All Purpose Negima Fanfiction Thread

Dozens of gigantic machines converging at a single point buzzed and growled loudly, drilling through the thick layers of ice covering the frozen wasteland. Standing aside overlooking the operation, a woman in full body protection armor waited, her hands on her hips, her beautiful face barely visible through the visor of her sealed helmet. The armor, while dense and heavy, was far from being clunky, and still showed rather nicely the curves hidden underneath it, but none of the few men operating the machines was thinking about that now, much less the robots aiding them and actually handling the bulk of the labor.

The wind howled and blew furiously all around them, matching the woman’s sour mood as she looked down, at what the crew had just unearthed. It was the wreckage of some sort of old, modest structure, mostly built of rotten wood barely kept in any recognizable state of conservation by the sub zero temperatures. She squinted at the remains, eyeing them critically. “I don’t think this is it,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “It’d have to be bigger.”

“It’s the best match we’ve found so far,” said the young man in the same type of armor standing by her side, with his arms folded and shuddering even through the many layers separating him from the wrath of the elements. “I have a good feeling about this, Director.”

“If you say so,” she said, almost as coldly as the day itself, taking a moment to look into the distance, nothing but shredded reminders from better days scattered all across the dead landscape. “But it’d better pay off. Nightfall’s less than two hours away, and if we aren’t done by then—“

“Look!” the tall young man suddenly gasped, voice almost positively giddy, and definitely thrilled in any case, actually reaching over to touch her arm and tug on it. She sneered and yanked the arm back, since she disliked being touched, but all the same followed the excited pointing of her subordinate as he gestured towards the site of the excavation. “They’ve just reached the basement!”

“Well, that was fast,” she observed, squinting again to try and get a better look through the blizzard. “Then again, it wasn’t much of a cabin to begin with. Is that-“

“It has to be,” he reverently breathed out as one of the long mechanic arms digged through the rubble, gently capturing a small, stained container shaped like a bottle, holding onto its slippery surface with the help of sticky foam it had just segregated for such purpose. With extreme caution, the precise mechanism lifted the relic from the platform where it had been placed nearly one century ago, bringing it back from the complete darkness and up into the relative light of the gray, stormy afternoon blanketing the thundra. “I can’t believe it, it’s survived without even a scratch on it…!”

“Good,” the young woman approved, nodding as the cranes brought the bottle up, so it stood on even eye level with her. She allowed herself a harsh smile through the visor. “I wouldn’t expect less from Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell. Now let’s see if the contents match the recipient.”

—-

Kinoko Nasu and Type-Moon created and own Fate Grand Order.

Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha created and own Mahou Sensei Negima!

I make no monetary gain from this piece of fan-fiction work. Any similarities between the characters, events and institutions depicted in this story and any real life counterparts is naught but a freak coincidence.

—-

Fate: Executive Order.

—-

Fujimaru Gudako had never seen a Servant. Oh, she had heard all about them, during the long and grueling study sessions, during the nights spent up studying to no apparent avail. She had been a bad learner in that she had been unable to carry most of her theoretical studies into any sort of practical applications, but that hadn’t meant she had never tried. Her Magic Circuits were simply subpar, her teachers had estimated, before moving on, leaving her aside to focus on her more gifted classmates. After that, her will deflated, she had, indeed, turned into more of a slacker, barely pulling any weight in the Organization, but even then, her disilusionement had never made her lose her sense of wonder at the mere idea of the Servants. She had kept on dreaming for the day when she would finally first meet one in the flesh, even if they were not hers to summon.

Now she had actually done it, she… was not sure about the results. On one hand, she had achieved a full materialization from all the gathered relics, something that greatly impressed the Director herself, if her muted yet loud gasp over the speakers had been any indication. No one had expected for Gudako to pull a full house, and if anything most of the previsions barely predicted her to be able to summon a single Servant. All the same, the Director had decided gambling, and commanded for all relics to be deployed before Gudako at the same time.

