Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of chapter 62 of the story!
Sorry if there wasn't chapter on the previous week. I took the week off to make a pilgrimage to Japan and meet our lord and saviour Shirou Emiya during the Shirou Day (I had exams actually) And it truly was a marvelous experience to meet such hero in person. It was quite the bone of my sword. May he continue to bless us every year during the Shirou Day.
And with that said, let's get into the chapter!
DISCLAIMER: All the Nasuverse characters belong to Nasu and are property of Type-Moon, with the exception of the OC's that belong to me, the author
"Here! It's finished!" Nala exclaimed, dropping the pen on the table and proceeding to show a drawing that she made on a blank paper to everyone else at Jekyll's apartment. "This is how he looks like!"
"Humm...So that's his hair huh?" Ritsuka commented, taking a closer look.
"The nose is well...peculiar." Mash added, also staring at the drawing.
"The chin and mouth...are definetly a chin and mouth." Peko said, not very sure of what he was supposed to be looking at.
"I think it would fit very well as those unrealistic art pieces." Romani smiled nervously.
"I have to agree with you on that." Da Vinic replied next to him.
"A very good drawing indeed." Mordred told Nala. "If you take out literally everything from it that is!"
"Hey! I've put a lot of effort in this drawing punk! Plus, I had to do it from memory!" Nala responded to the knight's mockery, altough no one else in the room could deny that the girl's hand drawing skills were...very lacking.
"Having to do a sketch with no photo or illustrative reference is really rough." Ritsuka said.
"Thank you!" Nala smiled, glad in hearing Ritsuka comprehending her.
"Altough the drawing perhaps could come off better in the hands of someone with artistic experience." Ritsuka concluded, making Nala's moral drop incredibly low.
"Bah!"
Jekyll offered to help. "I can able to redraw it for you. I may not be very talented on the field of arts and the sort but I have some experience from making some drawings from time to time."
"Drawing triangles, lines and circles isn't the same as drawing someone's face y'know?" Mordred told the young scientist.
"How about you all just send the image to Chaldea so that I can make a full photorealistic depiction of it?" Da Vinci proposed.
"Oh, that's right! You're the genius artist after all Da Vinci! There's no more suited person for this than you." Peko said, feeling dumb for haven't thought about asking one of the best artists that has existed in the world to draw a proper potrayal of his father's face.
"Da Vinci must be able to draw it in seconds!" Ritsuka took a bit out of a cookie. "Also these are very good. You made them Jekyll?"
"Not alone I didn't. Fran had a very important part in helping me baking them." Jekyll told them, smiling at Frankenstein who grunted happily in response.
"Those were some nice cookies you made Fran. They're very good." Mash told to the artificial human.
"Only some hours of being alive and already cooking well." Nala commented, taking a bit out of the cookie as well. "I'm a bit jealous of that."
Putting his hands behind his back, Peko gave a smirk. "Eh, cookies may be good, but nothing will surpass this..."
"What do you have in there Peko?" Mash asked to the boy who responded by showing her a bag of satsumaimos.
"Borrowed food from Chaldea." He took out one from the bag. "Finest, sweetest potatoes of the world. Nham."
"Satsumaimos are supposed to be special, so don't go eating them all the time." Ritsuka advised Peko, thinking how he shouldn't exaggerate on the quantities of sweet potato he was eating. But the taste of a satsumaimo didn't sound like a bad idea at all. "Still, I wouldn't mind eating one now."
"Not before me!" Nala charged torwards the bag and took a sweet potato for herself in a second, starting to bite it fastly like a crusher machine.
Ritsuka smiled in sheer awkwardness. "W-Wow...You two developed quite the obsession with it."
"That or it's just a case of massive hunger." Da Vinci replied. "But going back to what matters, show me that drawing of your dad again but this time closer to me Nala, please." She instrcuted, wanting to absorve all the details of the current drawing and vizualise a more realistic portrait of it.
"Sure!" Nala responded with her mouth full before swallowing the last piece of her satsumaimo, letting Da Vinci have a closer look at the drawing. "Here!"
The italian inventor approached her hologramic face to the drawing, her eyes taking a closer inspection while Romani was by her side, trying to surpress a laughter from seeing the poor quality of the portrait. "Oh? Are those supposed to be his eyes?" Da Vinci asked confused.
"Yeah! And I made a lot of effort to make them!" Nala responded back.
"You only took a few seconds drawing all of it..." Mash talked in the back, bringing up the fact how Nala had just grabbed a pencil, scribbled all over the paper and was done with it within seconds.
"I-It wasn't an offense at all! Completely the opposite, I find the way you've drawn the eyes to be incredibly original haha!" Da Vinci replied, not wanting to unintentionally make Nala incredibly upset despite also thinking how terrible the portrait was. "With that said, time to get these hands to work! I'll make the drawing to be as realistic as possible!"
"Bet it will take only a minute or two if it's done by you." Ritsuka told her.
"Now now, lower down your expectations. Perfection takes time, so it will take more than a minute or two if we want this drawing to be as close as possbile from real life." Da Vinci told them that they would need to wait some time to get the results from her.
"Okay. We sure can wait." Peko responded, finishing eating his satsumaimo.
"You don't seem very bothered by it Peko." Mash noticed how he didn't seemed very upset to the fact of waiting to see the portrait of his father.
