Fate/Reverse Part 1.10

Those That Remain

Taking a deep breath, Magdalena sent mana into the mirror again and the image of the monastery grounds flickered back into view. They had shrunk again.

The rolling hills and low stone walls holding back panicking sheep crumbled steadily away, swallowed by the impossibility that was closing in on them from every direction. The endless sea of black barely slowed down when it washed against the bounded fields they had set up for defense. Nothing would stop it from getting closer. Panic started to leak back in and she had to turn the enchantments off again.

They had lost. No matter how Magdalena looked at it, they had already lost.

She hurried down the spiral steps of the church’s spire, banging her elbow on the end of the railing. Hissing her breath in and fighting back tears, Magdalena rounded the corner on the second floor, ran down the empty hallways, and barreled into the only occupied room in the building: the office that held her last hope.

The graying woman sat buried amongst the piles of reports and equipment on her desk despite the bareness of the room sweeping out behind her. She scribbled something on a scroll, her head snapping back and forth between her writing and her notes so quickly that even her close-cropped hair was starting to flutter. Her suit’s buttons were off by one; there had been no time for her to fix it. Even her carefully manicured fingernails, their perfection the product of a dozen different spells and enchantments, were cracked and stained with ink.

“Natasha,” Magdalena called out hesitantly, “The void is moving faster again.”

The woman stopped writing. Still staring at the scroll, she tightened her shoulders, set her jaw, and asked, “How long do we have?”

Magdalena took a few moments to do the math in her head, leaving it to Natasha to think about what they might mean. “Well… Based on the ratio of circumference to the Leyline corruption speed, I would guess… uhm… 243 seconds at the most.”

Closing her eyes, Natasha let a parade of emotions fly across her face. But only for one of those precious seconds. Then, expression calm and steady, she turned to her communication device and Magdalena found she could breathe again. The statuette of a hippogriff on her cluttered desk emitted a soft glow as Natasha placed her fingertip on the well-worn depression in the wood of the figure’s base.

“Caster, aren’t you done expanding the bounded field yet? You might be ready to die, but the rest of us can’t quite give up yet.”

There was silence from the statuette.

“I know you can hear me, you old bastard!” Magdalena flinched as the woman’s voice cracked halfway through her shouting. “Just do it already!”

“Um,” Magdalena said. “He is deaf, isn’t he?”

Natasha blinked a few times, her thick lashes crashing against the bags under her eyes. Then she cursed and scrunched her face up, concentrating. Magdalena could almost hear the telepathic tirade she was sending to her Servant, the ghostly ally she had summoned from human history in a last gamble to fight back. Magdalena stood and waited, trying not to fidget.

“Go help him, would you?” the woman sighed when she was done. “He says he can’t leave the Quinta if we want this to work. And this has to work.”

Magdalena nodded. She didn’t need to be reminded about how dire the situation was. For all they knew, she and Natasha were the only humans left in the world. But as long as Natasha was still here, as long as the Makalov family still had a living representative, time could still be cut off and the world’s original future could be restored.

At least, that’s what Natasha had told her. But when Magdalena glanced back on her way out, the woman was hunched over her desk, her face buried in her hands, strands of salt and pepper hair hanging loose between shaking fingers.

The young mage shivered at the sight. She felt the panic rise up again, and she fought it back the only way she knew how. “This is my duty,” she whispered to herself. “Father said I have to do this, I have to. I have to, I have to, I have to…” She kept the chant up as she ran through the church faster and faster.

She sped between the grand double-doors, through the carefully tended garden and extra storage sheds, and along one long wall of the enchanted hedgerow that surrounded the monastery’s handful of buildings in a massive square. She passed the two warehouses, the parking lot— now empty apart from Natasha’s car— and the row of squat living quarters. By the time she made it to the small, colonial-style manor that had sprung up on the far side of the church grounds, it was hard for her to breathe.

