Something Awesome Beam (Worm - FGO Reincarnation Chapter 7)
Michael turned off the engine and got out of his car. The scorching sun was overhead in the sky, and a look at his watch showed he had been driving for near six hours, to reach his destination.
He had left way into the night, at three in the morning, so he can get a head start on his plans. The first part was to drive somewhere far away from Brockton Bay and quiet so he won't be interrupted. Maine had a lot of deserted swaths of land that works just fine.
His car was magically modified so it can work on all-terrains, thus taking it out of the flatted road, and into the grass fields near the mountain didn't hinder him.
The area was a bit windy, but with the clear sky, it gave a liberated feeling. Like returning to nature.
Michael lifted his foot and brought it down, and with a burst of od, a magic summoning circle engraved itself into the ground.
It would have been much better if he did this in a sea shore town, but he couldn't count on being lucky enough to be ignored. What he was working on was delicate, and he couldn't afford the noise people being curious, and then the PRT then coming along asking question. All of it was just a headache didn't want to deal with.
Yes, he could add Bounded Field to be ignored, but given how things went with the Karma Magic on his company, odds are some cape with the right power might just happen to stumble on his work, and mess everything up.
Here, away from civilization and everyone, there would hopefully be less problems.
"Okay, time to do this." He said, mostly to psyche himself up. He cast a sonar spell to see if any people were around, or approaching the area he was in, by a 10 mile radius. There were none.
Michael pushed his magical energy the magic circle, activating it. Blue energy spheres rose up within the magic circle. The energy spheres shined and grew gold. Then this shined once more, now glowing with all the colors of the rainbow, and started to move, rotating around inside the circle.
The magic circle, was obviously a Servant Summoning spell. It was even utilizing Karma Magic in its workings.
If the entirety of his karmatic weight was compared to a water tank, then everything he had did in his new life would be compared to bites of evaporated water. The issue of his company's protection that resulted in their progress being stifled, would count as a few drops.
This? What he's doing now?
The Karma tank levels dropped.
Every few minutes, the karma tank level would lower by a millimeter or so. That's how much this summoning was costing him, and frankly the price was worth it.
Summoning the Servant that he wanted was simple enough. But summoning the right version, that's where complication arose, and the need for the extreme accuracy, that required thousands of karma points was needed.
He only needed to wait now. The magic spell had a lot of details on it to ensure everything went smoothly. He just needed to wait. Michael case the sonar spell again. Then he cast a different people search spell. Both got back nothing.
Michael could feel every breath he was taking. This simple spell felt like it was taking forever. It won't, but the search function would take a few minutes. All in all, he just needed to just relax and wait. There was no need to hurry, and there was no one around, he was about to cast the sonar spell again just to be--
There was a displacement of air 20 feet behind him. Michael slowly turned to see who his new visitor was, while activating the defense fields to protect the summoning spell's integrity. His mental trigger was ready to start throwing spells too.
Michael raised an eyebrow at the woman in a suit and a fedora. The woman looked Greek, but that was only a general description. She could be from anywhere really, give the teleportation he caught the last glimpse of, with gaps in space finishing up closing and reality fixing itself.
She had a gun in her hand at her side, pointed down. Index finger not on the trigger.
No. Michael's instinct told him something was off, and a quick analysis spell confirmed it. The gun was fired six times in the last ten seconds already. But at what?
Michael looked up to meet the woman's gaze and wondered if she was a thre--No.
His body and instincts acted before he realized. His posture had changed. His breathing had changed. He was already assessing the dangers the woman had and could bring. Michael had slid into the mentality of battle as easily as breathing.
"So," Michael began, a smile and a jolly tone. "Which internet conspiracy are you from?" The feeling of danger didn't subside, like his life was on the razor edge of a wire. He tips either way, he dies.
Michael mentally chuckles. Oh how I missed this.
"If you don't stop this," The woman spoke, gesturing with her head at the summoning circle. "Then every force on this world will be utilized to end you."
Her voice nagged at something in his memory. Thought Acceleration and Data Recall were instantly used. It took a few minutes, from a mental perspective, to pull up the memory and compare it to the woman today. In the real world not even a tenth of a second passed before he replied.
"And why is that, Carmen Sandiego?"
