Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate franchise it belongs to Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon.
Out of the Dark
Prologue
A cold, sterile room. The floors paneled with harsh, white, vinyl squares. The walls and ceiling finished with cold, polished metal. Stark white artificial lights keep the room brightly lit. And head-first against one wall, a medical bed.
Machines hummed and beeped with mechanical regularity to both sides. Wires and tubes led to a little girl lying unconscious on the bed, dressed only in a loose, pale green gown. A shaved head lay against a white pillow, flesh red and swollen around metallic implants freshly-driven into her temples. Restraints bound her wrists and ankles, holding her firmly in place on the bed.
Silence, but for the sound of machines, and faint breathing. Stillness, but for the faint but regular movement of the child's chest with every breath.
Then, a groan. Cloth shuffled against cloth as the child stirred, her eyes slowly blinking open. A computer hummed to life, a woman's voice speaking tonelessly from its speakers.
"Subject E-52 has regained consciousness. Standby…standby…standby…all vital signs normal. No signs of mutagenic reactions to Primogenitor Treatment. Cerebral implants registering all-green. Disengaging restraints. Subject E-52 is clear to proceed to the next phase of Project Re-Genesis."
Metal slid against metal with harsh noises as the restraints slid open, but the girl lay on the bed for a few minutes longer. Then, moving slowly and hesitantly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, looking around her uncomprehendingly. Blinking once, she turned towards a pair of sliding metal doors, and gingerly slid her legs over one side of her bed, but stayed seated for a little longer.
"Where…am…I?" she softly said. "I…? I…who…am…I?"
The girl's face twisted in thought, before wincing in pain as lights flashed on the implants in her temples. A hand reached up, and gingerly tapped at the machine driven through flesh and bone and wired into her brain. "I…" the girl softly said again. "I…"
She blinked, a strange expression appearing on her face as rainbow light glimmered across the blue of her irises. At the same time, a flicker of images filled her thoughts at a speed that would have made most others dizzy at best, and knocked them out cold at worst. But the girl saw it all, clear as day, and sat parsing through what she'd seen.
Blinking again, she pulled the wires and tubes off of her before jumping from the bed, her legs briefly shaking from disuse as they struggled to hold her weight, but a moment later and she was walking towards the doors. They slid open as she approached, the girl only hesitating for a moment before moving to one side, and briefly peered around the doorframe. Then stepping through, she exited into a corridor.
Like her room, it was cold and sterile. Vinyl floors. Metal-finished walls and ceiling. Artificial lights illuminating everything in harsh and bright white. The girl walked down the corridor, following what she had seen just moments ago.
There were other doors along the corridor, but she ignored them. Here and there, whiteboards had been placed on the walls, but they were mostly blank, with what little that was written on them in a language the girl did not recognize. Then finally, she reached her destination, another pair of sliding doors.
"Here…?" she softly asked. Then stepping forward, the doors slid open at her approach.
Laughter. Children's voices. The sounds of play. The room beyond was warm, the floors and walls covered with soft rubber in pastel colors. Other children were there, playing with blocks and stuffed toys, or running and crawling around a jungle jim that filled a third of the room.
The girl stared, mouth slightly open as she walked into the room, the doors closing behind her. The children ignored her as she stared, all of them wearing gowns like hers, with shaved heads and metal poking out their temples.
"Hey there!" a voice called, and she turned in its direction.
There was a boy there, sitting next to a half-finished castle of blocks. He smiled at her, warm and reassuring, his brown eyes welcoming and cheerful. "I'm C-88." he introduced herself. "But, you can call me Charles. Everyone here does. It's the name I picked for myself, you see."
The boy grinned, but the girl wasn't reassured. Instead, she looked down, looking dejected and lost, and causing the boy's grin to fade. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't know." the girl softly said. "I don't know who I am, where I'm from, or why I'm here. I…"
"That's not true." Charles interrupted and causing the girl to look up at him in surprise. "You just need to look, as in really look at everything around you, and put it together. Start by looking over there."
He pointed at her chest then, and looking down, the girl saw the tag sewn into her gown. She blinked at what was embroidered on the tag, and remembered the computer's voice.
E-52.
Subject E-52.
Yes, that was who she was. She knew who she was now. But…it still felt…lacking…
"But," the boy continued. "That's not enough. It never is, not for me, or any of us here. So…let's see…"
The boy trailed off, looking up and away, rainbow light glimmering across the brown of his irises. After a few moments, he smiled, nodded, and snapped his fingers. "Yes!" he said with another nod while looking back at her. "Your name is Evangeline, or Eva for short!"
