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Rei Of course,I am ignoring the stares the others in the room are giving me and those in the scrying/communication spell above the cards I laid out before me. This . . .this is one thing I had actually thought we would not have to face due to all the safety wards we’d put upon the "cocoons" (for lack of a better term) and the time we still had until all the wounds these now pixie females had suffered healed enough before they awakened. Obviously by the looks of the patterns of changes upon the young teenaged (and still somewhat human) Bazett Fraga McRemitz . . . Sigh, as much as I really DID not want to read the background information for this bloody bedamned place that is a reflection of the Fate/Stay Night video novel (which by the way happens to be a Japanese EROG), that bit of information would have been VERY useful. We’d probably had realized what we’d stumbled across in the other room… "I mean none of the children were splashed with the alchemical solutions the cocoons?" I ask again, probing when the figures on the screen either give me a blank stare or look at each other. A few smaller/younger female pixies do NOT fly into view provides all the answers I need, just the tennage Brazzet who’d been tagged. Bad enough but with this business of transformation? The risk of Matrix shattering and insanity is NO joke and a terrible thing to have happen to those younglings we had just RESCUED. I’m glad that I was honor bound in ending those dark lives for what they’d planned on doing to the young girls. Yes, as part of the "upper crust" of Terra Prime my rank may have privilege, but it also has obligations, EVEN IN OTHER parts of the multiverse. Little girls are NOT spell components and I wasn’t going to let such scum run around after all this Quest business was said and done, unpunished. I saw enough and HAD enough foul things done to in the bowels of NERV to last a lifetime and a half and I will NOT have it happen around me any MORE! I now have the means of doing something about it and no longer have excuse of being drugged into a compliant/naive state Sigh, such monsters were too dangerous to let loose. God only knows what they’d do in their little demented quest for the Grail even IF we’d told them the danger. Doubt they’d listen or believe us. Doubt it wouldn’t have even stopped the, the original price the Grail asked for in granting a wish. It the thing about the Nasu story franchise: too dark. It was the very reason when I saw a child being KILLED by one of the main villains in the Fate Stay Night series why I refused to watch any MORE of that vile story. Still, despite having read the guidebook to the story, I do not have clue ONE as to why the teenage Brazette was h It’s why I and the others have been so on EDGE since arriving here. If nothing else that we’d learned (if we’d not already KNOWN beforehand) that this place . . . is VERY dark indeed. Unjust. Unjust and if left unchecked would lead to more and more . . . . . . Rin, being the Second Land Owner here might disagree about me handing out justice like that, but I have . . .moral authority. She may disagree. Hell, YOU the reader might disagree but . . .if people like the ones we’d put down earlier are left alone they inadvertently will continue on with their disregard towards others. Kill and destroy others without regard, eventually having even MORE reason to be put down (and others being left with questions as to WHY nobody had stopped them earlier to prevent the suffering of those who’d lost loved ones to madmen). . . . I’m glad that my Gendo Ikari and his SEELE cohorts are gone and dead.
Nevermind, I still have much to discuss with the children and pixies here instead of getting sidetracked. Yes, I see that the alchemical bath we’d been using to heal up the wounded got splattered over more than a few people here (and probably was in the process of finishing what it started with our young teenage girl child-sitter here). "I-I . . .we didn’t know!" one of the pixie Bazett shouts, waving her hands as if to placate. "We found ourselves in a dark, tight place and . . .!" "You panicked and naturally drew upon your powers to free yourself," I finish. "And in the process of freeing yourselves you splashed now supercharged alchemical brine on your youngest sister there, causing her . . .condition." Why is it that I seem to be putting everyone on edge? I’m projecting my emotions psionically again, aren’t I? Me and my sisters, that would be explaining everything right now. Why everyone else here from the Nasu verse is so somewhat out of sorts when they are around us. I hate it when that happens but that has been known to HAPPEN to me and my sisters when we’re REALLY upset. And we’ve seen so much crap today (pardon my language) that I KNOW we’re upset enough for that, despite trying to NOT let it get to us. Basically, with the inherent psychic nature leftover from our time as Nelphin we sometimes have a habit of letting everyone around us know that we are UNHAPPY and because of our psychic nature (if not muzzled with great effort when VERY upset), NOBODY IS going to be happy around us! On edge… "They’re good but the whole thing upset them for a bit," the young teenage woman sighs, shaking her head slightly. "At least the charms you left behind has arrested any further transfiguration I see," I comment, trying to be comforting. "Good! I and Medea had hoped it would work if needed but without actually TESTING it out on somebody beforehand there was no real way of being perfectly sure it would correctly work there." Hopefully it will last enough for us to get back and possibly fix that. Nasty business, having the young women being transformed due to a side effect of the healing elixers made from MY branch of magery and that Celtic Noble Phantasm of theirs: Fragarach. Being that Celtic myth at least has some connections to Fairy lore lead to THIS, I only have to worry about what all this magicks that have been cast upon Saber Alter to reverse her condition back to just being Saber (of the Heaven’s Feel path). There are . . . connections still to that empty human shell that Servant Saber (all of them) have. What kind of side effects will befall that shell before it gets "re-souled" again before this night is done if my newest friend’s Quest works out as we need it to here… Saber has a problem with her equipment. Excalibur was forged by the Faerie of her world. Her "nameless sheath" that (which is named Avalon in the Nasu franchise for some bloody reason) was forged by the Faerie and unlike the now transformed Fraga sisters, she’d practically slept with either one or both for a good majority of her life, being EXPOSED to it’s eldritch magicks. The Fraga fairies became pixies with just a smaller exposure (by comparision) to the Fey’s magicks. What could the poor young female King become upon awakening due to all of what’s been happening to what the Caster sisters did in order to free Saber from being a dark parody, I wonder. I really wonder.. "Just as long as you don’t try to force becoming a Faire Folk against her wishes we will be fine," I smile slightly, pushing my worries to the side. "Just hopefully I and the rest here and can actually reverse . . ." "What is this?" Rin interrupts my speech, voice sounding rather rough from being rather upset (as witness from her rather puffy eyes from crying). Rider is patting her on the back, still looking appropriately contrite for having (albeit unintentionally) upsetting Rin with the . . .unwelcome news about her sister. Sakura of her timeline/path apparently had been tight lipped about her abuse state even AFTER the Holy Grail War had been over and done with. Still… "I didn’t get to that far before she stormed over to interrupt," Medusa confessed, more than a bit bemused by the whole situation. Medusa (aka Rider of Fate/Stay Night) Oh Gods and Goddess of Olympus, this is HARDLY the way I expected things to go at all! I mean surely Sakura would have . . . . . . No. No, she wouldn’t and didn’t do that, did she? Too ashamed of being "tainted" and "dirty". "Defiled". I wanted to . . .have words with her sister for having allowed it, even IF it was "legit" business between Mage families. I mean surely she should have known, being the Second Land Owner of this town and . . .I forget just how secretive the Magi of this time are of their magicks, even with their "allies". I thought she was a monster. No, she was at worst. . . willfully blind. Obviously, the sister here had not understood just how vile and EVIL the elder Matou could be with Sakura. I myself would NOT have even thought the term "training in the family magicks" would entail the violations… "Look, before we go on let’s cut to the chase shall we?" Rei sighed, giving a slightly disgruntled sigh. "We need to rescue your sister as well as her alternates—including the child version of your sister which was running around during the Fourth Grail War—since ALL of them are the Black Grail that Sakura’s ‘grandfather’ made her into by one way or another. . . " "And one of Rei’s and Princess Medea’s viable options at rescuing what remains of humanity of this world is using them and the other Lesser Grails to . . .," I pause for a second seeing the alarmed looks from various people here. "They’re able to transplant a viable replacement hearts, even in homunculi and especially in humans. They’d be alive and unharmed by the process." "And even IF you ignore that Rei and her sisters here are Mages that are able to break my magical infatuation with that slime Jason," Cas. .. er . . .Princess Medea adds from the side, passionately. "I do seem to recall something about myself and my sister do happen to hale from so called vaunted ‘Time of the Gods’ and that means if nothing else we have the means to help!" "More like the ‘Time of the Great Fakers’," mutters one of the other Caster sisters (cannot tell which from which). I only know that Princess Medea over to the side of Lilith is the ‘original’ and technically would have been the one who’d ascended to the Throne of Heroes. Of which my ‘original’ self is now somewhere on