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It's Always Snowy in Chaldea

Chapter 17: Snow Flurries | Chapter XI

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Furiko

Not for the first time that week, Ko opened her bleary eyes a full two minutes before she actually heard the fighting, and promptly snuggled back under the duvet as deep as she could without suffocating.

“Mmmlargleblarp,” Indy grumbled from above the covers, shuffling in a manner consistent with someone trying to fold a pillow around their ears. She could feel one of his fallen earplugs being crushed under her shoulder.

The spear-clashes were within earshot, now. With the mysterious self-discipline of laziness, she sank herself back into the timelessness of sleepstate, savouring her final moments of rest.

“-et her sleep, for pity’s sake! The kitchen isn't even open yet-!”

There was a muffled thump, as if someone had gotten knocked into the sliding door keeping the hordes of Chaldea at bay. Said door then slid smoothly open.

“Up, girl. Or I’ll get you up.”

It was unfair how articulate her Servant was at Fuck You A.M. At the same time, she knew Scathach was not one to repeat herself. Honestly she was worse than Pru when- no, no, Ko didn’t know a Prudence, and she certainly hadn’t ever married one. Bad brain.

“Yes’m,” Ko whimpered mournfully, swinging her legs out of bed and hauling herself up into a sitting position, trying to ignore the spots that swam in her vision as she stretched. “Jus’ lemme get dressed…”

“Make it quick.”

“Nnm?” Indy murmured sleepily, eyes still shut, frowning as he rolled over. With little more than a flick of her wrist, a glowing sigil detached from Scathach’s finger and glided towards his forehead; the very moment it touched his brow, he collapsed soundlessly. The lucky bastard.

“... holy shit, shishou,” Ko said, suddenly noticing the unconscious blond tucked under her teacher’s other arm, his long hair dragging on the floor. “Is he okay?”

The Assassin’s stoic silence was worse than any withering glare she could have imagined.

“Just asking, geez,” she muttered, grabbing the opaque black leggings of the Chaldea Master uniform off the floor and stepping into them. “He’s my Servant, ‘m s’pposed to look after him.”

“He is your Servant,” Scathach agreed. “He is also resolved to repeat the same mistakes he’s made with every other woman he’s associated with and encourage you to squander your potential. Were I an enemy, he would be dead, and you defenseless. This will be addressed.”

“Well that doesn’t sound like cult indoctrination shit at all,” Ko grumbled, straightening her sleep-mussed waves back into a proper ponytail and yanking on her sports bra. It was lucky she hadn’t had much of a nudity taboo to begin with - or that she’d been the one to summon shishou and not Ritsuka; she didn’t wanna think about how badly Kyrielight would’ve reacted to her not-quite-boyfriend being burst in on in various states of undress.

“There have been several cults associated with me, yes.” Scathach tilted her head as Ko took a swig from her water bottle. “We will begin with a sprint to Simulation Room 4.” A stopwatch slipped into her hand from seemingly nowhere. “You will be timed.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“Fail to arrive in under two minutes and I will invite Achilles of Phthia to sit in on the remainder of this morning’s lessons.”

Ko’s eyes were suddenly much more awake than the rest of her.

“The fuckboy?!” she squawked.

The start button clicked.



Mash Kyrielight

“Come on, don’t be like that,” the energetic hero of the Trojan War said, an elbow on the wall as he leaned against it in front of the… other Jeanne that Senpai had summoned. “I’m just sayin’, you should let me show you what the Simulators can do. There’s plenty of fun we could get up to.”

“You disgusting fuck,” the Avenger spat. Black-red flames crackled to life around the Dragon Witch’s hands. “You come near me and I’ll burn you alive!”

Oh, she had been worried about the fake Jeanne ever since she’d come to Chaldea. Ever since they’d fought against her in Orleans, Mash had known the Servant wasn’t a team player. But now, she was beginning to wonder if perhaps Doctor and da Vinci shouldn’t have undone her summoning.

Achilles winked at the Alter, undaunted. “Sounds nostalgic,” he said impishly.

A downwards toss of the cursed flame had him do a quick step backwards in order to prevent incineration by the Avenger’s cursed flame.

“Now, hold on, little lady,” he held his hands up - still empty of his spear. “We’re all Servants here. Might as well get along, learn how to work with each other…”

“You’re being annoying,” the Avenger sneered. “Do you want me to strangle you to death?” Her golden eyes shone brightly even against the fluorescent lighting of Chaldea’s halfway.

Achilles’ grin only widened. “Your rage is beautiful,” he began.

“U-um,” Mash broke in, trying to salvage this situation. “I don’t believe that Senpai-”

“Isn’t here at the moment,” Jeanne Alter dismissed her with a flame-wreathed wave of the hand. “This is between Servants, girl.”

… and she was only a Demi-Servant. Mash’s face fell at the implication. It was just - she’d been trying so hard - and it wasn’t fair that she still didn’t know who had contracted with her or what their Noble Phantasm actually was-

“Jeanne,” the calm, wonderful voice of her Senpai behind her, sending shivers down her neck. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say to your senpai, was it?”

“What?!” Flinching at Senpai’s words, Mash abruptly realized that both she and the Dragon Witch were mirroring each other.

“Mashu has been here since the very beginning,” Senpai continued. “I wouldn’t have survived Singularity F without her.”

Keenly aware of the weight of the other two Servant’s gaze, she couldn’t help but sink inwards, hoping that her oversized hoodie would provide some modicum of protection. Senpai was being too modest as always. Mash had done well during the Singularity, but that was just what a Servant did. There wasn’t any need to praise her - she didn’t want Achilles or Jeanne to think she was full of herself.

It was a nice thing for him to say, though.

“Now Achilles,” Senpai then addressed the Rider. “We are all here for the same reason, and that reason is to train. I think that the four of us will make a good team for the next Singularity, but learning to get along with each other has to include compromises from you, too. If your… ano, ‘affections’... are not so appreciated, perhaps you can put them aside for the moment?”

“... hmph. Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his heart, and speaks another,” the Greek hero proclaimed, arms crossed and jaw jutting out defiantly.

She wished she could wax poetic at the drop of a hat like that.

“Sure,” Senpai nodded. “I just wonder what Patroclus might have to say about all this, is all,” he finished innocently, crossing his arms.

Mash was already poised to step between them when she saw the flash of anger in Achilles’ eye, but it softened after the green-haired man took a deep breath, and she relaxed.

“Ritsuka, Ritsuka, Ritsuka…” Achilles clapped a hand on Senpai’s shoulder, and shook his head. “We’ve been over this, little bro. It’s not cheating if it’s a girl.”

“Spoiled fruit,” Jeanne sniffed.

Mash frowned. At least once a week, one of the Servants would say something like that - something about society that didn’t sound right (that sounded downright infuriatingly absurd, if she was being honest), but that she didn’t have any actual experience with. And what was she supposed to say? ‘That’s not what the books I’ve read say about the outside world I’ve never seen’?

“Good morning, child-man-” Mash was already moving to intercept the interloper before realizing who it was. Silently, she resolved to ask Furiko if her Assassin would kindly not sneak up on her Senpai in the future.

“-have need of your Servant, with your approval.”

“Ah!” Senpai’s expression brightened at the sight of the woman. “Scathach-sensei! Of course! What exactly did you have in mind?”

Scathach nodded at Achilles. “Ko has extended him an invitation to join us for her morning lesson.”

“Oh~?” Achilles drew the syllable out, smirking as he pushed off the wall. “Well that’ll be worth a look. Lead the way, lady Lancer!”

“My class is Assassin, as it happens.”

“In a golden breastplate? You’re kiddin’.”

The dark woman’s reply to the gregarious Rider was lost as she led the way towards the Chaldean Gym.

“Well, well. Congrats, kid,” Jeanne mumbled with a smirk. “You’ve successfully solved your personnel problem by shoving it off on another Master. What happened to all that junk about having to get along with our teammates?”

“Jeanne Alter,” Senpai stared her directly in the eye. “When Scathach-sensei and Achilles are done, probably in the afternoon, he will be rejoining us. Getting along with our teammates includes the other Masters as well. You accepted our contract - you do not have to like any of us. But you do need to be able to work with others.”

