CHAPTER 14:
DISCUSSIONS
Delphi was more or less fine with adding Melusine to the family as a sibling. Oh, she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel any envy or jealousy or that her position was threatened, but those were small worries. Melusine had already been unofficially part of the family for the past four years anyway.
True, Delphi had just barely reached adulthood chronologically (and she was very childish in some ways mentally, she'd readily admit that), while Melusine, if one counted only her time active as a Fae, was a centenarian. If one counted her existence as Albion, she was longer-lived than virtually any other being on Earth. In terms of physical age, Delphi was in her late teens, while Melusine appeared to be pre-pubescent. And of course, there was the complicated dynamic between Barghest and Melusine, somewhere between brutal rivals, friends, and confidants.
Yet her becoming a member of the family officially felt…natural. It was strange, but Delphi knew her father had a habit of bringing in strays. She was a major case in point, after all.
In a way, the various Servants they had were becoming part of the family too. Arturia Pendragon was a bit like Minerva McGonagall, a pseudo-aunt, stern, aloof, but caring and warm despite that, and Mordred was a bratty cousin or little sister, albeit the fun sort, as was Oda Nobunaga. Medusa was like a quiet and calm version of Aunt Hermione, mostly silent, yet gentle and considerate. Arturia Fae was like a boisterous yet depressed little sister figure, as was Gareth. Habetrot was like a youthful grandmother. Moriarty was a dodgy but fun grandfather.
Delphi had never been truly starved for love growing up once her father adopted her, but even so, she was acutely aware of the judgemental stares from even those kind to her. Her birth parents' actions left scars on many, after all. In a way, that made her more eager for friends, even if she felt ill at ease trying to make some her own age. Teddy was the closest she had to one her age until she befriended Mash.
But here she was, forging bonds with history and myth's prominent figures. How many people would give their arm to do so? She knew Hermione would.
A shame it meant being one of the last humans alive on a burning world.
Delphi couldn't comprehend it. How could she? Even while alive, billions of humans, magical or mundane, were an abstraction, a statistic to her. Almost every person would struggle with such a concept. Even now, she couldn't believe that Aunty Luna, the Weasleys, Andromeda Tonks and Teddy, all those people she knew and cared about to some degree, were dead.
By now, the anger and sorrow, which she had covered up with quips and sardonic observations, had died down. Now, she felt numb. And worried. Delphi was well aware that she was only just an adult, and for all that she wanted an adventure, she now knew why her father cautioned her about them. This was a war in deadly earnest, one they needed to win, lest they join humanity in death. Meaning a lot of pressure was on them.
Which was why she was having a gentle cuddle with Melusine as they watched an episode of Hellsing Ultimate. It wasn't a romantic cuddle, more of a sisterly one. Melusine's body was surprisingly cool and soothing, despite the power inside the petite Fae. The others were discussing matters in the library.
After it ended, Delphi sighed quietly. "A shame the internet no longer exists. I'd love to watch the Abridged Series again. I reckon Takahata101 is the definitive Alucard."
"That jet Alucard used to crash into the aircraft carrier, the SR-71 Blackbird…oh, I'd so love to race one of those things," Melusine said with a smirk touching her lips.
"You're basically a jet plane yourself, Melusine," Delphi said. "Isn't that what Albion was? A sort of alien techno-organic sentient fighter jet?"
"Hmm, you're not wrong," Melusine said. "On occasion, I'm getting flashes of my memories as Albion, and in both timelines. Albion, the Lostbelt one, died of exhaustion while flying over the destroyed surface of Earth in that timeline, thanks to Sephyr. You know how the one in this timeline ended."
"Yeah, dying while burrowing your way to the Reverse Side of the World is a pretty undignified way to go," Delphi remarked. "And then, our Vortigern ate some of Albion's flesh, turned into a monster for our Arturia to kill, and the Magi basically built Clock Tower on Albion's corpse and began basically harvesting it."
"I've made my peace with that, though I wonder…could a being like me come about in the same manner? Luna summoned me into a reshaped portion of this timeline's Albion's flesh, just as Aurora did. Maybe the same could be done to the Albion of this timeline, only calling forth what is left of its soul. Would the resulting being be like me, or would it be something else?"
