The Babysitter of Heroes

by Laurence Wu

Benjamin is your average college student, he lived a simple life. But when he move to his grandpa's house, find golden cup which appears a Holy Grail that summons several servants in flesh and blood. He must not only deal with servants moving into his house but stop them from killing each other and cause chaos in the city. He did not sign up to be a caretaker for the Heroes AU 2005

30. Chapter 30

A/N: Well, it has been a long time hasn't it, people, almost four and a half months now. I am back to give you another updated chapter (13,510) and sorry that it took a very long time more than usual.

A lot of things have happened over the last four months. I want to apologize for several things:

1. The reason why it is taking so long to update was that I'm back at Ohlone College and I was studying new Courses which is Algebra 1, which was slowing my writer-creator ideas and I regret picking it. Oh, it was an expensed class which it is ridiculous compared to English class and what kind of math class wouldn't let you use your notes for the test. That was a handicap for me.

2. Once I am done writing this, I am going to have dentist surgery to get rid of an extra tooth on the front and two teeth on the back so I can clean better now so away in the future. It will take 15 min to be done and a sleeping pill to numb my gum.

3. On Sunday on the 18 of March, my Church friend English minister's wife fell down next to my Dad and passed out, not breathing at all. It was surprising for all of us, it was just another usual day, which we called Paramedics to shock her back but later that day, the English minister's wife passed away and I was one of a few people to talk with her for the last time and was shocked to see someone you know pass away from your eyes. So I was feeling down when I wrote this.

So there were 50 reviews, that were either questions, suggestions, or some pieces of information of lores that I did not know before. There are still some terrible and badly-implemented ones, but I'm going to answer those ideas if they are good or not. I will not try to answer all of the reviews.

Yes, I know that Anastasia Chapter of Lostbelt 1 is released today which is why I updated the chapter so tell what you guys know about the latest plot or pieces of information.

AN: To Lunatics diehard Nasuverse fans if you found my story tends to rub some of you in the wrong way with how it alters the lore of past works. Please just leave the room because I don't want your smart lecture on my Story's review because I am using the lores as a guideline to understand the basic rules. There is a lot of the things that aren't supposed to work which when asked during interviews on Fate series most of the questions were blown off. Either due to poor writing or trying not to stoke massive op ego that just confirms it's weak worldbuilding in my eyes if that's what they use to justify it. The Type-Moon has broken their rules before many times, for so many so-called facts cannot really be tested. Many questions are literally walked past when asked, leave most of the replies taken completely less seriously. That's not to say a lot of things aren't explained, it's just that when they are it's mostly an explanation on what something does, as opposed to how it does it and why.

The Nasuverse magecraft has an extensive detail set of rules regarding what is possible and what is not possible and how people meet the energy requirements for what they do, which work way too well that only diehard Type-Moon fans know what Nasu is talking about. There is a limit of how much I can understand all of this so yeah. The main issues that Kinoko Nasu has some weaker world building that maintaining suspension of disbelief throughout the story that causes some heavy handwaving here and there. Some of Nasuverse lore tend to rub me off in ball shit way or doesn't make any sense like the Magu's Association in the Fate Apocrypha was set up to be a major boogie man but as the series, progress hasn't been living up to it reputation, also is brushed aside in a rather unrealistic way. I simply don't understand how can the magi's culture/society is able to function and survive in that kindly heartless attitude (in the sense of wanting to achieve their own goals to be successful in mad scientist way). Also, there is little to nothing of what does the Clock Tower and the Holy Church teach newcomers the basics Thaumaturgy in their class. The power levels inside and across franchises, it can't be explained well to others. Is there any more detail on how the ability works? Limitations or drawbacks, anything like that? Because that is all in the profile mat. There's a lot of meticulous detail missing from things that I really wish we had, though I realize it is a bit unreasonable to expect a level of detail comparable to the actual universe we live in.

No flame, spam the comments or lecture me what I can do or not because no one likes Lunatics diehard fans telling us what to do.

For the Guest reviews, your answers are at the bottom of the chapter.

Ok, I am done talking about that, I am here to write an interesting story, not here to discuss what I can or cannot do. Time to answer some of your questions.

TheHatter1 chapter 29. Mar 27: Well, you would have to bend/break some of the rules to get the story more interesting but if you are here to complain about it then don't say it here, there were plenty of times that the rules were screwed or the rules were bent before. So honestly it can be anything, the keyword 'should.' Lots of separate timelines and canons that are all distinct from each other except when they aren't. Realistically, what the rules of the Throne are is whatever suits Nasu/Higashide/etc at any given moment. So don't take it seriously.

Servants are copies of a concept rather than a distinct person being summoned, so the same servant summoned twice isn't actually the same entity, except sometimes they specifically are. Caster Cu complains that he likes it more when he's summoned as a Lancer, but he's also not actually Lancer Cu at all general, Fate has a trend where Nasu really likes having specific details and rules for the setting but also likes to play up a rule of cool. Neither of these things is inherently bad, but put together you have this contradiction where the setting has lots of clearly defined rules and then just as many exceptions to those same rules, and because Fate likes to explain things, those exceptions get their own rules that make things even more convoluted and inconsistent.

The Rupture: Yes, the description of Barthomeloi's reaction was expected as I wanted to show that for all her abilities, she would discover that her power is a lion among lambs, while Servants/Ultimate Ones are a dragon on steroids. Her "Chelon Canticle Brigade" so-called brigade of 50 elite magi capable of eradicating a Dead Apostle and their underlings in under an hour is based on shock troops on paper that is however worthless on a total war assuring this brigade could kill dozens if not hundreds but when Benjamin's near infinite supply of minions will march forward grimly until they crush her brigade under the weight of their own bodies. And that's just infantry. Wait until they bring the big guns.

To be brutally honest with you on this extremely arrogant Vice director of the Mage's Association who is said to be easily one of the top powerful people (well, there's not much known about her abilities) capable of taking on Ancestors. Actually, Lorelei was never actually said, explicitly at least, to have tangled with those specific ones (and in fact was much more likely to have fought one of the weakest ones, and probably with backup and a lot of planning at that). That's a pretty huge difference since there are way more than just 10 dead apostle ancestors. About her ability to be on par with an average servant, I don't think she could handle *any* of the Servants we've seen over the years if what we've seen of Servants is any indication, modern mages are mostly SoL (Sadly Outta Luck) against them. Even particularly ones as orthodox as Lorelei.

Ado Edem's reaction was really simple as he fought Ultimate Ones at least three of them I believe and seeing that they are in a group with him can put him on edge. Yes, Type Mercury would appear too as there is a picture of it so I can see what it looks like and summon it. Karna and Vlad III would appear later, yes Karna is someone whose loyalty lessens some of Flanna's worries as Karna kept it together and actually does what she says to get the job done, Vlad's rant about him not being a Vampire would be useful for Flanna to send him to kill dead apostles.

LukeSky001 chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017: All right then and thanks for giving the steps by the way.

LukeSky001 chapter 4. Mar 14: I would summon the actual Merlin in a loophole way to get him out of his eternal imprisonment. How to survive in the Garden of Avalon is to send a robot in.

LukeSky001 chapter 22. Jan 22: At least I don't keep checking my bookmarks of all my room dialogues with many servants from Fate Grand Order which is good.

LukeSky001 chapter 6. Nov 29, 2017: No shit.

LukeSky001 chapter 1. Nov 28, 2017: Got it.

LukeSky001 chapter 2. Nov 28, 2017: Sure thing.

LukeSky001 chapter 8. Nov 29, 2017: Good to know and be funny to see Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg in fear of seeing Crimson Moon once again.

LukeSky001 chapter 9. Feb 2: Thank for that information, his normal avenger class servant vessel because he is really weak. "The end of four nights"-Rank EX is based summon unlimited Shades that barely shaped like a wolf-man that appears in massive numbers.

LukeSky001 chapter 10. Feb 26: Thanks for information.

LukeSky001 chapter 14. Feb 13: Thanks for the information.

LukeSky001 chapter 12. Dec 4, 2017: I would use for the dream cycles.

LukeSky001 chapter 5. Mar 2: No, thanks.

LukeSky001 chapter 7. Feb 26: I would take that.

LukeSky001 chapter 15. Dec 8, 2017: I think they must be drunk when writing it down.

MaxHD2490 chapter 29. Feb 15: Why is she an Archer in the first place and has that power to bend the World itself with her eyes are getting ridiculous but who cares she will appear in the story somewhere in future.

CD123505: I think you got confused with two different scenes that I wrote down. The first scenes with Benjamin and Brynhilder were that he asked Valkyrie about how to live up to being a good Master and getting strong like servants which she told him that trying to live up to the expectation of others is not a good thing and warns the dangers of pursuing strength at the cost of discarding his humanity well it might increase his power, it would also twist his mind into that of a monster, throwing your moral at a cost. The second scenes after the first were Benjamin and Flanna talking about their opinions on the servants and a good reason why she had a hard time trusting them as some of the history/texts often rewrite history and current events to put themselves in the best light possible, for political reasons, or romanticism of old songs and legends that glorify so-called noble heroes if looking at the values of the time through a modern lens, it can describe moral evils.

I am not making a reaction if they summon Nasu because that is not funny at all. About a poll for servants to be summoned, there is no point to do that because I know almost everyone is going to chose the most popular servants as I pick the less popular ones or servants that are literally non- existent in their eyes but I do agree that I should summon very strong servants/beasts at around somewhere in the plot anytime.

What would reactions like Arcueid (Archetype Earth), and a weird summoning of both the Shiki Ryougi be like:

Arcueid (Archetype Earth): A full power of Heroic spirit Arcueid is literally or basically 'the Beast of Revelation' for everyone and her little show of effect the entire planet doesn't help but makes everyone shit their pants.

Shiki Ryougi: The Assassin is an urban legend in Mifune City so no one outside of the city knows who she is. The Saber one is the physical manifestation of Akasha, the Spiral of Origin and the source of everything in the Nasuverse is the Holy Grail for the Magi and some of the servants work towards in their studies, either consciously or not. I have already done this back in the last chapter 29.

Piddle chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017: Yes, I am going to summon most all of the types (Ultimate Ones), the one that has a picture of it first then one that hasn't been described (If there is fanart somewhere on the webpages) because no one has done it before and I also would show everyone on magic world absolutely stunned that the Mastermind (Flanna and Benjamin) used the Ultimate Ones serving as mundane roles like city guards or pulling cargo wagons, it is literally like giving nuclear bombs to children.

MaxHD2490 chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017: Well, Benjamin's training is about to begin whether he likes it or not. Lancer Artoria Alter's identity is time for her to reveal to Benjamin and Flanna. It could be said that Epic of remnant IV was a 'wow' moment.

The mana transfer method was a mixed bag. The fact from what I heard is that Kinoko Nasu did not want to put NSFW scenes in the first place but his co-workers suggested it in the last minute touches and shoehorned them in out of some imagined obligation to the fanbase. I am surprised that no one had ever thought to make blood potion as an emergency ration in case something like this happened. Benjamin is probably be going to die of exhaustion making love with Medb (Yes, you can actually die doing that).

ArcherShirou chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017: I can see them making a truce, oh right with Rin trying to get information from Ben and his group by asking questions which is more or less successful. You are talking about standard dragons which need three to four servants to defeat them with a lot of planning, what I'm talking about is Fafnir, the strongest dragon bless with invulnerabilities that made all weapons ineffective against him on steroids by the Holy Grail. The government would be in shock for life and magus around the world would keep thinking of Benjamin as a sorcerous overlord who has possible ambitions of bringing the age of the Gods back with religious forms around him. The vampires are staying hidden in their homes wondering what the heck is going on. I love that example scene of EMIYA, Rin, and Shirou as I may use it somewhere in the chapter.