"Well, having to wait or not, he still got to see his dad's face even if it was in a poor drawing." Romani explained.
"Hm hm, you're right on that doctor." Peko responded. "That and the fact we got to know out family name." He turned his head to Nala. "What you said it was? Fin...Finnsernis?"
"Finsternis." Nala corrected him. "And honestly, I don't know what that means."
"It sure sounds like a very different and foreign name." Ritsuka speaked, thinking about it. "I've never heard about it before."
"Me neither master. I can't recall of any royal family in the entire history with that name." Mash commented. "Perhaps it's a magus family name instead?"
"As someone who has a good amount of understanding of important magus families and bloodlines, specialy those documented in the Clock Tower, the name Finsternis also sounds strange to me." Romani responded.
Jekyll put a thumb under his chin. "Hmm, that whole magi and magecraft lore sounds really rich and complex."
"You have no idea..." Ritsuka responded, remembering how he was encouraged by Mash to read some books about magecraft while in Chaldea much to his bothersome.
"That sounds like another deep research that we're going to have to do." Da Vinci sighed.
"Good thing I have shelves full of coffee then." Romani replied, ready to embrace another night of research.
"And talking about our dad's appearence, how much exactly does he look like me?" Peko asked to Nala since she was the one and only to see their father's face.
"Like, that you are almost a perfect smaller lookalike of him. Face, eyes and the hair that is more larger and spiky than yours." Nala described their father's physic traits, being a lot simillar to Peko's except as of an adult.
"So you're saying Peko has literally your dad's face?" Ritsuka asked.
"Welp, that's genetics for you." Romani replied.
"Then excluding the lesser body structure and point'ier' hair, shortie N.2 is a carbon copy of his dad." Mordred poked and touched one of Peko's hairy spikes, making the boy uncomfortable.
"H-Hey! Don't touch it!" He exclaimed, getting Mordred's hands off of his head.
"And continuing on those questions, did you also get your father's name Nala?" Mash asked to the girl who shaked her head in negation.
"Nope. Didn't got his name." She responded.
"But at least we have kind of an idea of whate he looks like. That's a good start in my eyes." Ritsuka speaked.
"Even so, are you really sure that his hair was white?" Peko asked to Nala.
"With every fiber of my body. Why the question?" Nala asked back.
"It's about that person who appeared in my dreams that I've talked about. The painter." Peko told, his mind going back to the image of that person he'd saw when sleeping. "The description that you made of his hair, it almost the same as the painter except white instead of dark as well that it goes from right to left than left to right."
"Now that you mention him again, the similarities between that painter and the person who's supposedly your dad are rather uncanny." Ritsuka noted. "Do you got to see any of his face features?"
"Still haven't but, when I'd always saw him, it gave me a sense of familiarity. The same feeling as when I had dreams of our dad." Peko speaked. "However, I don't know if it might be just illusions from my head since I was the only one who saw that painter in my dreams."
Hearing that, Nala immediatly speaked to prove her sibling wrong. "No. I too had a dream with that 'painter' in it recently." She revealed much to everyone's sudden shock.
"R-Really?!" Peko asked surprised, to wich Nala nodded.
"Got to see anymore features of him?" Mash questioned her.
"No unfortunately. Was unable to see his face." The girl answered.
"Then can you at least describe us the dream you had with him? It might give us some crucial information." Ritsuka requested.
"Sure. Altough I'm not sure if it was more of a memory than a dream." Nala said. "I was sitting on a bench in the middle of some kind of grass labyrinth. And as I walked more into it, I eventually found that painter. Dark hair, priest clothing, exactly like you described before Peko." She explained her dream. "But there was somethong off with him. He looked sick and in a bad state, lying on the ground."
"In a bad state?" Romani asked, seeming concerned.
"Yeah, but the weird part was right next afterwards, when I saw myself running in aid torwards him." Nala revealed, making everyone even more bewildered.
"You saw another you in the dream?" Mash said perplexed.
"It was like a clone of me. No, it was definetly me but wearing different clothes." Nala rephrased. "However, before I could see more of what happened next the 'dream' ended there."
"Then you've also seen it." Peko speaked at the end of her sister's exposition.
"And I think I felt the same you felt when seeing that painter. He really must be someone we must know for me to have been worried the way I was." Nala crossed her arms, looking displeased. "Still, why was I on a labyrinth? What even WAS that labyrinth?"
"I think that is only some side details. The crucial one is that like Peko, you've also witnessed that painter in your dreams." Romani told the girl. "Someone who according to both of you has some characteristics of your father, if not so being actually your father."
"Which is why the description that you gave us of our dad is bugging me a little." Peko told Nala. "Are you sure our dad's hair is white and not dark?"
"That doubt is valid. People with memory loss may remember things a bit differently from what they actually looked like." Mash added, understanding Peko's tiny skepticism.
"Well, my brain was being shocked at the same time I got this memory back, but I'm a hundred percent sure our dad's hair was white!" Nala replied back.
"Wait? What do you mean your brain was being shocked?" Ritsuka replied confused, wondering what Nala was saying by that.
"Not a big deal. Forget about that." Nala smiled clumsly to him.
"Even so, are you sure about it? That he didn't had dark hair?" Peko asked the same question again.
