Casualties of War
She hated flying. No, hate wasn't a strong enough word. Detested? Despised?
Loathed. She loathed flying.
Raising the glass to her lips, the blonde magus took a sip of the (probably boxed) wine that the stewardess had brought her. It wasn't the travel itself that bothered her. She wasn't any more worried about the plane than she would be a car, or any other form of mechanical transportation. Statistically, she was actually safer within the stale confines of the airplane than she would be in regular traffic. That said ...
It was the hassle. The sheer amount of pointless, worthless minutia. The barely competent security. The long waits designed to get you to patronize their airport shops. The-
She sighed, adjusted her glasses, and leaned back into the padded airline seat. Better to focus on relaxing than let the irritation eat away at her.
At least the first-class seat made the best of the bad situation. That, and the wine the flight attendants kept bringing her. By the second glass, the urge to strangle everyone within reach had faded somewhat. By the third, she even felt like she might be able to sleep.
Which I should be doing, she reminded herself, closing her eyes for the ninth time and trying to focus on the constant, cyclical drone of the engines. She needed her rest. Especially knowing what waited for her the moment she stepped off the plane.
"Well, this is new."
Her chair shifted as someone thumped down heavily into the seat beside her. She turned and found a young man sitting beside her, messy blonde hair falling into his eyes as he played with the seat-back table. Closing her eyes, she took a breath, and tried to suppress the steadily growing urge to throttle him.
What part of 'stay out of sight' do you not understand? she asked silently, calling on the connection between herself and the unruly Servant.
"Hey, I did what you asked," the blonde man-child said, waving at the button-down that still showed off half his chest. "I'm wearing a shirt. See?"
I'm not going to like the answer, but where did you get that?
"From the guy-"
Lancer.
... fine. The young man held up his hands in surrender. Looking put-upon, he closed his mouth. From the guy who had this seat.
A long-suffering sigh escaped the mage's lips. And where is he now?
In the bathroom. Sleeping. I just popped back outside the door.
The pounding was already starting to build in her head. With her luck, soon she'd have a nice, deep-set migraine from dealing with this idiot.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she ran through the long and very detailed checklist of everything that could go wrong if anyone noticed that the plane had one extra passenger. Especially if the stowaway mysteriously vanished halfway through the flight – she very much doubted that Lancer would behave and sit still if an air marshal arrested him.
You attacked a man, on a plane, and then rematerialized in front of potential witnesses.
Come on, Glynda, he thought back, rolling his eyes. Don't get paranoid. Nobody saw anything.
No one saw anything yet, she corrected sternly. And if you'd stick to spiritual form, it will stay that way.
But it's bor- he started, cutting off when Glynda turned, her eyes glaring daggers into the young man.
Lancer, you are going to dematerialize in spiritual form. You are going to go to the dark little pathway between the bathrooms when you do it and you are going to pray no one sees you. End of discussion. Because if I hear one whisper of a blond shirtless man with a tail running around the airplane, I'll use a Command Seal. You'll not only stay in spiritual form the entire flight, I'll make you spend it in the bottom of the sewage tank.
Lancer's eyes went wide. You wouldn't.
Right now, I strongly suggest not testing me. Glynda locked her gaze with the young man's, raising one eyebrow as she waited for his answer. Finally, he swallowed, unbuckled the seatbelt, and made his way back down the aisle.
Closing her eyes and rubbing at her forehead, Glynda leaned back in her seat and stared up at the corrugated plastic ceiling. Why? Why in God's name was she saddled with what had to be to most annoying servant ever summoned for the Holy Grail War?
Weiss stood on the still-damp grass, shivering beneath her coat as she stared at the wreckage. Emergency crews were still crawling over the site. Firefighters and arson investigators prowled through the burnt-out doors, while medical examiners lined the bodies side-by-side, zipped inside the black body bags until one of the coroners could get them back to the morgue. The rest of the crowd – church-goers, reporters, and people who had just happened to walk by – stood behind the police line, watching while curiosity, fear, and confusion flickered across their faces. Well, except for the reporters. They all had the same expression, some kind of grim determined mask atop emotions varying from excitement to exhaustion.
