Flashback

"So… how do I open a time portal?" Her first question earned Olga a light smack to the back of the head. She whined in exaggerated pain, rubbing the spot she was hit as Tsukuyomi scolded her.

"That is still too advanced, you don't even know how to make it take a step forward yet!"

"Well, I got it to work last time, didn't I?" The newly minted Kamen Rider Zi-O was referring to after they defeated Another Build and returned from 2017. Her retort only got her a second smack with Tsukuyomi reminding her that it was thanks to her co-piloting. "Alright, alright. We'll take things from the beginning then. But I have one more question."

"And that is?"

"…What's this thing called again? OW! Stop being so mean!"

"I'll stop when you stop messing around!"

"Can't you take a little joke? Jeez, you future people are so humorless."

"Considering our circumstances? Forgive us for putting humor at the bottom of our priorities." The black-haired girl pinched the bridge of her nose, "How in the world do you end up as the worst tyrant in history?"

Olga shifted in her seat, as if the very mention of her future self and her crimes brought distress to her very being, "Well…What were you expecting?"

"Just…Not this?" She gestured almost helplessly toward her.

"Is that a bad thing?"

Tsukuyomi squinted her eyes.

"Honestly? That's something I'm still trying to figure out?"

Before Olga could respond to that, a large banging on the side of the machine they were in interrupted her.

"HEY! What are you two in there?! Stop messing around before you break something!" This demand came from the perpetually angry and militant Geiz Myokoin, his fist still knocking on the future machine's side like a door.

Tsukuyomi rolled her eyes, "Ignore him. Even with what you'll become in the future is in mind, we have to deal with the Time Jackers messing with things they shouldn't be and we can't have you wandering around in any time period without any idea what your doing."

"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!"

"So…I learn how to walk this, then you'll teach me how to fly into a time portal?

"DON'T IGNORE ME!"

"Do I really have a choice?"

"Yay!

"I REFUSE TO HAVE MY WORDS DISMISSED!"

End Flashback

"-tor. Director? Ignoring people is rude, y'know?!"

Olga snapped out of the haze of memories, turning to see a frowning Izo trying to get her attention. "Oh? Sorry, I was thinking about some things…"

"Yeah? Well, I'd appreciate it if you zone out some other time and not when you're driving!" He was being slightly disrespectful but did have a good point. "I may be from the past but even I know you pay attention to the road at all times!"

There was not really a road to speak of but Olga admitted it was not really the best time to reminisce about her past either. Not when she was driving Da Vinci's prized vehicle around.

So far, the environment they've found themselves in proved to be some kind of hell if all of the fire and brimstone was replaced by a blanket of snow and ice; the seemingly endless blizzard made it near impossible to tell where they were as the young director tried her best to navigate her group through the snowy landscape— a task made much easier due to the mapping system in place.

"You're not wrong to get on my case like that," Olga admitted before turning her eyes back on the road, "Given how merciless this kind of environment is known to be, one wrong turn and I might get us all killed…"

"Haven't done. It yet." Chimed in Nezha from her other side, "Controlling this machine. With surprising deftness. How?"

"Err, would you believe me if I say that I know how to drive something more advanced than this?" Olga admitted as she took a careful turn to avoid a particularly deep trench, "I've done a lot of time traveling myself through various means, mostly through something known as a Time Mazine, which came from the year 2068…or at least, a version of it."

"Lots of. Stories to tell. Don't you?" The light brunette Lancer commented, her curiosity now truly peaked, "Who taught you."

"...My friend. She, erm, isn't around anymore. It is a pretty long story in of itself that I'll be happy to tell you later on." Olga answered stiffly, something that Nezha took notice of.

However, before she could push the topic further, the sound of the communication device coming to life echoed through the vehicle. "On that end, the data that's been gathered by your travels so far has been enlightening," Came in the voice of the older Da Vinci. She was currently working on something inside the rooms elsewhere on the Border "From what little data the Shadow Border has managed to record and process, this place has a similar enough geographic reading to where we should be in Russia. It's not like the normal Singularity we normally encounter; I'd say this might as well be Russia."

"Really? Doesn't look like it from the looks of things." Mordred stated sounding like she clearly not care for all of the snow and ice that had completely taken over the areas they'd been to so far.

"Hence the phrase 'similar enough'. Have you yourselves found anything of interest?"

"Nothing so far." Ritsuka replied with a shake of his head, "Could you remind us what exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this place?"

"Why, everything in sight, young Ritsuka!" Rider Da Vinci answered cheerfully, "Remember: this is uncharted territory we are all in, so I suggest you keep your eyes peeled for anything and everything of interest!"

"Within reason of course." Her counterpart added on.

"Within reason!"