Doctor Roman and Professor Lev had objected, but they had been overruled. Despite all of her prior objections to Gudako’s stay in the program, the Director now had banked everything on her performance, and so she’d been alone within the sealed chamber, standing before the collection of artifacts, most of them old cards with dulled edges and fading colors. However, there also were a few spliters of wood, a rusty old knife, some shreds of what Gudako had been told had once been a racy black negligee, the handle of a broken mallet, some decaying rope, a fragment of a skull made of metal, and a shattered white hair ornament. All in all, they just looked like a random assortment of worthless household junk, and even smelled as such, too. All the same, Gudako had wanted to believe on them, and so she’d stepped forward, closing her eyes while applying the razor’s edge on the flesh of her arm, and swiftly cutting, ignoring the sharp pain while chanting solemnly the centuries-old invocation.

Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my Fate rest in thy blade. If thou submittest to the call of the Holy Grail and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond. I make my oath here. I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heavens. I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades. Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words, come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance!"''

Her blood had dripped into the small container at her feet, which had then pumped it so it would flow around the recipients for each relic. A lot of blood was necessary, and so Gudako kept on cutting herself, drawing more and more of the fluid of life out, ready to sacrifice herself if needed. Her resolve never faltered, even if the doubts were already nagging at her by mid chanting. This was her purpose in life, to bring forth a hero who would bring hope back, and if she failed again, it wouldn’t be for a lack of trying this time, either. Then again, if she failed, then all would be lost, so it was not like—

“Fujimaru-kun,” she had heard the Director say then, after a few of the mentioned gasps, her cold and confident voice finally betraying some uncertainty. “You can stop now. I believe… you have just done it.”

And so, the slim, orange haired girl had opened her eyes again, and this takes us back to the point where she wasn’t all that sures he had succeeded. For, while she had apparently summoned a full lineup of the team of heroes she had been tasked with invoking, a feat nobody in the history of magicraft had ever come close to achieving, the Servant at the head of the group, the one who now held the bandaged staff where only splinters had been moments ago, was a few heads shorter than the great mage of legend she had read about.

“I am Servant Caster,” the short boy with dark red hair told her, lifting his all too cute face to look at Gudako’s, large round eyes quietly shimmering behind tiny spectacles. “I ask you, would you be my Master?”

Despite not getting the tall man she had expected to see, any measure of success still thrilled Gudako greatly, and so she nodded with almost frantic giddy glee, holding back a confusing mixture of emotions that threatened to make her cry. “I… I am, yes! My, my name is Gudako, how do you do, Caster…”

The Director was heard sighing through the interlink before calmly speaking from the control panel above them, “Welcome to the Chaldea Security Organization. I am Director Olga Marie Animusphere, your Master’s absolute hierarchic superior, and thus from this point you answer to me as well. Please state your Classes, Ala Alba.”

At this precise and unmistakable order, most of the assembled Servants, who were just a second ago blinking back to living awareness from the mysterious beyond from which they had been brought, looked at each other with reactions ranking from puzzlement to annoyance, and several seemed ready to outright demand for an explanation on the subject before deigning to answer, which was something fairly unusual for a summoned Heroic Spirit. However, one of them spoke before any of the others could, stepping ahead boldly, past the small, suddenly flinching Caster. She looked up, past the containment walls and reinforced glass ceiling of the summon chamber, to stare into the command panel over them, and the silver haired beautiful girl in the flattering formal suit who had just addressed the collective.

Gudako knew of this one, as her legend was the most enduring from all of them, even moreso than Caster’s. While a virtual unknown to mundanes, her tale had been a long standing cautionary tale among mages and Magi alike, and Gudako shuddered when she spoke, desspite her petite and frail appearance. Clad in the skimpy black negligee formed from the shreds, and nothing else, the green eyed golden blonde hissed her challenge, her youthful voice surprisingly filled with bitter toxin.

“Let’s start by making something very clear, Girl,” the tiny barefooted terror said, in a tone that briefly made Olga Marie ponder, for once, if she had erred. “Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell, the Everliving Horror, the Daywalker Witch, the Emissary of Darkness, answers to none but herself. It would seem my assigned Class is Temptress, if that pleases your childish curiosity, but that doesn’t mean I will give you any kiss but that of death, should you happen to insult me any further.”

A very pretty girl with very long red twintails, holding on a gigantic sword easily taller than herself, chuckled, her eyes, one emerald green and the other clear blue, cagily half-closed. There were tiny golden bells holding the twintails in place, too, and all of that told Gudako everything she needed to know about her. “Everliving, huh? Then tell me, Tempress-chan, how come you’re here in the first place, hmmm?”

