"Welcome all to Chaldeas." The static voice echoed in the dim lit room as Apple Bloom stared at the recording of Director Diamond Tiara in their very first day in Chaldeas, she put down the small screen with a deep sigh. It had been barely a month since the incident had happened, when they discovered that Professor Discord was actually a traitor, that humanity had been completely wiped out, Spike’s newfound condition… and the Grand Order. The video kept going with Diamond Tiara’s explanation about the Chaldea Security Organization, their role in ensuring the future of humanity, images of a big blue globe, the core of Chaldea that mapped humanity’s past, present and future, always being watched over through the lens of Sheba, the great telescope that made all this possible. A miraculous marriage of science and magecraft, the only of its kind.
Bloom tapped the screen that lay on top of undone bed sheets, closing the video off. It had been barely a month that the once blue globe had turned a scalding orange, as if the planet had been set ablaze. Humanity's future had been reduced to ashes, everything and everyone she knew and loved had been erased, only Chaldea now stood.
The young woman’s eyes slowly set on a framed picture atop her nightstand, picking it up gingerly as she laid down on the mattress. In the picture stood a tall and blonde man wearing a red jacket and jeans, his green eyes forever locked in an understanding look. Right beside the man was a blonde woman, her hair cascading from beneath her cattleman hat, ending in a tied tip. She had a bright smile in her face as she held the man and another figure in a tight hug, said other figure was smaller thanks to a slightly hunched back, looking old, but Apple Bloom knew she was far from frail, a familiar bun of white hairs resting atop the older woman’s head as she smiled sweeter than any apple pie in the world. Her family.
“I miss y’all…” She hugged the picture close, it had been taken and delivered to her after she’d been summoned to Chaldea, the Apple clan was one of the oldest and most far branching magus families, descended from the Fraga family. And now Apple Bloom was the last of them, until they could complete the Grand Order and restore the world, though this offered very little solace, they still had four more singularities to go and they barely made it out of the last one.
Sometimes, Apple Bloom felt like she wanted to cry, to scream, to just… wake up from this reality, but alas this was no simple nightmare. At first, things seemed simple, back when they thought Discord was their only enemy, just an unhinged mage powered by… one of many Holy Grails. Oh were they wrong.
“AHAHAHAHAHA!” The older man’s laugh reverberated through the golden palace room, once the proud throne of Romulus and the United Empire, now it wasn’t much better than a regular battlefield after the defeat of the very first Emperor of Rome, or rather the Heroic Spirit created using his legend as the base, called upon by the power of the Holy Grail. “I do love when the trash struggles.” Professor Discord Lainur, considered an eccentric man with a shit taste for clothing as he wore what seemed like a bunch of rags sewn together at random. “Restoring humanity?! Protecting the future?! Pitiful jokes!” His smile sent the worst chills down Apple Bloom’s spine and she was sure her friends felt the same. Her body begged her to get away from there, but she ultimately stood her ground.
“You little shit stains have bothered me enough now, I got a good yelling because of you fixing up France.” The man cracked his neck, the smile giving place to a scowl. “In honor to that I have decided to take matters into my own hands.” His feet slowly began lifting from the ground as the man’s arms opened wide, a guttural laugh leaving him as an ominous energy began gathering around him.
“Allow me to reintroduce myself…” Discord’s top hat flew off, his disheveled hair was now blowing like a strong wind had hit it. “I AM DISCORD FLAUROS. ONE OF THE 72 DEMON GODS!” As his laugh boomed, his voice becoming more and more distorted, his body contorted and reshaped until, in a bright light, the human Discord had been replaced with a singular towering pillar of flesh, covered in a spiral of red, crystal-like eyes that seemed to grow from cracks in it’s purplish body.
Apple Bloom still shuddered from remembering that day, their first tussle with a Demon God Pillar. It still plagued her nightmares. Honestly if it hadn't been for the bravery of their servants, Apple Bloom was sure they'd be goners right then and there.