"Buggered if I know," Delphi said, shrugging. "You lonely?"
"…Not anymore," Melusine said. "Harry realised it. As Albion, much of my existence has been lonely, Delphi. Imagine four billion years spent on Earth with no life, apart from single-celled organisms and whatever landed from space. I didn't even have ORT for company, though that wouldn't have gone well for me or the world. I don't even remember much more than a very small fraction of it, and just as well. I probably wasn't truly sentient at the time, otherwise, I would have been driven mad. Or maybe I hibernated for long periods. That'd explain why I'm so slothful at times."
"Hmm. Are you feeling better, though? You've been down since we got back from France until Dad adopted you. I mean, he told us why, but…are you feeling better?"
"…I've made as much peace as I can with my past," Melusine said. "There's no getting away from the fact that I'm a mass-murderer. It's one thing to slay actual enemy combatants, but…with the Mirror Clan, all I did was remove obstacles for Aurora's own mirror. Because the only thing she loved was herself, even if she wished to be loved. Love is reciprocal. And what I felt for her, while it was true love in some way, would never be reciprocated. Not sincerely. Percival was the only person whom I felt true love for, even if it was sibling love."
"Hmm. I've never been one for tales of knights in shining armour, but…I don't mind meeting them. You two from the Tam Lin, we've started collecting Knights of the Round Table…and Ophelia just summoned Sigurd."
"Hmm. A known dragonslayer like Siegfried," Melusine mused. "If we encounter any draconic adversaries, he'd definitely be a boon, even if he's a touch…"
"Robotic?"
Melusine shrugged. "Well, Siegfried had more personality, even if he was ridiculously apologetic."
"Yeah. But maybe we might summon Percival. You okay with that?"
"As much as I can be. He's definitely someone from our Lostbelt I would welcome being summoned," Melusine said with a fond smile. "He might even be hybridised with your timeline's Percival, like Gareth was." Her expression fell. "I…I should really talk with her a bit more. I know it's too much to expect forgiveness, but I can at least clear the air more."
"Yeah, that's probably wise. Gareth doesn't seem like the sort of person to really hold a grudge, but you don't want to let that sort of shit fester…"
"…And so Atalanta went nuts. Never mind that Jack the Ripper and her Master had been killing not just Magi, but innocent civilians, nor the fact that she killed that bitch of a Master in the first place," Mordred said. "I'm glad I didn't really fight her as much, she was pretty kickass for an Archer. Tristain could have taken notes. But honestly, I had more in common with the Black Faction's Servants than I did with the Red Faction. I mean, you have a blowhard playwright, an idiot rebel, a cat-eared psycho, an Indian who followed orders, even if it meant attacking Jeanne, a Greek idiot with a chariot that's clearly compensating for something, and my mother's Assyrian sister from another mother, both bitchy and poisonous as fuck."
"The Black Faction were your enemies originally, though," Barghest pointed out. The various Servants of the Potter family, along with Harry and Barghest, were in the library of the Expanded Trunk, swapping tales of their various misadventures.
"Yeah, well, the Masters were a mixed bag. But Rider was okay in small doses, once I chopped off his first Master's head. And Berserker…" Mordred rubbed her neck. "Bitch nearly took me with her with her Noble Phantasm, but she was gutsy. I heard from the others that Lancer was pretty decent, despite being, you know, Vlad the Impaler. He acted with a lot more dignity than that creature we faced in France, I was told."
"That being said, isn't it a bit weird?" Harry asked. "I mean, no less than three Knights of the Round Table were female when they were portrayed in the legends as male. Then, we have Oda Nobunaga, one of the most infamous Japanese warlords, and Frankenstein's creation being female too. Not to mention Jack the Ripper or Da Vinci, but they have extenuating causes. Jack the Ripper, well, nobody learned who they were in life, and Leonardo da Vinci did decide to try out a female body out of curiosity and probably being genderfluid or something like that. I'm pretty sure he was queer in his original life. But you'd think the history books would have caught onto this."
"History and myth does get obfuscated somewhat," Medusa remarked, flicking idly through a book. "My rape at Poseidon's hands never happened, even if he was almost as libidinous as Zeus. I have never liked rapists, however. Which made my summoning in the Fifth Holy Grail War galling. Shinji was a rapist, and so was Zouken Matou, albeit in a disgusting proxy manner."