“Shut up, Kagurazaka,” Temptress snarled back at her over a shoulder. “A Saber, I assume? Logical, as if you’d ever be good for anything but waving a sword around.”

“Hey, don’t knock it, everyone knows Sabers are the best, right, Director-san?” she casually waved up at the livid Olga Marie with a mischievous little smirk. “Nice place you have here, although a bit tight, so when do we get out?”

“Show some respect, will you?” the curvaceous gorgeous blonde standing by her side hissed at her, then to graceful and elegantly marching ahead as well, asking Gudako, “Master, is there any truth to that person’s claims?”

Gudako blinked, stunned by these unexpected twists of events. She hadn’t been expecting for Servants who would be this reluctant to state something as simple as their Classes, for starters. “Um, yes, she is our Director, and so, well, you could say she’s my Master as well…”

“I see,” the taller blonde nodded evenly, and only then bowed for Olga Marie. “In that case, I am Servant Rider, and it is my pleasure to meet you, Director of Chaldea.” She spun around on her heels like a butterfly, her gold hair briefly lashing behind her, and gave a single clap for the rest of the team. “Everyone, state your Classes now, for Master’s benefit, please.”

“I am your Master!” Temptress growled, clearly upset, but the rest of them mostly ignored this outburst.

The svelte girl with large round glasses and a long light brown ponytail sighed wearily, half-heartedly raising a hand. “Yeah, well, whatever, looks like I’m a Caster too. Although I don’t really understand why…”

“Assassin,” quietly said a short haired presence hanging shortly behind this Caster.

“Ah!” the girl Caster gasped. “You were here!”

“Yes, always,” Assassin nodded. “My Present Concealment sure is wonderful and convenient, isn’t it, Caster-sama?”

“Archer here,” a slightly shorter, but much bustier young woman with dark hair made into a short tail at one side of her scalp grinned, posing a little in her rather skimpy attire of tight shorts, belly-showing top, tall boots and long brown overcoat, cocking her twin handguns for added effect.

“Um, I think I’m a Rider as well,” humbly said a boy in his early twenties, short and rather unheroic looking, with unkempt short black hair, his hands in the pockets of his biker jacket. “I guess that was to be expected, the unexpected part was ever becoming a Heroic Spirit…”

“Well,” the even shorter black haired loli at his side mumbled bitterly, “Belldandy must still be looking out for you, somehow, somewhere. I,” she introduced herself, “am the Servant Savior, born from the Heavens themselves! Respect and fear that name, mortals, for you have just summoned that who cannot be—“

“Oh, oh! Me next!” a girl barely any taller with short pink hair wearing a pink leotard skipped ahead, to stand right before Savior, spreading her arms proudly and completely ruining Savior’s boastful exposition. “I am Servant Lancer, she of the—Lances?” she then blinked, looking at the gymnastic batons in her hands. “Gee, this Class sure has to reach a lot just to cover its bases…!”

“You’re aware of what being a Lancer implies, aren’t you?” Savior angrily told her, pulling her back behind herself. “E Ranked Luck!”

Lancer blinked. “Is that good or bad?”

“What?!” Savior cried. “Didn’t the Grail get that through your thick skull before sending you here?!”

“Oh, you mean with all the other babble we heard before being shot here?” Lancer innocently asked. “I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, once I heard we’d be talking the trip all together I supposed the rest didn’t matter…”

“What in the world, Lancer-san!” the blonde Rider gasped at her. “You fail at post-life! You fail at being Servant Lancer!”

“What?!” Lancer swallowed hard while a ‘CRUSHED!’ massive sound effect briefly flashed into existence right above her head. Olga Marie was by now swallowing a few aspirines, washing them down with the glass of water a dutiful looking girl with glasses and light short hair had just passed onto her now pale and trembling hands.

“It would seem,” the robotic looking girl with long light green hair of the team thoughtfully said, “I likewise belong to the Lancer class…”

“What?” blinked the boy Caster. “Why would that be, um, Lancer-san?”

“Yes, Caster-kun?” asked the pink haired Lancer.

“No, no, Lancer-chan,” the boy Caster patiently told her. “She’s Lancer-san, you’re Lancer-chan.”