About the servants who can defeat Beast, who are on the same level as a Type is one hell of a headache and the main issues are that it can't be explained well to others.

MaxHD2490 chapter 29. Jan 3: I don't have many complaints about Katsushika Hokusai's design as this makes quite a bit of sense once you understand it. Salem Foreigner is one of a few beings that most servants and magus fear for their life which is enough to scare anyone to back off.

Galer: The reaction of the fact that King Arthur is a Woman is mindblowing. What Flanna and Benjamin did was cart the bottomless mana of the Holy Grail around and shove the catalyst in front of the cup, hoping to summon whatever it pops out, as the siblings don't really care about lowered recruiting standards as long it is loyal and follows an order.

LukeSky001 chapter 11. Feb 20: Thank you for thinking about Rory'stats as a Servant and I did not know Tesla can fly.

Naruto Uchiha chapter 29. Jan 9: Well, besides being cold as spicy, it was more like this "been there, seen that, done it, let's move on" or "there you are at last, now get down to work" attitude and for the sake of her sanity accepting that there's something in Nasuverse more powerful than servants who each can slaughter an entire army by themselves. The ranking system from Grand Order affects and buffing some of the Servants like changing their NP/skill to their up to date version and sometimes changed some of the names to show it. Yes, powerful servants would deserve their strength story-wise.

Veil70: Would Jeanne be part of the harem? I am not going to ask that.

tl34lt12 chapter 29. Feb 24: I am trying to make it somewhat humorous with a madness of misunderstood acts. The Harem route with Shirou is my option, oh ok.

LukeSky001 chapter 13. Feb 20: Chloe who has the same powers of tracing as EMIYA was defeated because she was pushed into a swamp which stopped her from using thaumaurgy, I don't know how that even worked in first place and sounded like an ass pull weakness out of nowhere. Ben would use a tactic against Shirou to disable him by hacking his arm/sword hand off because if you see someone who can bring a sword out of nowhere from his hand, your instinct should aim for his hands and legs just like how Souichirou Kuzuki's quick jab on Rin's throat to prevent her to cast her magecraft. I know it is lame by the way but Benjamin was trained to kill men, not to prance around with a blunted stick bowing and waiting your turn.

MaxHD2490 chapter 29. Nov 29, 2017: I don't understand why her title is called 'Caster of Okeanos' when she did not appear in Okeanos stage and Flanna would try to stay on Caster's good side.

Furukawa023: They are always dying by the way as well, the mystery and magic are dying, they aren't surviving, it's been speculated more than once that mages are a dying breed. Hell, they're all but gone by the time Extra comes on the scene. The closest thing they have are computer hackers simulating magic. For Flanna is more likely to put them out of their misery at a much faster rate.

Shining Rider 123 chapter 29. Feb 9: How would Shirou, Luvia, Rin, Bazet, Caren, Ilya's reaction about Mastermind being just a normal human like Benjamin and his sister? This is how it would go as being shocked and in disbelief:

Shirou: He tries to figure out how Benjamin and his sister Flanna managed to do it while thinking it's entirely purposeful and beginning to view him as a Counterpart to himself and Flanna to Rin too. It is terrifying for him to actually meet any of those servants along with the inability to stop them if he tried.

Rin: She would look calm on the outside but her thoughts actually aren't, furious and pissed that's how a normal person is able to do an impossible feat that Rin and every other magus alive can only DREAM in their entire generation and unable to do it. Rin felt like she was outdone by a simple person who most likely just follows the instruction book so single minded to a logical extreme.

Luvia: Since she is new and did not participate in the Holy Grail War, her reaction to the siblings is ludicrous and astonishment that horrifies her as none of this makes any sense on how they summoned more servants much less support the servants.

Caren: While she takes Flanna and Benjamin's appearance much more calmly, internally she is just as disturbed by them as everyone else a mini dose of cosmic horror entity capable of ignoring the laws of the universe casually doing the impossible and she herself can still be surprised. That person is unstoppable.

Bazet: She is in sheer shock that a normal human has displayed the capability to summon servants without putting much effect into it and still having a hard time believing that Benjamin and his sister Flanna are just normal human beings. She nearly has a heart attack when seeing the rest of the servants, which was nothing less than blood-chillingly terrifying.

Ilya: She wants to scream in frustration because a normal person who's able to summon and support ludicrously multiple servants with no effect which didn't make any sense to her at all. She couldn't understand how the Holy Grail by all rights would not be able to produce anything by the rules of the war and the siblings just wing it.

Redyun chapter 29. Dec 14, 2017: I know that my previous chapter is bland as I am trying to wrap things up. Yes, the magic getting exposed to the public signifies the turning point in history with the nations acknowledging that they are not alone. Soon everyone globally will know about the existence of magecraft and will increase the odds of people wanting to study magic circuits and subsequently weakening the arts with every discovery in the future.

Meanwhile after all of this fiasco, I think that the Clock Tower would be in the middle of splits into Traditionalists and the Reborn group of servants especially Caster-class took the new/first generation magus to their rank so that the magic community can be saved as a number of heavily depleted division of mysticism or Magi bloodlines, who have their own field of magecraft that was being bled dry further declined into oblivion as younger generations of magus chose to abandon its use in favor of the more practical and effective magecraft or has become nearly extinct by lack of interest for other magus that were more or less obsolete in favor of improving versions of other magecraft. With help from the Caster-class, most of the dying Magi Bloodlines that were on the brink of annihilation are back on their feet, as a portion of the Caster's knowledge is invaluable to modern magecraft as it steadily grows as more members eschew the narrow-minded and rigid conservatism of their traditional kindred that soon followed example or risked being left alone and isolated if they remained stubborn.

Also about Flanna, yes, she is paranoid and pessimistic with most of the servants albeit not without reason since most of the historical/heroes are from the past. What she knows about most of them is from biographies, stories, and sources that tend to be compiled to be gossip, historical exaggeration, and biased historians, which can be easier condemned as villains or be idealized heroes so she doesn't know who those Servants really are because it is difficult to sort through all of the rumors and outright propaganda to get a sense of which one is true or not. Once she understands and acknowledges the humanity of Servants then she will become less distrusting and pessimistic to them.

Well to be fair, Flanna is from the military and how she reacts to historical/heroes from ancient times in the modern sense of the word with 21st-century attitudes is misinterpretation and distrust as the Holy Grail summons historical/heroes from the past and forces Benjamin and herself to be their Masters with the stress of command and worry about how there is no command seal for them, making it harder to intimidate and force their servants on what they are supposed to do. And seeing how most of the servants easily follow Benjamin and Flanna without defying them at every turn is kind of suspicious from her point of view so she expects every act of kindness to have some kind of motive, and seeing every compliment as a mask, yes that could be a problem. Although obviously not a healthy way to deal with that situation at all, her reaction was perhaps understandable to some degree.

Americaiuno chapter 29. Feb 6: How many servants do I intend to bring in my story, most of them (Fate Grand Order, Fate Zero, Fate Extella, Fate Extra/CCC , Fate Stay Night, Fate Apocrypha, Fate hollow ataraxia, Fate Prototype/Fragments of Sky Silver, Fate Strange Fake, Koha-Ace except for the Swimsuit, Christmas, Halloween servants) because they are joke characters and not to take it seriously.

I get that you are worried about me getting overwhelmed by too many servants, which I try to give each servant a chance of their screentime just like how GhostXavier was able to write down his 'Fragments of Chaldea' story which was a lot of characters, but able to give every servant a chance to show up their power. I get that half of the chapter was too much information dump so I will downplay TYPE-MOON worldbuilding information in the next chapter and the only information that will not be downplayed is the real-life facts that you've never heard of will still be knowledge on the portion. I will get grammar checks once it is updated. Thanks for being helpful and not annoying or being a smart ass. I am going to risk writing down what I think is their personality and go all out.

UNSC indomitable chapter 29: Thank you for saying that, I want to see if Type-Moon makes their own Helen of Troy and Skuld if they can do that.

Hopefully7: How would the world face against the magus? To be really honest, in total war a hopeless war for magus, the Magi in the Nasuverse is pretty much a class of hermits, obsessed with their own studies and little else. There is a good reason why Kiritsugu was so successful at killing mages: Mages don't really prepare for non-magical threats of modern technology. It's not that they're dumb, far from it as they know what a gun is and how it works but really don't understand how dangerous it is in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, it's that they are quite disconnected from the modern world and tend to think only of things from a magical perspective. A bioweapon, or weapon technologies like this, is far outside of their experience. Sure, there are some decently powerful magus who can possess energies comparable to a nuke (That is from aristocrats are expected to keep their bloodlines 'pure' by not marrying into 'lesser' families) but what's the point in developing the biggest and most powerful expensive magical pedigree bloodline if you can't supply or provide them with enough manpower and equipment. It's not about style, but practicality, which is not worth the cost as it would be much wiser a cost to equip lower ranks with better equipment with few months training. It was specifically mentioned in Mahoyo that magecraft is no longer omnipotent (Except for the rare case of actual 'Magic'). Aoko states that a missile would be more than enough to put an average mage out. While experts might handle it, they have no chance against a full military force.

I am going say that magus in the Clock Tower are not winning in the long run, as the Mage Association is peppered with a rivalry between factions of noble magi and have been in decline for a long time now. It slowly corrupted and decayed with the ruling class to become complacent and the sharp divisions between the upper class and lower class created unrest, resentment, rites, and social stigma rules that are set up so that the poor class can never rise out of their poverty/rank no matter what. The biggest problem that organization is faced is a lack of clear control with the three major factions (Barthomeloi, Trambelio, and Meluastea). They've needed someone like Barthomeloi Lorelei to be able to control and a firm grip on the others but the main issue is that most advisers in the Clock Tower are either clueless Luddites, useless fools, or are more concerned with their own wealth, authority, and ambitions than to do anything to lift a finger in a way that would help the problem.

Before your 'Lunatics diehard Nasuverse fans' say that what I am saying is wrong because normal humans don't stand a chance against the Association supernatural and would get stomped because of modern Magecraft, some of them are said to be immune to modern weaponry that isn't enhanced. What you are implying is that the common Humanity should just submit to their fate under the Association and its affiliates/rivals let them desperately attempt to bury the evidence by killing millions and getting away with nothing attached to them. That kind of thinking was proven wrong so many times in history: the American Revolution, WWII, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, etc. And don't underestimate Humans and their military forces; I'm sure some of the world powers have a few tricks up their sleeves as Humanity can fight to decide its own fate and not submit what shadow elites/monsters want. Magecraft doesn't mean 100% win against technology.

---

"You find anything that looks like clues?" Detective Augustus asked as he and Detective Valerio, accompanied by a dozen uniformed police officers in body armor and carrying shotguns and assault rifles, searched inside the warehouse where the little girl and Rider of Red came out. "All I see are dead bodies everywhere from this gunfight." The place looked like a slaughterhouse, the entire room was splattered with blood, and the walls were pockmarked with hundreds of bullet holes from automatic weapons and other things that looked to be used as weapons. The bodies were squashed beneath rubble and debris. The burned corpses were trapped under beams and parts of the ceiling. It didn't work. The smell, the stench of death seemed to linger in his nose.