Crossing the thin layer of magic that covered the anachronistic building like a veil always made her shiver. Taking a moment to steady herself against the faded yellow clay of the outer wall, Magdalena fought off the dismal air inside the bounds of the enchantment. It was made by a being that was so disgusted with the mortal world, their apathy had sunk into even their magic. The feeling still made her stomach churn a little.

Cold yellow eyes appeared in the window above and Magdalena jumped.

Swallowing hard, she followed Caster’s bony finger pointing to the corner of the bounded field. A glyph appeared there, a stylized G in elegant calligraphy. Then Caster gestured again, bunching his fingers together like a bundle of sticks before pushing them out in an expansive movement.

Magdalena nodded, hoping she understood. Normally, three days would have been enough for her to learn a sign language for more elaborate communication, but there hadn’t been time before the enemy Servants appeared out of nowhere.

Rushing to the glyph, Magdalena bunched up her dress and knelt in front of it. Melding it with the mana that flowed within her body would make the final push to expand Caster’s protective enchantments to the entire compound.

Her talent for fusing her own magical power to that of others and boosting it was the reason her father had sent her to this war. With this, the supplies and preparations they had left would be preserved and the monastery might hold a little longer against the all-consuming void a few yards away. Assuming she didn’t mess up.

Wood groaned and she looked up to see a tree at the edge of the monastery collapse into the horizon.

The blood drained from her face. The part of her brain that was still working corrected her earlier estimate to a few feet away.

The rest of her stared at the complex magic before her, frozen. She couldn’t do this; she was only a human. Even if this field hadn’t been the work of a supernatural being such as a Servant, it wasn’t hers. Altering it was risky, too risky. If she failed now, even the Quinta would disappear. The ground underneath her would crumble. She, Caster, and Lady Natasha would all fall, screaming, into the—

The glyph flashed. The signal. Magdalena stopped thinking, melded herself with the despair of the enchantments, and pushed outward with all her might.

Pain raced along her nerves as her circuits overcharged with Caster’s magical power, like icy needles pushing through her flesh from the inside.

She screamed. But her tears were from relief. The sensation was normal when using her gifts. It was working.

A shimmering grey line swept out across the monastery grounds, even as the perimeter hedgerows rustled against the void. Magdalena thought she saw a figure emerge from them, swollen and distorted, but on two feet. Then her vision flickered in and out a few times and then grass was itching against her cheek.

The walls and hedgerows were still, the world had stopped shrinking. The sky had bled out to a dull grey, but it stayed bright against the void sweeping around and below every horizon. Even the painful shivering throughout her body was fading. The melding had finished. The monastery was safe.

Magdalena let herself rest for a few moments, but when she opened her eyes the figure from the bushes was looming above her.

Gold glinted around its eyes and a subtle but unnatural power wafted away from its waist. Two swords hung there, one on each side. For a moment she thought it was Caster, but his arms were thick and strong, his build far too stocky. And he said something in… French?

“Cómo?” Magdelena said without thinking. Her vision cleared while she tried to sit up.

He was a tall man, well-built, holding the body of a girl in his arms. The gold was the sheen of his hair and strange eyes. The feeling of magic came from his weapons. Panic cleared the rest of her mind and Magdalena scrabbled back from him, kicking at the grass. “What? Who are you? You’re not a Servant, are you?”

The man frowned but made no move. “I serve no one, currently. My name is Aimon. Aimon Berne.” His voice was clear and fluid as mountain water, with the subtle flavor of a French accent. “What is this place? The world is stable here?”

“Ye-yes…” Magdalena stood up gingerly, brushing grass flecks from her dress and hair in embarrassment. The name seemed familiar, and the mana she sensed was coming from the sword at his side. He was human. He was older than she had first guessed as well, judging by the crow’s feet on either side of his sharp blue eyes. “This place should be safe. For now. But—”

He grunted, quick and sharp. “Good. This girl won’t wake up. Is there a hospital here?” He shifted his grip under her shoulders and knees, allowing her head to loll towards Magdalena.

Her eyes widened when she saw her face, pale and freckled from within her perpetual mess of red hair.

