?

"Free at last!"

I allowed myself the moment to revel and admire the first kill of my manifestation. To think that rodent would try to bind me to his will. Bah! As if his feeble magics could compare to the seals I'd broken free from! Magic unfitting of even the angels, let alone one such as I! Although...

"I suppose even vermin such as you can have use" I mused, looking down at the bloody corpse. "You did provide an... adequate pathway for me to follow."

The only question now is where this even was. The rodent was undoubtingly human. Yet this barren wasteland... This was not father's jewel. His most prized creation, alongside the vermin humans. So just where did this pathway lead me to?

Where was I?! I would not trade one prison for another!

Barren. Desolate. As far as I could see. As far as I could-

...

...No.

...

"...I sense life..."

A rush of... anticipation coursed through me. Life was here... Life was here! Where there was life, there was vermin.

But that sense of life... it was all around. I was standing on it! But how?! There was nothing here! There was-

...

...What was that?

Curious, I approached the spire protruding from the ground. How had I not realized it before; not sensed it before?! This sense of life... it came from the spire, permeating through the ground below... Had father- No. Certainly we'd have known if father was experimenting. Most certainly it wouldn't have been guarded by verminous humans! But if not father, then-

"Argh!"

Swiftly, I retracted my hand from the top of the spire.

"Haa... haa... haa..."

That power... A catalyst of life, but not father's... Curious... Someone else plays at being father. Vermin dare play pretend as father!

Again, I tried to touch the spire. Again, I was rejected, pain not felt in an aeon overwhelming my entire being.

"Haa... haa... Curse this feeble manifestation! Not as free of the seals as I'd expected..."

...Far from what I'd expected. Yes... I could feel it now, my lack of power. I'd managed to manifest here, but it was far from a complete manifestation.

"Bah! To hell with this farce!"

A second later and the once silver spire was black as the night sky above, four of my arrows embedded within its body. There! May not be fully manifested, but as if one such as I needs a full manifestation to overpower feeble verminous magics!

"You are mine" I forced my power through the spire, facing now little resistance from its defenses.

That's when I felt it. The release of life...

The ground beneath me shook and rumbled. Towers sprung from the earth, rising high into the night sky. Bright lights illuminated the world. A cacophony of noises rang out all around.

Yes... this was how it all should feel. This was the feeling of life!

Verminous life that was mine to command!

Mine to control!

Mine to conquer!

Yes... Yes! Finally, it's my turn to have some fun, eldest brother!


?

Oh?

And what do we have here?

...

Hehehehe...

Well... isn't this just... fascinating...

Humanity dares establish a foothold here, of all places?

I had thought the grumblings to be nothing more than the bitterness of countless failures.

But no...

Something was here...

Something was trying to force it's existence here, where nothing should exist.

…A whole world, teetering on the edge of madness...

All that was needed was a little... push.

…Not how I'd normally spend my time, but if my lord has no other tasks for me...

…This could be quite... amusing...

Now... to find a means to infiltrate...

...

...

...Ah, there we are. Let us see...

...Hmm...

...

...What a convoluted system this is... This Holy Grail War nonsense...

...But nothing that a bit of tweaking... A bit of replacing... Ah...

Not quite like how I walk the Earth, but working within the system for a while would be far better than trying to break it from the offset.

Really allow for the madness to settle in; take hold.

Now, to access the records... Who's set to be called? Who should I replace?

...

...

...

...Oh?

Yes... you will do nicely...

Your identity will serve perfectly as the means by which to conceal the madness till the opportune moment.

Now for me to take your place and- Ah!

That would be the call, I presume.

Very well.

I accept this... contract... hehehe...

...

...

...

...This smell...

This... feeling...

Ah... It has been far too long since I've decided to walk the Earth.

Though, to say this was Earth would be a tad... misleading.

After all, Earth wasn't a bleached, barren landscape.

...Yet.

Taking in all the sensations again, I allowed myself a moment of silence.

Looking right at me was a human.

The master I'd formed this contract with...

Yes... We'll see how long that last...

"You are...?"

Oh?

The human thing speaks.

Lovely.

The landscape may have changed, but there truly are proper humans here to break!

"Caster, here to assist by any means able, though if you weren't looking for works of art I fear you have have contracted the wrong servant" I grinned. "Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol, at your service! Of course, simply Salvador Dalí will suffice."


A/N

Now, I know what you all are thinking: Really?! All of that time, just for this little bit of nothing?!

I know, I know, it's not a lot in word count. But it is important. After all, these two mysterious servants are definitely going to be some of the more... boundary pushing... things I do, at least when it comes to the servants themselves. As such, I really wanted to be careful with how I go about bringing them into this, how much I reveal about them, and, well... I'm sure you all get the picture.

The first of the two I think is a little more obvious as to who it is than the second, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if some of you figure out both of their identities just from this (I know one of you is very good at guessing servants and is usually accurate with their guesses). When it comes to these two though, I would ask that you please don't put guesses in the reviews. Not that I can stop you, granted, but if there is some mystery as to their identities for some readers, I'd like to keep it that way for a bit. If you're just dying to make a guess (and really want to know if it's right) then by all means, send me a PM here and I'll read/reply to it, as requested.

Still though, I would have liked to have gotten this out at least a week earlier, but alas, busy with trying to get everything ready for another year of university, so I just didn't have a lot of time to write this to begin with, let alone go through my typical process of being unsatisfied and rewriting it all multiple times. So ye, sorry for the delay on this xD

Now, just to quickly address something from the reviews from the last chapter: yes, as far as I'm aware, Nicolas Flamel isn't a Heroic Spirit. Considering anything that would maybe make him a Heroic Spirit was made up by us in real life and varies wildly by author, and the fact that they already gave Paracelsus the Philosopher's Stone, I'd be very surprised if they use him anytime soon either. Hence why I'm deciding to use him here.