"Oh, Jesus" Detective Valerio murmured softly as he stared down at one of the bodies on the floor. Some of the bodies looked as if they'd been picked up and thrown aside after they were killed, with their rib cage open or a spear through their chest. "I guess that one of the servants was here, that Skull man assassin made a dramatic entrance inside the warehouse. Then Rider of Red was here also and must have come a little late to pick up the girl."

Detective Augustus looked down at one of the corpses, it was one of the magi, his face barely recognizable behind a mask of blood, lying sprawled out on his back, his entire chest a gory mess. "You are right. Not only that, it seems that we have found out that this place was a meeting between two groups before a fight broke out, then Skull man came right in time to be in the gunfight." Detective Valerio started moving around the room, examining the bullet holes, knife scars and burn marks on the walls, measuring the angles and the trajectories of the rounds in an attempt to reconstruct what happened. "I believe the Rider of Red came from the door that we came in." Valerio looked back to the door that had spear scars on it.

"A gun deal that went wrong," Augustus said as he turned to see a table that was flipped over with a silver briefcase open with what appeared to be five thousand dollars cash with sipple around the place and a brown bag that had some Beretta AR70 Assault rifles with 5.5645mm NATO empty bullet shells inside. "Hmm, this can not be just a normal gun deal, we saw Rider of Red take off with a girl on his shoulder."

He couldn't figure out what exactly had happened here as it simply didn't make any sense for one of the servants to simply take a girl with them. "Unless we are not dealing with any normal gun deal but human trafficking." Augustus quickly scanned the room and noticed a cage with a broken door. "Someone get the forensics team here right away and lay out the crime scene sketches done in coordinating lines from everything here and up on the rooftop." Those servants terrified the living daylights out of those drug dealers and those magi, as judged by their faces as if the devil himself were after them.

Detective Valerio walked over to lift the dead man's head by the hair, looking at the face. His face looked to appear icy and unsmiling but it looked like he died in astonishment at the last minute with wide-eyed shock.

"I want a name on this joker first, then the rest of those other magi," Augustus told Valerio as he studied the man's appearance, who was wearing a black suit with his hair slicked back and smooth-shaven. "He looks important enough to afford that suit."

"You got it, Augustus," said Valerio who noticed a notebook in his front pocket and took it out as he dropped the corpse's face back down to the ground. "Hey, found something from his pocket." He turned to give Augustus the notebook in his hands. "It could be a clue on who he is or at least what his group was doing."

Augustus remained silent, carefully watching what was going on outside in front of him. What looked to be both local investigators and well-dressed people with very official identification badges were going over the area surrounding the crater. Several samples of large concrete chunks torn up by the impact were lifted and placed into waiting vehicles, probably for more in-depth analysis later on. The impact crater itself was surprisingly large, perhaps a meter in depth at its lowest and approximately three to four meters in diameter. Several teams of firefighters were present, likely ensuring the rising plumes of smoke weren't in danger of reigniting. However, the vast majority of people on the rubble pile were police officers and various investigators. Though it was quite clear they weren't just taking pictures, given some of the equipment being used.

"That's a Geiger counter, isn't it?" Augustus muttered softly.

"They're not ruling anything out." Valerio nodded. "I don't recognize everything they're using, but I know that model of ground-penetrating radar, and they've got a bunch of poisonous gas sensors. Though, some of that stuff makes me wonder-"

"Detectives, Reeger is outside," a policeman said to Augustus who quickly put the notebook into his own pocket. "Sergeant Reeger found something important," he hesitated, uncomfortably. "He wants you and Valerio out of the building to show you what he found."

"Oh right, lead the way," Augustus replied as he and Valerio walked outside of the warehouse to see Sergeant Reeger chatting with some of his members and reporting with other things that the Detectives could hear a bit of it.

"Make sure the suspects are nice and tied up, we don't want one of them to break out of their restraints," Reeger ordered his comrades. "I also want guns trained on them, just to make sure that those wizards don't get any ideas."

"Sergeant Reeger, you called us?" Augustus said to Reeger who turned his head toward him. "What is this about?"

"I am assuming that all of you did not read the report that I sent?" Sergeant Reeger asked as he led to their location which the Detectives shook their heads. "Damn, it could get lost along the way."

"So what did you find that was so important that we had to come to look at it?" Valerio asked as he looked around to see police members carrying bodybags and standing guard on the second floor of another warehouse.

"Well, I was going to show Sergeant Jeffery Smith first, but he's talking to the press and trying to answer their questions as best as he can without panicking them," Reeger answered them as he entered inside before letting some members carry a dead Chimera pass their way. "While you were chasing your own goal, our squad came in contact with a Chimera which was shot by one of those servants and then we found a group of magi trying to burn stuff that could be important for what they were doing here, besides experimenting on humans to make those Chimera with other animal parts in it."

"What!" Blood drained from Valerio's face. "Why would they do such a thing?"

"I don't know either," Reeger stated, his voice full of disgust. "All I got from my questioning was something about reaching a place called the Root and that they understand the nature of life and death better than others. From what I saw in there, it's just a bunch of insanely unethical, experimental, empirical and thaumic-based anatomical studies with both vindication and vengeance in mind from the looks of it."

"Whatever those magi are, they stink of secrets," Augustus said with a disgusted face. "They're performing experiments on living people, which they justified as a means for understanding death and reaching whatever this Root is. From what I understand about your report is that we got a bunch of mad scientists Magi as our prisoners and maybe there are more out there."

"This reminds me of reading those Harry Potter books that I read with my family," Reeger commented to the Detectives. "But that means we are going to fight people who can shoot fire and ice out their hands."

"Still, it doesn't mean they are invisible. From what I heard, they are still humans with magic in their bodies and bleed like the rest of us," Augustus stated. "Let's see what you have to show us."

The room seems to have been a testing room as there was still an alive pig hanging from a crane which was trying to free itself, and some human corpses on the operating tables with tools. There was also a dead Chimera that was bigger than the ones that the Detectives saw earlier, laying on the operating table with a combination of parts from different animals which a police member poured a white sheet over it. A truck-sized intermodal container was full of dead bodies, and police members carried some of the corpses to put into the bodybags, but the huge curtain was covering most of it.

"So, human experimentation," Valerio's face was a mix of horror, rage, fear, and sorrow as he noticed the hints as he stared at the clues around the room. "Those Chimeras were a mix of human and animal parts that were unleashed on us."

"You damn right. Those Chimera were made by those Magi and we were killing normal human people who were torn apart and glued together to form into a monster," Reeger said with rage in his voice. "But it seems that the moment they were changed, they became more than beasts and what we did is give them release from a vile existence. Trust me, it's better that you don't know what it looks like and I already have some men being poisoned by their poisonous tails which caused some of my men to be constantly screaming in agony that I had to send them away as fast as possible to the nearby hospital."

"It couldn't get worse. Whatever the poison was, it was most likely enhanced by something to prolong the victim's suffering," Augustus commented. "If we did not know about this place until a later time, we could have faced a lot of Chimeras. I'm thankful there was only handful of them. Our men recently killed the last one, sad that we could not find a live one since all of them were out of their cages."

"That is the only one that I showed you," Reeger showed them half burnt PC-style folder thumbnails with most of the titles nearly burnt. "We found stuff that is above our pay grade and something that can help lead us to clues about what the hell is going on here."

Valerio studied the half-burnt PC-style folder thumbnails. "Hmm, This is going to take some time to put the words back into it. This folder with the title S*n*heti* Beast could be the one about the Chimera and I believe that if we fix the piece back together then we could find out about the methods used in the construction of those Chimera."

"You may be right on that one but that is not what we're looking for," Augustus said as he put the folder with the word S*n*heti* Beast beside it. "What we are looking for is why the servants took that little girl with them and where they could be." He pointed at the folders with the title Po*s*bl*ar*as of the *oly Gr*il and Ak*sh*c R*c*rds. "These ones should be the first to be uncovered."

"The question is," Valerio said, throwing up his hands in defeat, "We've traded one impossible goal for another as though it was that easy to gather the needed information." Honestly, investigation work is not easy and getting any result in under a week is considered good timing in such cases.

"We're going to use the book to link it, you know," Augustus replied to him, showing the leather-bound title "Heaven's Fell" from his pocket. "We use the planning board to put the pieces together that give us more clues, or at least string answers to help find the tip of the iceberg of these functions of the system to understand the main culture of those Magi and the Holy Grail."

"I almost forgot about that book, at least now," Valerio said as he rubbed his forehead. "We can connect out the pieces on the board and hope to guess what their goal is."

"Do you think that we should tell the rest of the other police groups and the public?" Reeger asked them, knowing that the Detectives knew a lot more than he did. "I don't think you should be able to keep any of this a secret any longer now. I got the news leak, rumors, and photos that show almost everything that happened in the shipyard battle and word is that the government agents are arriving here with their own SWAT force, not only that but US troops are patrolling the streets as well."

"Wait until we have gathered enough proof for Chief Davis who will take this evidence seriously and not look at us like we are crazy," Valerio answered Reeger as he studied the folders. "But it seems that Davis would start to believe us soon enough if we reveal the book to him and the folders right now. Then we can also show it to other groups too."

"Oh, those guys," Augustus frowned. "They should have been taking their time coming here and what the heck were they doing before all this happened?"

"They were trying to locate where the servants were going and searching where their home base was," Reeger answered Augustus. "From what we heard about them, they have been using their satellite and security cameras to search for them."

That's when a policeman walked to them. "Detectives, Reeger." His voice was a little hoarse. "Orlando Reeve is waiting outside, he wants Detective Augustus and Valerio to come forthwith."

Augustus sometimes really hated his job, as he turned and irritably pushed past the policeman while Valerio walked with him. "Son of a bitch," he mumbled. "I hope whoever this Orlando is, he better not be one from the Palace that I had to work with." The Detective left the second floor of another warehouse and walked outside, leaving Sergeant Reeger standing guard at the door.

The Chief police of Snowfield was outside, waiting in his full dress blues with a fur coat over it, no less, standing with his arms crossed imperiously. He had a leaderly and businesslike face, with an ornamental sword to the side of his body. Orlando Reeve was flanked by his secretary whose name is Vera Levitt and his bodyguards, both a man and a woman. Each of them stood at attention, their black uniforms exuding an impressive aura with utterly stony-faced uniformed police officers, who all had a pair of handcuffs and a pistol holstered at their belts. They did not look to be mere police officers, rather, they had undergone some sort of special training beyond what was typical in their profession.

"I doubt all of those people are actually cops. Looks like the national government's involved here as well." Augustus stared at Orlando's police officers.

Whoever this Orlando Reeve was, Augustus could tell that this man would never go anywhere without an entourage, as Orlando had politics on his mind and wanted to look important. With every step Orlando took, he left a powerful—even intimidating—aura. It was as though the darkness itself glowed the color of exigency. "I assume that you both are Detective Augustus and Valerio?" he said with a commanding voice.

"Indeed, and you must be Orlando Reeve?" Valerio said as he put his hand out to shake, which Orlando returned back. "This must be a surprise, what takes you away from your city?"

"I don't know where to begin, Valerio," Orlando said, earnestly, sounding very much like a politician in a serious tone. "Frankly, I was called by federal matter to request to come down here and join in your little group."

"What?" Augustus narrowed his eyes. "Why was I not told about this?"

"To begin with, you disobeyed a direct order from Chief Davis to wait for backup, which was my group and a good reason why I was coming here," Orlando took a deep breath and explained to them. "Which I was expecting a little cooperation with your group so we could secure the perimeters and find a way to enter inside without losses."