“Julia! You’re alive! I can’t believe you found her…” Magdalena’s relief dimmed as she remembered where he must have found her. Where she, too, should have died. “So you came from the battlefield. Are you a survivor from the Church?”

The man closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. Then he carried on, like she hadn’t said anything. “She is injured.” The man jerked his sharp chin at Julia’s skinny arm. “The bleeding stopped on its own, but I believe she is in shock.”

Magdalena swallowed, stepping back from him a few feet. She was surprised Julia had resorted to that technique, even if she was about to die. “Hurry,” she said. “Follow me. Julia will be fine, she just needs a safe place to rest. Away from anyone else.”

The man frowned but did as he was told.

After Julia was safely tucked into her cot in a corner of one of the warehouses, Magdalena took a moment to finally collect herself outside the church building. The absurdity of the situation hit her and she studied the man again.

He wore a simple navy-blue track suit, its bagginess belying the muscles underneath. Sharp-angled protrusions suggested armor as well, thin enough to be Kevlar. His movements were completely controlled, calm despite the madness of all that had happened. And he studied her back, eyes unnervingly steady. They had a strange quality to them, shimmering almost, like there was a layer of magic—

“Mystic eyes!” Magdalena gasped. He blinked once, and his right hand twitched. He couldn’t be from the church. But then, the only other group at the battle— the slaughter— would have been the mysterious force she had seen in Natasha’s mirror. “I knew it, you’re no normal refugee.”

The man’s left thumb and finger wrapped around the lip of his sword’s sheathe, while she poured what mana she had left into her circuits. The wind began to pick up. “Why did you come here?” she demanded. “Who sent you?”

“No one sent me,” he said evenly, carefully.

Magdalena concentrated and whispered an incantation, compressing the wind into blades swirling overhead.

He narrowed his eyes. “I wanted to check something before the world ended. Then I kept going, following the curve of the edge until it coalesced here.” He paused, looking around the area at the rustling leaves and her fluttering strands of hair. “I don’t want to fight you, but if you try to attack me with that magecraft, I will cut you down.”

Magdalena’s blood froze. The wind halted as she lost her concentration. “You could see that?”

“Not exactly.” The man let go of his scabbard. “But as you said, I have good eyes.”

Magdalena relaxed. Even looking closely at those golden irises, she felt no strange effects. That type of mystic eye only enhanced a person’s sight and reaction time. He shouldn’t be a threat, not from that distance. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit keyed up at the moment.”

“I understand. Now—” He stopped, eyes darting towards the church. He put his hand on a hilt and the great oaken doors burst open.

“Magdalena!” Natasha shouted. “Why haven’t you reported— oh.” She blinked down at the man from the top step of the church’s entryway. “A survivor?”

“He says he wandered in from the battlefield,” Magdalena reported, taking the opportunity to hurry towards Natasha’s side. “He showed up just as I finished the bounded field, carrying Julia. He says he found her injured.”

The man nodded. “The other girl is safe now. My name is Aimon Berne. No affiliation.” He put his left hand over his chest, bowing, and they both gasped. His sleeve slid down, revealing a mess of red insignias on the back of his hand.

Command Seals.

Natasha shot a wide-eyed glance at Magdalena, but she only looked at the ground and shrugged. She still hoped the woman would know what was going on here.

“If you have nothing to do with the Mages Guild or our enemy,” the older mage said, “then why do you bear those Seals?”

Frowning at the back of his hand, Aimon said, “I don’t know. They simply appeared when I found…” He trailed off, screwing his eyes shut. His lower lip trembled for a moment. But when he spoke again, he only sounded confused. “While I was crossing that dead battlefield. That’s also where I found this:” he shifted the blade at his hip to show them the ornate handle and ringed handguard, “And the girl. Julia, correct?” He glanced at Magdalena, who nodded.

“I see,” said Natasha, her voice quiet. She made her way down the steps to where they stood. “So Julia survived, that’s good. But everyone else…?”

Aimon shut his eyes again and gave a slow, heavy shake of his head.