"We became aware of that, Medusa," Arturia Pendragon said. "While we did not learn of what Shinji did to Sakura, nor of her being your true Master, we did learn of what Zouken Matou did to Sakura." She grit her teeth in anger. "It was rare that I was so wrathful, let alone my Masters at the time."
"…What did Zouken Matou do?" Harry asked. "I heard Marisbury put paid to him, but never got the details."
"Be grateful you did not. Have you heard of Crest Worms, Harry?"
At this, most of those present paled. Of them, only Barghest, Gareth, Oda Nobunaga, and Moriarty didn't seem to know. "…I think I'm going to be sick," Mordred muttered, her lips curled into a sickened sneer. "You know familiars are at the bottom of the heap when my own mother didn't use them for anything other than alchemy ingredients."
"What are Crest Worms?" Barghest asked.
"The most obscene kind of familiar in magical society, debatably," Harry said in a low tone. "Be thankful you're only hearing about them now. I only know about them because Flat Escardos thought it'd be a funny prank to troll Delphi and Grey with a textbook opened to the entry on them. Poor Grey was traumatised for weeks afterwards. Delphi, on the other hand…well, by that point, she'd discovered the internet. Basically, in men, Crest Worms make up a form of Magic Crest, enhancing power, but at the cost of eating away at the body, especially nerves and bone marrow. In women, though…they infest the womb, and while technically more symbiotic, they still cause all sorts of obscenely nasty effects. Not to mention that they effectively rape women getting in there."
"Zouken Matou put his soul into a colony of these things, infesting Sakura since she was five years old," Arturia snarled in disgust. "We had to use Avalon to help get them out of her, including one that held a sizeable portion of Zouken's soul."
"Good," Medusa said grimly. "What my Sakura went through was hellish during my Grail War. She became a monster worse than I was as the Gorgon, yet Shirou never stopped trying to save her. It nearly cost him his existence. But she was saved, and Zouken Matou was no more."
Mordred wrinkled her nose. "Can we change the topic from the nasty rape-worms, please?"
"Agreed," Moriarty said, looking disgusted. "I made it a point of refusing any commissions involving human trafficking or rape. Kidnapping for ransom or to hold hostage is one thing, that is business and pragmatism, but rape…" He grimaced.
"Whaddya know, the Napoleon of Crime has standards," Oda Nobunaga remarked, though she looked disgusted as well.
"Well then, a change of subject," Moriarty said. "Namely, that ring of light we saw in France in the sky. I cannot claim to be a practitioner of magecraft or wizarding magic by any means, but I dabbled enough in the knowledge at the time. Those of you who fought in Fuyuki, you didn't see such a thing at the time?"
"There was too much cloud cover from the smoke," Arturia Fae said. "But I would not be surprised. Whatever that ring of light was, it has a lot of energy. I'd go so far as to call it unfathomable. It's obvious that it's a byproduct, or even the intended product, of whatever was used to create the Singularities. A Noble Phantasm or something similar?"
"If it is, it's obscenely powerful, more powerful than any I had ever seen before, with the possible exception of my own spear, Rhongomyniad, at its peak power, anyway," Arturia Pendragon said. "When I discussed our Grail War with Iskandar and the Hundred-Faced Hassan, Iskandar revealed that Gilgamesh of Uruk wielded a Noble Phantasm at an Anti-World level, Ea, the Sword of Rupture. It annihilated Iskandar's Reality Marble with its Enuma Elish attack, and it could possibly destroy or devastate the world at full power."
"Then we need to stop it, somehow," Harry said, looking at those gathered. "I know it's easier said than done, but all of you know what's at stake here. Our history, our stories, will be burned away by a bunch of genocidal demons. For what reason, we don't know. Pride, malice, or revenge, or all of the above, take your pick. But you were all put on the Throne of Heroes for a reason. Something like this has to be it. Humanity needs its heroes in its darkest hours, and this is the darkest it's been for a long time, I am sure. And the next Singularity is coming up. Now, Olga is probably going to be swapping a couple of us out to bring in Kadoc and Ophelia, partly to give them a chance, but also to make sure we have a couple of Masters on standby, just in case. I'd like as many of you as possible to mingle with Kadoc and Ophelia, along with their Servants, and ensure you try to get along."