Ponytail Caster blinked. “Since when does she get a ‘-chan’?”

“Why, since she’s sharing the name ‘Lancer’ wth Lancer-san, of course,” Boy Caster kept on his patience. “Otherwise, how could we tell—“

“I can’t be Lancer-chan as well?” Lancer-san sounded oddly hurt, although just as respectful as before.

Boy Caster gulped. “Oh, of course you can, it’s just, well, I figured you would prefer getting the –san suffix, since you’re a lot more mat—“

“How can she be more mature than I,” a just as wounded Lancer-chan asked, “when she’s only two years old, Caster-kun?!”

“Eighty eight years old now, apparently,” corrected Assassin as she appeared right behind Gudako to check on her wristwatch, making her shriek in surprise. Assassin looked coldly at her. “Are you sure you’re a Master?”

“Anyway!” Ponytail Caster pointed at Lancer-san, “How come you’re a Lancer! I never saw you using any sort of lance or spear!”

Amuch, much shorter girl with a wide forehead and her black hair in braids smirked, her hands in the pockets of the lab coat she wore over her shorts and black top. “Show her,” she told the gynoid with a nod and a smile, and then the robot girl passively nodded back. Right before pulling her arms up and ejecting from each a long, sharp pole blade that was easily as long as the arm itself.

“Iiiiiiiihhh!” Ponytail Caster yelped, pulling back.

The gynoid lowered her gaze and softly said, “I’ve never liked stabbing things, so I never used them unless strictly necessary…”

“Okaaaaayyyy…” a beautiful young lady with long purplish hair frowned at that, then posed suggestively for her new Master and the Chaldea directives. “Now, for something completely different and much better, behold the three Servant beauties of Ala Alba, the Decopin Rocket!”

“The what?” Olga Marie asked.

“Archer!” the girl with purple hair held several needles of light up.

“Temptress…!” a girl her own age, her hair cutely made into short twin braids and buns at each side, struck a matching pose, holding cheerleading pom-poms up and showing a lot of leg generously thanks to her incredibly short skirt.

“Aaaand Berserker!” completed a girl with short black hair, wearing nothing but tall sandals, a bikini, a blue cap, and an open longcoat, swirling a huge mallet over her head. And then she stopped herself. “Wait, Berserker, seriously? Why?!”

“Well,” Purple Hair Archer told her, “you’ve got a fiery temper after all.”

“And sometimes you let it get the better of yourself,” Cheerleading Temptress added.

“That’s nowhere enough!” Berserker protested. “Being a Berserker implies I’m some sort of out of control nutcase! But I’m perfectly rational and patient! Had I been a Berserker, I’d have ripped Suzumiya-sempai’s throat off the first time we met!”

“Ghrrrrrrr…!” growled a furious looking very buxom young woman with long hair a darker shade of blonde than the first Rider and Temptress’. She brooded in place while slightly hunchbacked over, a massive spiked mace held in her hands, and looking at one side and the other continuously, as if looking for an enemy to smash or an excuse to smash a friend instead.

“See, now the Vice Prez, that’s a much better example of a Berserker!” Sexy Tomboy Berserker argued.

Cheerleading Temptress shrugged. “Maybe you have to wait until your Mad Enhancement kicks in?”

“DON’T SAY THAT AS IF IT’S SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!”

“See, that’s a great start, right there,” a pleased Cheerleading Temptress nodded before brightly asking the girl in the labcoat, “How about you, Darling? What’s your class?”

“Rider, which I suppose makes sense within the illogical parameters of this extrasensorial experience, since I have piloted several different types of manned vehicles, including the Chao Bao Zi in its maiden test trip,” exposed the girl while pushing her glasses up. “My current theory is we are undergoing a shared hallucination induced by these aliens or time travelers who have kidnapped us and implanted false memories in our minds, so they can—“

“Rider-san, that’s no way to talk about our Master, and in her presence too!” the scandalized Rider who sounded much like a Class Rep chided her. “For shame, Rider-san, for shame!”

“She’s not your Master, I am!” Evangeline roared furiously.

“Okay, our turn now,” smiled a curvy girl with long hair and glasses, pulling along an even curvier bombshell with long pink hair and a mild mannered orange haired young man. “I’m Servant Caster, and these are Servant Beast and Servant Saber!”