The woman in a suit, the Bogeyman of the Underworld, the Hand of Cauldron, Contessa actually paused for a second. The name might be him trying to get a social advantage on her through veiled insults. A normal tactic begin trying to establish dominance in a new encounter. But something about the name seem familiar. It took no effort to enquire with Path of Victory. The answer that came back had her twist her lips in scowl, but further her resolve.
"You remember me?" She spoke. She still had a few moments till that Step started.
"A lot of parents tend to say 'my kid is much more mature then her age', but very few times do you meet a child that's..." He tilted his head while smiling ruefully at her. "Disturbingly mature." Michael huffed in amusement, never taking his eyes off Contessa, while casting spells to examine the surroundings. "Thinking about it, the idea that you looked like 'you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders' back then, might have been accurate, huh?" He looked inquisitively at her.
"Yes," Contessa answered, letting a silver of her long held feelings of resentment and exhaustion leak out, before with practiced ease and iron will, she locked it back up under a mask of stoicism. "Your suggestions were ultimately the biggest waste of time I engaged in. Although utilitarianism was useful in putting a name to what I was already doing."
Michael's couldn't help the melancholic that came to him. He remembered that day ten years ago in the library. It was just before he went on his first deployment after signing up for military service--His first attempt at traveling the world and see how he could physical, actively help others.
He saw a teenager pull up college level books, and even masters or doctorate paper, on topics ranging from sociology, to psychology, to economic, to engineering, to even particle physics. On a whim after passing her a book from a high self, he asked her why she was reading all that material.
She said she wanted to save the world.
Michael remembered chuckling, and grabbing to books of his own, and giving them to her. Introduction to Philosophy and Meditation by Marcus Aurelius.
"If you want to save the world, you need to start at the very basics. What world do you want there to be?"
Michael recalled saying and then heading on his way. He wondered if he should have stayed a few more minute. If he should have explained, elaborated, or just said anything.
Maybe then she wouldn't have fallen for the trap of "the ends justify the means".
The instant that thought entered his mind. That very second guilt started to be formed, a bullet was shot from within Michael's brain.
Or it would have if he had moved his head away from the dimensional point.
Only to enter the path of four more bullets. One a centimeter from his eye, and burning hot from it's momentum. Two directed into each ear, and one at the back of the head.
Michael's brain sped up. Thought Acceleration ran, Memory Partitions formed making five mental room, three of which did first-order tetration, allowing him to ready any spell needed at a moment's notice.
Sion, I swear if we ever meet again, I'm building you a fucking shrine and getting you a Holy Grail.
During the Grand Order, Michael could never figured out how to use the ability to make a mental room run 256 thought processes for calculations. Or rather he could only do it to one room, and never in a high stress situation like combat. It was a useful skill, but he was never skilled enough to apply it. It was only after saving the world from Goetia, and working in the Atlas Institute that he got to meet his Alchemy teacher, Sion Eltnam Sokaris, who taught him how to correctly use the skill.
Reinforcement spells went up. Michael moved away, the bullets might as well be frozen mid-air from how slow they were.
Only to end up with a gun against his chest as Contessa's suit had been engulfed by grey liquid--Nanites--transformed into some kinda living combat armor.
"Living" because the ethereal haze around the armor made looking at it--holding visual on it--difficult.
Back to the gun pushing against his chest, Michael could see the bullet glowing inside the tinker tech gun, about to fire, and likely precise through him, Reinforcement or not.
Contessa only had a moment to be surprised, as she found a copy of her gun held in Michael's hand. Both guns were mirror to each other in position, both barrel connected perfectly.
Contessa and Michael pulled their triggers at the same time.
The energy bullets hit each other and the backlash explosion gulfed both gun and a 50 meter radius.
Both combatant were long gone having let go of their guns after firing them.
Away form the blast zone, Michael had projected a decent sword made of carbon nanotubes, then reinforced and enchanted it as much as he could in a few seconds, and dashed at Contessa. In turn Contessa dashed toward him as if grabbing something, and then a sword was in her hand. A sword whose material Michael recognized. Anyone would recognize. An analysis spell confirmed it.
It was made of Endbringer flesh. Michael was hoping to surprise her by cutting through her weapon and armor, but that might be more difficult than anticipated. Especially when the Endbringer sword lit up with an unknown energy around it. Multiple unknown energies.
The resounding clang of their blades slamming against each other could be heard a mile away, and the forced pushed the very winds around them.