Speaking of servants. The automatic door to her room opened to a very familiar face. His skin was a light shade of purple and his messy and spiky hair a striking shade of green, with a pair of tired emerald eyes looking straight at her with a lot of concern;
"Hey Spike..."Apple Bloom tried to force a smile but the boy was not very convinced, if his face told her anything. Spike replied with an exhausted sigh.
"Hey A.B." He made a half wave before approaching the redhead.
It was still fresh in Apple Bloom's mind how Spike and her fought in their very first singularity, back in a burning city called Fuyuki, the day she'd learned her friend had become a "demi-servant" by making a deal with a Heroic Spirit to save his life in the incident caused by Discord. Not to mention how they both had paid witness to Diamond Tiara being incinerated.
"Your vitals seem pretty stable, which is good, the doctor will be relieved." Apple Bloom hadn't even noticed when he pulled out his terminal to check up on her, of all four of them she had been the least hurt by their brush with King Solomon back in the London singularity, very much thanks to Spike and his Noble Phantasm. "Scootaloo and Sweetie are recovering well, I think Scoots even went to the training area today. Sir Lancelot is keeping her company there, i believe."
It was good that someone was keeping Scootaloo company, even if it were a Berserker-class, she had been very affected by all of this, especially since her "sister", Rainbow Dash, was one of the master candidates stuck in the Coffins when Discord sabotaged the very first Rayshift, his bombs almost cost humanity everything.
"Hmmm... you seem healthy and well rested, mental readings however show a lot of stress." Spike sighed, putting away his terminal. "You're still thinking about the London singularity, aren't you A.B.?" And all the girl could do to answer was wince. "Thought as much... thankfully we're still alive, something tells me that man just wanted to play with his food." Or more accurately, take a piss on them as he so eloquently put it with that simply demonic smile of his.
"You need some air A.B." Spike offered her his hand. Apple Bloom took a minute weighing her options until she sighed and took the invitation, getting up from her bed and accompanying the demi-servant into the corridors of chaldeas.
Their walk was mostly spent in a comfortable silence, except for the occasional meeting with a servant or another, Apple Bloom was constantly asked about her well being, it was very hard to hide your feelings and thoughts from beings connected to you on a magical level. After a few hours, she simply crumbled in one of the emptier corridors, leaning against a wall and sliding down until she was sitting. Spike did the very same thing, sitting down beside her.
"Spike" Apple Bloom hugged her knees, hiding her expression from her friend. "Do you think we can actually restore human history?"
"Hmmm..." Spike took a hand to his messy green hair, scratching his scalp in thought. Their enemy was like a living God compared to a regular servant, they were up against a Grand Servant after all, a being created to protect the world from complete destruction, the original point of the Servant Summoning System. "Yeah." His answer was against his better judgment, maybe it was the influence of the servant in him.
Apple Bloom looked at him with a mix of surprise and... relief. They all grew a lot as people during their struggles, especially the young man beside her. She could still recall a cowardly Spike who could barely tell them his name, it brought her a small smile. A smile that was swept away as her friend pulled a cigar from his lab coat's pocket. The redhead glared at her friend who simply shrugged before putting it in his mouth and lighting it.
"You can stop glaring, those don't smell like the usual ones." That didn't stop his friend from scrunching her nose. "Da Vinci's made sure these would smell fresh or something." The marvels of having a genius with a penchant for making the impossible, in fact, possible. Spike would never admit to having commissioned those because of Apple Bloom's nagging.
"I still don' like it." But she'd relent, just this once, they were still pretty damn on edge after the last singularity, Doctor Whooves was still in denial about his hero, Solomon, being not only an evil man, but also the one responsible for incinerating humanity, if it honestly weren't for Chaldeas being especially built to survive this kind of event they wouldn't be able to do anything. She hugged her knees even closer to her chest, burying her mouth against them. "We're supposed to fight a God damned Grand Servant, Spike! A-and he... he coulda killed us all... he was just toying with us! He said it himself! To him it was like taking a shit on our heads during a commercial break or sumthin'!" Spike grimaced at that, he hated the way that guy talked, but most of all he hated that smile of his, it just... his face... his face was all wrong, like it could just tear itself to become even more uncanny and demonic, even the way his eyes would darken the sclera and become a vivid red when he laughed in their faces.