It was as they’d expected, but tears were still welling up inside Magdalena. She jerked her sleeve across her face before they could show. It was improper for the heiress to a true mage family to show such emotion. But then a sobbing gasp escaped anyway. Mage family? What family? They were all gone, all consumed, so what did it matter? The tears started to flow in earnest.

Bony arms wrapped around her along with the cinnamon smell of Natasha’s hair. Magdalena buried her face in the woman’s chest so no one would have to see it. “We’ll be alright,” she crooned. “I’ll find a way to reverse this.”

“Reverse it?” came Aimon’s voice, more forceful than before.

“Restore the world.” said Natasha, breaking away from the younger mage’s arms. “I believe it’s not been destroyed, only removed. I have a plan. With you here, another Master candidate, it might actually work.”

But the man shook his head. “I might have these marks, but I don’t know anything about all this magic and spirits. The only ‘magecraft’ I can do is instinctual, strengthening my own body. I didn’t even realize it was supernatural at first.”

Magdalena’s breathing calmed and Natasha turned fully to face him.

“I’ve heard that before,” the older mage said. “Now I remember who you are, Aimon Berne. Marissa spoke highly of you, and you even carry her Servant’s weapon. The Holy Grail chooses Masters it deems worthy, not those who deem themselves worthy. Even for this ritual, first designed for the larger-scale Greater Grail War, there are still rules that apply. If I teach you the words, instinct, as you put it, will do the rest.”

But the Aimon’s look only darkened. “You want me… to summon something? That’s what they wanted Marissa for. And that’s what she died for. You would have me do the same?”

“Ah.” Natasha’s gaze was full of compassion. “You found Marissa too, didn’t you.”

“Too late.”

“I am sorry. I know that sounds like some platitude, but…” Natasha took a deep breath, then her voice came out raw, shaking. “It was my duty to oversee this operation to recover the Grail. My duty to guide the seven Masters of the Blue faction to overcome our seven foes. And I have failed. Utterly. I have failed, you, Marissa, Magdalena and Julia, and every corpse on that battlefield. I cannot bring them back, but the world as a whole might still be saved. If you think that’s worth risking your life, then help me.”

The man was silent. He stared at his sword and the back of his hand.

“Well, we’ve bought some time, so think on it,” Natasha said. “Follow me to the summoning site, then both of you rest a bit while I prepare the circle.” She gave the man a weary smile. “I’d like to move quickly, just in case.”

He still didn’t say anything, but he did follow them to the back of the church. Three leylines, natural currents of magic under the earth, intersected there, making this a place of powerful latent magic and the reason Natasha had chosen this monastery as their base. Other than that, it was an unremarkable swathe of English countryside. An unusual place to call heroes of myth and legend to the modern world. But it was where everyone except for Magdalena had chanted the ritual and summoned their Servants. Her talents made Natasha save her for last. Now, she wondered if she’d ever even summon at all.

The circle was painted onto a patch of bared earth, in a mixture of blood. Natasha added more, slicing open a rat and dripping its lifeblood onto the points of the star pattern overlaying the circular foundation.

Magdalena still flinched at the sight, but the man, Aimon watched blankly. “Magdelena,” the mage called up to them, “would you explain the basics of this summoning for our guest? I’ll need to concentrate.”

“R-right.” She tried to look Aimon in the eyes, as intimidating as that golden stare was. “Well, the idea came from a collaboration in the East, to tap into the collective subconscious of our species and call out the great figures of myth and history. If our words reach that mythical zeitgeist— the Throne of Heroes— then the legends emerge to engage in a ritual. We mages use magical energy to give these Heroic Spirits form and in return, they fight for us. Upon summoning they are also bound by the command seals.”

She pointed at the marks on the back of his hand. “Each one is an absolute order that can’t be disobeyed. That’s why we mages call the Heroic Spirits ‘Servants.’ Did Marissa really not tell you any of this?”