"I already told you! Why are you insisting about it?" Nala rised her voice a bit, starting to get annoyed.
"Because I on the other hand haven't seen our dad's face yet! Plus the whole thing about the painter just makes me think more about the situation." Peko responded. "Perhaps he has indeed dark hair and you just mistook it."
"No way! It's clear he had white hair!" Nala shouted.
"Well, I'll continue to think that he may have dark hair instead!" Peko shouted back.
"White!"
"Dark!"
"White!"
"Dark!"
"Please simmer down you two!" Mash went to calm down the two siblings. "Are you really arguing over this?"
"Meh, siblings stuff. It's only natural." Mordred speaked after spending some time silent.
Ritsuka then thought of a possibility. "What about if the 'dad' Nala saw on the memory and the painter are the same person?" He said. "Since you described that both look similar, it might be that."
"That wouldn't be ridiculous, thinking about it." Mash thought the same. "Perhaps Peko and Nala's father and the painter are the same but...at different points in time maybe?"
"Hmmm, it could be." Da Vinci speaked. "Perhaps something happened along the line that made him change his appearence?"
"I could see that." Peko responded. "Yet if so, then what made our dad change appearence?"
"And did he had white hair or dark hair first?" Nala asked as well.
"Hey, how about you all just think of that when you later comeback to that Chal-something place of yours?" Mordred proposed, feeling bored by the conversation. "It's clear that all this 'who's the dad?' topic is something of a total unrelated topic with this Singularity. So how about we instead think of defeating my OWN jerk of a father and her bunch?"
"Right now that sounds the most reasonable choice." Ritsuka responded, agreeing with the knight.
"I'm sorry if we people of this Singularity can't be of a great help to you in this search for your father's identity." Jekyll speaked sadly, with Fran also making sorrowful grunts.
"There's no need for that. You are already helping us with resolving this Singularity and restoring humanity!" Nala told them. "That is big enough of a help."
With the cinversations going, Peko looked around, seeing that someone was missing from the living room. "Hey. Where is Hans?" He wasn't seeing the writer servant anywhere.
Mordred was about to answer. "Shortie N.3 is occup-"
"Ha ha! I knew there had to be a reason for why my ears were tingling." Hans speaked as he entered the living room, opening the door and exiting from the office he was in. "I've already finished organizing my books and other stuff. Thank you for lending me that room Mr. Jekyll"
"Glad that it was suitable to you Mr. Anders-"
"But next time, don't put the shelves too high on the walls. My body can hardly reach them in this height." Hans still found a way to complaint about his new room offered by Jekyll.
"...Understood. Sorry for that inconvenience." Jekyll replied, still maintaining his smile, much to Mordred's annoyance.
"You don't have to say sorry for this kind of crap!" The knight told him.
"So what you were up to? I doubt that you spent all this time only organizing your items." Peko speaked to Hans.
"Hm, wrong you aren't. I also took some time to study and theorize about this Demonic Fog's nature." Hans responded, confirming Peko's suspicion.
"Studying the Demonic Fog's nature?" Mash asked, curious.
"Yes. Why do you have to reply with the same thing I said? That's poor dialogue." Hans critizised the Shielder's reply before moving to the subject in the matter. "But yes, I did some researches about it and I ended up discovering something. That servants like me, Nursery Rhyme and brainless knight over there were possibly summoned by it."
"Who are you calling brainless knight moron!?" Mordred shouted.
"Summoned by the Demonic Fog? But how?" Nala questioned. "I thought we alongside doctor had already analysed it's nature."
"I guess the answer is simple." Romani replied. "They had no other way of being summoned here. No master to keep them bound to this Singularity. They're all stray servants, like the ones we always encounter when we went to previous Singularities."
"But the thing that would keep those servants without master to keep materialized is..." Peko thought about it before gasping. "It is-"
"The Holy Grail!" Ritsuka responded. "It could summon servants without needing masters to perform summoning rituals to do so."
"Then if it's true that the servants from this Singularity are being summoned through the Demonic Fog..." Nala was connecting the dots alongside everyone else.
"This Demonic Fog must be work from the Holy Grail." Mash concluded. "Yes, I can see that. It only makes sense to be it."
"And that's precisely the same conclusion I've ended up reaching. Glad to see that all of your neurons together are able to form a full brain." Hans responded, much to the entire group's indignation. "I've heard that this Holy Grail is your main objective as well as that it will clear this Singularity if you obtain it. So we might get a step closer from getting it with this information. There's now only one thing left in order for us to know where the Holy Grail is."
"To know where the Demonic Fog is coming from." Jekyll responded.
"Exactly. If we discover the source of the Demonic Fog, we find the Holy Grail as well." Hans said.
"Do you think that our enemies are in posession of whatever is the thing the Demonic Fog is coming from?" Nala asked him.
"Most likely. But the only way to know is asking to one of them that." Hans replied.
"That 'P' guy. We could get some information out of him." Mordred speaked.
"That and I also need you to do me a favour." Hans told to them.
"Like what?" Ritsuka asked to the small writer.
"I need you to go on a patrol and see if you can find another stray servant so that this theory of mine can be proved correct. That and see if we can somehow make 'P' , The King of Storms or any of their other friends that decide to show up." Hans explained the gig they had to do.
"Wait, can't we just ask to that nurse who we locked up in the asylum?" Peko said, reminding them of the fact they had one of the enemies trapped.