Augustus shook his hand off. "Don't let this get out, Orlando," he replied with annoyance. "But it's a war zone down here. Things happened so quickly and by the time you got here, they would have all be gone hard, and frankly, I don't have time to decipher some orders from Chief Davis when I've got a slaughter up there that might have been stopped."

"Very well, Detectives, I should let that slide for now, but I'll let you know who I'm getting an order from," Orlando said as he held his ornamental sword in an idle manner, while federal officers moved past him. "Don't mean to step on your toes, but the government officers are here to tie the activities with us together on a national level. I wish I could share more with you about why they are here, but a large number of deep-covered operatives are involved. You know how it is, we've all got a job to do. I'm sure we can respect each other's situation and act responsibly with them around."

"Don't get me wrong, Orlando", Augustus shook his head, watching the feds carry canvas bags slung over their shoulders, obviously containing gear of some sort. "I don't care who you are or where you came from unless you're looking for a reputation because there's no room here for showboats or anyone looking for something to prove. I won't stand for it."

"Hmm, very well. I'll keep that in mind," Orlando nodded his head as he signaled his group to start working, entering the building where the firefight had taken place. "I am sure we can work together Augustus and Valerio. We'll make sure that that is not the case here, Detective, and I hope that we can share what we know."

"Now we are talking," Augustus held out his hand to Orlando who was somewhat hesitant, before he took it and shook. "Welcome to the war," he said grimly.

---

"This is a catastrophe!" Barthomeloi Lorelei known as "The Queen" of London's Clock Tower and the Vice Director of the Mage's Association, slapped down a few news report papers on the table in the conference room. "At this rate, this whole thing is more likely to be exposed today!"

Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri cocked his head sideways and skimmed the headlines. "Servants Attack!" "Mastermind's Revenge!" "Attack on the shipyard out of nowhere" "Unethical human experimentation revealed!"

"The Church will be up in wands about this threat of secrecy, and they'll blame me - us!" the acting Vice Director went on. "This needs to be dealt with at once!" "Which Magi family was responsible for setting up a base on a god damn shipyard and letting the Mastermind take notice of them!?"

Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri had seen Barthomeloi for most days in the last 5 years, and he had rarely seen her in such a foul mood. But now ever since then, the Vice Director had been absent, distracted, aggressive and generally abrasive even more than usual now since the museum incident.

"We are investigating who the culprit is, but we guess that it was an opportunistic magi affiliate Scladio family led by Bazdilot Cordelion who illegally crossed into America's border to enter the Holy Grail war and it seems that they've been there for some time," Bram reported to her. "We believe that Mastermind did not take kindly to such an act for a group of Magi to set up their base in his territory so close. Let's just say he decided to punish them." Which is a pretty normal reason for the Mastermind to act like that, as it would be like stepping into the workshop of a magus without his permission is seen as an act of open hostility.

"I wager his form of punishment doesn't quite meet at what most of Magi consider as fair," Barthomeloi said. "Well, go on."

Bram nodded his head and explained the event much more. "When the servants attacked the shipyard with all-out force, a homemade experimentation Chimera was unleashed out of their cage. And if the rumors were true, then there was not just one creature attacking the police force, but several of them ended up attacking anyone close to them which was shown to the public TV."

"So what is the situation now?" Barthomeloi Lorelei asked in a quiet whisper as she raised the holy mithril gauntlet that frightened the many in the room, more than any amount of shouting could have. "Because I hope that most of the Magi managed to burn all of the records and valuable research evidence of the disaster before the police managed to get their hands on it."

He instinctively shuddered in fear as he noticed Barthomeloi struggling not to lose her cool before answering that question that he doesn't want to say. "When police force arrived, just in time to see most of the records burned to pieces with only a few handfuls of portions still intact and some of the Magi that survived the attack from the servants were captured." It wouldn't be long for the police force to learn what they had found. "I could say that they possibly already found out everything about us."

Bram watched Barthomeloi slam her fist on the table in impotent rage before grabbing a chalice of wine, draining the entire contents down into her mouth before demanding the chalice to be refilled. He poured for her over and over until she threw the chalice to the wall, snarling and swearing like a brute. "Everything I do is dead and gone like the wind, the Mastermind has mocked me for this!" Her eyes were bloodshot and haggard. For the first, he thought Barthomeloi looked old and tired with visible bags under her eyes.

She wanted so badly to blame all of this on the Mastermind who seemed to lead his servants bumbling from one disaster to the next, leaving her group with all of the messes that he had caused. It would be so easy to blame him for everything. But no, she saw a bunch of rough magis' hands in this mess, who were dumb enough to think of participating in the Holy Grail War in the first place, driven to an attempt to reach an impossible goal of summoning a Servant which is already impossible now without the Mastermind able to take the servants for himself while taunting them. Spreading the news about the issue with the summoning ritual had more or less failed other magi to believe the false statement until it was too late for them to recognize the fact.

Ever since the beginning of all this mess, Barthomeloi Lorelei began to suffer mental stress of being overwhelmed with the task of keeping the Clock Tower from running itself to the ground with political disorder and civil unrest, ruined by many Magi families, both mere minor and major noble houses sending their successors or current heads to participate in the sixth Holy Grail War to only be found dead or killed from being unluckily found by the servants, leaving many of the magi houses with either a conflict on the succession that forced second or third spares to take over their family's head which caused shifting of the balance of power that has lead to the creation of new factions or clans that had been declining ever since the start, now extinct with their future. Magi have been completely shut with assets such as talents, lands, and Mystic Codes being stolen away by other rivals and branch families seeing the weakened states of others.

The silent spell in the hall was broken by one of the magus in the room who moaned softly. "How could this happen? How? What madness possessed them to do something like that?"

"As if you could have done any better, you bootlicking craven," Bran thought as he stared at that old magus. "Hell, from the looks of it, you would have entered those rumors about the Sixth Holy Grail War a few days ago and bet everything on the ritual, getting killed in the process. Speaking of, I don't seem to recall you being here in the meeting, must somehow manage to rise to a position in some way."

"Do the Scladio family not know what they're meddling with…" a noble magus simple said. "The Scladio family, for all intents and purposes, is done. Their manufacturing center, their technicians, their leadership, will be gone in a single flash."

Bram thought that Bazdilot Cordelion was a very lucky magus to be dead but sadly his friends, family, and basically everyone he's ever met can't say the same. This could only end badly for everyone as hearing the news of just how badly the Scladio family had fucked things up.

"Interesting, very interesting."

"Did those idiots think that they could just set up a base and not be completely unaware that they are facing a Mastermind who commands an army of servants, who are guarding around the areas?"

Bram shook his head at those off-comments. While he was confident in his abilities as a first-rate Master, he doubted that he could survive in the Holy Grail War. His once future brother-in-law Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald entered in the Fourth Holy Grail War with extreme confidence to add a splash of martial prowess to his life's story, maybe too much confidence to only hear that he was in a wretched state that all of his Magic Circuits were destroyed and dying slowly before being mercy-killed by Magus Killer's assistant.

The Mage's Association, despite its purpose of controlling, concealing, and developing Magecraft, has survived three possible disasters within the Association and managed to have the longest streak of luck in the history of being able to not screw up anything. The problem here is that there is a distinct lack of any insightful leaders amongst their ranks who are very ignorant of the world outside their community and have barely any cultural knowledge outside of their little world. They most likely have no one learned in the cultures and ideologies of other countries and those left here are the meatheads or battle commanders that have never taken time to study their enemies. In fact, rarely some Magi are so self-ostracized that they can't function outside their world.

"So what's next now?" another noble magus asked Barthomeloi Lorelei, who had merely listened in before turning away, still as a statue with her ears moving as she listened, leaving the others to fall into an uneasy debate.

Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri began to admit himself as he wondered if Lord El-Melloi II was right about trying to modernize the Association so it could continue to function on this modern century and allow fresh new faces of the next generation of Magi a chance to prove their worth rather than increasing magical potential through that of a mage's genetic lineage because the conference room seemed more at odds with each other than any lecture. He watched them all, fighting the urge to shake his head in annoyance.

One magus was whining about the Scladio family's actions, how foolish they had been. Another one was bemoaning the death of his idiot father who had entered into the Sixth Holy Grail War before he ended up drowning in the water while been chased by servants. The next magus was trying to buck everyone up, claiming that the disaster was nothing. At least one person did the smart move of sitting quietly, watching them all and waiting to see how Barthomeloi would react.

"The first order of business should be to apprehend the Scladio family and anyone close to them!"

"We should march now to Lord El-Melloi II's secret base to gather a stronger force."

"Two disasters doesn't make the war a lost cause. We have options, give me a command. I would pit my magecraft against him!"

"No, we could negotiate with Mastermind to see what he wants!"

"You would have to be an utter ass to negotiate him with that kind of idea of a bargain."

"He may as well kill you right away."

"No truces, we can't afford to look weak."

"Well, we can tell the Mastermind seems rather ferocious."

"We should close all access to America's border and not let any magi cross through it."

"Did anyone try to find Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg in the hopes he could fix this problem?"

"We tried and failed to connect to him any place that he must be."

"He must have watched all of these events somewhere in his own place."

"What are we supposed to do now!?"

"We are running out of options here and we need to think fast?!"

"We must-"

"Enough!" Barthomeloi Lorelei snapped, making them all grow quiet. Everyone in the conference room stared at her. After a moment, she said in a softer but stern voice, "Here is what we are going to do. Fetch the paper, I'm going to put a decree."

The Vice Director began to write, carefully and slowly, discarding several sheets. There should be not even the slightest flaw in this document. When done, she affixed to it her personal and Mage's Association's seal, then had it passed to Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. "Send this to every major family of Lord and other staff. Make sure they follow this order or there will be a consequence if they don't," she said with an angered voice before returning back to normal. "Once you are done, you will serve in my stead with my Chelon Canticle Brigade with you, to make sure that order is clear."

Bram stared at the Vice Director, trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just heard. "And do what after that?"

"You are to rein anyone who would cause trouble in the Clock Tower since it is currently in a state of political disorder and civil unrest already. You'll bring any Magi family to heel if need be. Then order any available magi who are specialized in information gathering to send them into America's border with this seal of my approval," Barthomeloi Lorelei explained to him. "I will go meet with the Holy Church's pope to see if we can have some kind of agreement after that museum incident. All communication with them has ceased."

"What is our task, Miss Barthomeloi?" a magus asked her.

"The rest of you should patrol around near the coastline of Europe to prevent any Magi from daring to enter America's border for the Holy Grail," Barthomeloi Lorelei told him. "If any magi manage to arrive in the Sixth Holy Grail then you will strip away any ties with them and take their talents, records and valuable research, as they are on their own now. Then call the remaining members/staff that were outside of Britain back to the Clock Tower, and burn any records that contact us."

With that, Barthomeloi Lorelei hurried off and smashed the door as she closed it.

"Well, it seems we know what to do now," Bram said to everyone in the room as he rose out of his chair. "If there is nothing else...?"

Only to have an Einzbern homunculus come into the room bringing a letter.

"There may be one more matter," a noble magus said.

Which Bram crushed his irritation, sat back and nodded to the homunculus who gave him the letter. He opened the letter and read it quickly with a sharp intake of breath, passed the letter to a noble magus next to him. "Damnation."

"Jubstacheit von Einzbern has written to us offering terms of the alliance."

"And if we accept this alliance?" inquired an old magus "What terms does he propose?"

