In the main control room of Chaldea, Sylvia Buhr was going through the incoming data being calculated and sorted from the computer screen of her assigned desk.
Taking a quick sip of her coffee, the former Clocktower magus leaned back in her seat as she waited for the scan protocol just activated to finish taking in the current state of the world. Her time studying as a magus at the Clocktower quickly gave her the patience needed to allow the process to have its due time - something any mage worth their salt required to do in order to find any success in their field, no manner the subject manner or discipline.
"Not that anything I learned there could have prepared me for anything that happened during this job…" Sylvia mumbled into her cup as she stared at the ever-growing and changing word on her screen.
Honestly, how could anyone in her position have anticipated anything that has happened since her recruitment? While willingly joining a cause that involved aiding in the protection and preservation of time itself was something one could have guessed would lead to quite the unconventional experience, who in their right mind would ever guess the sheer madness involved with this job? Demon Pillars? A conspiracy involving the very foundation of the founding magus families itself? Hell, the bloody King of Mages himself was next to her the entire time, and no one had a clue of his true identity until the very end!
Seriously, who would have signed up for this bloody job knowing all of that would have happened?
And yet, Sylvia couldn't find it in herself to regret her time here in Chaldea.
Despite the damn near endless heartaches and heart attacks this insane place has granted her on a daily basis, the dark blonde woman wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world, a feeling few would ever understand without having gone through what she has themselves.
"Especially those damn fools from the Mage Association." She scowled, just thinking about those ignorant assholes, treating everyone from Chaldea like damn criminals after saving humanity itself from Goetia's mad scheme! As if they would still even exist to bitch and moan about how they handled things if it weren't for them! As if they would be here to try and uphold those out-of-date values - that she is ashamed to say she embodied once upon a time - if the people at Chaldea didn't do what needed to be done to save humanity itself from being outright undone and replaced, even if it meant sacrificing their lives for the greater good!
"With me nearly being one of those sacrifices just yesterday…" She would definitely need some therapy again after everything that happened the day before. Sylvia shivered, still feeling that icy cold brought upon by that white-haired Servant and her black-clad monsters, remembering the sheer powerlessness and terror she felt when she saw one of her friends— nay, family members —Rover Uram Eratin nearly be embraced by the grim reaper as the life was choked out of him by one of those monsters.
And then saved by that strange brown soldier, called upon by the last person no one could have expected to return.
"Are things running well enough on your end?"
Sylvia was snapped out of her thoughts by a deep voice coming over her shoulder. She turned around, blinking at the familiar face of one Dustin Credune looking at her still-updating screen.
The blonde woman turned back to the screen, used to her friend's usual behavior by now. Right now, they were checking the systems of Chaldea and running diagnostics by scanning over Earth's current timeline in the normal seconds in time - something Dustin did not hesitate to grumble on about due to having more work added on top of making sure everything was at tip-top efficiency under the current conditions, but couldn't complain too much about considering their unusual transportation is the reason why the building is intact and that most of them were still alive.
"Everything seems to be going as smoothly as can be considering the circumstances. You really are a miracle worker, you know that, Dustin?"
The tanned man let out a genuinely amused chuckle, "I got a good crew to work with and worked enough at my craft to know what I am doing most of the time, no miracles required from me in that case."
Slyvia snorted at that, "Well, we certainly got one, or else, we wouldn't be here having this conversation."
Dustin raised an eyebrow, slowly turning to look at Slyvia, "You mean in the form of our former director coming back from the dead, right?" To think that shortly after talking (or to be more accurate, insulting and complaining) about her, she'd rise back from the grave and be the reason they were even still alive. Had she not, more than just four of them would have had their neck snapped or been in an ice cube. Clearly, they needed to make up for what they said too.
The blonde-haired woman sighed, rubbing the temples of her forehead, "Do you think someone, somewhere is trying to tell us something, considering we were badmouthing her beyond disrespectfully a good while before she personally came in and saved our asses from certain death while the people we helped save the world with were going to leave us behind to die?"
Dustin frowned at that last part, "Now don't talk like that. You and I both know that they would have come back for all of us if things weren't so dire and half of the place wasn't frozen like a popsicle."
"I know, I know." Slyvia gestured with a swatting hand, "Objectively speaking, I can understand and comprehend why they nearly did what they did and my upbringing as a magus has prepared me for being on the giving and receiving ends of that kind of calculus choice-making…doesn't change how I feel about being abandoned though. I am only human after all."
"Being human is all we can do at this point. It's what got us as far as we have." Dustin paused before adding, "You think she even knows how everyone felt about her while she was in charge?"