"She didn't looked like someone who we could take important information from." Mash told him. "Only the leaders of her group probably know about the location of the Demonic Fog's source."
"Then going out again it is." Nala said, stretching her arms. "And only when I was getting comfortable in resting from some time."
"Keh, feeling tired already Shortie?" Mordred smirked at Nala.
"O-Of course not! I'm always ready to go out to kick and slice enemies up!" Nala immediatly responded. "It won't be a small fatigue that will brought me down!"
"That's the way." Mordred replied. "But between the two of us, you fake pretty badly trying to look tough." The knight threw a small provocation torwards Nala.
"Why you..!" The girl contained herself from entering on another verbal fight with Mordred.
Ignoring the two's usual interaction, Ritsuka proceeded to speak. "Since we are going out, this would be a good opportunity to look for him as well." Everyone at the living room stood in silent the moment he said that.
"Searching for wh-Oh!..." Mordred quickly remembered, staring a bit sadly to the ground before gazing at Ritsuka. "Look, it isn't like I wanna sound rude but, he's gone. As simple as that." The knight told him.
"We can't be sure of that. Faust just dissapeared. It doesn't mean he died." Ritsuka responded back, still clinging onto the hope that the alchemist servant that was once with them and had tragically dissapeard could still be somewhere in this Singularity, having been separated from them.
"That's a good point." Peko commented, wanting to believe in the same thing as Ritsuka.
"Still, that idiot said he wouldn't stick with us anymore." Mordred replied back. "What makes you think that he will come back to join us if we find him?"
"Just because he won't stay in the hideout with us doesn't mean he has outright stopped being an important ally." Jekyll told the knight. "If Faust hasn't really died, he could be an informant for us, sharing events and occurences on other areas of London."
"Hum! Hum!" Frankenstein nodded in accordance with the scientist.
"I myself have never met this Faust person, but if you say he could be of usefulness to us, then it's worth the search to discover him." Hans speaked, being followed up by Nala's own opinion.
"What Ritsuka said can be quite true. Faust could still be out there." She said. "And who knows if he might have found some important things about the group of people we are fighting? Perhaps even things about the Demonic Fog."
"It's true that finding Faust-san would be nothing but benefic to us. He was and can still be of a great help to us. We just can't abandon him like that." Mash speaked by last.
With Mordred seemingly being the only one with a different stance on the matter, the knight ended up sighing. "Fine. Let's find that stupid lone wolf then."
"So we all think the same here." Ritsuka turned around to look at Hans. "Where do we begin looking for?"
The writer thought for a bit before coming with an answer. "Try the docks down the river. That will be a good starting place and last time I checked, it was abounding on Demonic Fog, meaning that there's a high chance of another servant having appeard there."
Ritsuka nodded. "Roger! We'll go look there then!"
"We're here. The docks." Mash declared, with her and the group standing right in front of a line of storehouses near the river.
The ground had some puddles here and there and the area was also filling up with mist, making it almost hard to spot the dock buildings that were barely illuminated by the outside lights of the lamps. They went torwards the entrance of one of the storehouses.
"I have to say, walking here outside and not having Jack come to make a surprise on us feels both odd and relieving." Nala speaked, with this being their first time that they could walk the streets wihtout having the serial killer appear out of nowhere to attack them.
"It sure as hell feels a lot better now. That assassin was like a fly that wouldn't go away." Mordred replied.
"Y-Yeah..." Peko responded altough reluctantly. The image of Jack's last moments were still fresh in his mind.
Noticing the slight discomfort on the boy's face, Mash tried to quickly move onto another topic. "And we hope nothing simillar happens again this time. Now, what are the probabilities that we will find a servant right on the first storehouse?"
"It can never be that easy unfortunately." Ritsuka replied. "The most likely is that their in another storehouse and we will have to fight some monsters first before finding the servant."
"That's been our experience so far." Nala added.
"Yeah. Also, Mash..." Peko called out the shielder who looked back at him.
"Hm? What is it Peko?" She asked.
"That thing we felt on our bodies during our fight against Jack. It was a skill of yours, wasn't it?" Peko made the question to Mash.
"Y-Yeah, it was." Mash replied a bit shyly, not expecting that anyone of them would have noticed it during the battle.
"Thanks for it then Mash." Peko smiled to her.
"It sure was helpful! If it wasn't for it the injuries we suffered may could have been more fatal." Nala also thanked Mash who now was blushing embaressedly.
"I-I-It was just a skill I casted. N-Nothing that special." Mash replied in stutter.
"We clearly think otherwise. Thank you for that Mash." Ritsuka smiled to her, making the shielder blush even more.
"P-Please, all of you stop complementing me a-at the same time!" She put her hands in front of her face, hiding her red face.
"Sheesh! Do you usually get no praise at all to get this embaressed by some nice words?" Mordred asked Mash as they all entered the giant but empty storehouse.
"Smells to a lot of fish in here." Ritsuka noted after using his nose to feel the scent of the giant room. ""Hope it didn't got rottened since everyone left this place."
"And looks like it still looks abandoned." Nala said. "I see nobody here. Person, servant or enemy."
"I don't mind the absence of the last one honestly." Ritsuka replied.
As they talked, the holograms of Romani, Jekyll and Hans appeard.