"Eva…Evangeline…?" the girl echoed.
"Yes." Charles said with a nod. "It feels right doesn't it? And you know it too, right? I mean, you can see it too, don't you? The rainbow shimmer? You wouldn't have made it here if you couldn't."
The girl's eyes widened, as everything fell into place. Yes…the boy…Charles…her brother…he was right…her name…her name was…
"...Eva…Eva…Eva…"
Evangeline's eyes snapped open, golden irises staring up into crimson ones as she awoke from her nap. "Big sister." she laconically said.
Ishtar sighed and briefly closed her eyes in exasperation. "We're almost there." she said, stepping away from the couch where Evangeline - Eva - was lying on. "Well, we won't be there yet for a couple more minutes, but might as well wake you up early."
"Yes…thank you…" Eva said, getting up and stretching her entire body before reaching down to smooth out her blouse and vest, before again reaching up to adjust her tie.
All around there was darkness in the truest sense, a complete absence of light outside a square ten meters long on each side. The square was floored in marble, with carpets under the furniture to keep them from scuffing the polished stone.
A great bookshelf with many a book on various subjects stood along one whole side of the square. A fireplace sat in the middle of another side, burning merrily without fuel, a portrait of a paradisiacal landscape hanging on the stone chimney above.
Aside from Eva's couch, there were several chairs, all throne-like and made with gilded wood and upholstered in red velvet. There was also a dining table, made from polished hardwood and laid out for two, with fine china and real silver utensils. A golden flagon stood on the table, half-full next to a partly-eaten platter of roasted mutton.
"Drink…?" Ishtar offered, holding out a golden goblet she held in one hand.
"I'll pass, but thank you, big sister." Eva said, pulling on her greatcoat before looking around for her rapier. She found it sheathed and resting on a nearby table, next to a bronze bust of a matronly-looking woman, and taking it, fastened the sheathed weapon to her belt.
"Your loss." Ishtar said, swirling the wine in her goblet and briefly taking a deep whiff of its fumes before delicately sipping at the rich violet fluid with a sigh of satisfaction. "Did you enjoy your nap?"
"I did." Eva said, stepping over to the table and quickly cutting herself a generous portion of roast. Serving herself on a plate, she nibbled at the meat while standing next to the table. At the sight, Ishtar giggled.
"You'd turn down a glass of wine," she teased. "But help yourself to some meat instead?"
"Bite me." Eva said while ripping a strip of juicy flesh off her serving of roast mutton, Ishtar laughing at the retort.
"Well, to each their own." she conceded. "Besides, it is very good meat. But of course, it's from my treasury, where only the finest things in all the world have a place."
"...put like that I wonder if my corpse will eventually find itself in your treasury." Eva grumbled.
"Hmm…tempting…" Ishtar said after a moment. "...but I doubt our big sister would approve."
Eva smirked, the blonde woman falling silent as she finished off her serving, before helping herself off to yet another and even bigger serving than from before. "We're almost there." Ishtar said as she finished off her wine, swirling the dregs in her goblet before tossing them into the void, after which the goblet disappeared back into her treasury in a shimmer of golden light. "Finish your meal, Eva."
Her mortal sister just hummed in reply, gorging herself at breakneck speed and finishing off the whole platter in barely a minute. A loud burp followed, Ishtar giving Eva a disapproving look as she dabbed her mouth with a table napkin.
"All finished." she said with a grin, and Ishtar rolled her eyes.
"Glutton." she said with a contemptuous sneer.
"Whore." Eva snapped back with her own sneer, the sisters glaring at each other for a long moment afterward, before bursting into laughter.
"Now, then," Ishtar said, as the darkness split open with the sound of tearing cloth, and revealing a city beyond bathed in the light of the morning Sun. "Shall we have some fun?"
"It's work, big sister." Eva said while putting on a hat.
"So it is." Ishtar agreed with a nod, before adjusting her sister's hat. "But nothing says you can't have fun while working, is there?"
"...fair." Eva conceded.
Ishtar beamed, and together with Eva, stepped through onto Fuyuki City.
A/N
Ugh…I'm back, and with another story, after the muse and I spent the past month or so's worth of free time chipping away at a gacha game. Totally worth it, though.