Travis
"Oh, this will not do! This will not do at all!"
Honestly, the first thing I'd wanted to do after summoning my servant was celebrate. After all, I'd actually done it! Forget reading and studying Holy Grail Wars, I was a participant in one! A grossly improper one that no one in the Association still seemed to fully understand, sure, but still! I was a master. I was actually a master!
But considering I'd had yet to even blink the black spots out of my eyes before I heard another voice vocally complain, which could only have been my servant… Well, yeah, the jubilation died out practically immediately.
Oh god, did I mess up already somehow?!
"Snow I could understand, but this?! This is a barren wasteland! One could not go further back on progress than this if they tried!"
Whirling around on the spot, the woman focused an accusing glare my way.
"You there! Explain!"
"U-Um, I-" I stammered, not at all sure how to deal with the current situation. "Uh, e-explain what, exact-"
"What has happened to my beloved adoptive homeland?! It should be here! I can feel it is here! Yet I refuse to believe it has been reduced to such a state!"
"I-I-I'm afraid I d-don't-"
"And stop your spluttering and stammering! You look to be of age; surely you learned to speak, did you not?"
"Y-Yes, er, yes ma'am" I nodded as I saw her glare soften just the tiniest bit.
"Ma'am… Your decorum needs work, but I suppose you are not completely unsalvageable" the woman sighed, turning away from me. "I brought enlightenment to the empire; surely I can bring it to one man..."
It was only now that the shock had worn off that I really registered who this woman was. Not that I knew who my servant was, either by class or by true name, but I definitely came to realize that using ma'am was absolutely not the correct way to try and redeem myself. That gown, dress, thing she was wearing was extravagant! The red and white was one thing, but the sheer about of gold decorative on it blew my mind. That one outfit had to be worth more than my entire wardrobe, easily!
Then there was the crown! That thing looked to be made entirely of diamonds, and not fake diamonds. Real diamonds. It had to weigh a good few pounds at least! If, and how, she found that thing comfortable to wear I couldn't even begin to fathom.
"My apologies…" I had to stop myself from nearly saying ma'am again. "How should I-"
"Empress" the woman whirled around to face me again. "Empress will do just fine. In fact, I expect no less from you, if you are to serve me."
S-Serve you? But… aren't I the-
"Of course, serve me well, and you will be justly rewarded" the woman cracked the slightest hint of a smile at that.
"Very well" I nodded along. "Though, in terms of the war, I should at least know your servant class, if not-"
"Ma'am, servant" the woman cut me off, her glare swiftly returning. "Plenty of work needed indeed for you to serve me properly... I am no serf! I am an Empress! Specifically, your Empress. The only servant that could possibly be here is you. Though, while I prefer you address me by title, I suppose class will also be… acceptable. Rider, responding to the summons."
"Rider…" I smiled a bit. "A pleasure to meet you."
"I would like to say the same, but your introduction was rather poor. However, credit where credit is due, you did not immediately crack under first sign of pressure and attempted to adjust…. Passable, then; more so than my husband, at any rate."
Ah… huh? What that supposed to be praise, or…?
"Now, back to the issue at hand" Rider continued. "You have yet to explain what has happened."
"That is because I truly can't" I resolved myself to meet Rider's gaze as her eyes narrowed on me. "As much as a shock this all must be to you, Rider, it is equally shocking to me, if not more so. I don't know how this happened, or where we even are, really. But-"
I hesitated for a moment as I turned to look off to my left, where only a few feet away that control spire rose from the ground, as if to both tempt and mock me.
"But I do think I know how to fix this. At least, how to go about starting to fix this."
"Do you now" Rider asked, though she sounded more intrigued than anything as I noticed her follow my gaze towards the control spire. "Then consider this your first order from me: restore life to this desolate wasteland. Achieve that much, and I'll consider acknowledging you formally as my master."
?
"Well, shit… There goes all our planning, huh, Sort?"
I couldn't help but laugh to myself as it finally set in that I was on my own in this barren wasteland. All that time Sortiara had us coming up with strategies together, planning out how we would conduct battle depending on the servants we would summon… yeah…
All of that was now useless, wasn't it?
"Suppose we could try to meet up, somewhere" I mused. "But really, who knows how far this wasteland even stretches?"
A part of me was tempted to say this was for the better, actually. After all, there could only be one winner. We'd have to all fight one another eventually, and there was no guarantee that, if we were all together come the end, that I wouldn't be the first one to get ganged up on.
"Though getting to that point has become exponentially harder, I suspect..."
Yeah, all things considered… this was definitely far from ideal.
The part of me that wasn't lamenting the current situation was busy wondering about this Satanael fellow. Granted, I had no experience with any of this grail war shit. Never even heard of the damn ritual until I was roped into this operation nearly a year ago now. But all the same… a part of me was admittedly… impressed.