“… B-Beast?” Gudako swallowed, looking at the long tail with a spade at its end the pink haired woman had attached to her backside, not too unlike that of a storybook devil.

This girl simply shrugged carelessly. “Well, my father has been called the Devil Apocalyptic King of Deviluke, and one of my sisters the Semen Demon of the Galaxy. Being compared to the Great Diabolic Beast of your myth doesn’t offend me, weaker species have the right to fear and flee from their physical superiors after all…” this was genuinely said with no amount of malice, but sheer, raw matter-of-fact naivete.

Olga Marie now had her head in her hands and was softly sobbing to herself.

“Beast, please, you’re only scaring Master,” requested Saber before pulling a large weapon shaped like a giant key and bowing with it towards Gudako, like a knight to his queen. She lightly blushed at that, feeling flattered by the gesture of respect, the likes of which she definitely was not used to getting. “Master, I may not be much, but I’ll still do my best to protect you and my fellow Servants, and, well…” Then he began standing up, lifting his head back, only to find out he’d accidentally stuck his face right under Gudako’s skirt in the proccess, receiving an up and close view of her panties. “AAAIIIEEEE!” he shrieked, abruptly pulling back, slipping, and falling flat on his back, his Keyblade flying up and then smashing him down on the face. “UNGH!!”

The newest Caster sighed. “Please excuse my boyfriend, Master, I think that was his Special Skill manifesting itself again. You know, it’s really great having someone to call Master…”

“You always had a Master, you idiot!” Evangeline barked.

Newest Caster smiled sultrily and purred, swiftly invading Gudako’s personal space, all but rubbing herself against her while suggestively wriggling her eyebrows. “I’ll really look forward that prana recharge experience, I always wanted to be part of one, and—Hey, you’ll get your turn too, no need to get greedy!” she complained as Ponytail Caster pulled her back, grabbing her by an ear forcefully.

“I feel filthy from just sharing a Class with you, deviant!” Ponytail Caster shouted at her. She pointed at another, saintly smiling girl with long, smooth black hair and wearing traditional ceremonial robes. “See, at least Konoe knows how to play the part of a Caster!”

“Ah, but Chi-chan,” this girl playfully cautioned, “I haven’t said I’m a Caster just yet…”

The rest of the Servants stared at her. “… and then what are you?” Ponytail Caster finally asked.

“A Caster, obviously,” Obvious Ojou Caster allowed, “but that’s no reason to jump to conclusions for me or Master! Right, Setchan?” she warmly asked a petite, pale and dark haired girl who stood respectfully behind her.

This girl blinked. “Um, Caster-Ojou-sama, perhaps you should, as the protocols state, call me Saber for the duration of this—“

“Oh, protocols, phooey that!” Ojou Caster waved a hand. “That’s such a bore, and there shouldn’t be any secrets between a Master and Servant, right? Besides, it’s not like they could find out who we are just by knowing we call each other Kono-chan and Setchan…”

“Actually,” Olga Marie said in a highly strained tone, “we knew exactly where to search, and we used your catalysts precisely with you in mind, so of course we know you are Konoe Konoka and Sakurazaki Setsuna of Ala Alba!”

“… oh,” Ojou Caster blinked, briefly taken aback. And then, just as happily as before, “So see, Setchan, you can call me by my cute pet name as often as you want to, these nice fanboys and stalkers of our lives won’t mind! Why, I’m sure this is what they paid for!”

“I, we, I didn’t pay, I mean—Ooooohhhh, this isn’t what I was hoping for!” Olga Marie despaired, throwing her hands up dramatically. “I’M IN DESPAIR! LEARNING THE GREAT ALA ALBA WERE ONLY A BUNCH OF UNRULY SCHOOLCHILDREN HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!”

“Actually, Ma’am,” the tall, lanky and bishounen Servant Berserker, the seemingly oldest of the bunch, began to politely point out, all calm and elegance, “while this particular Ala Alba Lily is still in its infance and far yet from future nebulous glories, you’ve still secured yourselves a capable team of forged adventur—umm—let’s see, not even Nagase-san yet… or Ku-san… or… AH!” he cried, allowing Mad Enhancement to push him into a frantic, trembling and wild eyed panic, “I’M IN DESPAIR! THIS BRUTAL NERFING OF ALA ALBA’S POWER JUST SO WE COULD BE SUMMONABLE HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR! AND I’M NOT SURE THIS IS HOW MAD ENHANCEMENT WORKS, EITHER!”