"That we recognize the Holy Grail as his own property and also that he will provide an army of Einzbern homunculi to support our cause."

"So do we agree on this?"

"No, wait I must think on this one," Bram said as he stared out the window. "Until we understand what is going on."

---

Oval Office

The White House

Washington, D.C., USA

President George W. Bush sat in the chair in front of the Resolute Desk in this historic office. The past few months had taken a toll on him as he seemed to have aged in a week, since the Museum incident took a toll on him. First, it was the controversial order to invade Iraq. Millions of Americans protested against it since the U.S. was already involved in Afghanistan. On the other side of the Atlantic, the same thing happened to Tony Blair. Bush narrowly lost a supporter in the invasion of Iraq; ironically, America's oldest ally, France, did not participate in the invasion. The aftermath of Iraq was stuck in a state of perpetual violence with insurgency rising left and right conducting major attacks on foreign forces, including coalition forces, Iraqi civilians of other religions and other sects of Islam, domestic opposition to the war was also strengthened, and many anti-war activists held protests against the Iraq War. Occupation Afghanistan also struggled with its own problems with the Taliban hiding out in the mountain region, fighting ISIS and NATO allies. The Afghan government was extremely weak and over-reliant on external military and financial assistance investments, even suffering from major issues with corruption, and the Taliban regrouped in neighboring Pakistan but he knew it could be improving every day little by little with the help of the U.S. His administration wrestled with two countries with many blaming the U.S for imperialism and starting up a brushfire war as an excuse to occupy two of the countries.

Then the Museum incident happened a few days ago, which he declared martial law to maintain order around New Jersey and the near states. Even though it was there to prevent the citizens, their responses were quite harsher from those super soldiers who straight come from comics and science fiction novels. He knew citizens would not like being watched, but he believed in what he was doing and it was the right thing to do, an unknown threat so close to home with little information about them and wondering if this group were terrorists or not. From what he understood about them, none of them harmed the citizens but some foreigners from out of the country or petty criminals which he could breathe easily. There was no chance for that to happen, still. On one hand, it troubled him as he knew so little of them because they'd done nothing but prefer to protect what areas they held for some reason and keep others away from the towns and cities. He had been studying the reports of their attacks and rescues, finding that there seemed to be no true pattern, not with stories and rumors attributed to them that one can verify, as those super soldiers can run dash so fast that high-speed camera footage couldn't even properly capture them clearly before anyone could track them. Hell, there are even rumors that those super soldiers are so powerful that they can one man army the U.S army or even the whole world.

It was late in the night when Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor to the Bush administration, entered into the Oval Office, along with a few of the White House staff.

"Excuse us, Mr. President, but we have a serious situation in the northeast," the National Security Advisor said.

"What is it?" asked Bush. "A riot?"

"There's been some unrest occurring in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City, along with the towns in between those major cities. It is them, sir, those super soldiers who attacked an isolated shipyard desk. We do not know what caused the super soldiers hit on the shipyard. The Governors of the states of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania have activated their respective National Guards to maintain order," Condoleezza Rice explained as Bush noticed the CIA and FBI men arrive in the Oval Office again.

"Holy hell," the President muttered. "Do we have photos of these super soldiers?"

There were many nicknames about this group which some are simple, cool, badass or in some cases, lame names, with it like Extremists, Men/Women o' War, Town Destroyers, Lords of War, Anarchists, the Angels of Death, the Dogs of the Devil, Radicals, the Eternal Champions, the Night Raiders, the Agents, Spirits, the Routs, Unknown warriors (UW), Unknown individuals (UI), Unknown existences (UE) or Unknown beings (UB). For the U.S government, they gave them the title "Super Soldiers" as their technology seems to be so advanced that from the few of information was gibberish.

There are those in the complex strata of the U.S government that make it their business to study them. They hope to learn not only of the mystery that lies behind the Super Soldiers but to capture whatever peculiar abilities they wield and use them for the betterment of the government. Hell, a small portion of the members would try to aim at a first-hand sighting, who would give their lives gladly for a single exchange of information with them. Yet every time the members try to get close to their locations, the Super Soldiers seem to vanish and dash away. It is as if the Super Soldiers will not allow themselves to be interrogated by them and have enough power to ensure that such an encounter does not come to pass.

Two White House staffers entered bringing a TV set on a cart. They turned on the TV and switched to CNN. The feed showed Times Square in chaos. The reporter was speaking frantically, behind her a crowd of New Yorkers and tourists was running away en masse from something behind which appeared to be the same ship from the Museum incident. Two heavily armed NYPD ESU officers passed by her, along with a couple of ordinary NYPD officers.

"The situation has spread to Times Square here in Midtown Manhattan. What was initially thought to be an isolated shipyard, only to turn into a firefight with a group of super soldiers. We are not aware what is causing them to attack, whether it is a drug deal gone wrong or a criminal base. The AMS branch has also responded, bringing their agents to the heart of the situation. As for UW, we do not yet know what their motive is..." The reporter was cut-off by an NYPD ESU officer armed with an M4A1 ordering her to vacate Times Square.

The group watching the news report would soon gasp at the sight of a ship exploding into the air from an Egyptian flying ship that was firing lasers at nearby warehouses as it exploded into pieces, setting fire on any place nearby. The news camera zoomed in then and for the first time, all of the people in the room would get a good look at a giant in red Chinese military commander armor turning his halberd into a bow and using the halberds as one arrow, shooting at a group of vehicles and chimeras as the nearby buildings were being destroyed and causing a crater to be left behind in shipyard area.

"Ma'am, I understand you need to report but this place isn't safe anymore. You must leave," the officer said as gunfire rang out, causing a flurry of screams and pandemonium in the shipyard. Yet, the reporter insisted to the cameraman to get a shot of the chimeras. "Oh God, it's them! What do we do!? Shoot them."

"This is real?" the president questioned the FBI as he was agape, staring at the screen as the video rolled by.

"Yes, sir," the FBI agent said.

"My God," Bush said stunned and in disbelief. "All of this is happing underneath our states?"

The president looked back at the footage. "That giant in red armor just turned his spear into a bow and arrow and obliterated a warehouse in a blink of an eye. How is that real?"

"We've reviewed the footage and spoken with the police and any witnesses. It is all real, sir," the FBI agent answered. "What we are seeing is something out of this world."

Everybody in the room gasped louder as the live TV camera showed a man in Greek armor dive out of one of the buildings, as a girl in a brown dress with red wounds all over her pale body was clutched onto the man's arm like a life preserver, while police and news reporter helicopters followed them using their spotlight.

"And those are the ones from the Museum incident?" Bush asked the CIA agent. "What are they doing there?"

Then the live TV camera showed two archers from the museum robbery who were taking a pot shot at criminals in a non-lethal area. One of the archers noticed the news reporter's helicopter and waved to it at which the cameraman waved back to him.

"We are investigating the cause as we speak," the CIA agent said. "We only know that they are here for the girl as you can see."

The screen abruptly changed to footage taken from a different camera, this one at ground level. Given the low-grade nature, it was probably from a cell phone, which displayed a man in armor under his white cloak, knocking down criminals in the head with the pommel of his sword. As the SWAT team moved closer to question the man in the armor, only a few words were heard from him before he dashed away from the screen.

"That man calls himself the Martyr," the president asked the CIA agent. "Do you know anything else about them?"

"Not much President, we only have little information on them," the CIA agent answered as he handed over the folder to him. "What we got about them is that they seem to have some kind of class system with their codename attender to them so we lay out their classes based on what they call each other."

"Those super soldiers are called Servants?" Bush asked as he read their names. "And their class sounds like RPG or a tabletop game that I used to play. The Storm King, Martyr, Archer of Black, Archer of Red, and Rider of Red, sounds like there are many different operation forces operating all over the place."

"Those are the ones that we managed to hear their titles or images of what they looked like, which we hoped that there would be others out there," the CIA agent said to him. "We are still investigating where they are. Further reports reported that their base seems to be somewhere hidden in the mountains, which is most likely the case."

From what the president was reading from the reports and the dates, it was horrifying to see all of this happening in the states and he had somewhat of a full picture.

The president massaged his temples at the sheer insanity of the past week. "Alright, tell the governors of those three states that they have the support of the Federal Government. I hate to say it but I'm gonna have to declare martial law once again to maintain order. Christ, this is like 9/11 and Venice all over again," Bush said as he placed his hands on his face in frustration, with the footage of the attacks flashing in his head. "And get me the AMS, sure they know who has the lead," The President added.

Thirty minutes later, the National Guard convoys entered New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. The convoys consisted of Army Trucks, Humvees, M1 Abrams, Stryker APCs, UH-60 Blackhawks, and MH-6 Little Birds. They were to restore order and leftovers. Even before Bush could address the nation, panic had already gripped at some parts of the country when the chimeras/Magi were seen in that CNN footage.

The White House was secured with Secret Service agents doubling their patrols. Snipers were set up on the roof. The DC National Guard was also activated, with Humvees and Strykers lining up 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue all the way to the capital. At Andrews AFB, both Marine One and Air Force One were on standby.

Bush now had to address a crowd of the White House Press Corps regarding the situation in an hour as the room was in chaos, with reporters asking White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer answering at best on what he could.

Somewhere along the lines, so-called 'experts' had shown up out of the woodwork to comment on the story, what it meant, what the politicians should do, what the military views were and all sorts of other concerns and issues that filled the radio, the television, and the newspapers.

---

Somewhere in a different world.

"Hahahhah, so she really did order her brother's servants to do that!" Zelretch boomed with laughter, holding his sides. "I don't know whether to pity the poor boy or pity Barthomeloi Lorelei who had to clean up the messes that they had caused." The wizard Marshall continued his laughter in his own little room that seemed to be made up of space.

This space was a completed world of his own. A black pit with points of light that looked like little stars in the distance. In the center of a room in the wide, perfect sphere dyed in the color of the night sky, there floated an extravagant wooden chair. Based on its appearance alone, it would be enough to call the chair extravagant, but its wood gave it a refined hue, and one would not think it a repulsive gaud of the elite. Rather, just by existing here, it imbued the space around it with a conspicuous gravity.

"Hm…" Zelretch leaned back in it, emitting a loud creak. "I wonder who Benjamin is?" He grabbed a book with the thickness of a standard encyclopedia and opened it, turning the pages with a number of pieces of information in real-time.

Inscribed on the pages was the face of a human and that person's information. Flipping between countless qualities such as race, gender, age, body type, clothing, personality, and occupation, the book's pages turned with incredible momentum.

At times, it was male. At times, it was female. At times, it was elderly. At times, it was a child. At times, it was musclebound. At times, it was obese. At times, it was a saint. At times, it was a vicious murderer. At times, it was a magus. At times, it was a priest.

But now the times it stops at an average boy in his late teens to early twenties with black to brown standard short-cut hair and deep blue eyes. He isn't on the skinny side, but also not on the stout side, with brown skin.

"According to what I found, Benjamin is a completely and utterly average person who doesn't come from a magus background and has no apparent ability to perform magecraft with neither the magical ability nor the desire to participate in the Holy Grail War," Zelretch said with a smile. "A completely normal, and average lineage from both sides of his family. No trace of Thaumaturgy. Can he survive such a brutal war while being blind to the world of magecraft and magus?"

"Hmmm, what about his sister Flanna." Zelretch turned the page once more to see a woman in her late teens to early twenties with light brown skin and a toned and fit body, her hair color is maroon, which ends at the waist but is in a ponytail and braided. "Same with her brother except that she served in the military and has combat experience to speak of. In this world and era, magi fervently cling to their secrets and will go to any lengths to prevent the masses from learning of their existence. Most humans will go their entire lives without encountering the supernatural, except for now. It looks like his sister doesn't care if the public sees those servants wandering around the place."