"She was incompetent, not stupid." Slyvia retorted, putting a fist under her chin, "I am honestly surprised someone like her would even care enough to go out of her way to save the people who thought so little of her. Would she even accept a simple apology from any of us at this point?"
"Yes!" A sudden cry interjected into their thought-to-be private conversation. They turned their heads to see two more of their co-workers who joined them. "Ahem," one of them cleared their throat before continuing, "We've already talked to her and apologized to her about everything we said in secret."
"And she… just accepted it?"
"Yes," They both nodded. "She didn't seem to be faking it and just told us to let bygones be bygones."
That was reassuring to hear. However, they still had a job to do first; they could go look for and apologize to Olga Marie after.
Just as Slyvia was formulating how to approach her apology, a red emergency light began emitting from her screen, alerting the entire room.
"What in the world…" Quickly putting her coffee cup down, Slyvia began typing through the data before her, scrolling down to see what the issue was.
"This is…oh my god! Somebody call Da Vinci now!"
Olga briskly walked through the hallways of the Chaldea building, forced to leave behind her late breakfast and save it for later.
After all, Uncle taught her not to waste food, no matter the circumstance or how long it took to get back to finishing it!
'Still, from the sound of things, the situation with the timeline might be worse than expected…' The white-haired young woman thought as she did a sharp turn to the left corner. The moment she woke up this morning, something felt off with the timeline of this world - like Earth's entire time has been…completely hollowed out somehow from forces unknown - maybe it related to that traitor Koyanskaya and that force that invaded Chaldea. It bothered her enough for her to stay in bed and not start her day as soon as she should have given the current situation at hand, something the amber-eyed woman has yet to deduce.
'But what could it be…?' Olga hummed in her mind's eye before snapping to attention at the sight of the familiar heads of black hair and light purple hair, "Mash, Ritsuka! Good morning."
"Ah, Director! Good morning!" Greeted Risuka with a slight bow, with Mash copying his movement.
"Good morning, Director!"
"Now, now, you don't have to call me that." Olga appeased them with a simple wave, "Dying tends to remove one from positions, so just Olga is fine right now, okay?" With a slight tilt of her head, Olga signaled for her younger peers to follow her to her control room, which they did without argument.
After a moment or two of walking in silence, Mash spoke up, "Me and Senpai here were a bit worried about you since you weren't at breakfast at the same time as all of us. Did something delay you?"
The taller woman took a moment or two to gather her thoughts before answering, "A bit, yes. You know how I said I became someone known as the Queen of Time at the end of my adventures in the other timeline, right?"
"Yes?"
"Well, as a result, I became a bit… time-sensitive to put it as simply as possible. The best way I can explain it is whenever any changes, whether big or small, happens to the timeline, I can feel it."
"And you being in your room for so long was way you missed having breakfast with us all?" Risuka guessed.
"Yes, yes it was." Olga confirmed, just as the door to the control room came into view, "And I get the feeling we're going to find out just what exactly it is…"
Without another word, the three went through the door, which opened automatically, only to be greeted with a loud alarm and red lights flashing everywhere. Just a normal day in the office. "What's going on?" Ritsuka asked with a serious face.
"Fujimaru, Kyrielight, over here," they heard Da Vinci - the Caster Servant - call out to them from one of the stations. Olga pouted slightly at being left out but she assumed Da Vinci spoke out of habit and didn't mean to forget her.
For the sake of her self-esteem, this hopefully changes sometime soon.
Quickly deciding that there were more important matters that need her full attention, Olga briskly goes over to the area where Da Vinci and Sherlock were. In the above row stood the younger, Rider counterpart of Da Vinci, who was frantically typing on the computer before her like a madwoman possessed, with Goredolf right next to her, a severe expression on his face. Below the multiple rows were what remained of the staff of Chaldea - living proof of how dire things have gotten since the former director's "death" - all of whom were working just as tensely and anxiously as the youthful Da Vinci.
And in the center of the room is what should be a perfect replica of the planet, CHALDEAS.
Should be is the operative word that stuck out in Olga's mind as she arrived next to the strikingly tense brown-haired polymath and pale-skinned detective, her amber eyes staring intently at the strangely whited-out copy of the Earth.
"What we're looking at is supposed to be a perfect representation of the Earth in the present timeline, right? This should be what the Global Environment Model is right now, so why does it look like this?" Olga questioned loudly, recalling her introduction to all of Chaldea's systems and all of the nights she spent going over what she's been informed of, "What does it look like that right now?"