May be an outsider, and this was likely far from the ritual proper, or even magecraft proper, but still… If this Satanael fellow really did control the moon, and could set up his own version of this grail war thing that works in the end, then hats off to him, I say. That's the kind of ambition that I wished the magi back in Japan would have had; why I left and joined the American Institute. That ambition was what was need now from magi, more than anything.
"…I think I get why you were so cautious about everything surrounding this now, Sort."
She definitely knew who this Satanael fellow was. Could play the fool for others, perhaps, but I knew she knew months ago. Not right away; she wasn't horrible at playing the fool. But yeah, she knows who it is behind all this. The one thing I hadn't been able to figure out in the build-up to it all was if her caution exercised was a natural and healthy amount, or excessive and driven by fear.
Looking around at my surroundings now, perhaps it was the latter of both parts.
Though if this person has Sort running scared…
Sort was easily one of the most powerful magi I knew, if not the most powerful. How that would stack up against the heads of the other organizations, I couldn't say, but I had to imagine she was at least middle of the pack, if not higher, when it came to combat capability. So, if not even a magus, but an outsider, had her running scared…
"What the hell did I get myself roped into?"
It was a question I asked the barren wasteland knowing full well I'd get no answer back. Yet I just had to ask it anyways.
"Ah well, no going back now, is there" I grinned as I walked over to the one thing in sight that was sticking out of the ground. "Now, lets see what we have-"
I took a step back out of reflex as a bunch of… things just popped up out of nowhere, right in front of my face. After taking a second to compose myself, I couldn't help but chuckle slightly as it dawned on me what those things that popped up really were.
"You're kidding me! This war comes with tutorials?! Oh, that's amazing!"
Man, I really want to meet this Satanael fellow, at least once. If only so I can ask him how the hell he came up with all this.
"…So, we're fighting on a replica of the Earth, and beyond fighting with just servants, we can establish empires and fight with armies" I tried to make sense of everything I'd just read as I closed the tutorial windows. "Fascinating… Not really sure what conventional armies are going to do against servants, but I suppose not every servant has an anti-army Noble Phantasm… Still…"
There was a sense of unease that had built as I'd read through the tutorial messages that had popped up, but I couldn't quite place it until now.
"…Why does it feel like we're being toyed with?"
I mean, sure, from the beginning with how we were all invited to this thing in the first place, we were being toyed with. But that feeling of being toyed with felt… different… Different to how it felt now like we were being toyed with. Or really, maybe it wasn't so much we were being toyed with as it was-
"…Is this a grail war, or a war game?"
Yeah, that was it. What, between needing to learn how to do a spiritron hack so we could hack into the moon itself, this empire building thing and honest to God tutorial messages, like… I felt like it was perfectly reasonable to see this more so as one of those video game things than as a war for magi to fight in.
"Hmm… suppose it can't be helped" was the conclusion I finally reached as I gave my head a slight shake. "But what to do first? Establish my empire, or summon my servant?"
…Well, when I think about it, if I establish an empire first, I'm kind of rooted to this area. Depending on who I end up summoning afterwards, that could be more of a detriment than not. Now, if I knew who I'd end up summoning, then I wouldn't have this issue, but of course Otto's network couldn't tell us who these catalysts were supposed to be for! Why Sort trusted his network so much given that I still had no idea! But hey, we got in, so our catalysts must be tied to some Heroic Spirit or other. Technically speaking, Otto delivered on exactly what he promised he could do…
"It really is a wonder how the Clock Tower is getting their ass kicked by the Catholic Church when we managed to win with this kind of half assed shit being our best" I mused as I walked over to my catalyst.
Considering the catalyst in question was some kind of old gun, I really had no idea what I was getting. Otto had said at one point to me what kind of a gun it was, but as far as I knew now, it was some kind of matchlock rifle. What that was going to get me, considering I'd asked for something from Japan, well… I was hoping for something from the Sengoku period, because I at least knew some bits and pieces from that time period. Kind of hard not to, when you grow up in Japan. But outside of that, I was kinda screwed.
Following the advice from the tutorial messages, I began carving the summoning circle into the ground with my heel. Didn't take too long, I suppose, but then again, wasn't like I had a means to tell the time now. Sun was out still, or at least whatever generated light in this world was out now, so at the very least I didn't have to worry about messing anything up in the dark. Though thinking about it, I couldn't help but wonder for a bit as I made the circle as to if this world, copy of the Earth, whatever, even had the concepts of day and night?
Hell, do we even need to eat, drink, or sleep?
Questions to be answered once I had the security of a servant, ultimately. Before anything else, getting a servant summoned was key. After all, who knows how close we all are to one another?
"May fortune smile upon me" I took a deep breath before beginning the incantation, holding my right hand out towards the circle.
Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Let each be turned over five times, simply breaking asunder the fulfilled time.
Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation. Raise a wall, against the wind that shall fall. Close the four cardinal gates. Come out from the crown. Rotate the three-branched road reaching the Kingdom.