Zelretch scratched his chin. "I wonder what Benjamin and Flanna think of the situation stunk of a 'chosen ones' scenario on them? Strange. Still, I can't imagine why Flanna and Benjamin of all people were picked by the Holy Grail for some reason, I'm sure there had to have been more suitable candidates of Masters for this so-called Holy Grail War. I should not think too hard, this was just entertaining as watching different versions of Emiya's journey and on the other hand, this nature of war is quite unique this time around."

"The Throne of Heroes, the plane from which an interdimensional traveler of a Holy Grail plucks Heroic Servants for the War, exists beyond time and space where the past, present, and future mean nothing to the Throne who take them regardless." Zelreatch leaned forward to see the scene closed up. "Now I want to see if Benjamin and his sister Flanna can survive all of this, for they have already broken countless laws and regulations. The masquerade is gonna be extremely difficult to uphold."

"The truth that has been hidden from all humanity will now be revealed to the whole world is not as it seems."

---

Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey

Bazett Fraga McRemitz arrived at the airport. It was a long 7-hour flight. She was planning and preparing herself for this so-called Sixth Holy Grail war. The Association did not give her easy work though, Bazett was faithful to her job for eight solid years, never failing in her duty and never complaining even though she did not get an appropriate reward for her work.

However, this order didn't have a very high survival rate and could be her last as she received a secret order from Barthomeloi Lorelei who worried how this Holy Grail would drag down everyone around it and possibly drag the whole world down too. "In the land of America, the summoned 727th Holy Grail has confirmed to be the potential of becoming the real one. In the name of our utopian and security order, keep it away from the world of man and other magus". That was the decision of the Vice Director. Without question, she flew out to the American city and landed here at this airport. She briefly grimaced as she knew that among the assets the Mage's Association provided, help was not one of them, if you call that 'help.' The only real concern was researching and maintaining the secrecy, which could also lead into confiscating something that peaks their interest for the greater good.

The chilly night air hung heavy in the air around her as she stepped out of the airport door, tugging her luggage and breathing the cold air, filling her lungs for a moment.

"'The Great War of the Apocalypse', huh..."

The Clock Tower had been stirred into a frenzy, just like their rivals in the Holy Church. Never before in history has a ritual of such scale been conducted. This is not merely another Holy Grail War - but the Great Apocalypse War of all Holy Grail Wars. An unknown number of the Servants versus the whole world of modern mage society and the church. In the past, it has always been a free-for-all between all seven until only one is left standing, seven Servants versus seven Servants, or smaller Holy Grail war. But this time - it will truly be total war between the Mastermind and his servants versus the whole world, and it has become the stage for this conflict, one dreads to imagine what state America will be in after the war.

"The situation degrades to the point the hypnotic suggestion is no longer the option now with all of those cameras everywhere." Bazett thought as she noticed some of the cameras seem to be hidden in places that no one would notice, and with some of the cops patrolling the street. "The Mastermind's servants' publicized activities keep exposing Magecraft over and over until there will be nothing left to hide now."

Bazett noticed there was a group of people huddled by a nearby television, looking at the TV and there was a news broadcast about the servants. It mostly showed the group of servants who attacked the shipyard and more never-before-seen unknown servants fighting drug criminals, chimeras, and other magus. As a news reporter blathered on, workers could be seen in the background, either cleaning up damaged rubble, putting corpses into the body bags, or keeping bystanders from getting too close and interfering. From the gist of the report, there were some police force losses trying to take some magus/chimeras down. "This is bad, the Mastermind is wantonly spreading out his servants into reckless acts that are increasing military presence, making the Association unable to turn the city into a glass without provoking Americans."

"The media's just blowing this out of proportion and that's what the media does." Bazett saw a well-dressed man with a sign that said 'Bazett Fraga'. That man is the chauffeur she was expecting. The chauffeur noticed the presence of enforcer.

"Bazett Frage, thank goodness you're here. You will not believe what just happened right now," the chauffeur said to her as they both got into the car.

"Save it. I already know," Bazetta said to him. "It is all over the news with military presences."

"Very well," the chauffeur nodded and started driving. "You've managed to arrive here earlier than the other enforcers. We begin to heavily restrict travel to America for other magi on trying their dumb luck to summon their own respective servants to prevent the unlikely scenario that the Mastermind will steal their powerful catalysts in such a short time. We cannot say if the others will believe that statement outright."

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Bazett asked him "We have to somehow be able to secure the Holy Grail without any servants under our control?"

"We managed to get a full battalion mix of enforcers, specialized hunters, and freelancers under our command from the Association," the chauffeur explained as the car U-turned. "I'll just say this now, but we are going to be fighting Servants. It was lucky that most of the battalion actually volunteered for this suicide mission or otherwise it would be you and Lord El-Melloi II and his group."

Bazett quickly remembered back when she underwent four-day loops of the Holy Grail war with Avenger struggling to defeat six other Servants and managed to beat them all due to her family's combat-based magecraft and her ancestral Noble Phantasm while dying so much time in the process. Well, of course, she was luckily at that time but unless she could assemble strategies and organize tactics, and have all the luck and miracles in the world on her side, the odds would still be against defeating seven Servants, which was one out of countless chances. Defeating more than seven would be something of really a true miracle. Yes - that would truly be something worth taking the Holy Grail from the Mastermind if they get through all this.

"So, what happens to the Grail if we manage to win?" Bazetta inquired as she checked her gadgets.

"The Mages' Association will take it for safekeeping, naturally. Well, it is difficult to say how the surviving magi will be able to remain calm when faced with something that can easily lead them to the Root," the chauffeur answered with a grim expression. Of course, the Vice Director will obviously be ready and be waiting for anyone daring to try to steal the Grail. A retrieval team is probably set to move in as soon as the war ends and with the Grail secure.

"The Mages' Association is making sure that everything runs smoothly and stepped in this Grail crusade," the chauffeur continued. "Because of the unknown nature of our enemy, we will not be engaging them immediately, but will observe them and gather information until we are sure of how to proceed."

"Do you still have a few questions left?" the chauffeur asked as he stopped at the red light.

"No, I got what I hear," Bazetta said as she grabbed one of the balls of lead out of the container. "Now all I have to do is wait for an order."

---

Fuyuki City, Japan at the other side of the world

The day is nice and bright. At Homurahara Academy, it was lunchtime in class 2-C. The students were eating their lunch and conversing with their fellow classmates, whether it's about the latest gossip or new manga. Right now, one student by the name of Issei Ryuudou with parted blue hair, glasses, and a somewhat solemn air was not conversing with anyone, rather he was using his new laptop. As Issei refreshed the webpage, there was a new event occurring in America related to the robbery. There was a new article. He clicked and read the title. "Breaking News: Attack on Shipyard!" Issei was surprised and he began reading the article once more. He was getting stunned the more he read. He scrolled down and found a video about a guy recording the event from atop a building. He played the video and watched as these, what Issei would describe them, warriors fought against people with strange abilities. It could only be described as hell on earth where the police were trying to put an end to this, while suffering some losses.

"Hey, Issei! What'cha doing?" a voice called out to him

Issei jumped back at the sudden voice. He looked back and saw Ayako Mitsuzuri, who waved to him. A friendly, easy-going if a slightly brown-haired tomboyish girl and the captain of the archery club.

"Ayako, you startled me," Issei said to her.

Ayako looked at the laptop monitor. "What are you reading?"

"Nothing. Just the news from the other side of the world," Issei replied as he scrolled down the webpage. "On the news this morning, rebroadcast from an American News channel."

Ayako took a good look at the webpage. "Wait. Are you reading news from America? Why?"

Issei gave Ayako a puzzled look. "Haven't you heard? There was a huge robbery at a museum in America. The robbers displayed superhuman feats that the police were unable to apprehend them. They escaped on a golden ship."

"I don't know the full details, but yeah I've heard it. People say that they're super soldiers or something. I don't know," Ayako admitted.

"In any case, I did watch the news. There was a breaking news story that... Well, I'll let it speak for itself." Issei clicked on the play button for the streaming video site and turned his laptop around for her to see.

One video showed a black dragon knight mounted on a black horse stabbing through a chimera with the title 'the Hunter' as a nickname for the knight.

Another video showed chimera pouncing on a police officer, and taking a bite of his face before being shot down by other officers.

A video that was maybe recorded on a cell phone showed conflict between a group of SWAT force returning fire at a band of men/women in black business suits and black hoods carrying swords/knives or shooting back what appeared to be energy beams tearing through some of the armored officers before the news ended with the title 'Hoax or Real? Does Magic exist?'

By the end of the video, some skeptics in the comments forum had done their best to try and disprove what they saw on the tapes - they were still trying.

"That…that was trick or no, that was just like as if a proper epic fantasy novel had come to life but that was a live feed, not some fake quality that amateurs could pull off," Issei thought as the President of Homurahara Gakuen raced to find an explainable solution, trying to comprehend just what the hell happened on that news while Ayako watched the video in a shocked face.

"Dear God," a voice muttered.

Issei looked back and saw Ayako's friends Yukika Saegusa (brown hair and eyes), Kane Himuro (white hair and wears glass), and Kaede Makidera (tan skin, black hair and eyes), from the track team of Homurabara High School. He was so engrossed in the video, that he didn't notice their arrival. By the looks of the shocked expressions on the girls' faces, they saw the video. Daring gunfights, car chases, all that stuff you'd see in an action movie was something like that in the video.

"How long have you guys been standing there?" Issei asked.

"A few moments," Kaede answered. "That's from America, isn't it? What happened?"

"Not exactly sure. This is happening right now. Apparently, there's a huge battle at a shipyard," Issei answered. "It was like three groups fighting each other over the shipyard."

"What do you think they're fighting for?" Kane wondered.

"Whatever they're doing, I don't wanna know," Ayako said.

"But there has to be a reason for this fighting and destruction. You don't think things will get worse, right?" Yukika asked worriedly.

"To be honest, I'm not sure. I'm scared to think about that," Issei replied as he shivered when he saw a giant in Chinese red armor smash his way through a group of chimeras with the title 'The Scourge of the West'. "I mean, look at this forum that I found." As the group stared at the forum that swapped outlandish stories and shared theories about the super soldiers, it was generating some interest for them to look up the posts.

"This one comment that the super soldiers are robots," Yukika said as much to the skepticism of her friends who saw it.

"Another one said that the super soldiers are dead humans brought back to life and were given the chance to wreak their terrible revenge on their enemy." Ayako pointed to the post, quietly for a moment, clearly unimpressed with this one.

"This one believes the super soldier is a kind of consensual hallucination, and occasionally even manifestation, conjured by Earth as a whole subconscious power of hope to make the world a better place," Kaede said thoughtfully as she looked at it one more time. "Is this a joke?"

"This one says that super soldiers were orphans who suffered some criminal/tragic related trauma in the past and are trained from birth for war." Kane looks at this post. "It could be true by the way."

"According to some eyewitnesses who actually were there to see the whole picture," Issei said to them. "There is speculation that the men/women in black are actually shooting magic and that they aren't the only ones with magic in the world."

"I find that hard to believe that there is actually magic," Ayako rose her eyebrows as she knew that magic was nothing but a child fantasy instilled in kids to reach for their dreams. "How reliable is this news source?"