“Well, now it’s our turn to shine, then!” merrily said one of the two girls in miniskirted nun habits, the tallest of the duo. “We’re Servant Magical Girl!”

“You mean Servants Magical Girl and Magical Girl?” asked Ponytail Caster, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh, no,” the taller Magical Girl said. “We apparently count as the same Servant. Dunno why, must be because of the strong bond among us or something. Maybe Cocone-chan wasn’t legendary enough on her own right?”

Even though she probably should have felt ofended by that remark from someone who hardly was epic material herself, the other half of Servant Magical Girl quietly hugged her partner’s legs and sighed quietly, a tiny heart fluttering out of her head. Everyone but the other half of the Servant noticed that, and sweatdropped accordingly.

“Oh, this is rich,” Evangeline chuckled. “You guys were so talentless in life the Grail itself couldn’t find a real Class with actual battle skills to place you into! It had to put you in a gag Class reserved for generic young airheads who use magic!”

“Now, now, Takamachi-san and Testarossa-san were real badasses…” Bells Saber argued. “Besides, your own Class is just as lame, Eva-chan!”

“That’s different, the Grail had no choice but putting me there!” Evangeline snapped. “I was literally too powerful for any other Class to contain my full power!”

“So, they Nerfed you?” Bells Saber chortled. “The great and powerful Evangeline-sama? Say it ain’t so!”

“I’m still more than powerful enough to crush you all on my own!” the vampire threatened. “Want to see some proof, Kagurazaka Asuna?”

“Don’t fight! Don’t fight!” Gudako requested energically, sensing it was damn time for her to put her foot down as the Master. Remarkably, and unlike what used to happen to a boy she reminded the Servants of, that was enough to make Saber and Temptress back away from each other, although with great grumbling and reluctance. Gudako smiled. “There, isn’t that much better? Okay, who’s left to introduce themselves, then…?”

“That’d be me, hm, I’m another Servant Rider, I think,” shyly said a short young woman with freckles, glasses, and short brown hair, wearing the kind of jumpsuit Gudako thought vehicular racers wore in the old days. “Please be patient with me, Master, I’ve never done this before…”

“And, and I’m Servant Lancer!” gulped an even more nervous skinny girl with a short black ponytail, in a thick yellow raincoat, with matching boots and an umbrella. “I’m sorry, Master, to bring misfortune to your party with my abysmal stats, useless skills, laughable Noble Phantasms and awful luck! I’m sorry, sorry, so so sorry!” she began to genuflect for the startled Gudako. “I don’t think I should have qualified for Heroic Spirituality in the first place, so just dispell me away if you want!”

“N-No, I’m going to do that, why would I ever…” a bewildered Gudako gulped before looking at the final unaccounted for Servant, a pretty very young girl with long light blond hair, in a prim and proper long skirted light blue dress, with a white apron over it. “Ah, anyway, I think that only leaves you, Miss…?”

“Oh dear, this might be problematic,” this Servant thoughtfully said, taking two fingers to her chin. “It seems I have been labelled a Servant Assassin, which is puzzling since I never assassinated anyone through my life. I imagine it’s because I had no other major skills the Grail could assign to another class, but it still found a way around that by assigning me traits from another version of my legend.”

With a small frown, she began pulling knives after knives from the pockets of her apron. All varieties of knives, including sawed ones, curved ones, and even a few daggers and shivs. “I blame the fellows at American Mc Gee,” she said, clearly not too happy with that development.

The other Assassin nodded appreciatively at the weapons in display. “That’s a nice collection you have there, Fellow Assassin-chan. So that’s it for us, Master. What do you have to say?”

Gudako blinked, realized she had nothing to say at the moment since all of her carefully prepared speeches had been readied with far less Servants and way better behaved Servants in mind, and by default resorted to look up at where the Director, the Professor, the Doctor, and the meganeko intern waited, with that small furry white creature now sitting at the feet of the girl with glasses.