“But-”

“Jeanne-chan has worked with many different Servants,” Senpai cut her off. “Are you saying you can’t?”

The Avenger went very, very red, and very, very still.

It served her right for questioning Senpai.

“... maybe Achilles with Heracles-kun, as a different team setup,” Senpai mused, as Jeanne bit her lip. “It won’t be as good against many different foes, but…”

Mash sighed. Managing the Servants without Senpai had been difficult enough during the last two Eleventh Hours; she didn’t even want to think about having to wrangle their menagerie and all the other Masters’ this weekend. Maybe she could convince Paisen (Boudica could snicker all she liked, it was a cute nickname) to remain in Chaldea to lend a hand.

industrious | Adam

“Is this concept really so foreign to you, young Adam?”

Seated in a very comfortable chair in the same conference room that the group was learning magic - magecraft - in, Adam furrowed his brow.

The way Adam saw it, he was currently the weakest link in their group, by far. Ritz was the strongest, obviously - a professional protagonist who’d presumably succeeded in his task. His friends all had some degree of intimate knowledge regarding the setting. While Toby was the real lore obsessive, Adam was well aware of the friction the man engineered pretty much wherever he went. Spence and Dory apparently had enough to get by, Ko a bit less, but they at least knew what the hell a ‘Nasu’ was. Given the nature of anime, it was probably some sort of extra secret uberweapon. Maybe a legendary historical Servant that only existed here. Possibly a giant robot. Probably all three at once.

But what really clinched his assessment were the heroic spirits that the others had summoned. It wasn’t that Socrates was weak - Roman’s little chat with Adam had made things quite clear on that point. Given the way some of the other mages (none of whom, apparently, could do the song-and-dance number to get a famous ghost for themselves) looked at his chiton-wearing Ruler, it almost felt like he was carrying the Football wherever he went. Nor was it that the Ruler was useless - his Socratic Method meant that nearly any skill or knowledge could be taught, given sufficient time and willingness to put up with a near-infinity of questions.

No, the chief issue Servant-wise had been that he was expressly forbidden from bringing the Gadfly of Athens into any of the remaining Singularities. And while Adam Smith had saved all of their lives during Okeanos - given who the others had gotten, Adam could reluctantly concede that the Caster of Kirkcaldy fell a bit short. Their impromptu drinking contest had been inspired, to be sure, but not every would-be foe was going to be as reasonable as Sir (Madame?) Francis Drake and her crew of rowdy pirates.

Given that their Miles O’Brien-equivalent (which was a compliment to both Leonardo - or was it Leonarda? - da Vinci and O’Brien both, dammit) had spent most of the past week trying to get as much power online as they could, going for a third at this point seemed unwise. In short, the others had knowledge of the setting and plot as well as credible offensive (or in Mash’s case, defensive) Servants, while he had neither.

Of course, none of these were insurmountable. Eventually, he’d be able to summon again, but that wasn’t where he could make up lost ground the most effectively. Okeanos had already - given Toby’s reactions - gone off the rails. Reviving Ms. Hinako Akuta (Akuta Hinako?) was obviously a sequence break. With every passing day, the metaknowledge that Toby and the others held became less and less valuable.

So as his fiancee spent long, torturous hours performing shounen training with Sca-ha; while Dory tried his damnedest to match flirtations with Drake and indulge in his Simic tendencies; while Toby was off doing god knows what to a seemingly endless sequence of thermometers; while Spence caught Ada Lovelace up on Doctor Who and Star Trek; and while Ritz tried to keep Jeanne Alter from burning Jeanne Proper and all of Chaldea to ashes… he was going to learn the rules. Properly. Trying to use magic just by going from the media they’d all seen felt as useful as attempting to find Nash Equilibria from watching A Beautiful Mind.

“...you’re right,” Adam admitted at last, scratching at the wispy stubble on his chin. He’d need to shave soon - when he left it longer than a few days, he looked more like a teen trying to look twenty-one than his actual age. “It’s… very unintuitive.”

Socrates’ nod was a prompt for elaboration.

“This ‘Counter Force’ is… an unconscious manifestation of the world,” Adam drummed his fingers on the table. “That acts to protect the world from devastation. It is a subtle thing - most of the time - but larger expenditures of energy are known to happen; it’s likely that our presence in this timeline is one of these expenditures.”

“Indeed,” Socrates leaned back in his own chair. “What about this is anathema to you?”

“It’s too goddamn complicated,” Adam grumbled. “It feels like… well, I feel like you could just invoke the anthropic principle.”

“And what is that?”

Socrates probably knew what it was, the old fart. “We are alive and exist today,” Adam recited. “And humanity hasn’t destroyed itself. But if humanity had destroyed itself, we wouldn’t be alive here today to ponder why we haven’t destroyed ourselves. It’s just…survivorship bias. By definition, we exist in a timeline where this class of events can’t have happened.”

“And your sudden appearance into this strange new world of magecraft?”

At that, Adam was forced to sigh. “... well, fuck, man. I believe in a near-infinite multiverse. It’s an infinite monkeys problem.”

Socrates didn’t deign to answer.

“...If you have infinite monkeys seated at infinite typewriters with infinite supplies and infinite time, then at some point the Complete Works of William Shakespeare will be written. Somebody being one-in-a-million means that there are like six thousand people just like them on Earth... at least,” Adam hastily added, “when it isn’t, you know, blown up.”

“And you take this infinite multiverse of yours on faith.”

“On… a layman’s understanding of quantum mechanics. Which, I admit, nobody can really understand, according to quantum physicists. Point.”

The philosopher rubbed his lips together consideringly before he spoke again. “What gives you the most certainty, Adam?”

The Master blinked. That seemed like a non sequitur. “You mean-”

“What structure would make you most convinced of a proposition?”

“A proof,” he answered immediately. “Putting pen to paper and making the equations dance until you have the answer in front of you.” And because this was Socrates: “Yes, yes Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem exists and math can’t be complete and cannot be proveably consistent. But it’s the best we’ve got.”

Given the twinkle in his eyes, Socrates damn well knew why he’d said those last two sentences.

“Then I recommend you think things over, do your dance, and when we next meet, we can discuss this further.”

Ah, between the Magic Circuit exercises and the proof assignments, it was almost like being back at school. Not that the graduate student minded. He’d spent nearly his entire life there.

Here, as in his programs, the path to success was fairly simple. Learn principles. Acquire data. Observe surface-level patterns. Build a model. Rigorously solve for the deep parameters. Profit.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Socrates got to his feet. “I have a chess game with Adam the Elder.”

That… didn’t seem right. He didn’t know when chess became Westernized, so Smith could well have played it in life, but the ancient Greeks? Not a chance. “Do… you even play?”

“No,” the Ruler said breezily. “But Smith believes it’s important to stay mentally active in one’s, ah… ‘twilight years’ is the term he used.”

… weren’t Servants technically already dead?

Eh, as long as they were happy.



Andoriol | Jacob

The happy glow he felt was unfazed by his Servant’s declaration.

“You’re kinda stupid.”

“Probably, yeah.”

The cannons thundered, and a line of tension flashed down his arm. Finding the feel of his Od flowing through his circuits, identifying the circuits, and getting used to the feel of them being on and off.

“You’ve already seen her fight.”

“In the dark, panicky, and trying to keep an eye on an entire battlefield. And, unfortunately, the dream cycle with her isn’t going to give me an idea of how she fights as a Servant. You? You fought basically the same alive and as a Servant. Which is absolutely ridiculous.” Jacob shot a grin at his blond Servant before turning and pointing back at Drake. The captain had a ship flying high, raining fire down on the simulated golems, “But her? She didn’t. If I’m gonna be able to intuit how she fights and think around and with it, I’m gonna have to see her have some fun.”

Mordred snorted, lazing about on the nearby hill beside the man as they watched the Rider go to town.

“If it makes you feel any better, you get to beat stuff up in the next round too.”

“Eh… two at once? You’re not Ritsuka, boss.”

It was his turn to snort, “I know. Kid’s ridiculous. But I want to see how bad it is, see if it’s an emergency situation sort of possibility. Fueling just you with that first wish was already a bit rough.”

