Are you good with that?

"It been too . . .long." the fairy finishes, with a haunted look on her youthful-looking face.

A few explanations by psionic means and moments later...

Kiritsugu Emiya

"The Rule . . .the Entity that served as the gatekeeper to this world only now allowed Champions to enter," Rei begins simply. Verbally.

And if it wasn't for Rei being who she actually IS, I would have said such a late entry into things was proof positive that that Rule (and "Unenlightened" Rule or something akin to that), was TOTALLY out to kill everyone with the Quest failing.

I mean, I should have thought of that when Rei had mentioned to me in passing (quietly) that this Quest was b*ggered from the get-go, what with almost getting into a confrontation with a GREEK goddess of all things!!

Even IF Rei had won, that goddess was close enough to a Heroic Spirit that the Holy Grail would have attempted to absorb it. But the attempt would have been lethal to the Grail System, from what I recall Old Man Atch told me about that cursed thing.

Hadn't given it enough thought at the time because I had been too enraged at Rei's group, believing that they had revealed my affair with APPRENTICE to really think anything good about her.

Then I learned that my wife had not only KNOWN all along about it. Not only had even given approval to Maiya over this affair, saying that Maiya would be there to carry on after my wife had died. Not only that but had babbled at great length to Rei's group before tracking me down.

Some kind of nervous confession/borderline nervous almost breakdown, she said. Her self control, even though Self Hypnosis is slipping. Stress is getting to her.

And . . .it is getting to me, if I am not careful. Damn near flew off the handle to track down and kill that damn priest for what he's done, even though I had KNOWN that Gilgamesh was still around!

It goes without saying a mere human being cannot defeat a normal Heroic Spirit, and Gilgamesh is NOT even close to normal!!

. . .

The next part is done in mental communications like what I had only read in the story. Almost like what I had with my Servant, but something a bit different and leave at that. Glad to see it no longer is like having rusty nails scrap across a blackboard inside your skull, thank YOU!!

Sill, what comes to light after that...is worrying enough. But at least we have the very Champion that had basically changed the course of the Master's fate, to not put a too fine point on it. If SHE can do that for him, then we at least stand a chance HERE, sandbagging Rule or not!!

By the Root! We never knew for sure exactly WHAT SEX exactly what the Master's Champion employer had been. A running joke was when he attempted to describe the employer? Was always a distraction or an interruption. Sometimes the story cuts to a description of somebody who was male and COULD be the employer. Could have been female, and the employer. Ages and even hair color . . .

Okay, looking at Rei's group I see why such a broad range of color, age, and gender. The Master was talking about Rei and her group!!

...

I . . .never actually was the biggest fan--despite appearance-- or the most avid reader of "The Master Chronicles"--a tale of an evil time travelling HUMAN APPEARING alien called a Time Lord turning . . .not exactly a hero. Not exactly a KNIGHT IN SHINING armor hero, but more of an anti-hero. A thing that wasn't really a thing in the reality that the Master haled from, really since it turned out to be an entirely Earth human concept which the REST of the more "enlightened" and "developed" universe at large turned up their noses at. Just like all OTHER things that haled from the "unfashionable" corner of the Master's "Whoniverse".

Which . . .given what the Master revealed in passing about "his" version of Earth was understandable. That version of humanity was more of a funhouse mirror version of what my version of humanity (and probably your version of humanity). NO! Actually, it was worse by far, more like a parody of a funhouse mirror version. In just one example, his insights of that sickly sweet soft and ultimately DEADLY drink some soda mogul known as John-Caleb Bradberton made!

Who in their right mind would THINK adding radioactive material to a soda drink and just calling it a marketable idea due to its blue glow? I mean due to further Time Lord interference in human development there than what is shown later in OTHER realities visit turned what could be termed a "failed noble" into what could only be seen as the butt of some cosmic joke!

Why the unnamed Champion . . .Rei Takahashi would have HIRED the Master to save that Earth I have to question seriously! I mean it opened up door previously closed to the Master (nobody really TRUSTED him until then), but . . .

But I am getting sidetracked. Unexpected revelations or not, we still have the BIGGER danger here: a whole gaggle of Fairies who's combined magical powers could utterly RUIN our day if we're not careful here.

Rei, Rei's group, and the Servants are pretty much safe due to Magic Resistance and the like. Us "mere mortals"? Not so much. I had been standing back earlier due to not wishing to be too near any of the Sabers, given the overt hostility they still have towards me. Not going to draw attention my and my wife's way now. Too dangerous, really!

Well, at least Rei knows that and is VERY quick to answer this obviously distraught (but somewhat simple-minded) fairy woman--who happens to have been at one time Vivian/The Lady of the Lake--and so we can get to our immediate of the goal of getting OUT of Camelot and back to Fuyuki.

We need to get them back so they can get whatever magical ceremony that involves a pre-teenage girl's heart (which will be replaced by an ARTIFICIAL heart) as a component.

Somehow, though they haven't said anything about it this group of Champions is REALLY pushing for us to be over and done with this business. And given that asshole Rule in charge of this particular universe . . .I cannot blame them!

But as it turns out just why Vivian is now just a rather . . .er. . . .childish fairy woman than the well-spoken (and POWERFUL) sorcerous woman fairy of Arthurian Legend is REALLY the thing that makes you stand back and take notice. There are reasons for this.

One, these fairies have been AWARE of time passing despite everyone else being caught up in this eldritch time-warping going on here but were still sane because they were too simple-minded and hedonistic to be overwhelmed before a Champion (or something akin) comes and saves them all. That or what apparently was a backup plan (or something that would facilitate a Champion's Quest to save my world): the creation of a Fairy Queen!

Vivian and all the remaining fairies of Camelot got together to watch over Saber's sleeping mortal shell not only to guard it but to perform a magical ritual that would (once completed) indue the transformed woman with all but a small pittance (comparatively speaking) of magick power into the woman. Not only would the Once and Future (She) King be a Fairy Queen. Not only that, but it will make her the most POWERFUL one anybody I could name in human history has ever seen!

"Best this way," Vivian finishes. "Be too stupid even then! Always worried 'bout how pretty I be. Want nice, pretty magic dresses. Look pretty but not have-have pretty enough mind o' somthin'! New Fairy Queen be pretty enough in brain to do something I can't do."

The last part is said in a small murmur, a look of absolute self-loathing rather looking out of place on what had been a bubbly and cheerful fairy girl.

1. "Are you good with that?" Rei asks the until now silent human woman known as King Arthur, King of the Brits.

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