"Good timing! We've just reached the docks and entered into one of the storehouses in the area." Mash told the three. "Any signs near us that could indicate a servant's presence?"
"We're trying...But it's...a bit hard to do a...search in areas where the Demonic Fog...is overwhelming." Romani responded, the transmission suffering from cuts.
"Hmm, then we will have to continue looking." Peko commented.
"Of course you have..! Did you...expected that the servant...would appeard if you just...sat down there doing nothing?" Hans replied.
"God, and my ears were already healing from not having to hear your annoying voice." Mordred said, annoyed by having to hear Hans voice again.
"The docks are a...large area, so it could take some...time until you found someone or...a servant." Jekyll told them. "But I'm sure...Fran? Where are you-...No! Don't enter there!"
"Hey! Don't hold my books...like that!You're...ruining them!" Hans shouted, looking at whatever the mess Frankenstein was doing inside his office.
"Sorry everyone! Me and Hans have to...keep an eye on Fran. Continue...your search." Jekyll told them before his and Hans holograms dissapeard, leaving Romani scratching his own head.
"And I thought I had...many problems here in Chaldea." He then stared back at the group. "Like Jekyll said...continue your search as we...try to discover something around the area...Good luck!" And his hologram dissapeard to.
Mordred stretched her arms and flexed her shoulders a bit before turning around. "Alright! This place looks pretty empty to me. Let's move onto the next storehouse." The knight proposed, feeling that they wouldn't find a thing in this particular storehouse.
However, Peko stopped the knight before she could even start walking torwards the exit. "Wait! What about those giant boxes over there?" The boy pointed to a pill of giant wooden boxes some meters ahead of them, standing lonely.
"Do you seriously think it will be hiding in one of those boxes?" Nala asked to her brother.
"Well, it won't cost us anything in trying to check it out." Mash told.
"We surely could give a look." Ritsuka speaked, advancing torwards the boxes and everyone followed him soon after.
"Hm?" Peko lowered his face and stared to the ground, having heard the noise of some drop hitting the floor right in front of him. Near his feet, it looked to be just a watery puddle at first glance. But upon a more closer inspection, Peko observed that the shade of the water was completely white, looking like no water at all. "What is this?" Peko said weirded out. Then, the alarm inside his head ringed They were in danger. "Watch out! We aren't alone here!"
Everyone stared back at Peko who caught their attention by the sudden warning.
"Hm? Is there an enem-" Ritsuka was about to ask when he felt something giant hovering over his head. Looking up, he saw a large white reptilian like monster with black dots on its face. The giant monster immediatly descended from the ceilling that it was glued on, opening its sharp mouth to devour Ritsuka the moment it would land right on top of the human.
"MASTER!" Mash yelled out, trying to reach him out in time to avoid the worst from happening. Yet, Mordred was quicker to react, dashing torwards Ritsuka and pulling him out to avoid becoming food to the monster.
"This was close! Was this damn thing waiting for us?" Mordred asked bewildered as she put Ritsuka on the ground, and moved her head just in time to see the monster swing its tail torwards them before suffering a slash from Nala.
"Seems like it! We have to deal with this thing now!" The girl exclaimed.
And as if it wasn't trouble enough to deal with a giant enemy, more white smaller creatures appeard from the ground.
"It's the homunculi!" Peko shouted, summoning his sword.
"Feels like we have fell into a trap!" Mash said, protecting herself and Peko from an incoming attack of the monster's tail while Peko took out some of the homunculi behind her.
The giant white creature continued with its attacks, starting to do damage to the interior of the storehouse and even destroying all the pile of boxes.
"And there goes our inspection of the boxes!" Ritsuka said, trying to take cover from any enemy that was eyeing to attack him as he was getting surrounded by the hommunculus.
"Better end with this fast before the entire ceilling falls on us!" Nala replied, coming through and slashing the majority of the enemies around Ritsuka with one slice.
"That's a good plan!" Ritsuka told her, grabbing a fallen debri of the ceilling and using it to attack an homunculus near him, fending off against the enemy.
"Then its time to extreminate this lizard thing!" Mordred charged her blade and runned torwards the monster's head.
With the knight approaching, the creature used its sharp claws to hit the ground and more specifically Mordred. Yet, the knight proved to be agile as she dodged the giant blows of the opponent with quite the talent. Seeing that the attacks didn't worked, the creature let out a loud roar before going for another attempt, opening it's giant mouth to bite Mordred into pieces.
A light bullet however, came to stop it, exploding right into the monster's face once it made contact, stunning the creature temporarily.
"It's dizzy! Our chance to attack it!" Peko exclaimed to Mordred who jumped right torwards the monster's face.
"Thank you for the opening Shortie N.2!" She said, swinging her blade into her opponent's face, making an enormous cut with it. The monster still attempted to fight back by bitting Mordred in surprise, but the knight instead antecipated it, dodging the enormous bite and landing her feet in one of the monster's teeth, using it as a platform to jump higher, almost reaching the ceilling. "Time for you to go to sleep!" Mordred charged her blade and successfuly descended all the way down to the top of the monster's head, nailing her weapon into it.
Still, even after suffering a fatal wound, the monster didn't gave up, shaking its head violently in order to remove Mordred from the top of its head. Going into a frenetic struggle, the monster laid on its back and started to roll, with its giant body causing an entire havoc inside the building.