The heiress sighed and let go of the spell. Slowly, her vision returned to normal, the ruins and the crowd shrinking into the distance, down past the bottom of the hill. Shuddering, Weiss pulled her coat tighter around her – anyone's guess if it was from the wind or what she'd just seen.
Worst part, there was nothing she could do about it. The damage was done – if she'd gotten there during the fire itself, she might have been able to do something, either put it out or at least slow it down. But now, now all she could do was try not to think about it while she waited for Blake to trudge her way back up the hill.
Tucking her hands into the sleeves of her coat, Weiss glanced down the path and sat on the slim park bench that looked out over the crest of the hill, trying desperately to think of what she was going to say when the dark-haired woman finally did make her way back.
She wasn't sure. She knew she had to say something. Do something. Something to fix the awkward silence that had grown between them.
It didn't help that the night before had been ... weird.
Weiss knew it made perfect sense for her to stay at Blake's place, for the time being at least. It was a sound tactical move. Having both Archer and Berserker on guard meant none of the other Masters would be able to ambush them. It kept them safe. If they were going to have any hope of working together, they needed to get used to each other, and the best way to do that was to jump in feet-first.
That still hadn't made it any easier. Blake had invited her in easily enough, but after a few minutes of discussion – most of it their attempts to figure out what Rider's next move might be – they'd fallen into a long, heavy silence. Blake seemed fine with it, but it grated on Weiss' nerves. At least until Blake stood, ushered her down the hall to the guest bedroom, and then vanished, Archer hot on her heels.
To be fair, she thought, fiddling with a coat button, Blake's probably just not used to having houseguests. Plus, if things had gone differently, you two might be fighting each other right now. Up until a few days ago, the two of you were just people who went to the same school, not fellow mages in the middle of a ...
No. No, she knew who I was. Who my family was. She knew I was a mage. Which means it isn't her needing to reconcile between me as her schoolmate and me as a mage. Which means ... what?
She sighed and rubbed her hands together, trying to get a little warmth. The morning hadn't been much better. They'd barely sat down to cold cereal and milk when the special report had splashed across the two-generation-old TV nestled in the corner of the living/dining room.
Weiss shuddered again and tried to put the images out of her mind. Seeing the burned ruins on the screen had been bad enough. Seeing them up close – and the magic enhancement to her sight meant it had been very close – was much worse.
This was the third church to burn in the last two days. Fortunately, the first one burnt down late at night – the only casualties were a priest and his assistant, found dead outside the churchyard crypt. The fire itself had died down before anyone even arrived to unlock the doors. The second one ... well, the second and the third hadn't been so lucky. Which was why Blake had gone down for a closer look.
The church at the bottom of the hill had gone up in flames in the middle of some religious service. It wasn't mass – Weiss took some solace in that – but there had still been over forty people inside when it came down. She held out hope that some of them made it. Weiss had counted at least thirty body bags being loaded into the coroners' vans, which left at least ten or so survivors, assuming that the TV newscaster had gotten his numbers right.
Something snapped, and Weiss turned to find Blake and Berserker coming back over the crest of the hill. Both were dressed in casual clothes – a dark jacket and pants for Blake and a too-tight shirt and jeans beneath a leather jacket for Berserker. The pants and shirt looked like they'd make for comfortably baggy fit on Blake, but on Berserker's larger frame, they were already straining at the seams. The jacket wasn't much better, but at least it didn't seem about to rip itself to shreds.
Silently, the other girl made her way over to the bench, nodding her head over at Weiss before walking to the edge of the path and looking down at the wreckage. She didn't speak, just stared with a far-off look down at the church, the wind teasing her long black hair.
Patience had never been Weiss' strong suit. "So?" she asked after a few seconds, one hand drumming on her arm. "What did you find?"
Blake tore herself away from the sight, slowly turning back to Weiss. "I overheard the coroners talking. Most of the dead were pretty badly burned."
"Fascinating," the heiress said, her voice dry. "You're telling me people inside a fire were burnt? Will wonders never cease."
"Except none of them died from it," Blake snapped. "Roughly half died from the fire, but there's no sign that any of them actually inhaled any smoke."