Green eyes rolled as he blew air out between his lips, disbelief clear, “Just don’t cry when it hurts.”

Jacob pointed at the Saber with a grin. “No promises.”

Laughter rang out over the bond he had with Drake as the last of the simulated beings were defeated. The captain starting to head back towards them at a sedate pace.

“Safeties On.” He muttered under his breath, switching metaphorical gears and his circuits off, twitching his finger before letting a grin to match hers cross his face. Then he shook his head and turned back to his first Servant, “Look, I’m gonna help out in the kitchen after this, anything you want to do after?”

“Eh?” Mordred smirked at him, “Not gonna try and shove your face back into her tits?”

“After getting smashed last night?” The hangover in the morning had not been pleasant, though other things had been. “No. Give things a chance to cool off and try that again tomorrow? Sure. But I mean, we’ve had, what, a day of actually being able to share the same physical space?” Stretching out a bit, he kicked Modred’s boot. “We are physical people, and we’ve just been pen pals. It’s weird. So, what do you wanna do?”

“... eh, if we can get the simulator again, could be nice to see if it’ll let us drive around.” The knight muttered, “Kinda want to give motorcycles a shot.”

“Ahhh,” Fran almost crooned, stretching in a way that did delightful things to her figure that Jacob had to actively ignore. “Always good to have a scrap, even if this wasn’t all that much.”

He grinned, pointing at her, “Good news is there’s gonna be a round two.”

She quirked her head at him adorably, “Eh?”

The burgeoning magic user tapped at the comband on his wrist, “Marcus? You got round two ready?”

The Spiritron Engineering technician’s voice came through clearly, “You sure?”

“Yep. I’ll say if things get too crazy.”

“Alright, I’ll spool things up.”

The world shimmered as lights sparkled and more things began to appear, the simulation now adding werewolves and goblins to cover the ranges of options. “Right, to bring you up to date? We’re gonna see how bad it goes trying to let you two go ham on this. Might have to cut it short if y’all are too much for me to handle, but we’re gonna see how bad it is.”

He had to catch himself twice there to avoid saying ‘ladies’, but he did it without a hitch and was proud of himself. Mordred’s outfit sans armor was just unfair, he was a kid!

Francis Drake laughed, the Golden Hind once more appearing from nothing in the air, the action alone making parts of Jacob twinge. It was like a weight, both physical and on his soul. Someday, given some time and measurements he may be able to get a feel for how ‘heavy’ every usage was in units of prana, but that day was not today.

And then Mordred’s armor manifested in a flash of red lightning, and it was like someone had dropped another metal sousaphone onto his shoulder to go along with the first.

Drake as-is was more like a fiberglass one that got upgraded to metal when she brought out the ship, sharper, digging in deeper, denser, and more of a burden, but also more clear and distinct.

The sails of the Golden Hind wruffled and snapped as its captain’s will drew the canvas taut, wood creaking as the ship began to move, Drake leaping back to her ship.

The prince pointed his sword at Jacob, a taunting grin on his face.

Jacob pre-empted the Servant, pointing right back, “Still reserve the right to cry if you go too crazy.”

That got a bark of laughter from the Saber, “Hah! All right! Watch this!”

Dirt exploded beside Jacob as Mordred launched off in a flash of red lightning, the charge alone making his arm twinge unpleasantly.

Which did not bode well.

“Hey, Marcus?” he muttered into the watchlike thing on his wrist. “Be ready to cut it. Doable so far but don’t know if I’ll hold up for the whole wave.”



He did, but not by much. The weight and the slow burn had been building, a flash of cold and clammy had gone over his skin in a way he distinctly recognized as the beginnings of heatstroke at a final broadside from Drake. It’d only been a few minutes but it had been a rough few minutes.

The fact that neither had used their fully invoked Phantasms this time was a bit concerning.

’Okay, yeah, that is NOT an option for now.’ Was the only thought he had, more than a hint of dread at the thought of reliving Clarent Blood Arthur.

“Safeties On.” A soft muttering as the weight was lifted from his metaphorical shoulders.

The environment was dissolving into mostly blue white sparkles, and it was still very disconcerting to feel the ground recede away from his feet.

The doors to the simulator room appeared basically right behind him, as did the stark metal paneling of the room proper. He’d set up near the entrance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was in case of emergency it’d be quick and easy to get him out of the place.

Exiting the simulation room, the trio found Spencer and Ada waiting patiently.

“Hey, how it be? What’re you planning for the Simulator?”

“‘Murder and mayhem await,’” Spencer said ominously, in a way that seemed quoted.

“We’re going to try our hand at programming new scenarios for the simulator. As it resembles a ‘holo-suite’, we’re going to see how far my own abilities as a servant can push the system,” Ada clarified.

Jacob nodded, it was an interesting concept at very least.

“Is that not what I said?” Spencer asked. “Anyway, we’ve been reading through the manuals for this thing after binge watching a bunch of Star Trek, and the plan is to see if it’s possible to program narrative triggers into the combat sims. I figure if we can do that, we can at least replicate a very immersive video game, if not a full holo-novel.”

“The real issue is that the ‘characters’ we’re limited to are enemies encountered by Chaldea. So most of what’s available are various monsters, Romans, and the French,” Ada explained.

“But you repeat yourself,” Spencer quipped. “I mean, I guess we have pirates now too. And the system is theoretically capable of simming servants if at reduced capacity. With individual servants’ permission we could use them as ‘holo-actors.’ Hey Ada? Remind me to appeal to Fionn’s ego later.”

“Oho? Theater you could interact with eh?” Drake grinned.

A similar look spread across Dory’s face, though for different reasons, “Definitely keep me up to date, could be fun.”

’Memo to me, look into how the Simulator works. Servants, even reduced… that might be useful somehow, or at least a good way to learn more about projection and tracing…’

“Oh I’m live-blogging the whole thing to ChaldeaNet,” Spencer said. “Help me beat the algorithm by liking and subscribing to my channel. Don’t forget to hit that bell icon to get notifications–”

Jacob swatted his friend in the shoulder, “Oh hush.”

Spencer ignored him, “–and for $4.99 a month you can become a member of the channel and get bonuses.

While both of Jacob’s Servants gave Spencer confused looks, Jacob himself just rolled his eyes with a sigh and looked to Ada, who had a wry smile. “Would you be so kind as to keep me up to date? It sounds very cool, and I’d be interested in seeing what y’all come up with.”

“I can assure you, Master Jacob, the ‘live-blogging’ wasn’t a joke. We’re documenting everything on Chaldea’s intranet,” she said. “The thread Spencer opened already has a number of suggestions we’re trying to explore today.”

“Huh." No one had mentioned the facility's intranet had recreational forums. "I’ll try to find it, then, when I’ve got a moment tonight. I’ll poke y’all if I can’t find it because I’m blind or somethin’.” A glance at the watch confirmed that lunch time was rapidly approaching, “Right, I’m headed to the cafeteria, gonna help out there.”

Parting ways with Spencer, his own Servants trailed behind him. Jacob had asked what he could do to help, what things needed to be done around Chaldea that he could do to make things easier on everyone else - aside from becoming a better tactician and remotely competent mage and try to keep his Servants or friends from going crazy in one form or another. And da Vinci had instead asked what he’d done. Call-center work wasn’t very useful, but years of restaurant work had some use at least.

“Ehhh,” Drake trailed off, “I’ll see how badly you cock up cooking at least once.”

“Hah! Horrors upon horrors I tell you! I shall summon monstrosities from beyond the pale with my ineptitude with the cookery!” He grinned through his dramatic display, walking backwards briefly and giving exaggerated finger guns at the end. “Should be good for a laugh.”

“So long as it’s not mashed potatoes.” Mordred muttered.

Jacob blinked, dropping the facade. “Okay, that sounds like a story that I gotta hear.”

The disowned royal waved a hand dismissively, looking away, “Eh, it’s nothing crazy. Gawain just kept making crappy mash out of crap tubers.”

“Don’t let Ko hear you call them that.” He said with a nod of his head, glancing at his map to make sure he was on track, “She will stand for the honor of potatoes every day of the week.”