this world alive again and with my sisters . . . Sigh, this whole business had been strange even BEFORE now, what with me being Servant Rider, a ‘copy’ created from the original Medusa from the Throne of Heroes. Now, we have the originals walking again on the Earth as well. And my ‘original’ siblings being amongst the living as well. Sthenno and Euryale. What am I going to SAY to them?! After what I did to them? Me consuming them while I was in my monstrous form when they sacrificed themselves in the . . . the vain hope that it would have cured me of my rampant insanity at that point? Oh uncaring Gods, what am I going to say?! "And may I add that at any time Princess Medea could have taken OVER each and every Servant Saber here if she’d had half a mind to do such," Rei deadpanned. "We’d had perfect opportunities to do it during the times both they and the Shirou brothers were knocked out from the Doppelganger reactions, eh? Ah, true enough that I must admit now that I recall what Medea’s dagger there—Rule Breaker—can do to a Servant’s bond: severe the old and bind it to herself (making her their new Master). Though . . .how would even a Magus from the Age of the Gods be able to afford the prana drain it would put on them, multiple Servants? More than one could easily drain a Magus dry and kill them. Uh, actually that has been bothering me. Something about this arrangement hasn’t been making much sense here. I understand that with multiple Servant and multiple versions of those Servants Masters have been fueling those Servants, by all logic the way the ritual of the Heaven’s Feel, the magicks that allowed Servants to be summoned in the first place meant even "alternate path" versions of the same Master should not make it possible to give other Servants commands. Yet, not only did Ilya of the Fate/Stay Night path manage to command every OTHER "alternate path" versions of Berserker of the Fifth, but also the Berserker of the Fourth Grail War as well! That means that Lilith will have little to no problems to bring my alternate Path versions of myself to heel with that Book of False Attendent. Why even ask me how best approach them to avoid bloodshed and misunderstanding?! Just command them and . . . Gods, I’m a FOOL! Lilith barely can stand ME calling her Master and practically ordered me to NEVER call her that after a few times there. It’s NOT who she is, she and her sisters. . . . There is a story behind that. Maybe their Legend, or whatever passes for it as a Champion? I believe I will have to VERY soon corner Archer here soon and get a few answers from him about that since he seems to know something about them from the way he reacts to them. That is. . . if they do not feel like sharing themselves if I ask. That is actually a valid options. Not like they’re actual Servants summoned to fight in the Grail War. But whatever the case for later, I can happily say that everyone (who is awake and had been alarmed) is no longer alarmed. It will be a few moments before all the Ilya sisters and . . .Shirou brothers will awaken. Gods and Goddesses only know how long we have before this Diety/whatever known as Aslan will send us back. It might be before they wake up and that Talking Lion did say something in passing about having to wait for Rei to finish this briefing business and a VERY important person wishing to speak with one of my group… Why did I just feel myself shiver at the last part there? "Now, that said that said let me introduce ourselves, shall we?" Rei said, with a slight trace of . . . being put upon for having to do this YET AGAIN. In an almost terse voice Rei quickly does a rundown to the blinking fairy women and their still human. . .ish younger sister from the Fate/Zero (aka Fourth Grail War version). And learning about what those little girls had been slated for there and seeing their faces through that . . . . . . If Rei had not killed those monsters who’d summoned the Caste sister originally I would have tracked them down and done it myself. "But as an aside I cannot say how I got kidnapped and placed with the girls here for those bast . . .those monsters to use as spell components! The last memory I have was practicing my fighting styles in the dojo and next I’m being shaken awake by Medea and Reika there." the still (somewhat) human Fraga teen sighed, gesturing to herself. "Why would they want me? I finished being a little girl here a bit ago, ya know! I mean while I have yet a few years from being an adult there is no bloomin’ way you’d be able to call me a ‘little girl’ here, eh?" While modest compared to my figure, I do dare say that she rather . . .healthy for such a young teenage girl. Not bad actually… Some of the older (and more worldly of the young girls giggle at the Fraga girl’s antics), the younger ones look at each other asking what is so funny. Ah, innocence…how I curse how Athena for tearing that away from me in the end! Or . . .rather the "stand in/avatar" Athena who’d done that to me if Medea is right here. Gone off to fight in some kind of monstrous war to safe a Dark Tower