling in her success.
Then, not having prepared for her landing at all, Louise stumbled as she struck the ground, her own feet twisting around to trip her, and found herself skidding along the ground on her knees until friction brought her to a halt. Okay. So she might have to work on her landings a little bit.
Without a word, her familiar helped her up from where she had fallen to the ground, and started rapidly striding forward towards the alley's exit. At the speed her familiar was walking, Louise found it difficult to keep pace with her without breaking into a run, but she was not going to let her own familiar outpace her.
"Alright," her familiar declared, turning to face her with an impassive expression, as they reached the end of the alley. "I had hoped that I would be able to go to school today, but, if you can't even use your spiritual form, then I don't have any choice. The police will definitely be looking for you, but leaving this way will probably buy us at least a minutes or two, and, if I do this too..."
She waved her left hand towards Louise's hair, and hissed the word, "Schwarzen."
"Then, the fact that you are probably the only girl with naturally pink hair in Japan won't give us away either."
Startled by the implications of her familiar's statement, Louise pulled one of her bangs down, and held it out in front of her eyes.
"I-It's black. You turned my hair black?"
"Don't worry about it," her familiar replied breezily. "Alteration of this level should only last a few hours. Hopefully, it will keep you from sticking out too much until we get back home, but the pigmentation should be back to normal by lunch time."
"I-I see."
Once again, her familiar acted as if magic Louise had never seen before was commonplace. Would changing the pigmentation of hair be water magic, since it was sort of like dyeing the hair, or maybe earth magic? It certainly did not seem like it would be a simple, dot-level spell, and her familiar had done it effortlessly, without even using a wand. In fact, she had not yet seen her familiar use a wand even once, no matter what spell she employed.
"Now, come on," her familiar demanded. "The sooner we get back to my house, the sooner we can figure out what's wrong with you."
"There's nothing wrong with me," Louise replied, but, exhausted and overwhelmed as she was, her denial lacked the heat it would have normally had.
Her familiar shot her an unreadable look.
"Like I said, we can discuss it once we're back home, where the police aren't so likely to suddenly interrupt us, in order to arrest you."
Then her familiar walked into street, clearly expecting Louise to follow her, and groaned.
"And I'll have to ask Kirei for a favour. Oooooh. I can already hear that smug, self-satisfied tone of his. Rin," she spoke in a deeper voice, obviously imitating this Kirei, "the war has not even started yet, and you've already seriously violated the secrecy of magecraft in broad daylight. While, as your father's disciple, I am pleased that you have finally summoned your servant, as the impartial mediator of the Holy Grail War, I can only protect you so far. Please Rin, for your father's sake, if you feel the urge to blow up any more stores or assault any more police officers, at least try to do so when there are less witnesses about."
Her right hand balled into a fist.
"As if I need that sort of advice from you, Kirei!"
Louise simply walked on, lost too deeply in her thoughts to concern herself with her familiar's mad ramblings. Since she had arrived in this land, she had been simply trying to ignore the strangeness of her surroundings and her familiar. A part of her, she suspected, had hoped that this was all merely a fever dream brought on by willpower exhaustion, or that her professors would suddenly appear before her eyes with a way home. But that wasn't going to happen, was it?
No. She was really here: stranded in a barbarian land so far from home that she could only make out a single moon in the night sky. She was stranded here all alone except for her heretical lunatic of a familiar, and if she wanted to get home some day, Louise would need to accept that truth and make the best of it.
"Oooooh! I hate that guy so much!"
Of course, she mused, gritting her teeth, it would be easier to make the best of some things than others.
"Stop whining, familiar! I can barely hear my own thoughts over the sound of your moaning."
"I don't want to hear from that you! And put away your sword! At least try to be inconspicuous."
"Hey," said sword spoke up. "Shouldn't I get a say in this."
Both young women turned towards him, wearing nearly identical expressions of righteous, feminine fury.
"No!"