“Can you cook seal?”

That one brought Jacob up short, though years of marching band meant he was still moving backwards. He looked at the captain in confusion. “Wait… seal?”

“Yeah?” The pink haired woman managed to look confused at his own confusion, as if he had been the one to say something weird, “Wot about it?”

“Just a lil’ surprised. From what I know it’s a super high fat, blubbery but also gamey meat. Hard to cook right without stinking up the place… as well as to get the seasonings that would make it work in your time period?” He shrugged. “Like, I can try if we’ve got some, but I’d almost bet we don’t.”

“What’cha wagering?” The captain’s look was far too innocent.

Nothing, because I haven’t seen the kitchen yet. Smug satisfaction will have to do.”



A brief rapping of his knuckles on the frame of the opening to the kitchen was enough to get the attention of the Servant staff of the cafeteria.

Emiya’s face was in its usual serious scowl. “Lunch starts in an hour.”

“I figured.” Jacob was well aware that work for lunch started at 10 at the latest. “I’m here to help. Been in restaurants for years. Is there anything in particular I can help with?”

“Dishes. Bussing tables. And running food.” Emiya said simply, without so much as a moment’s hesitation.

“Done.” Jacob was already unbuttoning his sleeves. “Where’s the aprons? And the dishpit? I’m still adjusting to my hands being numb so thanks in advance for bearing with me dropping anything.”

“I’ll show you where everything is,” Boudica smiled warmly, “But don’t push yourself too hard.”

He’d worked so many years in the business that the motions came easily. Apron, pad, pen, wash the hands, confirm the locations of the line and ice and drinks and silverware and dishpit and the rough menu and move ‘cause here comes everybody.

Took a brief moment to make a nametag with just ‘Acting Waiter’ on it. Name wasn’t important at this stage.

There was a measure of frustration since the menu was primarily stuff he didn’t know how to spell, what with the primary chefs being Emiya (who cooked almost exclusively asian dishes), and Boudica (who mostly baked and did some classically european dishes) and Beni-Enma (who was adding stuff to the list, but was also primarily an asian chef). That, and today was apparently ‘Indian’ themed. Regardless, it meant the menu was in flux on top of everything. It also didn’t help that he wasn’t used to the more cafeteria-based-model that they were using rather than a purely restaurant one, but that was just some awkwardness.

So a normal day in the restaurant business.

All that said, some things were definitely for the better.

The cafeteria was circular, with an equally-circular kitchen inside the ring of the counter. It was an interesting thing, way more ‘modern art’ than Jacob was used to dealing with - especially the ‘drop down food storage’, which meant the permanent square footage was devoted to equipment and cooking surfaces rather than refrigerators and freezers. All of that was stored in the ceiling above them. And the ‘dishpit’ wasn’t actually a place where you had to wash dishes, but instead was a spot to set the silverware and plates where they were automatically and literally magically cleaned. Nice feature.

Whoever decided the tables should be a hard, eggshell white polymer was kinda an asshole. They thankfully wiped off reasonably easily, but the slightest bit of nastiness on them was blatantly obvious, but again, self-cleaning dishpit!

Most of the time was spent collecting trays and dishes, running special order food to the tables, and chatting with people. Drake had shot a salute his way before taking a walk about to explore Chaldea, intending to come back towards the end of the lunch period. Mordred decided to stick around and people watch, as well as chat with the various staff and other Servants.

Everyone was pleasant enough, though some were crankier or less friendly. Ritsuka came through during the rush, but it was too busy for Jacob to engage in anything more than small talk with the teen. He got the distinct impression that he’d interacted with The Public at some point, the ease Ritsuka was able to engage in empty conversation was… recognizable.

But people moved through the line, to the ‘register’, with special order stuff getting ‘full service’ of being run to the tables now that Jacob was around to handle it. Before ‘The Duel’, it’d only been Boudica and Emiya with a rotation of staff helping out, with them calling out names and order numbers.

“Graveyard shift for the next Eleventh Hour that it’s in the Western Hemisphere?”

“You’re seriously expecting me to take a bet that broad?”

“For an appropriately large reward?”

Jacob’s hearing may not have been the best, but he knew how to pay attention to anything he could hear. He raised an eyebrow at the two staff as they brought their trays up to the line, both roughly middle aged and sadly some of the ones whose names he hadn’t learned yet.

“No! You’re crazy.” The woman looked at Jacob, and he cursed, not knowing her name yet, “He’s crazy.”

“Generally you expect high returns on specific bets, not the other way around, yes.” He agreed easily. “Though I don’t know what you’re talking about here?”

Their explanation was brief, but gave Jacob something to think about and mull over in the back of his mind while the lunch rush continued. Apparently the staff did meals in segments since they needed people in the command center at all times, and while the first round dialed down, Ko entered the cafeteria and collapsed into the seat nearest the door.

“Hey Ko, how are you holding up?” Jacob set down a big thing of bottled water in front of his red-faced, still sweaty friend, who immediately grabbed the closest bottle and chugged it.

Thirty seconds later, after she’d lowered it and taken a moment to pant in exhaustion and wipe her upper lip, she gasped, “No… talk… breathing,” before shoving her mouth into the crook of her right arm and dissolving into a coughing fit.

“It’s favouritism is what it is,” Cu said, materializing in the seat across from her and shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve never seen her go easy on anyone like that - hell, I didn’t think she could!”

Ko didn’t reply, didn’t even glare; as soon as she finished coughing she crossed her arms on the table in front of her and buried her face in them.

Jacob laid a hand on his friend’s shoulders and gently massaged them. He was going to have to wash his hands obviously before getting back to work, but things were starting to wind down for this shift, he could spend the time. “That good huh?”

Ko meowed mournfully into her forearms for a moment, before straightening up. “Protein, please.”

Minutes later, he pushed the particularly meat-heavy tikka masala in front of her, and she started wolfing it down without a word, though with several delighted moans.

There was a shockingly sharp *thunk* as Scathach walked past, putting a bottle of… yogurt down in front of Ko as she moved by. “For the muscle burn. We resume in half an hour.”

“‘nk you.” Ko burped quietly, and reached for a paper napkin to get some of the sauce off her chin.

Smiling as any other response was muffled by the continued shoveling, Jacob continued, “Well, if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll get a break it seems. There’s supposed to be a subsingularity that we’re going to soon that shouldn’t be a panic session. It’s basically the present. Like, the day before everything...” he gestured around and above them in a circular motion.

“... so like an Eleventh Hour?” Ko asked, after a particularly lengthy swallow.

“Yeah. You heard them talking about it before? Or is it a Nasu thing I’ve just never heard of?”

She shook her head, returning to her meal with a sigh. “Nope; it’s an Adventure Zone thing you’ve never heard of.”

A table away, a freckle-faced man in a lanyard threw down his fork. “Roman, you goddamn nerd,” he muttered.

Jacob raised a curious brow at the other man before looking back to Ko. “Anything special I should know?”

“Well we already know what kills everyone and why the time loop is happening, so knock on wood you don’t also have to overcome the temptation to go back in time and set right what once went wrong.” Ko pulled the tab-top of the drinkable yogurt and sniffed it before taking an experimental sip. She made a face, and set it back down, making her companion grin.

He snapped his fingers mid sip of his own drink before putting it down, “I was actually wondering if I could sit in on some of your torture sessions. Haven’t had a chance to ask your sensei yet.”

“... well ya couldn’t be worse company than Cu and Achilles,” Ko mumbled. “Might be nice to have a sparring partner I could land non-pity hits on.”

“At least you aren’t stuck exclusively fighting a mhaistir,” Cu muttered darkly. “She isn’t even making you fight with live steel.”

“My dad is not a god, senpai,” Ko snapped. “I don’t have Battle Continuation! And I am more than twice the age you were when you started with shishou! Let her take pity on an old biddy, why don’tcha.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say you were old…”

Jacob wisely stayed well out of that one, though he did wonder (yet again) what made the translation talisman decide which words to translate and which to leave alone.