"Will do." Olga nodded in affirmation, though any other thoughts or concerns she may have voiced got interrupted by a loud sound emitting from the scanner, "Well what do you know? Something of interest…"

Four red dots flashed on the Shadow Border's area scanner, indicating four beings of with vital life signs. Meaning they were about to meet the first living and breathing creatures of this world since entering it.

'Hopefully this ends well enough.' The white-haired young woman thought ruefully before clearing her throat to address the others with her, "Everyone, we're about to encounter what seems to be living creatures for the first time since entering this world. I am about to park the Shadow Border and put on its cloaking device after we leave it. Remember: friendly faces on until the situation proves it unwarranted!"

"And if things get outright hostile?" Mordred questioned while crossing her arms.

"Then self-defense is our friend."

With that, Olga stopped the Shadow Border a couple of hundred meters from where the life signs were detected. Opening the Shadow Border's door with the small lever near her, the black ramp unveiled itself as its occupants used it to go onto the snowy ground.

Olga was the last one to leave the Shadow Border as she was its designated driver, she was thus responsible for making sure everything that needed to be still on or temporarily off before getting off. Reaching beneath her winter cloak, Olga took out the Shadow Border's control remote and pressed its purple button, causing the machine to disappear from sight, like a chameleon adapting to its environment.

"Da Vinci really outdid herself with the Shadow Border, didn't she?" Ritsuka commented as he saw it disappear from sight.

"Yes, yes she did. But you better not say it in front of the both of them or else they just might duke it out over ownership." Olga said almost excessively as she put away the remote control device, causing Ritsuka to chuckle. She then made a following gesture for everyone to see and then, the group was on the move.

After a minute or two of teaching carefully through the snow, Olga spoke up again, directly addressing Ritsuka this time, "Ritsuka, since you are the one who has the most experienced commander Servants in battle, if things come to it, I'm going to rely on your to take the reins of fighting strategy whenever the situation devolves enough that battle is necessary from now until further notice. Can I count on you in that regard?"

"Of course, Director." Ritsuka agreed, "Though will that order still be in place when you get your, er, Rider powers back?"

Olga hummed for a moment or two before answering, "Yes, though adjustments will be made so we aren't constantly clashing on things and making a whole mess of everything. For now, though, I shall do my best to make sure to support you from the sidelines."

Mordred scoffed loudly, enough for Olga and Rituska to turn their heads towards her, "And by that, you mean you're going to be hiding in the corner while making sure your head doesn't get blown off?"

"I'll have you know, I am can be a very good cheerleader when the situation calls for it. I learned from the very best after all."

The red and white knight narrowed her eyes, "You are not what everyone's said you were before you died, you know that?"

"What have heard about my time as director before my untimely death via betrayal?"

"That you had no idea what you were doing and it got as bad as it did because of your incompetence."

Olga let out a small - if sad - laugh at that, receiving a baffled look from the knight as a result.

"Glad to know I am defying expectations then."

Before Mordred could follow up on that, a loud noise suddenly made itself known to the group. Without another word, the five of them quickly ran toward the source of it.

Once the group reached the area, they were surprised to see what was the source: a figure in a hood and cloak armed with a lever-action rifle struggling against what seemed to be three huge beasts unlike anything any of them had seen before; quadrupeds with scaly skin as white as the snow. They had long tails that ended with barbs not unlike scorpions'. Lastly, their heads had a sharp knife-like horn protruding from them. Currently though, they were simply trying to stab the cloaked figure with their stingers which were no doubt poisonous.

"Dammit!" The group heard the hunter swear in a guttural voice as he tried his best to avoid getting stung.

Before Olga could say anything, Ritsuka took the initiative and barked out commands to his three Servants. "Everyone! Help him and eliminate those beasts!" Unrhythmic cries of affirmation came from the Servants as they quickly moved to carry out their Master's wishes, each taking on a beast one-on-one. Needless to say, their sudden appearance was a shock to the hunter who let out a confused shout.

"Just shut up and don't question it!" Izo shouted as he, with a single swing of his katana, cut off the tail of his beast. He may be more experienced in fighting humans but he was still a great fighter nonetheless.

Mordred, meanwhile, decided to spice things up. "Hey, you lot? Wanna bet who kills their prey first?" She shouted with a laugh, not at all taking the fight seriously as she simply blocked each and every stab her foe tried to make.

"And what does the winner get?" Izo replied without missing a beat.

"Uh… They get a piece of the others' rations?" They didn't really need to eat so it was not that harsh of a punishment if they lost.

The Assassin's reply was as expected. "You're on!" He grinned before redoubling his efforts to slay his opponent.