"I know, Apple Bloom... but we've come too far to simply give up and die." If anyone had told Spike about this during the first Rayshift, he'd have panicked and begged to give up and embrace their demise. He inhaled some more of the cigar and blew the smoke out of his nostrils, he hated how much of a coward he was back then. "All those singularities we cleared, even London, despite Solomon's appearance, can't have been for nothing. Everyone we've met along our journey's counting on us, hell, some of them answered your summons and are now your servants and proud members of Chaldea." At least his speech made Apple Bloom look up from her knees, that was a start he wagered.
The farm girl sat there quiet for a moment, on one hand she could still see flashes of Solomon, the might of an omnipotent mage, she was still unsure what miracle had made Spike's noble phantasm, even without it's true name, be able to hold against so much power, on the other hand though... she could see the faces of all those who helped them along the way, all the servants or even living figures they've met as they corrected human history. Spike had a point, it was too late to simply give up, not to mention how unfair it would be to those who gave their lives for them in the past, all those who put their trust in their hands and all who answered their call in the summoning ritual. Apple Bloom stood up with a heavy sigh.
"You're right." She sounded a bit more confident now, at least as confident as one could be in their situation. "We've come too far to give up without a fight, that would be exactly what he wants" What he expects. Spike nodded with a grin on his face. "Good." He said, putting a hand on Apple Bloom's shoulder and giving it a light comforting squeeze. "Then that's what we'll do. We'll fight. We found our ways out of a lot of hopeless situations already, we'll find a way out of this one too."
｢SIMULATION ENDED.｣
The robotic voice echoed through the large room. Scootaloo had spent hours simulating combat scenarios, fighting any form of creature she could take on as a modern magus, which turned out to be a very small list of enemies, ranging from zombies, skeletons, the occasional low quality homunculus, then she began taking things up a notch, moving to wraiths and phantasmal beasts, it was during one said fight, where she totally wasn't getting her ass handed to her by demonic boars thank you very much, that Lancelot had jumped outta nowhere and given her a little hand.
Scootaloo was a sweating mess, her clothes clinging to her slender frame, her messy hair standing on it's ends and her lungs burning from exhaustion, yet she didn't want to stop, she didn't want the simulation to end, she needed to be a better magus if she wanted to protect any of them. But her legs gave out and her knees hit the cold hard floor, next were her hands, which were having a hard time holding her weight. It had been only just a few hours, but the intensity of the exercise, plus the fact she was very much fighting for her life back there, seem to have been too much for her recovering body.
"Aaaaa..." The metallic voice of the knight echoed in her ears, he sounded worried for her... in his own way, next thing Scootaloo heard was the sound of something heavy falling beside her and, upon looking in it's direction she was met with the form of the knight sitting down beside her in a lotus position with his hands resting atop his thighs. Her arms finally gave out then and her cheek met the floor with a wet smack, the last of her strength being used to roll over a little closer to her companion and to be facing up.
Silence had fallen between them, but it felt... comfortable in a way. Ever since she summoned Lancelot after their meeting in Orleans, back when he had been summoned by the Dragon Witch to hunt Scootaloo and her friends down, she'd kind of formed a deep bond with him. She closed her eyelids, trying to remember the day she'd summoned him.
"Let silver and steel be the essence. Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation. Let my great Master Dash be the ancestor"
"Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall. Let the four cardinal gates close. Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."
"I hereby declare. Your body shall serve under me. My fate shall be your sword."
"Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail. If you will submit to this will and this reason…Then answer! An oath shall be sworn here!"