Ko smirked. “Ya sure weren’t shy about applying the word to her, though,” she said, taking another sip of the yogurt as Cu’s flirtatious smile faltered. “And within earshot, too - you’re a braver man than I am. Not necessarily a smarter man, of course, but…”

“So, uh, I don’t know her legends, I’m just gonna trust her as to how to treat the teacher.” Jacob pointed at his friend, not mentioning the ‘you’re worse than I am about dangerous women’ he was thinking about Cu, or that what little stuff he remembered about a Scathach from osmosis said she was a very scary lady.

“She told him if he’d kept in better shape he might’ve been summoned as a Lancer,” Ko murmured, leaning confidentially toward Dory.

The Caster looked mournfully at the wooden staff resting against the table.

“She said she’d let me use her spear,” he sighed. “If I could take it from her.”

Jacob leaned back and asked Ko in the same tone, “Has he tried yet?”

She winced, and nodded. “I think it was supposed to be a solidarity thing. She wanted to equalize us by having us both experience that fuckin’ carrot laughing at us.”

“I’ve been laughed at before,” Cu said, shrugging with almost-believable nonchalance. “She’ll be starting you on runes once we get back.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Ko groaned in relief. “I don’t have the knees for much more of this…”

“Whatever you do,” Cu cautioned, “you’re gonna wanna take it slow; don’t try to impress her. A miscast rune is…” He shivered.

“Bad. I’m gonna guess it’s bad,” Jacob said drolly.

“Better she disappoint ár múinteoir than lose a hand showing off,” came the response.

“Again,” Jacob said with mock solemnity, one hand on his chest. Ko nodded, straight-faced.

Across from them, Cu stiffened as a shadow fell on the two Masters.

“You better take care of your new hand,” Leonardo da Vinci warned with false cheer, sending a shiver down Jacob’s spine. “I… dislike repeat work.”

Ko straightened up indignantly. “I am not a hoodlum, Maestra,” she said.

“Anymore,” Jacob added with a grin, more than a little relieved she had no intentions to repeat the experience.

“This isn’t just an objet d’art,” she went on, ignoring him and waggling the fingers of her left hand, “it’s a body part! You gave me back a piece of my life! I am not going back to navigating the bathroom one-handed unless it’s an absolute emergency, you have my word.”

“Excellent!” the Italian Caster beamed, a tray of bright red curry perfectly balanced in a hand. Primly, she took a forkful of the stuff, and placed it in her mouth.

Immediately, the usually composed and elegant Renaissance woman was as scarlet as her dress, all but choking on the spice.

Wordlessly, Ko passed her the rest of her yogurt.

“I thought you said this was the mild!” da Vinci wheezed, taking a large gulp from the bottle.

Blinking, Jacob looked at the chicken before meeting da Vinci’s gaze again, saying apologetically, “... that is the mild.”

“...I hate India,” she moaned, tears watering at the corners of her eyes. “I hate it so much.”



“Hey,” Jacob leaned against the counter to peer into the kitchen proper. “I’ve been meaning to talk to Toby but haven’t had the chance. Is there anything y’all want me to do before having a sit down with him?”

Emiya barely looked up. “Tell him to talk less and listen more. Would’ve solved most of his problems.”

“Basically the plan.” The bearded man shot a finger gun at the taller man. “Just gotta get him to internalize it.” Dropping the exaggerated tone though he glanced between Emiya and Enma. “Seriously though, anything you need me to do before I go open that can of worms?”

When nothing else was immediately forthcoming, the cafeteria newbie picked up Toby’s order and slipped out of the kitchen area. The bespectacled man was alone at the table, his usual shadow of Abby replaced by a much fuzzier one of Jamaica. Sitting at the edge of one of the cafeteria tables, he was running the little fuzzball through her paces, going through a variety of tricks.

Jacob slid the tikka masala down the table for it to stop in front of Toby, sliding into the seat beside him with a drink in hand. “Hey. How’re you adjusting? Haven’t had a chance to talk outside of the all professional-esque crap.”

“M’fine. Keep losing my cane when I put it down, though,” Toby said with a shrug, “so gotta work on that. Plus Abby’s with Medea right now, so I’m ever-so-slightly worried what sort of diabetes leaving the two of them alone will produce.” The bespectacled man brought a hand out from under the table, a hand which was swiftly followed by his dog’s black-and-tan muzzle chasing his fingers with her tongue.

“Probably quite a bit of lace,” Jacob said, taking a sip of his drink. “I know things are rough,” he began. “They’re looking up, though. I haven’t smashed my fingers in anything yet today. And you haven’t gotten anyone to scream at you–”

“Dory?” Toby cut him off. “I know you. If this is your attempt at leading into a serious talk, Ko already read me the riot act. Over a week ago. So if it’s all the same to you, maybe pick a different horse to beat.”

Jacob snorted. “Beat me to the punch.” He hummed briefly; it was worth double checking with Ko what exactly she’d ripped into him about, but no reason to not take the chance to talk now. “Lighter topics, then. What’ve you been doing to relax? To my shock and horror they’ve got a freakin’ foosball table in the rec room.”

“Good question,” Toby murmured, giving the dog on his lap a scratch behind her ears. “Since the gadfly got us started on magecraft, I’ve just been… I dunnmph dog, please, dog, c’mon,” he shrugged, even as he tilted his head up so Jamaica’s tongue missed his glasses. “Yes, good doggo, love ya girl. How about you?”

“Good. Mostly been surfing their internet backups. Though you got interrupted.” Jacob extended his own hand towards the fluffy beast as an offering, which the aforementioned puppers took as a chance to scooch over and sniff at his knuckles.

And then sneeze.

“Oop, careful there girl!” Toby chuckled, tapping Jamaica on the nose. “Sorry about that, I swear she forgets how little she likes most spices in between tastes. What were we talking about?”

“Doing fun stuff, specifically what you’ve done other than magic.”

“Oh. Well, uh…” Toby trailed off, fingers running through his dog’s fur. “Not particularly much, to be honest. Which is…”

“Concerning?” He supplied.

“Yeah. Not great, now that I think about it.”

“Well we probably want to do a thing together as…” The bearded of the two pasty brunettes paused, waving one hand as he searched for terminology, “I’d say Masters, but Mash should be included too… field team? Anyways. Team building shit. I’ve noticed they’ve got a decent selection of movies, games, and books in their internet backup. Haven’t had a chance to actually peruse it yet, though.”

“I’ll join you next time you check out the game collection,” Toby said, pulling off his glasses to wipe the dog slobber off the lenses. “Show you which games I think are appropriate for newcomers and which are, well, not. We’ve probably got a fair few non-gamers here, wouldn’t want to demoralize them.”

“Very true. Party games have their place after all.” He kept his smile subdued, “Y’know, other than at the bottom of a garbage bin.”

“I dare you to say that to Wii Sports,” Toby said with a playful glare, distinguished from the non-playful version only by a barely-perceptible twinkle in his eye.

Sorely tempted just ‘cause you told me not to,” he said, before putting a hand on his shoulder and saying mock-indulgently, “but I’ll be nice.”

“Wow, how magnanimous of you,” Toby snarked back, brushing the hand off his shoulder with a half-grin. “Alright girl, lemme just…” Toby nudged the dog on his lap, who fought his attempts to scooch her to the side and wound up laying half-on half-off his lap instead. “Good enough, I guess. Anyway, gotta eat fast. Got PT with Doc Roman after lunch.”

“And I’d better get back to the kitchen before Emiya scowls harder at me. Seriously though?” He stood and stretched briefly, gently nudging his friend. “Hope the PT goes well. Don’t want you to be stuck in pain forever when there’s literal magic to throw around. I’ll reach out sometime tonight about when to look through the games.”

“Sounds good. Now, run Forrest, run” Toby said with a shushing motion, only to chortle when Jamaica licked his fingers on the way back.



The rest of the lunch rush went smoothly, as smoothly as a first day with a new menu and numb fingers could go. He only dropped one drink from a tray when he didn’t realize he couldn’t feel his pinky. Saved the rest of it though, and it was only plastic.

“Oi oi, are we getting to see you fail at this or what?” Mordred chucked the empty cup at him with a grin when he and Drake were among the last handful of people in the cafeteria.

