33: ...Does Not Exist.
The world smears and twists, the ground rolling under my feet as it folds together as though this grassy field has become an Escher painting. My stomach churns a bit, but finally everything comes back into focus and I find myself surrounded by trees, in the center of a sun-dappled clearing. Nearby, I see my two fellow Chaldeans stumble across the carpet of fallen leaves. Ahab and the Dragon are both nowhere to be seen.
Just ahead of me, Prelati spins around, laughing as he plops down on a rock in the clearing's center. "Man, that was pretty close! It was looking like those two were about to gang up on me, so I'm glad we made it out in time!~"
"So we aren't in danger anymore… in that case, how about you explain what the hell just happened!?" I yell in absolute befuddlement.
"Hahaha! Well, you've got to have at least a bit of an idea, right?~ I used-" The Caster starts, only to be cut off when a blue hologram sprouts from my wrist-mounted communicator.
"...Alright, we got through!" Cries Romani Archaman in audible relief. "Thank goodness… Subaru-kun, Mash, are you both alright?"
"Oh, Doctor! I'm not injured, but Senpai-" Mash says.
"I'll be fine." I interject, popping the healing spell embedded in my Mystic Code to seal the skin over my severed fingertip. "Most of that stuff from earlier went away once we exited the Reality Marble. Mordred, you're fine too, right?"
She just nods in response, eyes pointed at the ground as she strokes her chin in thought.
Roman chuckles nervously. "Haha… I didn't ask about her, because I figured she might yell at me if I did. Also, what was that about a Reality Marble?"
"Well, it wasn't a real Reality Marble." Prelati explains with a shrug. "Just an imitation that I made with my Noble Phantasm."
"What do you mean, an imitation? Also, who exactly are you?" Roman asks.
"Caster, Francois Prelati." He says with a small bow. "To explain, my [Grand Illusion] allows me to deceive the very texture of the world - so something like folding space to transport us a few miles away is well within my ability. And of course, when it comes to the ocean earlier, I may not have a Reality Marble of my own, but I sure can fool the planet into thinking I've cast one!~"
"And for the purposes of the World Egg theory, that might as well be the same thing… that's pretty clever, actually!" The doctor says.
"Okay, but why!? What reason could you possibly have for creating that hellish ocean!?" I yell. "Or is this when you reveal that you were lying earlier, and that you're working with the Demon Pillars to destroy humanity?"
"No, no, no! I'm your ally, I'm definitely your ally!" He says, voice filled with amusement. "No, I made that fake Reality Marble to help defeat one of the big baddies of this singularity. That Dragon you saw back there-"
"The Evil Dragon, Fafnir… right?" Mordred says. "I met Siegfried in a previous grail war, and he had a similar emblem on his chest."
"That's the one!" Prelati replies with a nod. "Anyway, Captain Ahab has a Noble Phantasm capable of bypassing Fafnir's ridiculous passive defenses and killing him, but I couldn't convince him to use it on anything other than Moby Dick. So I decided to use [Grand Illusion] to turn Fafnir into a sea monster, and let Ahab's insanity take care of the rest… but Subaru went and ruined that. Turns out, even a tiny hole in the illusion is enough for the World to figure out it's being fooled."
"Don't you dare try to blame this on me!" I yell. "Next time, try turning him into something that doesn't melt my brain to look at!"
"Unfortunately, turning him into a whale is no good. In legend, Fafnir was a Dwarf who transformed into a Dragon because of his greed - so no matter what I turn him into, that same transformation will just happen again and he'll become a Dragon." He says, shaking his head. "Basically my only option was to make him into something that would innately foil any attempt to cast it into a proper 'shape' - so I turned him into a Shoggoth."
"S-shoggoth!? But those things… don't exist, right!?" Roman yells.
"Psh. Questions of 'existence' and 'nonexistence' really aren't relevant where things like Heroic Spirits are concerned, you know?" The Caster says, waving off his concern. "I mentioned Captain Ahab earlier, and you didn't question it, but isn't that guy also a fictional character?"
"No, there's some basis for Ahab's existence - or at least, it's likely that there's someone who matches the role he plays in Melville's novel enough to play the part of 'Captain Ahab'." The Doctor replies. "But something like a Shoggoth…!"
"Well at the end of the day, it was just an illusion, so don't worry too much about it!~" Prelati laughs.
"I guess that makes sense…" Roman mutters. "By the way, you introduced yourself as 'Prelati', right? As in the serial killer who drove Gilles de Rais to insanity? That Prelati?"
"Ahaha… Well, that trial was a total sham." The boy says. "They just wrote up confessions for us and tortured us until we signed them. Pretty much the same as what happened to Jeanne, right?"
"...That's right. Just a few days before we arrived in this singularity, Jeanne d'Arc was executed for heresy. But, she was later canonized as a saint, while Gilles de Rais and Francoi Prelati went down in history as monsters." Mash says.
"Well, that's to be expected. She was falsely accused by an enemy nation. Gilles and I were accused by the state we belonged to. The king could afford to let people show support for someone martyred by allies of the English, but because of the hand his government had in our deaths, any suspicion about our trial was clamped down on pretty hard."