The Pseudo Celestial Sphere. The Miracle of the Animuspheres; a concept that's been passed down the Animuspheres since the Age of Gods…for her father's hopes and dreams to look like this means that something has gone beyond wrong with the world.
"That is something I will gladly explain to you, ONCE THIS ALARM STOPS TRYING TO BLOW UP MY EAR DRUMS!" Da Vinci shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Sorry!" Apologized a mature-looking blonde woman - Slyvia right? - before she quickly inserted a command on her computer, causing the alarms to stop blaring and the red lights to stop flaring.
"Thank you very much." The bright blue-eyed Servant sighed, though the direness in her posture and facial expression was still as clear as day, "As for what's happening here…I am afraid the situation is much worst than any one of us could have predicted?"
"How so?"
"Just recently, the staff here was doing some maintenance to salvage as much equipment as possible after the attack," Sherlock began explaining, his tone much lower and troubled than one would hear from him, "After which, they've managed to run a diagnostics scan on the entire world we are currently out of sync with…and then they've discovered this." Holmes gestured towards the now-white CHALDEAS. "Once we synced CHALDEAS up to our original time, it turned into what you see now."
"And what does that mean?" Ritsuka asked. Back during the incident with Beast I, CHALDEAS had turned red as a result of the Incineration. Does it turning white means the Earth got frozen over or something?
"To be frank, we cannot say with one hundred percent certainty what happened," Da Vinci answered before turning towards Olga. "While we do more than appreciate you saving us, we can't see for ourselves what happened with the Earth with being sent out of time like this."
A part of Olga was saddened that she was partially at fault for their lack of information, even if it was by the most minuscule amount. However, another part of her realized it was probably connected to what she felt earlier. "Did SHEBA tell you anything?"
"Nope, but that may be what's wrong with the planet now."
"Uh… what?"
"SHEBA is not telling us anything because there is nothing to tell," Da Vinci spoke in a grave tone like Holmes. "It is as if all data relating to the "present" had been wiped out and it was not due to intervention, Ms. Animusphere's. Details on our actions during the Grand Order still remain but other than that, there is nothing."
That didn't sound good. Far from it.
"So… It was like the present was just deleted?" Olga theorized which made Da Vinci nod.
"That is a way to call the current situation. CHALDEAS is showing a blank future because the present is a blank slate, similar to when Goetia burned human history."
"Then the world outside of Chaldea is…"
"Until we get more information, that is the safest assumption." Olga saw Ritsuka's and Mash's faces fall at Da Vinci's reply. She didn't blame them for those reactions; after everything they've been through and sacrificed, to hear that humanity was possibly erased again was a massive blow to morale, "Though it would be best if we don't try and make anything concrete."
"But why is this happening in the first place?" Olga muttered almost to herself, putting a hand under her chin in a thinking tone, "What could one possibly achieve by—!"
All of a sudden, time itself shifted.
Just like before, Olga's amber eyes shifted into the image of a clock, its hands spinning wildly as the world around her faded into black.
Soon, within the seemingly endless void, an otherworldly tree that just screamed wrong from top to bottom to her time sense came into view.
Then, in an instant, Olga found herself in a large freezing-cold bedroom, standing before a large bed as the sound of the piano made her sleepy.
In the next, she found herself before an ice throne where a goddess draped in purple sat flanked by flying warriors in white hoods wielding spears of light.
In yet another, she found herself in a golden room, with a strange shrine at its center.
Suddenly shifted again, Olga was now a floating palace with a single pure entity overseeing everything below.
Moved again, she was brought before nothing less than a celestial being who could control the heavens themselves.
And in another shift, Olga found herself staring at a woman in black on a throne, who looked as if she was born from the winter season itself.
She couldn't help but stare in awe at the queen until, from beneath her black veil, the fairy queen's icy blue eyes made direct contact with hers.
''She sees me?!' Fear shot through her; she felt as if those eyes can see everything about her and she needed to get away as fast as she could. Fortunately for her—
"—ga! Please, say something, Olga!"
Olga blinked rapidly as she became fully aware of her immediate surroundings once again, finding herself in the main control room of Chaldea, her shoulder being carefully rocked back and forth by an extremely worried Mash, with an equally worried Ritsuka and Caster Da Vinci being flanked at her two sides, with Sherlock himself giving an over the shoulder look from behind.
"...How long was I out of it?" She asked quietly just as Mash released her shoulder with a sigh of relief.