Successfully blocking and catching the thrown cup with the serving tray with only minimal bouncing, Jacob rolled his eyes. “Keep y’er britches on. Be about twenty more minutes to get this all put together.”

Slipping back into the kitchen, Jacob automatically washed his hands on autopilot before slipping into the kitchen proper. “Down the line. Storage’s called with ‘cooler down’ in the right spots, right?”

Emiya grunted, indicating with a tilt of his head. “From over there, yeah.”

“Thanks, I’ll clean up the cutting station and flat-top. Gonna make myself and the rough-housers somethin’.” He paused, looking at Boudica and Emiya as he did, “The degreaser’s with the other cleaning supplies, right?”

“Yup!” Boudica chirped, “On the deli side, in the closet near the fridge.”

Smiling at the beautiful woman, Jacob thanked her and set to work. Calling down the food storage and riding it back up into the recessed section to peruse what they had properly. Lights snapped on in the rather cool area, which was just as cramped and stuffed with things as he was accustomed to. His breath fogged in the chill and he had to tense his core to keep the shiver from going through him.

’Right, right, some burger…? Oh gosh, this is 70/30? Oh, ew. No. I’ll grind my own stuff before using that for burgers, it’d all evaporate away on that flattop.’ Moving through the cooler and tucking things under his arm as he did, Jacob worked reasonably quickly in the unfamiliar space, ’Meat meat meat… right, there’s some chuck steaks… ribs… ooh! Beef short ribs, english cut too! Be a hot sec but pretty sure I saw a cleaver, and with Emiya involved that thing is almost certainly sharp enough to do this faster than anything short of a proper grinder. Sadly, none of those in the kitchen but I can make do. Onions, good. Garlic, good. Tomatoes? Yup. Good. Lettuce…? Ooh, good, some heads of lettuce… ah, decent selection of cheeses too! That’s good. Let’s see… ah, gouda… gruyere! Beautiful.’

Returning to the kitchen proper as the Servants worked on the non-claimed areas, cleaning things up on their end, thankfully a quick wipe down of the cutting area and the flat top was all he really needed to do at this stage with before confirming the location of the knife block and carting his ingredients in.

First the chefs knife and the tomatoes. And was it not a delight to use a knife sharpened by an actual master? Jacob was going to ask for tips on how to get his this sharp because the way it slid through the fruit was just gorgeous. A few minutes later he had them in the toaster oven on a tray to dehydrate while he slapped together the rest.

Sharp knives also made getting the meat off the ribs and the gristle off the meat was easy, and the butchers knife was equally sharp and made mincing up the meat into burger a swift process. Honestly, the only reason it took him any time at all was the care he was taking with how little feedback he was getting from his hands. Thankfully, despite his worries, his hands still knew what to do, and he was getting some sensation other than the buzzing tingle. With that in a bowl he moved to the flattop, a good, shaped handful of the mixed meat squeezed into a tight ball. Brief pause to find the pepper and… ooh! French gray salt. Nice.

Assuming Mordred ate half as much as Artoria did, or a quarter as much as she memetically did, and that Drake ate an unreasonable amount as well?

’Yeah, let’s go with twelve burger patties.’

Six pounds of burger was thrown onto the flattop to sizzle, squished flat, salted, and peppered something fierce before adding an equal number of piles of rapidly shredded gruyere to the flattop to melt into cheese crisps.

Only singed himself once when Beni-Enma asked a question about how he’d done the patties and his hand had missed the spatula when replying to her. Thankfully it was small, only the side of his right pinky, even as hot as the flattop was, and Boudica provided a bandaid for after he’d washed his hands. Beni Enma was nice enough to dice the onions for him as he dealt with that. First time he’d burnt himself in a kitchen in… god, 8 years? Boudica was sweet enough to help him get the bandaid on, thankfully. Two attempts when his fingers were too jittery and numb to just feel his way around using one hand on the other.

He was able to get back into things to flip the burgers, pepper them again, then move the cheese crisps on top of the burgers, as well as the graciously diced onions into the fat between them. Sadly, he didn’t have time to chop up the garlic for compound butter, but when the burgers were done to a solid medium he moved them to the cutting board, and set the potato roll buns into the fat to toast.

Pulling the partially dried tomatoes out of the toaster oven, he was able to put together a platter of the burgers. Toasted bun, meat, cheese, onions, tomato, slice of lettuce, then very lightly condimented top bun. As well as insistence that yes, he would clean this all, but first, his own lunch.

“Hey! Look who finally decided to crawl out of the kitchen!” Mordred laughed.

“Hah! Yes. The evil was defeated with only minimal injuries.” Three plates alongside the platter of cheeseburgers were set onto the cafeteria table, “Not quite my best work, but I would call it more than acceptable.”

For all that Mordred gave him shit,Jacob was still happy that the prince’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the burgers, and Drake was also intrigued.

He bowed briefly and jokingly before taking a seat himself, “May you enjoy~”

“Eh, let’s see how bad you messed up.” The blond managed to sass even while snatching one of them off the tray even before getting a plate.

Drake was little more refined, grabbing plate and burger at the same time and taking a bite before setting either down.

The happy little hum that escaped Mordred was a nice thing to hear, but Drake’s little shiver and trill was particularly satisfying. Jacob sat down and was setting up while Mordred snatched a second burger off the platter even without fishing his first. Drake’s eyes twinkled as she looked to him, “How much pepper did you use on these?”

“Yes.” The burgeoning spellcaster said smugly before grinning. “Good pinch each, freshly cracked. Modern day has its perks.”

Finally getting a chance to bite into his, he savored the crunch and variety of textures, as intended. The patties had a little less pink than he’d intended, and he missed the compound butter on the buns, but still, appropriately juicy with a nice sear on the outside–

“You said they were shaped.”

“Mm?” Jacob swallowed, looking up at… well, over to the small self-summoned Servant. “Yes. There’s a couple ways to do so, though the two best depend on the thickness you’re aiming for. For thinner burgers, I find the smash system to work well as it increases surface area in contact with the surface for better browning. But the irregularities of taking an initial ball and smashing it can be problematic, exaggerated by greater amounts of ground meat. For thicker burgers, I find that a limited ‘volcano’ style shaping will give the burger a consistent thickness as the shrinking causes the divot to fill in, as well as maintaining structural integrity for larger burgers.”

The adorable smol woman nodded, peering up at him. “May I try one?”

“Course.” He agreed easily, snatching one of them for the cheeseburgers to pass it along to the clearly skilled chef.

Giving the thing an experimental squeeze and tilting her head, she sniffed it before taking a delicate bite.

Her eyebrows drew down before she swallowed, and Jacob didn’t interrupt her, waiting for her to make her judgement. Auburn eyes opened up with an intensity to them after she had swallowed. “It’s too salty.”

Jacob nodded, accepting the little spike of disappointment. “Unsurprised, especially for a more asian palette.”

Beni-Enma’s beady eyes focused on him. “You could have used three quarters the amount of salt and gotten the same level of crust. Remember please - the simpler the food, the less room for error there is.”

“That… hrm… gonna be hard.” The man made a face in thought, having a ratio was good but consistency… raising the burned hand and waggling it. “I’ve measured by touch and I lost a lot of that.”

“There is no shame in having an impediment, dechi,” the small Saber lisped at him. Only then did Jacob realize the source of her peculiar way of speaking. “But passion and practice can overcome even great obstacles.”

A warmth bloomed in his chest to hear that even as it squeezed at the discomfort at the thought of who might’ve done such to her. “True. I was more thinking in practical terms of how to get consistent amounts without requiring a measuring set. But I honestly appreciate the criticism.” He finished warmly, bowing his head in recognition.

The child-like Servant bowed in return, and finished the rest of the burger in silence, chewing thoughtfully.before returning to the kitchen.

Unfortunately, Jacob’s contracted Servants had not been idle during his brief chat. The plate of burgers was considerably more empty than it had been a few minutes ago. Jacob definitely wanted at least two, and both of his contracted Servants were well into at least their third–

“Dory!” A slightly disheveled Indy set his tray down at the only free chair at their tab, his precarious mound of tikka masala nearly collapsing out of his plate. The two Servants looked up from stuffing their faces, Drake quirking an eyebrow.

