No Thanks, We've Already Got One
by Rob Kelk, loosely based on and including content from an unfinished story by Seraviel
by Rob Kelk, loosely based on and including content from an unfinished story by Seraviel
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, QC, Canada
September 21, 2016
11:00 AM ET
Not ten days after signing her employment contract, Cassiopée got a file full of new 'renters' by the mail, and they even had photos with that.
"So, let's see who I have to deal with!" she said to herself, looking at the first set of papers.
Then the second. Then the third and fourth.
Tossing the folder away, she ran for her phone. She'd been given a contact number, just in case of something being wrong, and those names clearly were.
The phone rang twice before someone answered. "Goddess Relief Agency, Vár speaking. How can I help you?"
She froze. She'd read enough Ah! Megami-Sama fanfics not to say anything stupid when the words 'Goddess Relief Agency' came up. And she knew who Vár was, after a failed attempt at a DanMachi RP.
"Hello?" the female voice on the other side of the line asked.
Ok... I'm either going insane, or not awake, she thought in French. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Let's see where that ends up.
"Sorry about that," she answered in her best English. "My name is Cassiopée, and I'm calling from Montréal..."
"Location 3487 Parc, yes," the woman answered instantly. "Residence 52. How can I help you, Mme. Bright?"
At least this wasn't a false number. "I'm having some questions about my first batch of tenants... Like, how is this possible?"
"Didn't your signer go over the details of your work?"
The lady had been gone the instant she'd signed. "Didn't get any of that."
"Let me pull up your file..." she said. "I should have known it was her." She sighed, and Cassiopée could hear the tension in her voice. "Are you available right now to go over that?"
This was my job now. "Sure."
"I will be there in a moment." The line then went dead.
Cassiopée didn't have time to ponder on that when the file rose from the ground, papers going everywhere as if grabbed by a miniature tornado. A woman then stepped out of the papery blur, and the folder resorted itself in her hand. "Sorry for the delay."
Cassiopée couldn't help but bow. Between the tattoos on her face and the way she'd appeared, she clearly had a goddess before her. And it wasn't the time to make a bad impression.
Vár shook her head. "None of that," she replied, and Cassiopée rose back up. "Now, the Goddess Relief Agency is very busy these days, so there's no time to waste."
Then she went right into the explanations.
Turns out something put Yggdrasil and Nidhogg (yes, they exist) in lockdown. Only this time, more than one universe was affected.
Meaning, there's dozens of people from various universes going around this universe, and some people need to manage them.
People like Cassiopée. Dozens of people like her, since Vár called the property 'Residence 52'.
That's why the contracts were so good, and the penalties so high. The gods (and devils, also) needed this pronto, and they clearly stacked the deck to make sure they weren't going to be getting a 'no'.
Still, that didn't explain the hand Cassiopée got dealt.
"That's all well and fine," she said once Vár was done speaking. "But that doesn't means this makes sense!" She grabbed the file from Vár's hand, and withdrew a couple of images.
Artoria Pendragon. The servant better known as EMIYA. Medea of Colchis.
"I have Fate/Stay Night servants here!" she said angrily. "Who had the bright idea of putting so many fighters of near-godly level who are, under normal circumstances, trying to kill each other, in the very same place? Along with their masters?"
"Unfortunately, given the master/servant bond, the two cannot be separated," Vár explained. "And, given that these masters and servants are a karass, all must be in the same region, at the very least."
"You do know that's a recipe for disaster, right?" Cassiopée asked. "And what's a karass?"
"Actually, simulations show that's one of the best possible scenarios for this particular group of ..." There was a ringing tone, and Vár brought up a screen with a move of her hand. She then scowled. "I have to go, there's an emergency with my name on it. I'll alert my co-workers to watch over you for the next hour."
"But ..." Cassiopée started uselessly.