Arturia Pendragon nodded sagely. "Discord is the enemy. I'm already on good terms with Sigurd, and Anastasia seems amicable enough, but I understand your reasoning. This isn't a Holy Grail War, not in the sense of what we have gone through before. Cooperation is needed."
"Besides, Kadoc and Ophelia are easy enough to get along with, once you get past Kadoc's bitterness and Ophelia being awkward," her Fae counterpart remarked, before chuckling, rubbing the back of her head. "And I know what being awkward is like."
"…So weird seeing Father act like that," Mordred muttered. "I mean, Aunt…ugh…"
CHAPTER 14 ANNOTATIONS:
Just a nice bit of bonding between sisters, along with Harry, Barghest and their Servants doing some discussion and planning. Plus, I wanted to give some closure towards Sakura in Saber Arturia and Medusa's timelines.
This is the last chapter written up for now. I dunno when the next one will be out, though it has been started. I hope you've enjoyed what I've written so far.
Review-answering time! Thanks for your praise for expanding Ritsuka's backstory. I wanted to make him more than the player character cipher he (or she, depending) is in the game, and I made up that story about the stalker as something to discuss from his past, as well as to explain his reaction to Kiyohime.
TheManiacalMadman: Now, that's a very good question. I had considered bringing in a variant of Jalter from Ephemeral Flames of Vengeance and Desire, believe it or not, but I thought it might complicate the pairing. Jackie is a distinct possibility, though, particularly the variant from You're the King of My Heart, where Harry has summoned her outright. However, there's another Servant who will be a surprise that I am seriously considering having Harry or someone else summon. If you want a clue as to who, well, she's an Alter-Ego in her playable form…
The Disquieting One: It's more neutral than anything. Rasputin is one of those historical figures where it is very hard to discern the truth about. On the one hand, he was notoriously libidinous despite being a supposed holy man, and had been accused of rape more than once, including by a prominent governess of Anastasia's (whose accusations were denied by the Tsarina, and was dismissed for allegedly being caught in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard). On the other hand, he clearly was beloved by the Russian royal family (he was called 'Our Dear Friend' by them, something I appropriated for Anastasia in this fic), and not only helped give Anastasia's brother Alexei treatment for his haemophilia (which may have entailed keeping incompetent doctors away from him), but also pled to the Tsar about the plight of the people sent off to fight in the First World War.
Treating Rasputin as a non-villainous character has always stuck with me ever since I read a Doctor Who novel years ago. Called The Wages of Sin, written by David A McIntee, it involved the Doctor, Liz Shaw, and Jo Grant travelling to pre-Revolution Russia, and meeting a complex version of Rasputin. On a tangentially-related note, Rasputin was actually played by a pre-Doctor Who Tom Baker in Nicholas and Alexandra.
In the end, I personally doubt that Rasputin was a Machiavellian mastermind who was trying to manipulate the Russian royals (and TBH, I have a fairly low opinion of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra anyway: Russia was still stuck in the feudal system by that time, FFS!). My worries are more about him being a possible rapist or paedophile more than anything else. I still enjoy fiction where he's an evil, twisted monster, but I'm a bit more circumspect about his real-life character.
Chen Gong may or may not be blacklisted. It depends on how readily he brings up his backstabbing abilities.
Skull Flame: Ugh, I completely forgot Garfield and his Monday-hating. How embarrassing, I used to love his animated series, never mind the original newspaper cartoons. Rin being this Ritsuka's aunt was mentioned in Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness. Kadoc's backstory hasn't been elaborated upon in canon, but given his bitter, pessimistic attitude and his enjoyment of rock music, I decided to make him the rebellious, prodigal spare of a Polack Magus family, a family who had an overinflated sense of entitlement and self-importance.
And no, Nine Tattoo Dragon Eliza cannot give Melusine a run for her money. That bloody event was so annoying, I gave up and started skipping the story. Now, if you were talking the first ascensions of either Ibuki-Douji or Tiamat-Larva, well, that might be another matter. Though I prefer their grown-up waifu forms, of course. ;)
No numbered annotations this time.