“I am a Dory, yes.” He said with a cheeky grin before it softened. “What’cha need?”

“The Counter Force,” Adam said, pointing a fork at the other man. To his left, Mordred stiffened. “Does it exist, and how can you tell?”

“It almost definitely exists. It only manifests in two, kinda sorta three ways. The most basic is what was covered before, the whole ‘barely noticeable minimum interference butterfly effect’ sort of stuff. Basically impossible to tell without viewing timelines. Next level is basically stuff like one of our chefs, Emiya - the guy in red-”

“HE HAS A NAME?!” Mordred erupted. Several of the other staff were now looking in their direction.

Jacob froze, blinking a few times before muttering, “... should’n a’ tol’ ya that. Definitely in trouble for that. Anyways, he’s a Counter Guardian, a heroic spirit-esque being that pretty much nukes the place as necessary. That’s only barely an exaggeration, if at all; Pompei is explicitly an example of their handiwork.”

“Okay Hagrid,” Indy said around a mouthful of rice. “But how do you know that it was the Counter Force responsible for those things?”

“Someone who totally hates the stuff has told us? Like, in seriousness, I don’t know how they confirmed stuff. Like…” Jacob sighed in frustration, waving the burger briefly. “Things tend to go really, really wrong for people that act against the interests of the world or humanity as a whole. Pompei involved dangerous research of whose nature I don’t know specifically. And it’s explicitly a force that can be contracted with for power. You’d have to ask Emiya for specifics - and that’s not gonna be a fun convo, fair warning.”

“I say ya just shut up about this whole thing,” Mordred elbowed the darker skinned man in the ribs. “Unless you wanna get whacked too.”

Indy started to give the prince a dirty look before abruptly thinking better of it. He made a non-committal noise instead, and dug further into his beef-rice mixture.

“Indy, look at me.” Jacob met his gaze hard, barely blinking. “I am not joking about the nuke stuff. Please don’t poke the bear here. The Tunguska event is probably another example of the Counter Force hitting its Godzilla threshold. Godzilla is exactly the kind of thing that constitutes a non-butterfly-effect version of the Counter-Force.”

Indy looked away first, but the man was clearly not impressed of the seriousness of this. “... right,” he said. “Sure. So-”

“Please don’t make me console the Ko after cleaning up the mincemeat that was your face Indy.”

That remark got him a forkful of rice to the face. “That is a low blow, man,” Indy said through gritted teeth. “But- if it has all the properties that you people attribute to it, then my presence - and curiosity - is also accounted for. So don’t worry.”

Jacob had to catch himself to keep from smacking the man in the arm or snapping at him. He’d clearly hit a reverse-psychology gate with that one, and yelling would not solve the problem.

“I’m not,” Mordred said cheerfully, and stole a scoop of the man’s lunch. “You wanna kill yourself, that’s on you.”

Indy let out a long sigh. “In any case,” he said, enunciating. “How’s your day been?”

A frustrated exhalation came from Jacob as he shook his head, thinking desperately before saying somewhat lightly, “Mostly good, aside from possibly accidentally reverse psychology-ing one of my best friends into getting himself killed.” Pointing at Mordred with his burger, he added, “He may not care whether you die, but I do. Just please be safe. There’s probably better uses of your brain than beating your head against the Counter Force.”

“Not according to Socrates,” the man muttered.

“He’d also consider questioning whether a pencil is a pencil a fair use of your brain.” Jacob pointed out before taking another bite of his burger.

“Yes, but how often have you failed to activate your Circuits?” Indy countered. “He doesn’t do things without a good reason. Probably. And I don’t think he’s the type to subtly kill his summoner.”

“Mm.” Swallowing, the paler of the pair nodded, “Fair. Just want you to be safe is all. ‘Cause you know Socrates will keep poking a thing he’s curious about until it literally kills him. I don’t want you to get caught up in that.”

Indy burst out laughing - which posed a problem given he still had some rice in his mouth. Waving off Jacob’s attempt to help, when his throat was clear, the other Master spread his hands helplessly. “A bit late for that, man.”

“Yeah yeah, just don’t drink the poison please?”

Indy’s salute flowed into a middle finger.

’Well…’ Jacob restrained the frustrated sigh, ’Did what I could.’

It wasn’t much later that Jacob was cleaning up. Sleeves rolled up, scraper in hand, rag in the other, Jacob discovered the first good thing about the od depletion.

Degreaser getting onto his cut didn’t hurt to high heavens.



Ko

“Ooh,” Indy said, glancing up with a little smile as she walked in before turning back to the desk. “Issa Ko.”

Though their room had been spotless when she’d gotten out of bed, her fiance was now surrounded by papers, as was his wont. Crumpled balls of notebook paper around the chair of the desk. Printed out sheaves of computer paper, neatly stapled together. And tucked into a corner of the desk was the small stack of loose leaf he was currently occupied with, along with a bewildering assortment of pens, pencils, and erasers.

None of that was important, though. She took all of two steps into their room before collapsing onto the bed with a grunt, too exhausted to even reach for the pillow five inches north of her head.

“Another long day?” Indy inquired, mechanical pencil still scratching.

“Shishou tied Fionn to a tree surrounded by a ring of fire at the end of an obstacle course,” she said, her voice muffled even in her own hearing by the pillowy softness of their duvet. “She didn’t let me break for lunch until I managed to ‘save the damsel’ in under five minutes. Burned a command seal to wake him up so he could save himself, but that just made everything worse, if you can believe it.”

“...Ah.” She heard the smile in that syllable. She heard it.

There was a brief pause, and she could hear him shuffle in his seat.

“Um, dear?” Indy’s voice was uncertain. “You… know that she’s your Servant, right? Like, if it’s too much or it’s not okay, you can - or I can, somehow, I guess - t-talk to her or….”

She lifted her head in surprise. “Are you nuts? I fucking love that crazy bitch. This is the happiest I’ve been since Montreal.”

“... Not DC?”

He sounded hurt. Damn it, she should’ve known he’d take it wrong.

“It’s a different kind of happiness, lovely,” she said softly. “It’s self-generated, you can’t get it from another person.”

“She may be dead but I’m pretty sure your instructor counts as a person, dear.”

She rolled her eyes. “She’s not where the feeling comes from, she’s just… helping me draw it out.” Ko paused. “Or is this your roundabout way of asking if the woman who literally reminds me of my mother is my type?”

Indy sighed, and muttered something like “not touching that.”

“...Well,” he said at a proper volume. “Happiness isn’t the only thing that needs to get drawn out of you.” There was a muffled thump as he threw a small sack onto the bed beside her. “Epsom salts, and unlimited hot water in the bathroom. The TENS unit is fully charged and waiting on the nightstand once you’re done in there.”

“I love yooooooou,” she declared into the duvet, rolling over and stretching like a decadent cat.

“Huge if true,” he replied. “But you’re no good to me dead, woman.”

“‘m just gonna lie here for a sec,” she sighed. “When I can stand up again without hating myself I’ll go run a bath.”

“Do you want me to-?”

“No! Wait! Come back!” she heard Emiya’s voice echo through the hallway, along with the rapid pitterpatter of tiny adorable feets.

Craning her head to the side, she was just barely able to see the Queen of Chaldea herself scamper into their room, barking happily all the while.

“Ahhhh!” Indy shared her opinion of the doggo. “Hey ‘Maica! How’re you- no no no doggie no!”

Ko sat up in alarm. Jamaica, with a pure joy known only to the canine world, had dive-bombed Indy’s carefully curated mess of papers, and was currently, ass in the air and/or Indy’s face, chewing on his most recent work.

“Maica,” Ko made frantic kiss-kiss noises and snapped her fingers. “Maica, come!”

Panting, Emiya finally reached their doorframe. “She slipped her leash,” he said, when he’d gotten his breath back. “Sorry. Don’t tell the loud one-” He froze.

Pieces of confetti continued to drift to the ground.

Emiya emitted a very quiet ‘shimatta’. “Ziegler-”

-Eureka!” Indy shouted at the top of his lungs. “Wait wait no ow ow ow stop off off fuck fuck Ýfesi! Ýfesi!