"Do you even know what I'm doing here, so you would go to all this trouble to stop him?" Michael asked in that paused in battle from their swords interlocking.
"It would cause an explosion of sorts that would end everything in the entire Northern Hemisphere." Was Contessa's cutting answer.
"That's...not even one of the options. Like it's not a small insignificant possibility so small as to be dismiss. It's just out right not there. Like two plus two equals forty four. It's not a thing."
Contessa grunted and moved.
Michael almost couldn't believe he was being pushed back. Almost.
He still had his focus, his experience and his instincts.
Michael pulled back and away letting Contessa fall with her momentum. Only for her to twist while regaining her balance and perfectly block his slash, and turn it into a counter-attack, all in the same motion.
A vibrating warmth bubbled in Michael's chest. A grin was overtaking his face.
Contessa attacked, slashing quick enough to leave after images. No some were, other were produced by the armor. Michael started to counter, only for multiple ports in her armor to open up and fire lasers at him, and suddenly Contessa had another sword.
Michael blocked the lasers with summoned mirror, that stored up the energy, and moved acting like flying targeting bots, firing the lasers back at the Bogeyman. Michael met each one of Contessa's strikes, forced her at difficult angles for fighting with two swords, only for her to entrap him in his own mirrors lasers, manage to attack him with each blade from unexpected angles.
Over and over again, as the battle happened, Contessa would bring something new, Michael would counter it with something new of his own, only for her Path to adjust and continue her stride to victory, yet stumbling and having to change directions as Michael's sheer combat skill would compensate, thus requiring a new strategy.
However of course, this entire battle was nothing but a distraction.
Michael felt it too late as a bomb that was temporally delivered next to his summoning site. Michael was slowly pushing Contessa away from the summoning circle, so her attacks wouldn't land on and disrupt it.
"It's already too late."
He had already dashed three quarters of the way there as she spoke the words.
Analysis spells showed the bomb didn't have a kinetic effect. If it did, he wouldn't worry. It had a dimensional one.
Michael could feel the world growing big around him. No, he and the ritual site where shrinking, being dimensionally sized down, like how things far away looked smaller.
Also there was a nuclear bomb within the dimensional bomb.
x=
Contessa sighed as she saw the bright shine of the second tinker bomb go off, from within the 200 feet wide crater.
Another day, another mission.
She found herself frowning at having to kill someone she once knew. Yes, she had only known Michael Chaser all of 3 minutes and 42 seconds, but his advise when she heard it back then was said with such sincerity and compassion, that she decided to heed it.
But all the ideals virtue and ethics were useless against the end of the world. She tried to apply some of it. Maybe try for Cauldron to not lose it's humanity as they went about saving mankind across all world.
It just. Wasn't. Efficient.
She couldn't afford to be kind. She couldn't afford to use the moral option against other people, organizations or parahumans. There was never enough time, and their cooperation was all that was needed. The results were what mattered. Other people can be vengeful at her when they are alive in the end.
Contessa looked back at the crater to see the glow die down.
This will put them at odds with Majin Saber, but the Path assured her it still possible to get her on their side eventually. Michael chaser however was an anomaly. They showed up once in a while. People who were semi-blind spots to her Path.
The answer to that was to eliminate them. Cauldron couldn't afford more unexpected element that couldn't be modeled.
It was a 50/50 how this meeting would have gone, and now she knew what next to--
Contessa's eyes widened as she saw Michael float out of the crater. Holding a glowing sphere of condensed space, that held superheated plasma exploding fire, between his hands. Then he pulled his hands apart, and the sphere separated into two. Once holding the intact glowing summoning circle, grounds and all, and the other the tinker bomb explosion.
"Door."
Nothing happened. That Path went on the frits, rapidly adjusting and adding more Steps.
Contessa's eyes widened and she took off running, taking the Steps available, even if the Path hadn't finished adjusting. Somehow, Michael caused Dookmaker's power to not work in a two mile radius.
No. Her Path revealed the answer. He used the dimensional bomb's explosion to cancel dimensional effects--sans those on the ritual site--in the aforementioned area.
She knew he threw the explosion at her, and the sphere holding it popped. She could feel heat and the exotic effect that would bypass her armor if it hit on her tail. Her armor entered emergency mode, putting every power and effect it had to help her escape.