"The creature has gone crazy! If it keeps like this the whole storehouse will be destroyed!" Mash speaked, seeing the holes in the storehouse rooftop as she fought alongside Peko in defeating the reamining homunculi.
Meanwhile, Nala had dispatched the last enemy that was trying to attack her and Ritsuka. The girl had heard what Mash said. "Hey Mordred! How are the things going there?" She asked to the knight, seeing her struggling against the entire weight of the creature's head to not fall on her and smash her body.
"What it looks like?! I'm doing the best I can!" Mordred replied, putting a lot of strenght in her sword as she would avoid the creature's head from crushing her.
"In other words: she's needing help!" Ritsuka said, noticing that the knight probably wouldn't be able to hold off against the monster's pressure on its entire massive head.
"Aid coming right up!" Nala sprinted torwards the monster, taking advantage of the fact that it was with its chest and belly exposed to make a big slash on it, making the creature's focus not be entirely on Mordred. The girl wasn't done as the sole of her shoes rubbed hardly against the floor, with Nala going for snother fast slide, slashing the creature again and again. "Khh! It still up!"
"Nala! Use my shield to jump!" Mash yelled to the girl, putting her weapon in position as Nala quickly understood Mash's intentions and landed on the older girl's shield with her feet.
The creature moved its tail torwards the two, trying to interrupt the incoming attack from happening, being yet again stopped by one of Peko's bullets who went up against the monster's tail and backed it off with an explosion. "It's all yours!" Peko exclaimed.
"Here! Take this boost as well!" Ritsuka used one of his Command Seals to power up both Mash and Nala's strenght.
With that done, Mash propelled her shield forwards, with Nala jumping from it at an intense speed, wounding greatly the monster with a gigantic and rough cut. Feeling that a lot of weight had stopped from being put against her, Mordred took the chance to split open the monster's head with her sword, killing it for good as the creature let out a cry in demise before collapsing totally. And with the main opponent gone, all of the homunculi that still remained seemed to have dissapeard as well after the death of the giant reptile looking creature who's body also vaporized and vanished.
"And that's a problem solved. Great job everyone." Ritsuka told to the group.
"Guess we just happened to have been ambushed." Peko replied. "Did the enemy knew we would be going here?"
"But how then? There's no way they would know we would be going here." Nala told him.
"Perhaps it wasn't an ambush at all." Mash speaked, resting down her shield. "Instead, we could have just walked right into a nest of homunculus that took charge of this place once the inhabitants abandoned it."
"That's quite plausible." Ritsuka responded.
"Ambush or not, one thing is for certain..." Mordred looked around, seeint the storehouse almost in ruins. "This place is almost finished for. Neither a servant nor Faust were here."
"That means we will have to move onto the next one." Nala replied.
But before any of them could start walking torwards the exit, Fou came out from Mash's back and pointed at something.
"Fou fou."
"Hum? Are you trying to show us something Fou?" Peko asked the animal, who was indicating a door that was located on the other end of the storehouse.
"Fou is pointing to that door." Ritsuka commented, thinking why Fou was doing it though. "But what's in that door to-"
The master of Chaldea would quickly get his answer as someone or something banged on the other side of the door, the handle making some noises as it seemed the door was locked and whoever wanted to open it, wasn't being able to.
"Please! I require assistance! This door has proven to be quite sturdy against me!"
A voice from the other side of the locked door sounded, catching the entire group full attention.
"Someone is behind that door!" Mash said. "We should help them."
"Or perhaps it's another ambush." Mordred told her, skeptical of wanting to open the door to the person.
"That could be true. One of the leaders could be behind it perhaps." Peko responded.
"Or it could be another stray servant summoned here by the Demonic Fog. Just how like Hans theorized." Nala said, believing that there was also chance that it wasn't anyone trying to ambush them again.
Ritsuka thought for a bit. "We're going to open that door but be careful in case if it really is another surprise attack." He told, with everyone nodding.
"Oh I beg of thee! Free me from this small calaboose! I have been stuck in here for a full sun by now!"
As the person behind the door continue to bang on it, the group slowly appraoched it, with Ritsuka standing by the right side of the door with the handle, Peko and Nala on the left side and Mash and Mordred being right in front of it, all prepared to fight if the person that came out of the door revealed to be an enemy.
"Ok guys, on three." Ritsuka signaled, reaching for the handle with his hand. "One...Two...and-"
The moment his hand turned the knob, the door opened violently, with a grown man in green and brown clothes of a playwright, ginger mustache, beard and hair coming out of it, happily pulling his arms in the air.
"Oh good heavens! I am free! As free as the win-oh?!" The man's happiness lasted shortly as an empty bucket that stood in a shelf above the door fell right down into his head, disorienting the man. "Ah! Aaaah! Darkness! The cold and devious clutches of obscurity caught me! H-Help!"
"H-Hey!" Mordred replied in bewilderment as she and Mash had to dodge from the blinded man who clumsily fell to the ground, hitting with the bucket in the debris in front of him.
"For an enemy, he really doesn't look that menacing." Peko pointed out, seeing the man trying to take out the bucket from his head and failing miserably.
"False alarm then." Ritsuka said, letting down his guard alongside everyone else.