"Mm… I can't say you're wrong." Roman mutters. "But the name Prelati is still pretty infamous in the magical world. I don't know much about her, but apparently she's one of the big players in the American branch of the Mages' Association."
"America, huh…?" I mumble. I investigated America back when I was trying to figure out the cause of [Apocalypse Conflagration], but that was before I learned magic was a thing on Earth. I was going to look into their magic side if the Clock Tower didn't pan out, but… "I never really learned much about their situation."
"I'd love to tell you about it, but it's not really relevant at the moment." The orange-haired man says with a smile. "We'll put a pin in that and come back to it when we start dealing with the American Singularity. For now, we should really focus on the situation in France."
"Good point. I'll try to stay focused for now." I say, nodding. "Prelati, you told us some of what was going on earlier, but considering the whole [Grand Illusion] thing, I'm thinking most of that was a lie, right?"
"Well, a lot of it was true enough at the time. I don't think I lied all that much to you, other than my lies about the origin and size of the Reality Marble." He says coyly. "But I'll go ahead and explain the situation here in Orleans."
"Before that, shouldn't we get the Director involved? Where is she, by the way?" Mash says.
"She… kind of passed out after we lost communication with you guys." Roman says, scratching his head. "I figured it was best to let her get what rest she can, since she hasn't been getting much sleep otherwise - so I went ahead and asked some staff members to bring her to her room. I'll be sure to fill her in after she wakes up, so for now just go ahead and fill us in."
I nod, and Prelati begins his explanation.
"Firstly, as you're all aware, Jeanne d'Arc was executed six days , in this singularity, it seems she returned from the dead to wreak her vengeance upon France - coming back to life and summoning an army of dragons not even three hours after her ashes were scattered on the Seine River." Prelati says. "They've been butchering everyone, man, woman, and child, throughout all of France."
"...That can't be right." Mordred interrupts. "There's no way that woman would do something like that. I met her in the same war that I ran into Siegfried in - I doubt she's even capable of feeling a desire for vengeance. She was that kind of 'saintly' person, after all."
"...Could it be another case like Fuyuki, then?" Roman asks. "A servant being twisted to show their worst side? A desire for vengeance would be understandable…"
"Heh. No, this isn't a case of [Blackening]. Mordred has the right of it. Jeanne was far too insane to have desired vengeance." Prelati replies. "In short, this version of her… well, it's far too tasteful to be a true [Alter]."
"...Tasteful?" I ask. What exactly does he mean by that? What the hell's 'tasteful' about mass murder on this scale?
"Well, you met the corrupted King Arthur in Fuyuki, right? From what I've heard from Baal, she seemed like she had spontaneously become a 'tyrant' at first glance - but knowing Arty, her real motivation had to be along the lines of 'a king doesn't have the luxury to be righteous', or something!~" Prelati says with a grin as Mordred cringes and clenches her fists. "That's how it is for all [Blackened] Servants. If it doesn't break the heart of anyone who loved the original, then it's probably not a real [Alter]."
"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" I say with a scowl, glancing at Mordred's shaking shoulders. "I'll sever our contract if you keep this up, so cut it out."
"Sure, sure~." The boy says with an unrepentant smile. "Anyway, the so-called [Dragon Witch] Jeanne d'Arc is probably a fake of some kind - either an artificial spirit origin created with the grail, or some Servant trying to disguise themselves as her."
I flinch at the mention of a [Witch], but the context on Earth is different than back home, so I can ignore it for now.
"Is that possible? Are there actually Servants like that?" I ask.
"Sure! Just among Heroic Spirits from France, Lancelot du Lac, Arsene Lupin, and Fantomas would all be capable of it! ...Although, I don't actually know if that last one is on the Throne or not." He replies.
"...So it's actually pretty common, huh?" I say.
"I wouldn't call it common, but there are enough Servants capable of pulling it off that speculation is kinda pointless for now." He shrugs. "But, getting us back on track, the Dragon Witch summoned up a bunch of wyverns and the Evil Dragon Fafnir, and they've been running around butchering the populace ever since. I'm pretty sure she's also got some other Servants working for her, though I don't know how much control she actually has over their actions…"
"More Servants? Well, that's to be expected if they're using a Grail, I guess." Romani says. "Do you know who they are?"
"Hm… Well, the Lancer has been telling anyone who will listen that he's Dracula-"
"...The hell's with all these familiar faces from Trifas turning up…?" Mordred mutters.
"...And one of the other Servants on humanity's side spotted the Tarrasque running around with a woman on its back, so-" He concludes.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅-!" Something snarls from deeper into the woods. In the distance, the sounds of trees smashing apart and collapsing grow closer.
"Oh, there he is now." Prelati says as-
"[Lord Chaldeas]!"
-a wildly spinning spiked shell rockets into the chalk wall with the force of a supersonic missile, grinding against it like a ridiculous reptilian buzzsaw.
A/N:
Not super satisfied with this chapter, but it's been over a week. Fuck it, let's do it.
Making infodumps entertaining is hard work. Hopefully this'll take care of that part for at least a little bit...
It's late and I'm tired, so review responses are a problem for future Xorn.