from being destroyed by the Anti-life or some such. . . . There it is again, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end… "Oh, and sorry about that noise you might have heard earlier there outside the building!" Rei smiles at the girls who are looking back at her adorably. "It was just a small misunderstanding with Hercules here which we got sorted out. See you soon!" The smile fades quickly as her mask falls away, turning back to the rest of us as the scrying spell fades. "Now something I didn’t want to frighten the children about here," Rei frowns, drawing up a chart of all things. What, we’re going to have some kind of slide show presentation now? What brought THIS on now? "We have three basic plans here which could have been mixed and matched to meet needs," Rei continues, unaware (or uncaring) of the questions I have on the tip of my tongue. "That is at least until the unexpected inclusion of both Saber Zero and Lancelot the "Knight of the Lake", and then the least painful option was off the table." My, I’ve been rather . . .talkative ever since meeting these Champions. Usually, I am more stoic….and . . . "Well shit," I find myself muttering, seeing what I don’t like here. John Quatermain "Ah man," I mutter lamely to myself. "That just blows chunks!" Yeah, I am new to this magic stuff since the closest thing I ever came before meeting Talking Lions and certain winged anime chicks who used to pilot giant robots was Dungeons and Dragons. And not even the Advanced version of the game, the really basic and old school kit. It was fun and good, but hardly stuff you’d be wanting to use with dealing with the things that Rei and the other deal with regularly, much less the grim dark CRAP that these people from Fate/Stay Night have to deal with here! I mean God damn! Rape worms. RAPE worms! . . . Oh and let us not forget these Apostle Ancestor freak jobs which are basically super vampire Dracula types which NOBODY (especially ME when Rei passed it along to me about them) wants to deal with at all! Basic rule of thumb in dealing with them: run away and pray to whatever gods you believe in they don’t notice you!! Which there aren’t supposed to be any in the Fate/Stay Night storyline but this is only a world (or what is LEFT of it) that reflects it . . .kinda. Rei said something about things not quiet synching up with what she read in that book of hers from her dead friend. Yeah, and didn’t she not really want to break into her old friends stuff that she’d been just planning on originally just somehow getting it back to Earth (well, the Earth that her friend came from here) and give it back to the surviving family. Last wishes and tradition and such. Rin, you’re going to getting an earful here if you keep pushing Rei’s buttons here about not having reading a book (or a whole set of them) that may or may not have been pertinent (or even halfway useful) in this Quest. Besides this being her old dead friends stuff that would only bring back sad memories of what was lost, there is the angle that these kinds of books are gonnna deal with some pretty PERSONAL and secretive stuff that people like Rin isn’t going to like others (like Rei) knowing. I know enough about Japanese Adult video novels. I’m betting that just Rin alone here has all sorts of little fetish quirks here that Japanese young teens would just eat up. Or at least her video game version would have them. This Rin here might be as straight and proper as you can find or she might be even more kinky, but either way she would not like what her video game counterpart would have revealed (or slandered with if false when compared to the "real" Rin). Yeah, she looks like an anime character but . . .she’s got the presence of a real person. She IS a real person so. . . .yeah. And I don’t want to go into the snit that "Saber" might go into over state secrets or personal stuff that can get your head chopped off by the king for knowing and blabbing about. She might not be King Arthur (female or not) any more of Camelot, but she still deserves . . .respect. Yeah, actually she does at that. I’d say the same for Lancelot here but I get the feeling that Rei thinks less of the guy for having cheated with Saber’s wife. Even . . .if it is kinda weird that Saber had been a woman (and it being rather OBVIOUS she was a woman and not a half bad looking one from the way she was . . .drawn). Or whatever. She really Isn’t an anime character but a real person. Ah, you know what I mean. I’m just saying that even though the marriage was basically a sham (a "political" marriage) where they never did the stuff needed to seal the deal (unless that Camelot was more like a Japanese erog where girl on girl was allowed by the Church and all that). Don’t see that happening here so Lancelot cheated with the Queen despite vows to King and country. We all know how THAT ended and while the Queen had a part in this betrayal and Rei obviously knows that but knows that Lancelot also was part of the betrayal so . . .yeah. But the thing here is that . . .with his inclusion in the mix or