"I hate you, by the way."
"Sure you do."
"If I could wring your neck right now, I could."
"You'd have to be tall enough to reach it, first off."
Lena took a breath as she counted mentally to ten. It had been basically a sleepless night, as Emily had kept her up with being partially angry and partially worried. All because Archer had to tell her about the whole truck incident.
"Did you really have to do that?"
"Of course I did."
"...This was about me introducing you to her, wasn't it?"
"My, I didn't realize that you were a detective on par with Holmes himself."
"I thought you were done after the whole mapo tofu thing!"
"Oh no, I just wanted to see your reaction with that one. Pretty good one, if I had to say."
"Bastard!"
Lena could see the smirk on his face. Literally too, as unlike the previous times they had conversed, Archer was right next to her in broad daylight. They had decided earlier that shifting into his spirit form where Emily could suddenly pop up was too risky, and would pose too many questions.
Instead, the both of them had headed out with Emily and had split off from her after they boarded separate trains. How Archer managed to pay for his ticket was a mystery that Lena didn't want to know about.
"Where are you even going anyway?" Lena asked as the train came to a halt. It was her stop, and she expected the man to come along with her to the Overwatch base, going into spirit form on the way. Instead, Archer let everyone else leave, only moving to get out of the way for someone else.
"I'll be doing some errands for a bit, don't mind me." He replied nonchalantly, "If you need me, just call."
"If you're sure…"
It was weird, now, knowing that the man wouldn't be watching over her back. It was even weirder to think that she felt that way, when for most of her life, Archer hadn't even existed for her. Still, as she exited the tube and heard the sounds of the train leaving the station, she felt her confidence surge.
'Alright. Overwatch, here I come!'
"I can still hear you, by the way."
'Gah!'
Archer calmly sat as he watched the train slowly make its way to the next station. You would think that the future would have some faster public transport, and yet, the trains were only moving slightly faster than the ones he had ridden when he was alive.
All around him, he could spot some looks thrown his way. He couldn't fault them; his looks were odd to say the least. Striking one could say. With a breath, he immersed himself in his thoughts, even as he kept an eye out.
He was stronger than the humans here, for sure, but complacency is what got people killed.
He'd resided in Unlimited Blade Works since his last summon, not as a Counter Guardian, but as a Servant. When that tenure had ended, he expected to be going back to his old habits.
It didn't happen.
What's more, the usual merger of his memories thanks to his Tracing of any of the blades that could have been used during a job provided nothing. There had been no summons of Alaya for the entirety of that time.
That was a cause for concern, but not too much of one. He'd been on standby a couple of times over the period of being Alaya's bloodhound. It would usually last for a couple of weeks, before it was back to nonstop killing.
Except his last summon lasted for a couple of years. He'd been summoned by Chaldea back in 2016, their first summon after Da Vinci, and had only returned after he had died during the ride down to Olympus.
He still remembered it, as well. When the Nautilus was attacked by Caenis, he had to go out and fight her off while his Master dealt with Poseidon. He remembered getting stabbed through the chest just as he himself carved out Caenis' throat.
It hadn't been the first time that he'd died during his tenure at Chaldea. He died in London, Camelot, and Babylonia. Every time it happened, Ristuka would summon him and anyone else, crying all the while, within a few hours of them finishing whatever was needed.
So he waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It was only after a year, longer than any other Singularity or Lostbelt that Chaldea had tackled that he became worried.
Ritsuka Fujimaru was someone who would go to any lengths to get people their happy ending. She was a Master that, oddly enough, reminded him of his past self. Odd in a sense that he didn't hate her outright.
It was hard to hate someone who didn't hate you, after all.
Regardless, he knew that she would try to get him back, even if it was detrimental to the plan. So when he was forced to wait even more, he began to think that something was wrong. For a moment, he even entertained that Chaldea had failed, and that the Foreign God had won.'
He dismissed that as easily as it came. For one, his entire existence would have been wiped had Proper Human History been overwritten. For another, even if they did fail, he'd most certainly be summoned to clean up as it were. That no other Counter Guardian had been summoned to the Lostbelts was a miracle in itself.
So, even as he waited, he was content to know that Chaldea succeeded. That his sacrifice was not in vain. Who knows, maybe the reason he wasn't summoned again was because they defeated the Foreign God in Olympus.
When Lena Oxton, and her plane, inexplicably appeared in his Reality Marble after all that waiting though, he knew that Alaya was just fucking with him. There was no conceivable way that an experimental, teleporting plane could have breached the mystery that shrouded his Unlimited Blade Works. Much less a squishy, full-blooded human.
Hell, had it turned out that Oxton was a Dead Apostle, it would have made things somewhat more sensible.
Still, when he finally managed to talk to her, he realized something that he had never thought of before.
He was, inexplicably, lonely.