From the sidelines, Ritsuka sighed and buried his face in his hands at his Servants' antics. "Guys, please take things seriously!" He shouted but didn't think Mordred or Izo heard him… or just didn't care. Well, at least Nezha was more reliable than those two. While they were messing around, the Lancer made short work of the beast she was fighting. She waited for the right opening and, upon getting one, stabbed her spear into the monster's less scaly underside and pierced its heart. "Go now. In peace," she droned out as the beast slumped onto the snow. "It seems. I win."

"Huh?! You didn't say you were joining!" Mordred complained at Nezha's declaration. Angered at already losing the bet she made not even ten seconds earlier, Clarent crackled with red lightning before she made one last swing and completely decapitated the beast.

However, before she could even cheer at killing her foe— "A few seconds too slow, Saber." The superior tone in Izo's voice was for good reason as he had already killed his opponent before Mordred did hers. Either way, she had lost the bet.

As Mordred threw a mini-tantrum at losing, Ritsuka and Olga went over to the thoroughly confused hunter they saved. "Are you alright? They didn't hurt you, did they?" The former asked in concern.

The hunter, however, was taken off-guard by something else entirely again. "You guys… You are not Yaga."

"Uh… no?" Neither of them knew what that was. That was when they realized something odd about the hunter. While his hood was rather large and hid most of his face, a canine-like snout still poked out slightly from his shadowed face. The hunter then took off his hood, revealing his head to be that of a wolf. He had purple fur and a nice brown hat the same color as his coat. "Oh…" Of all the things Ritsuka thought they'd encounter here, a werewolf was not nearly close to his first guess. "I think we have a lot of explaining to do." He just hoped the wolfman would be as amiable and give them useful information in return.

It was a short trek to the wolfman's village though the path was cumbersome thanks to the thick blanket of snow. They also had to drag the carcasses of their kills back on top of that but that was left to the Servants. Soon enough, they reached the rustic village where they sneakily entered the wolfman's home.

"It smells. Completely horrid." Thus voiced Nezha in a borderline whine as she unceremoniously dropped the body of the beast onto the wooden floor, "Glad to be. Rid of it." Mordred and Izo did similar, leaving the bodies to pile up together. The latter though added as she adjusted her shoulder, still working off the adrenaline of their recent fight, "Spoken like a wimp! I did this on the regular when I was practically a shrimp and you wouldn't hear me complain about it."

"Musclehead."

"Hey! I'll have you know these muscles were earned fair and square!"

"Dumb musclehead!"

"Why you-!"

"Hey, knock it off!" Olga interrupted, putting a firm shoulder on the red knight's shoulder before she could get right up into the Lancer's face, "You two should know better than to start stuff like this when in someone else's home and in front of company!"

She gestured her head toward a sleeping figure that looked similar to the hunter on a rocking chair, with closer observation revealing her to be older and female.

After adjusting the blanket on her person, the hunter turned back to the group, "Please make yourself at home. Give me a bit of time to deal with my wounds before they worsen, then we can talk."

After receiving various nods, the wolf man went into the nearby room to treat his injuries.

Waiting a moment after their host's disappearance, Risuka turned to Olga, lowering his voice as he asked, "What do you think about that guy?" He didn't mean it in a suspicious way, but simply out of curiosity about Olga's opinion.

"He seems friendly enough and is clearly gracious enough to allow a bunch of foreign strangers into his home, where his mother sleeps - even if we did save his life." Olga replied in an almost careful manner, "But we do have to remember that we are strangers, so we shouldn't be surprised if he's being a bit guarded, so we should tread delicately at this point. Think they can handle that?"

The white-haired director jabbed a thumb in the Servants' direction, them standing at the other side of the room; Mordred and Nezha were still huffing at each other, backs turned away from each other with their arms crossed, while Izo was busy looking at his blade, even waving it around in small arcs.

Ritsuka's reply was blunt but supportive, "I believe they'd behave."

"You don't really sound confident."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He smiled sweetly to cover his own worries. Ritsuka naturally trusted them to not purposely cause trouble; whether they could actually avoid it was more in the gray area. Either way, he believed the talk with the wolfman would go smoothly; he was used to dealing with all sorts of personalities thanks to the many Servants that were part of… well, used to be part of Chaldea. Hopefully, the energy crisis would be fixed by the time they returned; Ritsuka missed hanging out with everyone.

He was doing a lot of hoping, wasn't he?

Soon enough, the wolfman returned but was still wincing with each step. While he patched up his wounds, it was clearly painful to move. He didn't waste any second though and started off with a natural if rather rude, "So who are you people? You all are obviously not Yaga."

Olga's lips pursed at that. There was that word again. They could ask about that later but it was pretty evident what he meant. For now, introductions are in order. "My name is Olga Marie Animusphere and this is my subordinate, Fujimaru Ritsuka."

"Hello." Ritsuka waved with a friendly smile.

"And those three are…" It was hard to really explain what the Servants were so at the moment, Olga simply pointed and named them.