I shall declare here. Your body shall serve under me. My fate shall be with your sword. Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. If you will submit to this will and this reason then answer!
An oath shall be sworn here! I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven. I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell! From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, Protector of the Balance!
I tried to shield my eyes from the bright light of the summoning circle best I could with my left arm. Can't say it helped all that much, but figured it was better to try and do something rather than just stare at the pretty lights and go blind.
"Mwahahaha! Good! This is good! A retainer who understands the importance of matchlock guns! Yes, you have potential, master!"
I admit, my mind was doing some weird kind of mental double take on me. That voice… it sounded feminine. Though, while my sight was still slightly blurry, the person standing in the summoning circle didn't look like a woman. It was kind of bizarre, in all honesty.
Almost as bizarre as what the person was wearing. Now, the black military jacket and pants I could get, but the hat seemed comically big. Then there were the boots… who thought gold boots were a good idea?! I couldn't even tell what they were made of! It looked like medieval European steel plate, but at the same time, it just… couldn't be. At least, I had no recollection of Japan using European style steel plate armor, let alone just for boots.
Not that any of that would prove to matter, as before I could even voice a single thing, the servant I'd summoned continued with their introduction.
"I am Demon Archer Nobunaga, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven!"
I wanted to say something. Anything. But my mind had honestly shut down by this point.
Did my servant just say they were Nobunaga? As in, the Nobunaga?! Oda Nobunaga?!
…But… isn't that a woman?!
"…What's the matter, master? Speechless before me already" the servant grinned a wicked grin. "Mwahahaha! Well, it can't be helped."
?
Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Let each be turned over five times, simply breaking asunder the fulfilled time.
Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation. Raise a wall, against the wind that shall fall. Close the four cardinal gates. Come out from the crown. Rotate the three-branched road reaching the Kingdom.
I shall declare here. Your body shall serve under me. My fate shall be with your sword. Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. If you will submit to this will and this reason then answer!
An oath shall be sworn here! I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven. I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell! From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, Protector of the Balance!
The night sky lit up with a brilliant flash of light as I finished the incantation. It was bright enough to force me to turn away and shield my eyes, and even then, it still felt painfully bright.
Once the light did die down though, I slowly opened my eyes and looked towards the back of my left hand. A wave of relief washed over me as I saw the red markings there. It was official then: I was now a master in this war.
"Well, I'll be… Didn't expect to see her ever again."
Looking up from my hand, I saw a man standing in the middle of the summoning circle I'd made, back to me and looking down at the catalyst I'd used for the ritual. Bending down, the man picked up the rifle and gave it a good look over, slowly turning it over in his hands.
After a few moments a second rifle appeared; materialized by the servant himself. A second later and I had to rush over and grab my catalyst out of the air as the servant tossed it over his shoulder my way.
"Won't do much good against the others, but you be sure to keep that safe for me" the servant explained, turning to face me as I stumbled forward a couple of steps, just barely managing to catch the rifle.
It was difficult to make out the finer details of the servant I'd summoned, but I wanted to say I'd managed to summon exactly who I'd wanted. At least, he certainly had the whole cowboy look going for him, and he recognized the Springfield, so-
"So, you're my partner for this war" the servant continued, giving me a glance up and down. "You look like a fighter. I reckon this could be the start of a fine partnership, wouldn't you agree?"
"A partnership sounds good" I nodded as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. "To be honest I don't have any experience as a master."
"We all start somewhere" the servant shook his head, though there was a faint trace of a smile. "So long as you're serious about fighting in this thing, the rest will come in time."
"And you don't have an issue-"
"Ma'am, if I took issue with your lack of experience, I wouldn't still be standing here."
The Springfield rifle in my hands felt lighter as the man adjusted the hat on his head before continuing.
"Gunner, answering your summons as requested. Now, what you say we get this show on the road, partner?"
A/N
A few more servant introductions, one with a name reveal and a couple without. Think I'll do a format more like this for perspective changes going forward if they're short, and just combine a few of them into one chapter. Think it'll turn out better than having so many individual mini posts for this story, because I expect there will be a lot of that going on, considering the scale of what I want to do with this.
I will probably do one more bit with some more servant introductions, simply because there are quite a few servants in this, so I hope seeing some of the servant roster (and guessing at the unnamed ones) is worth the wait for you all.
Also, yes, I'm using the Gunner Class here... consider that as a bit of... foreshadowing... to other things showing up? Yeah, go with that xD
Now, a side note on something I did find... amusing in the reviews since I last posted... you're really asking the wrong questions. After all, Type-Moon gave Paracelsus the "Philosopher's Stone" (and yes, I put the quotes for a reason). Really, the better question is this: who in the FATE universe, that is a magus, WOULD know about a random French scribe/bookshop owner? After all, that's all he apparently is within canonic FATE.