"I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven. I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell! "
The chant was made, just like Fuyuki's Caster had thought her and it seemed to be working, as the small piece of mana infused quartz, or Saints Quartz as it was called, began to shine a blue color before bursting into a blue summoning circle which began to spin, the edges of the star in the center shining like balls of electricity, a huge pillar of mana would rise like a violent storm, reaching the very ceiling of the summoning room, three rings of light would form around that said pillar, followed by a flood of blinding light. Scootaloo had to shield her eyes with her arm until the light subsided.
When she finally took in the form of her newly summoned companion, expecting someone like King Leonidas or Beowulf, her heart sank and fear began to settle in. Before her was a very familiar form. Where once had been a summoning circle, now stood a robust figure clad from head to toes in a masterfully crafted pitch-black armor, carved with scratches and marks of countless battles, it's helmet lay closed with but a thinly carved visor that quickly lit up with a red glow from within, the blue plume shooting out from the top would twist and turn as the body came to life with a mighty scream.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" The sheer force of his vocal chords sent a wave of wind against Scootaloo, making her fall with her back against the floor, her eyes closing and her conscience going blank. When she finally came to, her eyes opened to see that red glowing helmet a few centimeters above her face, she was frozen in fear, memories of that very same knight chasing after her in France flooding her head until... he reached out a hand to her.
"Aaaa..." The metallic voice sounded calm, or as calm as a Berserker could, and somehow Scootaloo knew he wanted to help her up and, to her credit back then, she reached out a trembling hand for him to grab, choosing to trust that he wouldn't hurt her.
Looking back on it, that day when she chose to reach for Lancelot's hand had been the start of a great thing, Lancelot had been the closest thing she had to... well... a parent. Even if he couldn't speak, even if he'd lose his mind and become an attack dog at the mere sight or mention of King Arthur, he still found it in his maddened mind to be there for her, just like he was there now, sitting down with an armored hand gently and carefully ruffling through her hair, trying to calm her aching chest, fighting in his own silent way the demons that plagued her after their encounter with King Solomon.
"Thanks, Lancelot..." And she drifted off to rest, having wonderful dreams of her knightly friend meeting her "sister" when she woke up from that metal contraption that was supposed to send her to Fuyuki that day... or maybe it was a world where that explosion never happened. Who knows, it was a dream after all.
Spike walked once again through the infirmary room's doors, having left Apple Bloom alone after he'd made sure she was feeling a little bit better. His breathing was growing a little labored as he stepped closer and closer to a particular bed, the form of a still unconscious Sweetie Belle coming into his view.
To say he felt horrible was an understatement. She had been more affected by Solomon's attack than the others and that just added to the painful ammount of guilt he felt for his inability to keep them out of harm's way, even after everything he learned from folks like Cú Chulainn, Nero Claudius, Francis Drake and Mordred, he was still barely able to keep his masters, no, his friends safe.
Spike's hold on his terminal grew tighter by the second, he could feel the metal wanting to bend against his newly found Heroic Spirit-level strength, his thoughts growing ever more desperate until... something cut through them, something small, soft and fluffy, his eyes shot open and, looking at his side, Spike was met with a small animal, looking like a small fox or squirrel or maybe rabbit? Or a mix of all three creatures? Well, it was hard to describe the small white critter.
"Hey, Fou... guess you saw me worrying again, huh?" The creature merely responded with a "Fou", the only sound it ever made with its cute little voice, hence his name's sake. Nobody knew where Fou came from, he just appeared in Chaldea one day and kept Spike company until they met the girls. "I'm sorry, it's just..." He sighed, there was no point in going there, especially after giving A.B. so much shit about her own doubts and insecurities. Fou's reaction was to simply nuzzle his cheek before jumping to Seetie's side and curling up into a ball beside her.
"Thanks for keeping an eye on her when I'm not here, Fou." Spike sat at the chair beside Sweetie Belle's bed, his right hand snaking its way to hold on to her's while his left held the terminal up. She was stable, but no signs of her waking up yet.
"Please wake up soon..." It came out as more of a whisper, the terminal was soon forgotten and lazily thrown on top of a bedside table, his newly freed hand helping embrace the smaller hand of his bedridden friend.