Contessa knew she wouldn't make it, yet she still ran.
She knew she wouldn't beat Scion, yet she still fought. She would not stop. Not here and never.
Contessa passed the threshold, the two mile area that stopped Cauldron's teleporter, a shout on her lips. Yet suddenly the Path told her to stop. She did. She couldn't feel the heat of the tinker bomb anymore.
Looking back, the explosion stopped right at the two miles range point. Contessa supposed Michael didn't want the explosion to expand to it's full limit. The mountain nearby, Mount Katahdin likely would be reduced to rubble if it did.
The fiery effect died down. The land was scorched. Oddly enough, there was no radiation. Or rather according to her sensors, it rapidly went down to normal levels within nanoseconds of the blast happening.
She saw the figure of her opponent coming in the distance. Soon enough Michael Chaser stood 20 feet away from her.
He stood calmly before her. A smile of barely contained excitement on his face. Contessa couldn't believe how open he was with his emotions. How could someone with so much power, put his heart on his sleeves?
Yet battle maniacs only loved to fight, because they thought they could overcome the odds. If only they knew her power. Her Path finished adjusting and recalibrating this new data. Her victory was assured.
Contessa opened her mouth to start her psychological attack.
"You're perfect."
Yet the anomaly that was Michael Chaser reared it's head in.
Contessa tilted her head, and she waited for the next Step to present itself.
"That's how you're doing it. That's your power, right?"
Contessa blinked a few times, and she took in what he was saying. The Path confirmed it, he figured out what her power was. And yet...
Why is he so happy?
Upon learning what her power was--genuinely truly learning and understanding it--her opponents would react in one of two ways.
Resignation or rage.
What else can you do against absolute power? You either surrender or rage uselessly.
Yet in the face of that, Michael's answer was joy.
"I didn't notice it at first, but it just kept bugging me. Like a buzz a the back of my mind. It was just there, I only needed to see it." He began. "Every step, every move, every action, every technique executed, every maneuver, every part of your over all plan, all of it. All of it." He let out a sigh in contentment. "It was perfect." Michael chuckled--No giggled to himself. "Holy shit, so that's what that's like." He spoke seemingly lost in memory rather than talking to her. Contessa considered attacking, but no, it was not yet the Step to do so. "No wonder Azi was disinterested in fighting anyone except people who were..." Michael's gaze landed back on her, with a grin. "Perfect."
"I'm trying to save the world." Contessa spoke, ignoring his words. They were something to investigate for another time, assuming he wasn't delusional. "If you don't stop your ritual, I will focus more on killing you, than stopping you."
"Then go ahead Ms. Perfect." Michael spread his arms out. "I mean, I don't think I'll every get a chance like this again. I was a commander. I always had to fight from the backrow." Contessa save that info for later. Michael's file stated never state he was a squad leader during his time in the army. "But now I have a front seat, and I wanna watch this show till the end." Michael laughed. "Just like you, I am trying to save the world. The reason why you can't see that, I reckon, is because your Cell has a limited range in it's simulations against things it never encountered before."
"Cell?"
"The airquote 'living' crystal computer that gives you, you power, through your brain tumor."
Contessa blinked in surprise. He knows about the Agents? For how long?
"So," Michael continued. "I made my stance clear. I'm not going to stop--not that I can really afford to as it might cause a misfire--and neither are you." Michael had a savage grin on his face. "You threatened to bring the world on my head. Fine. Bring it on, Ms. Perfect. Emblaze. Hell March."
Michael turned on every single one of his Magic Circuits. All four thousand, four hundred, and forty four Magic Circuit lit up and fired Od through them. The magic energy erupting out of him was thick enough to be seen by the normal eye.
"Use everything you have, and I'll fight back with everything I am too." Michael punched his fist into his open palm, grinning as he declared his challenge.
And that's when he was tackled dive bombed by Alexandria, Legend and Eidolon from orbit.
AN: So yeah, the smut scene I tried to just get it over and done with. As for Chapter 7, originally it would just be Michael doing the summoning, and Contessa comes along intending to stop him, and due to the Path she waits for the opportune moment, and they end up having a philosophical debate that ends with her taking a risk and letting the summoning just happen, and we meet the Servant.
However, muses are fickle and a few days ago I heard this song:
So now we have a fight scene.
Personal Note: Nevada Desert.