And then he was off, sprinting down the corridor towards Socrates’ room.

“... what the fuck just happened?” Ko asked.

Emiya shrugged, hands held up helplessly. “You’re the one who agreed to marry him, not me.”



Bennett | Toby
The Next Day


The Eleventh Hour. What a fuckin’ concept, Bennett thought to himself as he (mostly tried to) read the monitors in front of him. He knew already that micro-singularities had a way of popping up in myriad spots, and that Chaldea could detect them during their admittedly-short lifespans. But this? This was something brand spanking new, for which he really had no frame of reference yet.

He’d only really gotten the basics: the Eleventh Hour would show up in a location and recreate the last full day before Goetia incinerated humanity, always beginning at 11:00pm, GMT+3. Twenty-four hours later, once the clock returned to 11pm GMT+3, Goetia’s ring of light would begin forming in the sky.

One hour after that, at midnight GMT+3, and a total of 25 hours later, Proper Human History would be incinerated, and they had best not still be in the Eleventh Hour when that happened.

Rayshifts would always arrive at T-minus 25 hours, regardless of any attempts to appear sooner or later. The micro-singularity always appeared in a relatively populous city, and showed up every three weeks or so. The internet still existed there, objects could be procured and brought back from the micro-singularity, and actual living breathing humans could be interacted with.

The Command Room was in a flurry of activity - not out of mission related stress, but because bets were flying all across the room under Roman’s disappointed not-quite-a-stare.

Da Vinci, of course, had appointed herself bookie. And Ching Shih appeared beside her a moment later, handing out scrips and IOU’s to make note of everybody’s wagers.

“Saturdays for GMT+4!”

“Sunday morning for Barcelona!”

“-more pens-!”

“Last two were in Asia, and it was Paris before that - we’re due somewhere more Western!”

“What about Paris!?”

Ça ne compte pas!

“Fuck off, Yolande, you’re just mad that they only picked up MREs there!”

“Va t’en, connard!”

Roman sighed, white-gloved fingertips pressed against his forehead. “Everyone submitted their lists after last time,” he reminded them all. “So there shouldn’t-”

“I said we need more pens, damn it!”

Toby did a double take. “Wait, so this is a regular supply run?” At Roman’s nod, he raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t we get to submit lists for this? And why am I only hearing about this just now?”

Ada Lovelace took that as an opportunity to materialize. “There’s been a pinned memo on Chaldeanet this entire time,” she chimed in. “And several Masters have submitted lists.”

“... oh,” he said, feeling a bit sheepish. Perhaps his fear of read receipts was getting to him a bit much, to have not even looked. “Uh… who all has submitted lists? So I know who else is getting a mark of shame on their user account?”

The Command Room door opened once again, and Ritsuka walked in - dressed not in the usual Chaldea uniform or even the plugsuit, but a blue Hawaiian print shirt and camo cargo pants, with a pair of sunglasses nestled atop his head.

“Everybody, please listen up!” Ritsuka clapped his hands three times, and miraculously, the din of the room quieted down until it was little more than a couple of whispers.

“...wish I could do that…” Bennett heard Roman mutter under his breath.

“We’ll find out where the Eleventh Hour is momentarily, and then you’ll get about thirty minutes to amend your lists, okay? Don’t make too many changes, and please don’t ask for anything particularly rare, expensive, or hard to find. And no, we are not stealing the Moon Rover if it shows up in Cape Canaveral, Zorro.” Ritsuka’s voice turned lightly chiding at the end there, and he managed to elicit a surprising amount of chuckles.

“And once again people,” Roman broke in. “Our first Eleventh Hour allowed us to copy the World Wide Web as of 2 hours before the end of the world. We aren’t getting any more adult material, so stop putting it on your lists. If it isn’t in the archive, I don’t know what to tell you.”

The room echoed with scattered amounts of nervous chuckling.

Da Vinci turned towards Bennett. “Jacob is getting tea, but where are the other Masters?”

“Well nobody’s seen Hinako in the last week,” he started, “but all the others? They should be—”

“Sorry we’re late!” Indy and Ko shuffled in, both of them out of breath. The former’s button-down shirt was one button skewed. “We were, ah-”

“We don’t want to hear it.” Hinako muttered from her position between Bennett and da Vinci, and a quick glance showed him that she still hadn’t looked up from that book of hers.

… hold up just a goddamn minute when the FUCK—

“Lord Yu will be joining you shortly,” she continued. “He required assistance in procuring... appropriate clothing.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Bennett said, and even he wasn’t sure what he was saying that about. Come to think of it… Ritsuka had come alone. “Actually, hold up. Fujimaru, is Mash not going with us?”

“A-ah, well…” Ritsuka rubbed at the back of his head in embarrassment. “We don’t know why, but for some reason Mash can’t Rayshift to the Eleventh Hour.”

“... huh?” Bennett asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We’ve tried,” da Vinci took over from there. “Three times now. Each time, Mash’s Coffin has failed to initialize the Rayshift. We’ve tried different Coffins, subsequent Rayshifts, having Mash be the first Rayshift… nothing has worked.”

“Did you try turning it off and on again?” Spencer asked, calmly closing the door behind him holding a transparent plastic cup with an iced coffee in it, and garnering a glare from da Vinci in the process. “Hey, I had to ask!”

“Our working hypothesis is that the Eleventh Hour is a fundamentally different type of Singularity, neither caused by a Grail nor a remnant of one,” Roman ran a hand nervously through his hair. “However, there have been no enemy Servants or Phantasmal Beasts present in any of the prior Eleventh Hours - we’re going to be sending you without Servants, so we can transport more material.”

“But Xiang Yu’s coming?” Indy asked quizzically. “He’s-”

“Not an issue,” Hinako stated.

“But—”

“Indy?” Bennett interrupted, shaking his head subtly. “Just roll with it. Trust me on this one, just… roll with it.” He had a feeling as to why Xiang Yu was an exception, but he wasn’t going to be the one to say it.

“No really, but—”

A frantic beeping at one of the stations, followed by the technician manning it standing up, drew everybody’s attention. “We’ve got a lock on the Eleventh Hour! Bringing it up on the monitors!”

All of the screens in the Command Room flipped to a world map. Moments later, it zoomed in on the Americas, to the groaning of most of the staff in the room. A pen was even flicked at the globe, disappearing within the hologram.

“Booo!”

“Take it back! I want a do-over!”

“Fuck, there goes my Saturdays for the next month….”

Despite the myriad protests, the map continued to zoom in, narrowing down on the American South. A dot appeared on the map, and moments later, a map of the United States overlaid the generic image of the world.

“And our final answer is... New Orleans!” Da Vinci chimed in, and at that, the various Francophone members began pelting the screen with more writing utensils. Off to the side, Ada Lovelace gave a silent little cheer, and collected her winnings off of Ching Shih.

“How the fuck did you manage that!?” One of the staff, whose name Bennett hadn’t yet gotten a chance to learn (translation: hadn’t bothered to try and learn) asked.

Ada waved a hand at the board with a small smile. “Oh, it was all up there, if you knew where to look.”

Damn it! Bloody Servants…”

“Wonder why everyone’s booing so hard,” Bennett muttered. “I lived there for four years, it’s really not that bad; the food is to die for, and all I had to do to not get robbed ever was put on some Saints merch.”

Spence opened his mouth, but anything the man might have said was drowned out by the bombastic entrance of the scariest, friendliest Rider Bennett had ever had the (dis)pleasure of meeting.

“I am now presentable to the people of twenty-eighteen!” exclaimed a very large man in a very large Hawaiian shirt and clashing camo cargo pants. Unlike Ritsuka, this only changed him from “Conan the Barbarian” to “Miami Bouncer/Hitman.”

“Leave the jian at home, my lord,” Hinako stated idly.

“I would not dare do otherwise, my beloved!” Xiang Yu bellowed, even as he discreetly slid the scabbard out of his shirt.

“...And by the way.” Bennett tried (and failed) to suppress the flinch when Hinako murmured almost directly into his ear. “Since you lived there, you shall help Lord Yu pick out what to bring back for me.”

.... well, fuck.