"A whole two minutes." The light purple-haired girl answered, her tone still vocalizing her concern at what she just saw, "Y-Your eyes just turned into some kind of weird clock image with hands that were spinning so fast! Are you okay?!"
Olga raised a calming hand, "I'm fine. That was just the powers I've told you about activating on their own again."
"You mean, you don't have control over them? Didn't you say you became the Queen of Time?"
"They're…just a bit unrefined on my end, nothing that actually hinders me when it counts!" The white-haired woman quickly explained, trying to convince herself at the same time as them "Besides, they've just given me some insight on what could be going on with the world right now… sort of." It was still a bit confusing but Olga thinks she got the gist of things. "I think something is messing with human history… again." She didn't feel like anything was right with what she saw, least of all that last vision.
Being as careful with her words as possible, she tried relaying what she saw to the best of her abilities to the others.
"Hmm…" Both Holmes and Da Vinci looked deep in thought before the latter sighed in defeat. "No, there's nothing much to make sense of any of it."
"Sorry, I couldn't be more helpful…" Olga tried to apologize to them but was rejected.
"You've already given us more than enough. It's just figuring out everything that's the issue." Admittedly, those seven images she saw— a tree and six places she couldn't identify —were the best anybody could offer at the moment.
"Da Vinci!" Well, at least until one of the staff ran over to them carrying a tablet. They showed them a map with— "We discovered these blank spots all over the planet! They're all growing at a slow pace but…" The staff member trailed off, letting them see the map for themselves. On it were seven white circles spread all over the continent.
"Don't tell me… the Singularities?" Olga tried to guess but was quickly shot down.
"No, these are all in present-day similar to the event in Salem."
"Moreover, excluding this one in the Atlantic Ocean, these locations are not the same as Beast I's Singularities," Holmes added as he took a closer look at the map. "…Ms. Animusphere. You only saw six places, correct?" Olga nodded in confirmation, giving Holmes more to build on his hypothesis.
One that Da Vinci seemed to share. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"Possibly, but I am not one hundred percent certain yet."
"In other words, you will not say a word about it," Da Vinci sighed before turning her attention back to the others. "Well, I think we can say for certain that, whatever is wrong with humanity's future, these are to blame for it. And whoever made them is— or at least connected to—whoever planned the attack on Chaldea."
"And what about my senses telling me that time is being messed with?" Olga asked.
"It's too early to tell. By their very nature, Singularities are holes in the time axis and if these new… aberrations are similar to them, they should be picked up on your radar."
"And such need to be confronted head on before they get out of control!" Declared the younger Da Vinci from above, emphasized by her dramatically and pointedly inserting one last command, her expression of one that just finished pulling off a particularly difficult job, "Yours truly has just finished reactivating and tuning our most important tool with the other maintenance staff, which leaves only one thing: Ritsuka!" She exclaimed while pointing a finger towards the Last Master of Humanity, with him standing in attention like a soldier in an army as an automatic response.
"Y-Yes!"
"It is time to retake your place as Humanity's Last Master and summon your loyal Servants for the battle of the world's future once more!"
Ritsuka took in a deep breath, taking in the comfort this familiar environment brought as the Last Master of Humanity stood within the room where the Guardian Heroic Spirit Summoning System - FATE for short - was located and ready to be used again after much maintenance was done to make sure it was fully operational once again.
Holmes had informed him earlier that they have, in simple terms, backed up the Servants' data. i.e. their memories of their time here in Chaldea should still be there should he resummon them at a later them. He knew he could count on Holmes and Da Vinci to have a failsafe in case they needed to bring back the Servants for whatever reason. He just wished they never needed it…
Still, if he had to be honest with himself, Ritsuka was glad to be able to see his companions again. As strange as it may seem to be in the eyes of any other magus, he has come to see the many Servants that have come in so many shapes and sizes his friends - how could he not, after going through so much to save the entire future of humanity?
Even if some of them have proven to be unique for better or for worse, ranging from anti-social to absolutely insane.
'And yet, I can't help but miss it all.' The black-haired teen mused in his head, looking down at the back of his hand, which contained the Command Seals - the physical proof that represented the contract between him and the Servants he shall call upon again, 'Does that make me kinda crazy?'
"A penny for your thoughts?"
His thoughts were interrupted by the familiar voice that just reentered his life, Ritsuka snapped his head around to see an observing Olga who had her hands politely behind, her amber eyes staring intently at the young Master.
"Olga! H-How long were you standing there?" Ritsuka asked, thrown out of whack by her sudden presence.