"Pretty reliable. The network that did the original broadcast, CNN, is the Japanese version of NHK. They don't do hoaxes. Ever." Issei answered her question. "This video is not made up, the owner has analyzed it over and over again with some precise details. This is a pure, virginal and untouched video that wasn't tempered at all."

Issei closed the browser window and pushed the laptop aside. "So, your thoughts on this?" he asked his classmates.

"It was like I was watching a movie scene that is too real to be true," Yukika said to him. "Still I worry about whoever they are, I hope that it cannot get any worse than this."

"There is not much to say about them," Kane said as she remembered seeing a flash of the battle on the video and she couldn't tell if it was blood or weapon fire. "I am actually kind of scared of them."

"I wonder who on earth they are and why they revealed themselves to the world," Kaede said to them. "Really can't give an opinion on them so far. It is only the first time I've seen this."

"Speaking of it, do you think that their super soldiers have a leader who has the same powers as them?" Ayako asked her friends as she opened the browser window and showed them an image of a hooded man in a black raincoat and black cargo pants. "From what I see in the forum, they had a leader with them during the huge robbery museum who seemed to be called Master."

"If they do, it will be more nightmares to my tastes already," Issei added his opinions. "We would see an actual evil genius with an intellect to take over the world straight out of a comic book."

---

Benjamin and Flanna were blissfully unaware of just how their presence and influence was being discussed by everyone in the whole world who has seen the news recently, as they busied themselves to talk about strategy, planning for the defense,and making a strict and impenetrable structure and regime.

"This will not be easy Benjamin," Flanna said to her brother. "It will require cooperation between our servants to be exemplary for this. We need a firm grip on our servants or else they will be off doing their own thing behind our backs for their own sake. We need structure, by-laws, a code of conduct and a clear chain of command that our servants can easily follow us without making it so complicating, and cut down on a lot of disruptive behavior."

"Well, with our group this size, we don't have to worry about problems like that," Benjamin said. "I am sure they can understand it."

"Yes, the problem is with so many servants being summoned into this world and not sure how many are going to come, we need a way to rein in many servants to keep them from becoming just another Warband," Flanna explained as she took a deep breath. "An organization needs officers. Officers need to be people that I trust and the person I need is you, Benjamin."

"Sister, you act like you don't know what to do," Benjamin asked her as he noticed her voice acting uncertain right now. "I mean you look unsure of what to do next."

"Benjamin, to be really honest with you, I don't have a damn idea of what the hell I am doing right now," Flanna admitted to him. "There are too many moving parts here and there with my plans that I have to go with a basic one instead. It's not a great chance of plans, but it's the best we've got."

"What do you mean, sister?" Benjamin asked her. "Explain what you said about the moving parts."

"We run out of time and our aftermath is just too chaotic for even me to predict it to make a good plan based on what is going to happen next. The attack on the shipyard went way more overboard then I expected," Flanna answered. "Sometimes I wish I commanded a group of soldiers instead of a ragtag group of heroes."

"Soldiers?" Benjamin raised his eyebrow. "I thought you could handle the Servants like you did in the military, with the way they can look up to you, so that I can slowly learn how to do it."

"Benjamin, what I learned from the military and commanding Servants is a whole different thing. I hardly think they fit that description of soldiers and have you seen how they fight? They find the closest enemy and try to cut them up with swords, spears, arrows, fists, and are prone to inflexible tactics," Flanna explained to him. "Madness. Just madness. Just so there can be something to carve on the plaque and put in children's stories. Now I've soon got a hundred of them out of the Holy Grail just waiting to bend all my battle-plans out of shape. I feel that I can't trust anyone else but you."

"I think you are worrying way too much sister, they can not be that bad," Benjamin tried to calm down his sister's worries about their questionable discipline. "Besides, a good leader doesn't try to do everything by him/herself. A good leader is about deputizing and appointing capable subordinates, one who trusts his generals and leaves them free to decide strategy."

"So you want me to trust them to see if they are up to the task and that I avoid meddling in areas where I am ill-equipped to meddle." Flanna stared at him with a questionable look. "Very well, I will think about it. But I'll explain what our plan is and which way to begin."

Flanna laid out the map of their house and pointed to the backyard "Here, this needs to be remade into a training area, shooting gallery, greenhouse, and a smithing. We can get servants to go clear out trees and rooks in the way and get the homunculus to build the building that we need really soon. Don't get stretched out, we just clear the fences and put the new one in a different area."

"That would work and servants can also agree with it," Benjamin nodded his head. "For the smithing, I said that we should outfit our proto homunculus with weapons and armor, even though we have an almost endless amount of materials and mana on hand. We should improve the basic weaponry and armor to the maximum that it can still mass produce without making it into artisan weapons that barely work."

"That is a good one, Benjamin, let's make sure that the prototype is not there, just demonstrating what the finished product could be or shove unnatural kinds of stuff which becomes self-damaging from simply doing anything helpful," Flanna wrote it down on a piece of paper. "We should also not rely too much on unlimited mana from the Holy Grail. We don't want to be drunk with too much power. I noted to Paracelsus to give some of the homunculi a brain to guide them in more sophisticated maneuvers, capable of using other tactics other than walking forward and shooting."

"We should do the plan now, small steps at a time," Flanna said, rolling up the map. "I can hope that our servants can simply be capable of performing the task required of them."

"I will go ask some of the servants to help on this," Benjamin said as he got out of his chair. "It's a really easy job to them."

"Make sure they are not busy and ask politely," Flanna commented as she got her notebook, and started to write stuff down. "In the meantime, I am going to write the new servant's stats. By the way, Benjamin, what are those arc words called that the Clock Tower said about themselves?"

"I think the words are called "Magi walk with death," Benjamin answered her as he slowly closed the door behind him and noticed Alice, Atalante and a small girl who goes by the name Sylvie watching Sesame Street. "And that doesn't include the shit they have to do to keep magic secret and keep other heretics from causing hell to break loose in the world."

"Magi walk with death," Flanna repeated the words as she looked at the window. "There is so much I do not understand, I have never pretended elsewise. I don't know much of magic, servants, Holy Grail, magus, and magicians. But I do know that no matter who magus are, yet for all their power, they are as indifferent to the suffering of the world around them, just as they were indifferent to other people suffering and they still seek knowledge, no matter how trivial, is beyond their interest in an attempt to reach an impossible goal. They collect it obsessively for a reason to reach this so-called Akashic Records."

"Mark my word, I mean to sweep that Clock Tower clean, considering most of them got away with so many atrocities and refused to be properly punished for what they have done. Trying to cover their atrocities up can often lead to it being found out the hard way. I'll make sure that they all get a taste of what's to come."

---

Back at Lord El Melloi's home base

"You bring me the news that the Mastermind sends his servants to attack one of the magus's hideouts in the shipyard!?" Lord El Melloi II yelled in shock. "That was shown on TV!?"

For the first time since Lord El Melloi II arrived here, it has become very chaotic with what has been going on and that the Mastermind has moved his forces from one place to another before El Melloi can predict what he is doing.

"It seems our Mastermind didn't take very well to the attempt of other magi making their own base here in his territory," Faldeus Dioland commented.

"Now he's seeking other magi's hideout and wiping them out," Rohngall said. "This is a catastrophe."

"We just got here and already the Mastermind made his move on us by taking our catalysts," Rin Tohsaka placed her hand on the side of her head. "He plans two steps ahead of us and then makes an example of wiping a magi's hideout, warning the rest of us to stay away from him."

"I am afraid it is very unlikely that we can use another catalyst for us to summon after the failure of the first one," Luviagelita Edelfelt said carefully. "Since we can't use our servants to counter his servants, we might have to fight them with our thaumaturgy. No fool will try anything to fight against his servants face to face, even with the support of the Clocktower."

"Not only that, there seems to be no limit as to how many servants can be summoned, as the Holy Grail has truly become the real one," Lord El Melloi II said as he smoked his cigar. "There is also a good possibility that servants who could be summoned previously and participated in the last war can be recalled back to the world. We might see our own servants fighting side by side with the Mastermind."

"Oh damn, I always wanted to summon a servant," Luviagelita said in a disappointed voice. "Now that Mastermind is ruining it."

"Archer!" Rin thought as she felt a flash of joy mixed with surprise, then she grimaced. "I hope that idiot doesn't agree with the Mastermind at every order or I am going to beat him up." She remembered that Archer could free himself at any time at the right time and switch sides.

"Saber!" Shirou smiled as pondering remembrance of the moment Saber was first summoned. "But that means I have to fight her too, unless, I can trace on the Rule Breaker to free her." Yes, he would wait for the right moment when he managed to see her and get her to switch sides.

"Still, it is better to have two servants with us than none at all," both Rin and Shirou thought at the same time.

"So, what do we do now?" Faldeus asked them. "The military pressure is deep in the states and there are always bases with tanks, helicopters, and soldiers ready to deploy."

"With the plan of summoning our servants backfiring at us, we are sitting ducks here," Luviagelita said to the group, adding her two cents. "We have no counter servants in our group, leaving the Mastermind to only have a full force of servants. So we will see him launch his raid all over the place, taking out anyone who would try to participate in the Holy Grail War."

"I think the best way forward now is to prepare for an attack from him or find where he lives, if we can find a clue that is," Shirou Emiya resumed. "And with some luck, the Mastermind may show up and then we strike him before he can assemble all his resources."

"An overwhelming strike against the enemy command structure? That's your suggestion?" Rohngall asked inquiry. "How will you know if the Mastermind can come out from where he lives and show himself to us? It is too risky for us to take it and he would probably have servants around him, guarding day and night."

"That is all I think of my plan," Shirou answered him. "Unless you have a plan that is better than mine?"

"Has your old age turned you deaf, master?" Faldeus meekly asked his own mentor. "Shirou, Rin, and Lord El Melloi were previously participants in the fifth and fourth Grail War. They have done this before so they can make sure what to do next."

"Well, Shirou's plan is possibly suicide, there is a good chance that the Mastermind would probably get arrogant so that he would reveal himself," Lord El Melloi II tried to realign the conversation. "We must treat Mastermind with caution, using his weaknesses against him. He will be too overconfident when it comes to his superiority."

"It could work, El Melloi II," Faldeus said as he thought about it. "But we have to be careful. We could overcome him but exhaust ourselves in the process and be overrun by his servants."

"Would he believe it?" Rohngall asked Lord El Melloi II. "There's not much point in getting him to come out his shadow if we either overestimate or underestimate his abilities."

"Then we must focus on the preparation of our defenses in case the Mastermind does send his servants to seek out other magus in the region. So we must be careful when we put our heads in the mouth of the lion," Rin said in a serious voice, linking her fingers together and resting her chin on them. "If we look at the patterns where the Mastermind sends his servants, we simply assume that he has been bloated by his own pride and overconfidence of strength."

Everyone nodded about being cautious. Since the shipyard attack, most of the magi have stayed hidden from any attack from the Mastermind's servants who would seek out and hide their own base from his watchful eyes.

Shirou nodded when remembering how mages tend to be overconfident in their own abilities and their servants that they think they have won the war. He can use this tactic on the Mastermind. "I agree with Rin. Sooner or later, the Mastermind will think he's too smart for caution to be necessary. Unless we have a different plan."

"Hmm, we should also get someone to focus on the rumors of the Mastermind's abilities too," Luviagelita pointed out. "All we have heard about him sounds a little far-fetched that it's kindly over-exaggerated." The group nodded on that topic as the tales of the Mastermind were well known enough that contorted into a thousand wild, ghastly rumors of varying scandalousness and unbelievability as though he were some monster in a wet nurse's story.