"That's Saber, that one is Lancer, and the guy is Assassin. Please don't be alarmed or too weirded out, those names are pretty common back from where we come from."

"Odd names but that's your business, I guess." The wolfman bluntly stated.

"And… What's your name?" Ritsuka politely asked.

"Patxi."

"Nice to meet you, Patxi." Ritsuka's attempt at being friendly seemed to be ineffective as the wolfman— Patxi just huffed at their first official greeting. "Uh, as for why we look the way we do… Let's just say we're from a faraway place and leave it at that."

They couldn't actually say that they're from outside this pseudo-Singularity, especially since they themselves don't know the situation this place is in. Patxi would probably be more confounded by their explanation than anything. Luckily for them, Patxi was willing to accept their dodging of the question and move on to his next one. "Why did you save me?"

It was a simple question but still confused Ritsuka and Olga. "You were in trouble. What more reason was there?" The former answered without a second thought.

"Huh, you really are from somewhere far away then." That statement was also simple but it already painted a light on the general attitude of the people here. If the concept of helping someone else was enough to warrant questioning, then things were not looking good for this place. Speaking of, they could now ask their own questions.

"May we ask what this place is?" Olga asked, trying her best not to offend Patxi. "You know, since we're from somewhere far, we don't really know anything about this place."

The suspicious glare in Patxi's eyes was easy to see but he was still willing to help clear up the situation. "This is my village, if that's not obvious enough. If you're talking about this area in general, we're southeast of the capital."

"Capital?"

"Moscow," Patxi quickly elaborated.

"Oh, so this is still Russia then?" Ritsuka spoke his thoughts aloud.

"That's what those officials in the capital say but most of us don't really care to call it that. It's just our homeland."

Well, that helped clear things up a tiny bit; there were still many more questions they needed answers to but it was doubtful Patxi knew them, no matter how helpful he was at the moment. However, there was one more question they could ask; it was a long shot but— "What's the date today, if I may ask? We sort of lost track of time in our travels," Olga asked.

What Patxi answered was not what they expected. "It has been several days since the new year's. I am not completely sure of the date but it's still the first week of 2018."

That… was not normal. While Olga was not involved with solving the Singularities, she knew that they were all in the past— as in their point-of-origin was centuries in the past. They were blotches in the timeline and had to be resolved by going into the past themselves. Ritsuka himself, who was involved and then some had similar thoughts. This was the first time (outside the incident in Salem and even then) that things in the Singularity were happening concurrently with everyone back in Chaldea.. sort of. They were still out of sync with time and all of the terrible implications that came with that.

Before the conversation could continue, a loud noise caused the whole ground to shake - as if there was an earthquake.

"What in the hell was that?!" Cried out Mordred, managing to hang onto the wall for stability until the tremor went away.

"Are you serious?! Now of all times?!" Patxi immediately grabbed the blade off of the display on the wall before heading toward the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Ritsuka questioned urgently, knowing that this answer wouldn't lead to anything good.

The wolfman paused just as he was about to open the door as if debating something before turning back to the group with a severe expression, "Even if you all are perfect strangers, your strength is unquestionable. We will need all of the help possible against those monsters. Come on!"

"Wait - monsters?!" Olga repeated with a certain amount of dread in tone just as Patxi rushed outside, "Wait!" She ran after the wolfman with the rest of the group following her close behind.

Once outside, the group began running towards the heavy smoke coming from nearby.

As they began passing through the area, with the surrounding wreckage and brunt environment increasing the closer they came to their desired destination. Olga quickened her pacing to match Paxti's own.

"You said monsters. What monsters are you talking about? Are they the same ones we saved you from?"

Paxti shook his head, "No - these things are much more powerful. Even stronger than the Oprichniki. We don't know where they came from - just that they keep coming to wipe us out."

"And you know they don't come from anywhere you know, how?"

"No other creatures native around our homeland have dates on their body."

"Did you say dates?!"

Olga soon got her fears confirmed when the group reached the source of the shaking.

Bodies, broken and mutilated in too many ways to count, were sprawled all around the area. And in the very center, were two monsters - one black and red, the other white and gold.

And yet, it was somehow worse than she could have ever expected, because Olga knew exactly who these monsters were.

"Geiz? Tsukuyomi?"

Dun, dun, duuuunnn!

Yep, Rider business has infected the Lostbelts and throwing spanners in everyone's works. In what ways and how, it remains to be seen! Hope you all remain long enough to see how!

FB: It's been a while since I've read LB1 and really need a good refresher on the more detailed stuff of everything. If there are some differences then I apologize for that. In other news, I'm enjoying Gotchard so far (especially the earworm of an opening). Hope the season can keep things interesting the entire way through.

Until next time!