The white-haired woman raised a placating hand, her expression becoming much more sheepish and apologetic, "Not too long, I promise!" She assured him quickly, "I just got here a while ago and didn't want to bother you since you looked to be so deep in thought."
"Yeah…I guess I was." He replied, calming himself down, "Mind if I ask what brings you here in the room?"
"Oh, I'm here to help you with the summoning!" Olga declared, with her getting a confused blink as her response.
"Eh? Help me?"
"Despite everything, I am a fully-fledged magus! …Or at least, a functional one." She stated with a slight shrug, "At the very least, I was able to convince the others that I know enough about magecraft to transfer my mana to you to help add on to the number of Servants you'll be able to summon right now with FATE's current state if that's alright with you."
"Of course it is!" Ritsuka replied assuredly, "It's just going to be a bit weird on my end of things since I am so used to doing this while being by myself in this room."
Olga hummed in understanding, "I get it. If we're both being honest here, I never thought I'd see you be so at home in this room, especially with the first impression that you gave off."
Ritsuka let out a small chuckle, "Well, who can blame you? I barely knew what I was doing there in the first place before every just went to hell back then."
"Too true. Though it is as the saying goes: it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change…and you, my good friend, have proven to be the most adaptable of them all."
"Well, I wouldn't go that far. I am pretty sure that anyone could-"
"No."
The steel behind the tone took Ritsuka off guard, his eyes widened as Olga walked over next to him, and laid a surprisingly firm hand landed on his shoulder.
"When we first met, I thought you had no place here; that you had no spot in the dream my father built to save all of human history from seemingly assured destruction. So, please, please listen to me when I say this: Ritsuka Fujimaru, no one else could have done what you have done. You have proven me wrong in every single way possible and I cannot thank you enough for that. So, if anything, no matter what may come in the future, please take pride in that."
"Olga…"
Before Ritsuka could even try to think of a response, the sound of an intercom coming to life echoed throughout the room.
"Alright, Fujimaru," Da Vinci's voice came over the speakers. Judging from how higher-pitched it was, it was the younger version. "After careful consideration, I've concluded that the best Servant for our current situation is one of the heavier hitters. Try summoning someone like Gilgamesh or Ishtar or even— Hey!"
They heard the sound of someone grabbing the microphone and, a second later, Da Vinci's voice came back. "Ignore my younger self, Fujimaru. She did not take into account how little our mana reservoir is left after everything. While I do agree that a Servant like Gilgamesh is a safe option, we don't have the energy yet to bring him back. And we can't just hope to only have one Servant around; him alone may not be suited for the tas— hey!"
"Ignore my older self, Fujimaru. I did take that fact into account and I still say it's better to take the risk. If we do bring him back, it's doubtful we resummon anyone else safely but he is one of the best options— come on!"
"Fujimaru, listen to me and not her. Go with someone more manageable like King Arthur. Oh, better yet, try summoning King Hassan again. He's simple and one of the best— stop that!"
"Fujimaru, listen to me and not— hey, give that back!"
Da Vinci and Da Vinci fought over the microphone for a bit, causing Ritsuka to sigh out of exasperation before a third voice came through.
"Apologies for their behavior, Fujimaru. You know how they are," An amused Holmes stated, even with the bickering between the two still being clearly heard in the background. "But take their advice and do not listen to either of them—" "Hey!" "—Just go with your personal experience and summon whoever you please. It's up to you who we bring back first."
The intercom turned off after that, leaving the room in silence for several moments. Olga glanced at Ritsuka from the corner of her eyes; she didn't want to disturb his thinking and waited for him to make up his mind.
Finally, Ritsuka took a deep breath and raised his right hand, the red markings on his hand glowing brightly as he recited the words that have practically become apart of his very nature by now.
"I hereby swear."
"I will be all that is good in the eternal world."
"I will be the disposer of evil in the eternal world."
"Thou, the seven days clad in the Great Trinity, come forth from the circle of constraint."
"Guardian of the Heavenly Scale!"
A piercing beam of light shot from the summoning circle, its luminance completely covering the entire room and its residents.
Here it is! Now, I do hope things are being pulled off well enough. Wanted to try and see how the remaining employees' thoughts and feelings on Olga would change given that she saved them from certain death, especially with Naru's comment about her previous reputation being at near zero with them.
The next chapter shall be our group's first romp with the Lostbelts with a couple of surprised I doubt any of you will see!
FB: We got the Servants we want to use for LB1 and have been trying to think which Riders would fit well with it. If you what to give suggestions, go ahead.
Like it? Dislike it? Do tell. Until next time!