Taking her cue, the Director folded her arms behind her back and spoke elegantly. “My Lieges. Once more, you shall raise the flag, for this country's—-no, this world's salvation! Order has gone up in flames, and so much purpose has been lost. Our future vanished in but a second. Listen to my words, brave warriors gathered here, legion of brave heroic spirits! No matter if you were sworn enemies or no matter how far your time periods apart, now you must entrust your backs to one another! In the name of Chaldea and mankind itself, I shall stand as your guidance! This struggle is one that has long endured through the sands of human history. But there is no need for concern, as untold fateful encounters await you. Though this entire planet has become the battlefield of the Holy Grail War, though the world has been brought to ruin, though countless formidable foes block your path, the end has still yet to be determined by anyone. Now, let us begin our fight, Ala Alba!”

The girl with glasses began clapping enthusiastically. “Bravo, Director! That was so moving and rousing! Very inspiring!”

Olga Marie made a small smug smirk, flickering one of her side braids with a finger. “Thank you, Mashu-san. In all honesty, I took and adapted it from a noble warrior from long ago, but you know what they say, when in Rome…”

“So, that’s the situation, huh,” a clearly unfazed Perverted Meganeko Caster said.

“Well, it was obvious they weren’t going to bother reviving us all just to be nice,” Ponytail Caster reasoned. “You know, it’d be asking too much, for people to just say ‘Hey, these people fought hard so we could be here today, why don’t we revive them now so they can see the good future we’ve forged for them?’ But no, of course, they can’t do that unless it’s so we can save their fats from the fire…”

Purple Hair Archer nodded. “Yeah, and I bet you they resorted to us because the Justice League was not an option…”

It hadn’t been, actually (the Watchtower had blown un in outer space after all, there weren’t a lot in the way of relics you could save from there), so that made Olga Marie flinch in place.

“Yukinoyukinoyukinoyukinoyukino,” Mace Berserker agreed, fuming.

“Now, now, there’s no need to react that way,” Caster Lily reasoned. “Let’s be thankful for all the good things instead, like the fact none of us is the Mage of the Beginning, or most important of it all, the fact we’re all together…”

“Yukinoyukinoyukino!” Mace Berserker shouted.

“What about Yuecchi and Nodo-chan?” Perverted Meganeko Caster frowned.

“And my sister? Or Morisato-san’s for that matter?” Keyblade Saber asked. “Or Alice-chan’s, or even your own…”

“Not that I’m complaining you finally let go of that trauma,” Ponytail Caster said, “but this sure is a funny moment for you to stop harping on your father’s absence…”

Caster Lily’s face twitched for a couple moments before he could recompose himself. “While all of those are highly regrettable, um, absences, it could have been a lot worse, and look at us! So many of us, together again! I’m sure we’ll see the others once more sooner or later, too! Keep your hopes up!”

“I could have done without Forehead, however,” dryly commented Short Haired Assassin. Egghead Rider just huffed indignantly at the remark.

“So tell us, Master,” Caster Lily directly addressed Gudako, which greatly annoyed the already frustrated Olga Marie. “What do we need to do?”

The room didn’t look like much. It was wide and spacious for sure, but had no apparent features beyond a small panel of colored buttons by its only door and four perfectly smooth, shiny clean walls topped by a tall domed ceiling. Even the floor was unremarkable, other than how pristine white it was.

“Okay, I give up,” Ponytail Caster finally shrugged. “What are we supposed to do here?”

“Here,” Olga Marie humorlessly said, “is where the tests for the Servants are supposed to take place. Naturally, we can’t send Servants or Masters into missions without first gauging how well they will behave within a Singularity. Even if you were peerless in life, there’s no telling how the summoning might have altered your skillsets, especially since your Master didn’t perform adequately at the preliminary exams.”

“Well, she did okay when it mattered,” an annoyed Asuna told her, “so why don’t you go easy on her already? Seriously,” she went on to ask the embarrassed looking Gudako, “they treat you like this every day? Why haven’t you left this place yet?”

Olga Marie frowned. “Just wait until to learn firsthand the current state of the world outside these walls, Your Majesty, and you won’t be asking that anymore.” Before Asuna could ask her exactly what she meant, since that hadn’t been part of the knowledge package implanted into her mind for the occassion, the Director commanded, “Mashu-san, explain the nature of the training chamber for the Servants.”