Standing next to him, Mordred grabbed the bucket and easily pulled it off from the man's head. "There. Now you can calm down for a second."
"A thousand thanks to thou, fair knight maiden!" The man thanked her.
"A 'thank you' would be enough." Mordred replied, thinking the man's words were a bit excessive.
"So what's your name? Are you a servant?" Nala asked him.
"Oh oh oh! An important question to make indeed young miss. You see, in a conversation of first meeting a character, the introduction is always the first part that should come and always the important one, as it gives a glimpse of the character, with their name being acknowledge by the readers."
"Can you just tell us who you are already?" Ritsuka said, not caring about anything of what the man had just said.
"Oh! Sure. Reading the room is also important." The man slightly coughed before introducing himself. "Behold! Thou hast been graced by the presence of the famous english author and playwrighter behind the inventive and pensive poems thou peruse before, William Shakespeare!"
"...Who?"
"...Who?"
Both Peko and Nala asked at the same time.
"I have no idea." Mordred told them.
"Now this one I know about." Ritsuka said with a smile. It was impossible to not have heard that name a single time during his lifetime.
"Ah ah! I see that we have an avid reader of mine here." Shakespeare talked to Ritsuka, thinking he was a fan of his.
"Actually no. I haven't read any of our books and I don't plan to." Ritsuka said those cold words with a normal smile.
"Oh...I see." Shakespeare said sadly before showing a smile again. "Well, I think anyone is free to read whatever it appeals the most to them, so I don't mind."
Mash approached him. "I did read your works Shakespeare-san. They're very g-"
"Oh! And what did the beautiful lady liked about them? The suspense? The melodrama? The interpretation? The lore?"
Mash got a bit overwhelmed by all those questions. "H-Hum. A bit of everything. But what I wanted to ask was if Shakespeare-san is a servant."
"That's an easy question to answer. Of course I am a servant! In magical flesh and bones nontheless." Shakespeare responded.
"And how did you appeard in this place? There was someone who summoned you?" Peko made another question.
"Hmm, to think about it, I appeard in this place all lonely and suddenly, with no one else to wait and greet me." Shakespeare said.
"Then that confirms Hans theory! It really is the Demonic Fog that has been summoning the servants." Nala said, with the suspicion that Hans of a correlation between the fog and the servants being correct.
"Then that's a mystery solved. Now we just need to find Faust and the source of this Demonic Fog." Ritsuka speaked.
"Perhaps Shakespeare knows about something." Peko replied, shifting his stare to the english poet. "Say, do you have any clue of where the Demonic Fog comes from?"
Shakespeare looked at the boy kinda puzzled. "Where the Demonic Fog comes from? I was not even aware that this fog was supposed to be demonic." He responded. "You see, I have only reached here some-...hm? Have you appeard to do your introduction as well?" He rised his head, speaking to someone who was above them in the ceilling.
"What?" Ritsuka asked in confusion as everyone stared at the same place Shakespeare was staring at.
"That's on me. Should have known that your skillful observation isn't only for words and lines." A man stepped out from the shadows of the ceilling, revealing himself to the group. It was 'P'.
"It's that guy again!" Mordred shouted.
"Greetings again, people of Chaldea. Quite the soon rencounter." 'P' greeted them. "And as expected, you came here, looking for other servants."
"What do you mean by that?" Peko demanded to know.
"It would be only obvious that you'd be looking for the same thing as us: stray servants to recruit to your cause." 'P' explained. "Mainly, that alchemist that used to be alongside your group. But it seems he is no longer with you. And altough William Shakespeare isn't him, it would still be of our intrests to have another servant in our side."
"As if we're going to let you do that!" Ritsuka responded, having found Shakespeare first.
"Well, you already fell into my trap. A shame that you defeated it though. It shows that you haven't reached this far by mere luck." 'P' took a flask from his coat. "For that, I will give you the honour of knowing my true name. I am the alchemist Paracelsus von Hohenheim, one of the group's leaders behind the Project Demonic Fog."
"The famous alchemist Paracelsus!?" Mash exclaimed, surprised by the man's true identity.
"Ohoh! Quite the guest we have here. The not only famous alchemist but also medic and physicist Paracelsus coming to attack us? What a creative script this is." Shakespeare said with a smile despite of the situation.
"Where the hell is that supposed to be a good thing?" Mordred replied to the poet.
"I guess it's because Paracelsus is only planning to recruit him and not kill him with the rest of us." Nala told the knight. "Oh, excluding also me and Peko too." She remembered that she and her brother where also in the plans of Paracelsus group.
"...Yeah that makes sense." Mordred responded.
"No need for concern! You found me first so as a gentleman who abides by the rules, I'll help you fight against our opponent." Shakespeare told them.
Peko gave a small smile at him. "That's great to hea-"
"But as a support of course." Shakespeare added. "You see, I was never much of partaking in dirty bloodied fights. Unless it's a brawl fight where we are tipsy. In that case always count on me to throw a punch."
"Figures..." Peko sweated a bit, but quickly shoved it aside. "Anyways, we are counting on your spells!"
Ritsuka stood behind Mash and stared at her. "Are you ready Mash?"
The shielder nodded. "All of the combat systems are operational master!"
"You two?" Ritsuka asked to Peko and Nala.
"Ready for it!" Nala replied.
"Count on us!" Peko also responded.