original hoped for plan (which was iffy at best even at the get go) is just a NO go. I don’t know exactly how they got the magical unicorn horn they’d have used to power what they’d piece together to perform a super teleport away to safety for everyone on this world. It broken off from some kind of unicorn queen/mage from . . .get this! From "My Little Pony"! But it was an EVIL version of that girl show which had gone all Nazi fascist on Rei’s group on some deal which was getting done to save my and some other version of Earth there earlier. She’d grabbed it before zapping out of there in the end, after winning enough breathing room to escape (with the Master) and only realized how powerful of magic could be cast with it while recouping in a borrowed TARDIS. We (or rather the magic users of the group) had been able to concoct this idea of how much magic oomph was needed to teleport away everyone on Rin’s world to safety. It was doable by the power in that unicorn queen horn, they said with the qualifier that not too many Servants get woken up from the trance dance (or whatever) scripted combat/encounters they’d been repeating and repeating for years upon centuries here until we came along. Even with Berserker (all of them) and the others chasing us around we’d still been under budget. Though I should add that in the rush of things we’d been more worried about NOT GETTING KILLED by Berserker than accidently running into another Servant and not noticing. Hey, with all the stuff we had been doing and dodging, it was VERY possible we’d gone and missed noticing running too close to a Servant and waking them up as well, it was THAT bad. That was why Rei and her sisters were kinda hush hush about revealing too much out in the clear back there earlier. There was this one Servant from the Fourth Grail War who was a Caster who Rei said was a French guy some nicknamed named Blue Beard in the story Fate/Zero. Now, I didn’t know that that pirate could ever be casting magic or was into sorcery when he was terrorizing the seven seas, much less that he’d bene French but being that I was prepping for not only surviving a nuclear was but a war against genocidal robots. Sue me. I am just saying that ol’ Blue here isn’t the kind of guy you want to get ideas from overhearing things we don’t want him to hear!! Archer? Him showing up? Still under budget. All the Sabers (including Saber Zero)? Under budget, but barely. Lancelot popping out of thin air because he passed too close to us (and getting suborned by Ilya’s commanding him to accidentally to "calm down" and out of his Berserker state) was the deal breaker. He woke up. He got added to the equation and it BrOKE the vain hopes we’d had. Kind of why she’d been kind of . . .well . . .terse with him in the end. That and her being obligated by Japanese custom to use his family name than personal name earlier there went a bit to being to look terse (or terser than what she really was trying to be). It’s just a fucked up mess. Now, we have to go entirely with plan B. Unless we are FORCED to go with plan C. Plan B? Well, it still involves that unicorn horn. However, it involve shit that’s . . .kinda sick. Yeah, I mean I mentioned how I was really against how the "Holy Grail" summoned for making wishes and all that reaching the Root shit? … Fuck, there isn’t one THING HOLY about that damn cup in the end, even before it got corrupted. What is WRONG with these Magus freaks?! At least Rin and Shirou here? They’re good as far as I can tell. And . . . kinda Shirou’s father as well, though at first he was all "ice man" and shit until he registered his wife and daughter were here. Then the ice broke and with a LOT of crying, begging forgiveness, and hugging there was an actual PERSON under all the ice and shit. Oh, and Ilya’s mom is fine (and I’m not saying just fine looking). I mean at first when I learned that she was willingly going into this War knowing that she’d die when the actual wishing Grail got summoned seemed nuts enough to me at first. That was, until I learned about not only were homoculus people like her fated to short lives (at least this version of the Fate/Stay Night homoculus according to Ilya when it came up in conversation), but unless Ilya’s mother performed and succeeded then Ilya would have (well actually did) become fated to being the "Lesser Grail" (a summoning item/thing) to summon the "Greater Grail" (a cup that granted a wish). Meaning that Ilya’s mom was a human sacrifice for getting a wish granting machine for douche bags under the threat of having her daughter being forced into the same position if she should fail (or run). That and really wanting to help her husband grant his wish: world peace. … Okay that does sound noble and cool but after seeing the stuff what my wife (as well as her sisters) had been created to actually do there with Instrumentality? Uh, no. Instrumentality meant that nobody on Earth would ever be alone again. It would grant world peace and happiness. That was what my wife and her sisters had been sold on (those who’d hadn’t been lied