“Yes, Director,” said the girl who reminded Ala Alba of a cross between Ako and Nodoka, and even sounded the part as well. “You should find the purpose and functions of this chamber are not that different from the written accounts left behind by Asakura Kazumi in her best selling volumes. Well, those apt for all audiences reading, that is. Here, up to three Servants and a Master a time can engage in simulated combat against recorded and programmed opponents of several varieties observed in prior Singularities.”

“Wait,” the dark haired Archer asked, “these Singularities are these big events you mentioned earlier that destroy reality, right? How many of those have you found anyway?”

“We have directly contacted four of them by this point,” Olga Marie lectured, “but we have reliable information about the existence of dozens more. They expand themselves by spreading from one time-space plane into another, sending ripples in the fabric of reality that eventually erode enough of the continuum as to end up collapsing whole timelines. In all four firsthand recorded events, we sent battalions of our best equiped forces to seal the Singularity, only to lose all of them. Resorting to Servants, who are anomalies themselves, is the only option left to us by now.” “Right, so it’s like with the Heartless,” Keyblade Saber nodded. “They, too, made their way from one world to another, destroying them. Like a plague of locusts or fans of—“

“Actually,” the girl named Mashu quietly interjected, “while our observations on this ‘Heartless’ phenomenon are limited after you destroyed its source and basically nullified the situation from ever taking place to begin with, we have gathered the ‘Darkness’ force controlling those creatures and our current adversaries, whoever they are, might be related, if they are not one and the same. They seem to have similar patterns of destructive activity and expansion rate, Sempai.”

She pressed on a few buttons in the wall and the view before them changed to that of an idyllic green prairie. Freckled Rider, Gymnastics Lancer and Cheerleading Temptress all made excited sounds of youthful wonder at the scenery, which sort of surprised Gudako. She hadn’t thought Heroic Spirits, used to so many outlandish experiences through their lives, might be left with any sense of wonder by the time of their deaths.

“Chaldea amassed information, data and research from all sources that could be savaged from the Third Impact, including Mundus Magicus’ Ariadne Academy, the Fang Tower, the Clock Tower, Lex Corp, Stark International, Wayne Tech and the British Ministery of Magic,” Mashu kept on patiently infodumping. “Fusing the best science and magic had to offer, we created, amongst other developments, this simulated reality experience. Who of you would like to make use of it first?”

“Oh, could I?” Geek Rider asked, rubbing her chin as her glasses looked foggy enough as to hide her eyes from sight. “What you have just said sounds definitely interesting. Even if this is nothing but an illusion, I would like witnessing the possible implications of the scenario you have posed!”

“You’re welcome, Sempai,” Mashu nodded at her. “Then, um, who else? Evangeline-sama?” she swallowed nervously.

Eva snorted with no interest. “Eh, I pass. Sounds like a bore. Let Boya take a whirl instead, this is right his kind of Action Chuuni fantasy.”

“Master,” Caster Lily pouted at her, before walking ahead to join the excited Rider and nervous Gudako. “Okay, anyone else? Setsuna-san? Asuna-san?”

“Let me try, Sensei,” said the orange haired boy, joining the lineup, hefting the Keyblade over his shoulder. “I want to see how well I can perform after… well, you know,” he sighed. “Let’s just do this already.”

“Right, Servants Caster, Rider and Saber, then,” Mashu said before pressing a long sequence of button strokes, feeding the data into the system’s banks. Then she gestured for everybody else to step back and exit the room. “Please let’s leave before the program starts, we can watch the party’s progress outside. Good luck, Sempai,” she fondly told Gudako. “And Sensei, Sempai and Sempai,” she hastily added before bowing, as the door sealed itself shut after her. “I’m sure you’ll do just great!”

As Gudako, Caster, Rider and Saber were left alone on the incredibly lifelike grass under the perfectly recreated blue sky, the girl Servant asked their Master, “So, um. Not like that’s any personal business of yours, but is she—“

“We barely know each other, I’m still relatively new here,” Gudako gulped, preparing herself for the incoming battle, rubbing the back of one of her hands.

“Actually, I was going to ask if she was the owner of that strange Familiar that doesn’t seem to be fully sapient, but thanks for clearing that up, I’m sure the topic would have come up as well sooner or—“

Then the massive monster appeared from nowhere before them.