"Of course, Luviagelita, we have no idea who he is. With that, I am going to send the news to Barthomeloi Lorelei that we need freshmen, Rohngall's group has been nearly wiped out by one of the Mastermind's servants," Lord El Melloi II said, pulling his cigar away and putting it in the ashtray. "Rohngall, I want you and your apprentice to have the situation monitored in full pictures. I am not entirely satisfied with how little we got and I refuse to be blind to what is going on only to have a blade drawn at my back when I least suspect it."

"It should be done, Lord El Melloi II," Rohngall nodded his understanding. "We will try our best to stay as close as possible near any nearby cities. Word around the mages is that servants are distant from citizens and have limited contact with the police force. I suggest that you stick close to the street of the cities, no servants have ever dared attack you in front of the public, but keep your guard up."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lord El Melloi II nodded and turned to Rin, Shirou, and Luviagelita. "The rest of you shall take a rest now. We've got a big day tomorrow and we are not sure if servants will target you so keep your eyes open for any of them."

With that, Lord El Melloi II left the room, with Rohngall and Faldeus following behind him, leaving Rin, Shirou, and Luviagelita in the room.

---

Well, it's been too long, hasn't it?

I am sorry that the last two parts of the scenes were kinda rushed to end, for almost four months has passed. I am trying to be done writing without prolonging the scenes. With all honesty, the reason why I haven't been uploading was my slow lack of inspiration. It was like a writer's block but at the same, it wasn't. I can still write on, it's that I am really busy with my college that forces me to write at night and causes me to lose sleep and I can't think any ideas to move the plot on. At the same time, I have reread the previous chapters in hopes to keep the continuity in check, taking some ideas that reviews have posted some time ago, getting some inspiration ideas to refresh my memory, and keep all of the characters in check. But every time I read back all my previous chapters, it feels so cringe-worthy with the dialogue, characters thinking and actions, as the characters' personalities look like out of place and their actions are out of place and not to mention the cringe dialogue with each other from the way I wrote. Basically, looking at all of the mess of each chapter, I feel a little down in the dumps and think that I went way over my head.

When I am done updating this and I am possibly feeling insecure right now, struggles with fear on how will the reviews judge my chapter and how easy it is to lose sight of what I am writing. But I am going to go out in my next chapter with risk and just get one with the plot right now.

Guest chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017, I think the greatest difference between Ben and Flanna is their view of life. Ben is somewhat naive and wide-eyed and Flanna's downright pessimistic and cynical. Funny that her mistrust of heroes is shared by most magi. Some appreciation would be nice, you know. Some heroes would have killed them because of Flanna's treatment: Kinda like that, I want to make sure that Benjamin and Flanna's contemporary attitude or state of mind characterized by Idealism and Cynicism to be mature and realistic that is not overboard. I am ok with how the Nasuverse represents a scale of Idealism and Cynicism but it takes to a ridiculous level in an apparently 'cosmic horror' setting that goes too far into the opposite direction and puts in stuff that just screams insanity or wrongness on a regular basis.

Actually, Flanna's treatment of mistrust of heroes is because of uncertainty and lack of understanding of who is the real 'them' as unlike most newcomers in Fate series/ fic stories, she does not automatically blindly trust them from the Holy Grail. She thinks that the word 'Hero' is in name and that one of the things that other people are writing about is a romanticized version of them, usually being portrayed more positively/negatively in the work of fiction than in reality. There are a lot of historical inaccuracies, excessive amounts of fictitious exaggeration and fluff when it comes to their controversial/debated of each ancient/historical figures. Their accounts differ from sources to characters, ranging from the most licentious rumors about them which are instantly dismissed instead of being explored in-depth and with unsavory facts that is glossed over, more like brushed aside, as unfortunate but apparently not that big of a deal, likely because the target audience wouldn't be too concerned that their heroes weren't as virtuous can be kind of hard to swallow for them.

Flanna's questions about the servant's loyalty and motivation do have some solid logic behind them, as not all servants are loyal, selfless, and innocent as it seems, some of them are possessive dark desires in their hearts and really unpredictable. Flanna is trying to find any dirt found on each one because every one of them at least did some savory decisions in their lifetime. So Flanna waited to see if each one of them was acting like a respectful servant of the Holy Grail War in order to drop her guard around them or if that is their true personality at all, which Flanna became warmer to them after that.

Guest chapter 29. Nov 25, 2017, Most Master-Servant relationships blew up because the Master was a paranoid and mistrusting jackass, for your information. The point I'm curious about is Francesca aka genderbent François Prelati. She summons Caster by using HERSELF as a catalyst and is pretty much immortal, with all that reviving she does. So if she tries to summon, would Avenger pull her in? Because it was stated that she possesses the Grail Mud and therefore has a connection to Angra Mainyu. And yeah, she would pretty much make fun of Assassin if he comes to kill her, either because killing her won't accomplish anything or because she could be powerful enough to kill Assassin. So I wonder how you plan to deal with her. I expect to see her since we already involved the Government and friggin Bazdilot himself appeared. That guy is terrifying by the way. If Fafnir is summoned, which class would he appear as? I'd take out a page from Shinjuku (Grand Order) and fuse him with several Phantoms or Servants to boost him up: Look above to see your answer. While I get your point on the Master-Servant relationships, there is some reason why it causes bad relationships between Masters and Servants for each Fate series. Also, most of the Masters tend to use a catalyst in order to retrieve a specific Servant (Most likely for power and "I win" button has never worked out in fate series.), which causes to have ideologies/different methods of warfare that clash too much to have a functioning bond that doesn't require bantering. While some of the Masters don't use a catalyst, meaning the servant is one attuned to the summoner's own nature, meaning the Grail assigned one that matched their personality.

Fate/Zero: Half of Master/Servants dynamic break apart by poor communication (Lancer and Kayneth), different target/tunnel vision (Kariya and Berserker) extreme philosophical divide (Kiritsugu and Saber), too overconfident (Tokiomi and Archer), and senselessly evil acts that make themselves unwelcome to everyone (Ryuunosuke and Caster), which some of the masters actually break the rules and try to cheat their way through the war in a fast way, except for Waver and Rider, who did well. Their method was to stay alive by not overplaying their hands and weaseling their way through the war until the very last because nobody considers them much of a threat so they don't bother going after them. For Kirei and Assassin, their tactics were used poorly and they were treated as sacrificial pawns, just to make other servants reveal their Noble Phantasms.

Fate EXTRA: Again, just like one on Fate Zero there are some masters who generally fail to use any sort of actual tactics, incredibly poor Masters that serve to hinder their Servant's true potential, mentally unstable, their own method of fighting is incompatible with their servants ideals, dropping info in the process to bragging about their Servants, and being surprisingly ignorant about the Grail War of its system. Besides Master/Servants dynamic issues, the Moon Holy Grail War (Fate/Extra) battle is really unfair if you look closely at the battle area that masters have to fight in seem to set up so that weak servants wouldn't be able to win against stronger servants in flat terrain without using their own favorable strategy/conditions that force the weak classes to be in a straight clash with a low chance of winning difficulty of surviving in single combat to show their full potential.

FateApocrypha: Well, most of the Yggdmillenia members' skills and traits are great but they don't act as one coherent unit, especially as each of the members seems to have their own agenda, while most of their Servants, at some point, either disobey or betray their masters, often resulting in either the master or the Servant's demise, except for Fiore and Chiron, Caules and Fran, and Reika and Jack. For Darnic Prestone Yggdmillenia, despite his battle plans being well-laid in theory, the plans fail completely in practice because he never took into account that the pieces he's moving around have plans of their own or make their own decisions. Don't get me started on Red faction, on the five unnamed Masters that have no role whatsoever, besides just summoning their servants and disappearing from the story.

If François Prelati tries to summon her genderbent Caster using her own body as the catalyst, it would not work and the Holy Grail just put genderbent Caster in Benjamin's house instead. I am going to try put her in my story and find a way about what her role is going to be. Fafnir would have no class, as it only just gets enhanced by the Holy Grail and goes rage mode.

Guest chapter 29. Nov 20, 2017, The movie resurrection of F DBZ Frieza resurrection for Gilgamesh: Oh, ok then I'll go watch it.

Guest chapter 29. Nov 25, 2017, Oh man, I loved that pseudo-omake with Mercury! Jester is one crazy motherfucker, Angra Mainyu and Venus' reactions were understandable, especially compared to everyone else. I wonder if Bazdilot would have been afraid too. He is also a special kind of crazy: Thanks for saying that. Well, Jester's original wish for the Holy Grail involved rousing Type Mercury from slumber so that it could destroy the world so that would be his expected reaction. Angra Mainyu wants to see it with his own eyes so I expected that and Venus' reactions were like seeing her comrade with her. Bazdilot would have the same reaction as everyone else but he is dead already so too bad.

Guest chapter 14. Dec 13, 2017, Are we gonna be seeing Manaka Sayjou, by any chance?: Not at all because I found her to be really less interesting and a very flat character, as some parts of her backstory were very poor reasons to ever turn to the bad side.

Guest chapter 29. Feb 16 How about a moment with the servants dancing like with cheerleader omi and we are number one lazy town: No because that is so ridiculous and random that I know what you are talking about but that is out of nowhere.

Guest chapter 29. Feb 13 In the code geass idea they meet cc since she is apart of emperor plan and she tells them about it and how about they help Nunnally recover her sight and ability to walk: That could work but at the same time, it fixes the issue way too quickly

Guest chapter 29. Apr 1 How about when Benjamin gets his first child can be like in ending storks movie with emotional feeling: You mean the part when the mom and dad hug the baby together in the front door? Yeah, sure I can do that.

Guest chapter 11. Feb 7 What are gonna be Flannas and Benjamin's reaction when they find out that Shirou's "I want to save everyone and be a hero of justice " wish is actually genuine. And I know that you'll probably be annoyed about the next question, but I am really curious: "Can we expect Shirou vs Benjamin in about...10 chapters?" If you don't know it's ok: Flanna thinks that he has the strength and spirit of the deed which matters most, it is just his methods are outdated and impractical because no one acknowledges his dream and didn't teach him properly. It doesn't help that Saber (Artoria Pendragon) has accidentally (admittedly toxic of selfless heroism) influenced him to further encourage his protective attitude. She thinks his actions are highly irrational and just ridiculous in general. He could have saved even more people who needed protection 'just because he wanted to,' if he hadn't made terrible tactical decisions in doing so because he refuses to accept that any war is bound to have civilian casualties. For Flanna, Shirou is too kind-hearted for war and would be a terrible commander for his servants that she would just sooner trust the command of her armies to Benjamin than this-called 'Hero of Justice' which she is struggling to hide what she says to their face lest piss either of them (Rin and Shirou) off.

Benjamin is actually shocked by his selfless attitude and appalled by his suicidal actions. He tries to give Shirou some advice and encouragement to pursue his dream of a Hero of Justice instead of berating him for it like everyone else he ever met. Benjamin hopes Shirou would never give up his ideals while at the same time, he would soon realize by the end that there are some forces he cannot overcome and he can't be everywhere at once, basically accepting this fact and moving on in his life. While Archer (EMIYA) wishes that he had someone to help and understand him, deep down he's actually a little jealous since he's never had that kind of encouragement when growing up as he antagonized everyone else with his foolish decisions.

About Shirou vs Benjamin in about...10 chapters, well I can try and rush through the story as it is beginning to progress very slowly.