"... you're telling me they burned to death before the building lit up?"
"Seems so." Blake nodded and looked down at the far end of the bench. Then after a second, she seemed to think better of it, moving over to stand by Berserker before pacing back and forth on the grass. "The coroner thinks they died of fluid loss or organ failure."
"And the other half?"
"They drowned."
Weiss blinked, the sheer ridiculousness making her head ache. "... they drowned inside a burning building?"
"Even with the heat, they still had water in their lungs. There were a few survivors with no obvious injuries. They were just lying unconscious next to the dead. Looks like the fire ... passed them by." Blake stopped pacing, and gave Weiss a dark look. "That sound enough like magic to you?"
"Either that," Archer's disembodied voice growled in Weiss' ear. "Or an incredibly skilled arsonist gassed a church, removed the victims, set the place on fire, waited for it to die down, and then moved all the bodies back into the church before killing them or putting them into comas. So, yes. Probably magic."
Weiss let out a long sigh before rubbing at her temples. Wonderful, now I get them both snarking at me. "The survivors. How badly are they hurt?"
"Comatose. I got close enough to check one of them." Blake paused, trying to find the words. "Almost all their energy is gone. Like it was pulled out of them."
The heiress shuddered again, and this time, it had absolutely nothing to do with the cold.
"You know what this is." It was a statement, not a question, and from the tone of Blake's voice, she wasn't in a particularly good mood.
Weiss nodded and swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "I've heard of a few similar incidents. Some mage grabs a few vagrants, runaways, anyone who won't be missed too soon. Then they kill them and use their life force, their prana, to power whatever spell they're working on. Convert it into mana they can use." She shook her head and tried to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach. "Even for the Grail War, most mages wouldn't dream of trying something like that."
"I'm sure that's a big comfort to the charred bodies back there."
"Blake, an ethical mage would ne-"
"It doesn't matter," the dark-haired woman snapped. "Even if the 'ethical' ones don't stoop that low, the senior mages – the ones who run your academy, your 'Clocktower' – they won't even blink at the body count. All they'll care about is the chance whoever did this might expose you all."
Weiss opened her mouth to argue, and then closed it again. This wasn't the time. Even if she knew the Clocktower would send someone to stop this monster. Even if she could cite ten different reasons why the exposure of the magical community was, in fact, a bigger issue than a series of deaths. No matter how tragic they might be. But as much as leaving it alone bothered her, they could debate the issue later. When there wasn't a madman running around setting buildings on fire.
"Whoever this is," Weiss said, choosing her words carefully. Blake already seemed testy enough without her finding a way to make it worse. "They're gathering power. And if it's happening now-"
"They're another Master," Blake finished for her. "Probably trying to feed the extra mana into their Servant. It's too much of a coincidence if they're not."
"... we need to find whoever's doing this."
Blake looked at Weiss then, and gave the heiress a look she couldn't read.
"What?" Weiss asked, very aware of those golden eyes staring at her, her face growing hot.
"Nothing." Blake shook her head. "I wasn't expecting that from you."
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Weiss thought. "Look, if it's a Master doing this, then they're gathering power for the Grail War. We need to stop them. Soon. Before they complete whatever they're trying to do. Because you can bet that anything that needs this much mana won't end well for anyone nearby, including us and half the city."
Blake kept staring at her for a second, then looked away, letting out a short little huff.
"Fine," she growled, starting to pace again. "We still don't have a place to start. There's no trace of whoever did this – no footprints, no video cameras on the buildings nearby-"
"Did you try using magic?" Weiss asked, incredulously. Trust an untrained mage to forget the most important part of-
Blake glared over at her. "The first thing I tried was a tracking spell. When I say the place is clean, I mean it's clean."
Weiss' face went red. Right. Of course Blake would try that first. And of course, I had to criticize.
"Fine," she said, her teeth grinding. "Fine. We'll find some other way of catching up to them."
"You know someone with a magical bloodhound?"
"No," Weiss scowled, gathering her coat around her as she started down the footpath back to the city. "But if they're a Master, and they're burning churches, I have a damn good idea where they're headed."