Putting a substance on the flask, Paracelsus shaked it a bit. "Since you have an ability to take on difficult challenges, don't mind if I pit you against another one." As he finished saying those words, a giant helter skelter fell from the ceilling, landing with huge impact on the ground.
"Ghrgh! Are you kidding me?! Another big enemy?!" Mordred yelled in shock.
"And that's not all." Paracelsus replied, letting the flask hit the ground, with the glass breaking into pieces, freeing the substance that slowly formed into countless hommunculus.
"Of course the alchemist had to use hommunculus..." Ritsuka hissed as he saw the large number of enemies in front of them.
"Bring it as many as you want! Big or small it does't matter!" Nala exclaimed, slicing the nearest homunculus from her. "We will still win this you asshole!"
As another homunculus tried to attack the girl from behind, Mordred quickly appeard, slicing it in half too. "That's the spirit Shortie! Let's kick his ass!"
"My, those two ladies have a very unique from of...vocabulary. That is how people speak in these times?" Shakespeare asked Ritsuka, having heard the words from Nala and Mordred's mouth.
"Erm, kinda. Welcome to the future." Ritsuka responded him.
"Paracelsus himself doesn't seem to be attacking." Peko noted how the alchemist stood still on the ceilling, watching the fight happening below.
Mash went to respond Peko after hitting one of the homunculi with her shield. "Then the main threat here is the giant helter skelter and the homunculi. But we need to keep an eye on Paracelsus if he decides to attack all of a sudden!" Mash said, preparing to defend an attack from another homunculus. "Here comes another one!" But as she waited for the incoming attack, the homunculus passed by her, only pretending that he would attack her. "Eh?! It wasn't going for an attack!?"
The homunculus wasn't aiming for Mash. Instead, its true intentions were Ritsuka who was on the back with Shakespeare.
"Watch out Ritsuka! Its coming for you!" Peko warned his friend as the enemy approached him and Ritsuka very fast.
Ritsuka prepared to use his Command Seals in order to avoid being hit. "Shakespeare!" He called out the poet servant behind him.
"Oh my goodness! Didn't expected our role of spectator to end this soon!" Shakespeare scrambled the pages of his book, trying desperatly to cast a spell at the enemy quickly as it got closer from the two.
However, someone else had casted another spell. A spell that set the homunculus on fire with dark flames, killing it before it could harm either Ritsuka or Shakespeare.
The master of Chaldea recognized that attack. "Those flames are from-"
"I knew all that commotion I've heard had to be you." A person entered the storehouse, gaining everyone's attention and mainly an expression of happiness from the Chaldea group and Mordred.
"It's you!" Mash exclaimed with a smile.
"Heh, glad to see you are okay after all." Ritsuka told to the arriving person.
"Ah, just the person who I was looking for." Paracelsus said slightly amused, eyeing at the man who appeared in Chaldea's aid.
"Sorry if I went out the way I did. Must have been quite the scare." Faust, the alchemist that they have fought alongside with showed up, alive and well. "I got careless." He greeted his already known acquaintances with a smile before staring at the other alchemist, Paracelsus, who stood above him. "Now, you said you were also looking for me, weren't you?"
To be continued...
And that was it for chapter 62!
And Faust is back! He's been missing for like what, a month? Dude has been quite some time on the bench. Can't believe it has been that much time.
Also, Shakespeare is here and like Hans, I think he's a fun character to write dialogue for since he's a dramaturge and all that. I feel like he is an audience character, some kind of narrator that is witnessing the events with the same lens as the readers/watchers. That's the impression he gave me when I first watched Apocrypha. I like him pretty much (except when I had to study some of his poems in shcool)
But anyways, that's all I wanted to say, and see you next time on chapter 63! Peace!
P.S:
(Chaldea's Sibling Fest! Room only reserved for people and servants with their twin/sibling)
(Peko and Nala are sitting in some chairs alongside all of the servants with siblings, forming a huge circle)
Peko (Looks to his side to see the Dioscuri sitting next to them): W-What!? Dioscuri?! You two are alive?!
Castor: Yes. What's the surprise?
Nala: We thought you two had died on the fight against those Prelati twins or something like that since you stopped appearing in these Post Script scenes.
Pollux: What nonsense! Me and Big Brother would never dare to lose to such wicked and vile adversaries.
Peko: Well, I think it's weird to say this but...I'm a bit happy to see you two are fine after all.
Castor: Please, save your pity and feelings of compassion for someone else as we certainly don't need any of that.
Nala (pouting): What a jackass.
Ritsuka Gudao(enters the room): Hi! Sorry for being late. Has the party started yet?
(Everyone looks at him confused)
Peko: Why are you here Ritsuka? Only people with siblings can enter this room.
Ritsuka Gudao (smirks): And? You think I didn't knew that? Allow me to introduce you to my sister.
Ritsuka Gudako (appears out of nowhere): Hi hi everyone! I'm Ritsuka Fujimaru's twin sister, Ritsuka Fujimaru! Nice to meet you!
Everyone: WHAT THE HELL?!
(Meanwhile, both Merlin and Proto Merlin are outside the room, desperatly trying to enter)
Merlin: Please let us in! We sweare we are brother and sister too!
Proto Merlin: And that we won't play a trick that will ruin the party or anything! Just let us in!