When he was in Chaldea, there was always someone about. Be it staff members lounging in the cafeteria, Servants arguing on who was stronger, or his Master and her antics. Always, even in the darkest moments, there was this sense of camaraderie that Archer - Emiya - didn't realize he got used to.
Didn't realize that he wanted it back.
So, when he found that one thread that could lead him back to Chaldea, he grasped it and didn't let go. He felt some guilt at basically forcing Oxton to accept their little deal, but she managed to come back home to a loving girlfriend. That was a win-win situation in his book.
If not for one thing. It was the 2060's. He didn't think about it beforehand, that the time he spent in Unlimited Blade Works wasn't sped up. That the same amount of time passed between here and there.
That meant that Chaldea was successful in its mission. At the same time, it would have been dissolved by the United Nations due to that exact success. There would have been no need for Chaldea when both the Singularities and Lostbelts were over. They were, after all, a liability. The power to summon Servants, all contracted to one Master, was a game changer that countries would be wary about.
It was a sad, but inevitable fate for the last bastion of Humanity that it would never come to light again.
Still, that meant that he could at least take the chance to relax, even if the people he wanted to meet weren't there anymore. Of course, even that plan fell through the moment he learned of the Omnics and Null Sector.
With a small frown on his face, Archer got up from his seat as the train announced their arrival. He quickly exited, weaving through the crowd. The existence of such things wasn't an issue - he'd known BB after all. AI being capable of sapient thought was not a new idea, and was theoretically possible with science.
The issue was how and where did they come from? And more importantly, why didn't the Mage's Association intervene? AI technology like that would make homunculi functionally obsolete.
And if he knew anything about magi, it's that they hated being one-upped by those they think were lesser than them.
The British Museum looked out of place, but in a way that was oddly nostalgic. Like a house that never really fit in because it was built before the neighborhood was an idea. It was a sight that Archer could help but scowl at.
He didn't have very good memories of this place.
But, he was here on a mission, and he was going to see it through. As he waded through the crowds - more than one group sporting uniforms, field trips, he assumed - he calmly made his way onto a certain section of the museum.
Similar to some modern fiction, users of magecraft did hide in plain sight. The entrance to the Clock Tower was one such example. Nestled in an otherwise unremarkable doorway was a path towards the premier pillar of the Mage's Association.
The lack of response from the magi in London was concerning. While normally, the idea of magi helping anyone would be absurd, the fact was that it had happened in the middle of London. And that meant that their experiments might be disturbed, small as that chance may be.
If there was one thing that magi hated, it was having something get potentially ruined by something as 'inane' as a terrorist attack.
But Archer found not a single whiff of magecraft throughout the entire thing.
It reeked of something going on. And he was nothing if not paranoid. He needed to find out just what exactly was going on in the Clock Tower.
Which was why he couldn't let Oxton anywhere near here. Her existence was a mystery in itself. As someone who didn't have any magical circuits, the things she did were virtually impossible to do. The moment any normal magus heard of her, they'd be chomping at the bit to get at her.
That was one thing he couldn't let happen. He'd be damned if he knowingly put someone in danger like that.
'Though, in hindsight,' Archer smiled wryly, 'Coming here at all would likely put a target on me.'
His own existence as a Heroic Spirit, or Ghost Liner, would spark a manhunt for him. Unlike Oxton, however, he knew exactly how to deal with a magus getting handsy.
It might be a bit politically tenuous to shoot an arrow through someone's head, but it would make them think twice before trying something with him.
As Archer walked down the hidden path that would lead him to the underground areas of the Clock Tower, he frowned. All around him were cobwebs, something the nobility of the Mage's Association were quite adamant in not seeing.
That the main entrance was filled with them, as well as the dust he could feel beneath his boots boded ill. His fears came to light when he finally made it through.
To an empty Clock Tower.
Making his way through the entire campus was odd. Not because of anything in particular, but the lack of anything at all. The entire place was silent as a grave. No Lords going about their day. No students rushing to their next class.
Nothing but dust. It was as if the entire place was left forgotten. But at the same time, the entire place was seemingly complete. Not a single table lacked a chair out of place. The chalkboards still had unused chalk sitting innocently near them, not to mention the ones that still had writings on them, as if the instructor had just left to go get a drink.
Something was completely and utterly wrong here.
When he was alive, he could remember the place being filled, maybe not to the brim, but filled nonetheless. That's not even considering that the Mage's Association had stood for well over two thousand years at this point, and was supported by two individuals that had the express reason to keep it standing.
If nothing else, Archer knew that Zelretch wouldn't let the Clock Tower rot into nothing like this.
And yet, here he stood as the only living thing in the entire campus.
"Vacation my ass." Archer scoffed to himself. At the end of the day, it seemed that Alaya still had its hold on him, since he for sure didn't sign up for anything like this.
A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.
Thank you to my newest patron: Nicholas O Paredes.
And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, and brutalcrab. You know, y'all really are the best.