totally about and instead were told the Eva Units were to only defend humanity against those Angel alien things which would kill every last person on Earth if Rei and the other Pilots didn’t stop them). I can see to many ways how "world peace" would be a nightmare that this Magus Killer guy wouldn’t want at all. I mean "world peace" could mean "peace of the grave" easily here. Probably DID mean just such thing with the corruption of the Grail here. I’ve run under some . . .DMs who’d had ideas for campaigns which . . .are much worse than that which could have happened here and leave at that. . . . Man those DMs had been really creepy. And Ilya sisters? Well, the one we’d first met was decent enough (and shocked enough at what she’d almost done with us through Berserker). The others? Well, they’re . . . I think Ilya’s turning the other one around there to her point of view about her brother? I’m thinking she’s more in shock at everything but will turn out okay in the end if her sister is anything to go by. Heh as for the others who’d just dropped in on us out of thin air? The ones that got dragged along with us somehow by Aslan when he was scrying for us and dragging us back to safety (and inadvertently interrupting our Quest here)? Hey, I’m . . .hopeful we’ll be able to sort things out here with them before they panic upon waking up and having to deal with Berserker going . . .berserk on us again. I worry because Rei says she’d been feeling somebody scrying on us right before we’d encountered Saber Zero and Ilya’s mother there. You do remember that while Saber Zero had gone down like a chump due to how doppleganger reactions seems to be working on her (and ordinary human beings)? That is okay but when Ilya’s mother had seen us with her kid she’d gone . . .all mother wolf on us and was going to try to KILL us with spellfire. I mean probably the spellwork wouldn’t have hurt US, being that Champions are similar enough to Servants in how strong we are and ordinary humans (and magus kind) cannot hope to defeat a Servant all alone (a Servant/Heroic Spirit must be used to fight a Servant/Heroic Spirit). Rei and the rest of us were NOT going to risk it though. It might have managed something bad with us. It might have hit Rin and Shirou instead and killed them. She got shot with a stun blast from one of the ray guns we have. And if Shirou who was there WITH us and should have known what our energy rayguns can actually do in a fight didn’t catch on to the things being on stun? Well, I believe that a far viewer like the Ilya sisters who’d popped out of thin air, not having caught the full details of our weapons might think we’d gone and just KILLED the poor lady!! Being in her shoes, I’d be . . .ready to kill us for that. Definite ill will at least. Ah, and with that cheery thought I’ll tell you that Plan B, which would have been used just in case Plan A somehow missed a few people. Don’t know how such a thing could be POSSIBLE by the way Rei had described it. Hey, just had a though: maybe part of the spell would have been a dud for some teleporting of the peoples leavings a need for Plan B. Heh, Rei’s thorough. Too bad it didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped. Well, thorough or not since things happened the way they happened instead of how we’d HOPED for we’re now stuck with Plan B. I remember in the bull session--the mental speaking kind we’d been having here between ourselves to keep it from being overheard by folk like Blue Beard--the idea was that a viable Plan B could have been powered by . . .well, by the hearts we would remove (AND transplanting in replacements) from the Lesser Grails (aka the Ilya sisters and Irisviel) and the Black Grails (all of the Sakuras). Now while we are stuck with Plan B because Plan A cannot be super-charged with . . .er . . Grail hearts as it were (spellwork for "Plan A" being incompatible), the same can’t be said for Plan B and leave at that if we really NEED to push the issue and leave at that for just now. As for Plan C . . . . Oh no… Just no. Oh, it will WORK an probably actually is the easiest of the three plans, but what it will DO to the actual people it’ll rescue? I mean the stories that Fred tells about what the small version of what this Plan does to a person isn’t good to say something. Oh, they’re "rescued" and they’ll be able to live the rest of their lives in a "probably" a safer place than this world, but being how changed some of Fred’s brothers (and . . .er . . .now sisters) are having been exposed to that magic? No, it would almost be almost like killing them and replacing them with different people. Yeah, making new people out of the remains of the old ones doesn’t sit well here with me or anyone ELSE here by any stretch of the imagination. Rin in particular looks like she wants to say something REALLY heated here about it, only to pause with a VERY strange look on her face as if something just clicked here for her.
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10/11/2016 6:39:19 PM
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