“She only told me she was going to war over something named after Holy Grail from Arthurian myth. And that… That I shouldn’t worry.” That solid gold gaze of his flickered, and Magdelena realized her fear him was fading. He wasn’t an enemy, just another victim.

“I… see. I’m sorry.” Magdelena paused for a moment, trying to find her momentum again. It was nice to be able to explain something for once, and a welcome distraction as Natasha knelt to cut open another squirrel for its lifeblood. “The Grail she was fighting for is really more of an idea than a relic. It is said to grant any wish the winner asks of it, though it needs the sacrifice of the Seven Servants it summons to build up the mana. In our case, a powerful mage family in Europe tried to do it all on their own, so the Mages Association sent another team of seven summoners to stop them. The Grail chose us in order to stop its system from being abused and we started summoning seven of our own Servants. But then…” Magdalena’s voice trembled and died again, trailing off.

Natasha stood up with a little groan and rubbed her back, saying “Then something went wrong. Very wrong. At any rate, the circle is ready.”

She stepped back from the freshly red lines and looked to the man Marissa had vouched for. “Magdalena has another role to fill and I’ve already wasted my summoning on an invalid. Please, Aimon. We need you to call for aid. We need the power of myth, or what little of the world is left will crumble away.”

The man stood but didn’t finish taking his step forward. “It’s strange,” he said. “I see the sense of your words, but I can’t quite feel the urgency. Perhaps… Perhaps I don’t care if the world is saved. Or perhaps I am still reeling, confused too much to think about this at all.” He gave a broken sigh. “Who are you trying to make me summon, anyway?”

Magdalena pointed at the flower set in a jeweled case behind him. It had pink petals and golden stamens that constantly dripped a shimmering liquid, only for the drops to dissolve into mist midair.

“That’s our catalyst,” she said, “an enchanted flower harvested from the very Garden of Avalon centuries ago. With it still here, we can summon one of the most powerful Servants, the famed mage Merlin himself.”

Saying the words out loud, she even felt a swell of excitement and hope. With someone that knowledgeable, surely they could find a way out of this. Magdalena had tried to summon him herself, but their faction already summoned a Caster in Natasha’s moment of panic, and the Grail rejected her. But if Aimon had somehow recovered Marissa’s command seals, the ones that forged the link between her and their original Caster that they had lost in the battle…

“We aren’t certain such a thing is possible,” said Natasha, leaning wearily against the back of the church. “Summoning the Kingmaker. That is why this is well and truly a last resort. But if we can call him here, with the aid of someone who can find the gates between worlds, the Earth that we lost in that battle might be within our grasp again. We just have to find it and retake it.”

“You all sound completely mad,” Aimon said. But his face was still serene, empty of contempt or disbelief. “Then again, I’m beginning to feel insane myself. Use my Faerie Eyes to reach into the faerie realm… It makes at least some logical sense.”

Natasha smiled and nodded, and Magdalena felt her grin grow.

She hadn’t even thought of that, but looking again, with her own gift in magecraft, she could feel the connection between the two: a way to meld the man’s circuits and the flower’s mana. “Yeah, I see,” she said. “Don’t worry, if you say the words, I can help your magic connect with the circle. I’m sure it will work!”

Aimon stepped up to the circle and raised his hand, only for it to slump back down again. “I still feel uncertain, doing this. Doing the same thing that… that ultimately killed Marissa.”

He looked to Natasha. “You knew her as well, it seems. I think… I think that if she were here, even if she knew as little as I did, she would do this ‘summoning.’ If it had even the slightest a chance to save someone, she would say it was the right thing to do.”

Natasha’s voice was gentle and firm, though her eyes looked hungry. “Yes, Aimon. I’m sure she would.”

The man sighed, clenching and unclenching his fists. Finally, after a glance at his sword, he said, “Very well. Teach me the words.”

Natasha nodded, but before she could open her mouth, Aimon jerked his head up and drew his sword. Magdalena felt her throat close in panic as the Flower of Avalon withered away in front of her.

The circle lit up black and a robed man appeared above them in the sky.