Vár grabbed the folder from Cassiopée's hand, tossed it in the air, and vanished though the resulting cloud of paper. Still, at least, the folder reorganized itself when it hit the ground.
Cassiopée grabbed it. "Well, it was too good to be that easy," she said, turning toward the door. Based on what Vár had said, her tenants would have appeared somewhere around here by now. "Might as well make the best of it." As she put the file on her desk, she wondered, "And what is a 'karass'?"
Yggdrasil
11:17 AM ET
In order to ensure that the people being displaced into the Refuge reality can communicate with their neighbours, they were being given the ability to speak the local language.
But Montréal was a bilingual city, and the next group of displacees were going to be deposited into an area where both English and French were used approximately equally. Which language to give the newest group?
Yggdrasil checked for a precedent, but every member of the group that had been displaced to that neighbourhood of Montréal the day that Funtom purchased Residence 52 already spoke both French and English.
Yggdrasil then checked the languages that were spoken at nearby residences. The next-closest residence was in a city that, despite its claims to bilingualism, primarily used English.
English it was. And the building manager's English needed some work as well. As long as causality was malleable at the moment of displacee insertion, that particular oversight would be corrected at the same time.
When the logs of that addition were discovered later that day, that particular loophole was quickly closed... but the gift to Cassiopée Bright of full fluency in English was not revoked.
Beside Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, QC, Canada
Same Time
The world went white, and then it returned to ... no, not normal.
Shirou Emiya, the youngest of the three males in the group, knew that things were not normal. First, he wasn't on his back, looking up at a blonde foreigner who had asked him less than five minutes ago whether he was her master. Not that that was normal, either. Second, she was still here. Third, "here" was outside, and he had no idea where "here" was. He didn't even recognize the language that most of the local signs were written in, and what little he did recognize was written in English. Fourth, he was surrounded by people, only half of whom he recognized. And, now that he saw Tohsaka-san and Matou-san standing beside each other, he wondered whether they were related. He pushed his brown hair away from his eyes so that he could get a better look at them.
The woman who had asked Shirou whether he was her master, who in this time and place was called Saber, was equally puzzled but for different reasons. She had experience with the modern world from previous Grail Wars, but nothing that was as advanced as what she saw around her. And the clothing that passers-by were wearing was unusual; she even saw some women who were wearing masculine clothing, with nobody batting an eye. Wherever this time and place was, it wasn't any place or time that she was familiar with.
The black-haired high-school girl was at even more of a loss. The Tohsaka household was very old-fashioned, and thus Rin didn't know even as much as her schoolmate Shirou did. She did, however, recognize her homeroom teacher Kuzuki-sensei as one of the adults in the group, and he appeared to have the same relation to the blue-haired woman standing beside him that Rin had to her Servant, Archer. She was more surprised to discover that Kuzuki-sensei was a participant in the Fifth Grail War than she was to have been sent to wherever it was that they were.
Archer, the tallest of the men present and the only one with what appeared to be bleached white hair, looked around and murmured with some surprise, "This is new." Maybe he was getting old and starting to forget things, but he didn't think that was the case. Something like the current state of affairs was beyond his experience... and, he was certain, beyond Shirou's experience as well. And that worried him. Not that he let his worry show; he had a reputation of being in control of his surroundings to uphold.
Purple-haired Sakura Matou, the shortest and youngest of the group, looked around and noticed that Shirou was in the group. She couldn't possibly fight Shirou during the Grail War! But who could she entrust Rider to? She couldn't simply bow out, not after summoning her. At this point, it would take a divine act to give her what she wanted: both Shirou and herself surviving the Grail War and still liking each other. That wasn't the only thing she wanted, but her other desires could wait.
Rider, the only member of the group who was wearing glasses and whose natural hair colour was a shade of pink that was shared in this world so far only by other displaced women with hidden power (not that she was aware of that), simply took in the view. This was yet another place that appeared to have science beyond what she knew, so she trusted her Master to provide her with guidance. More importantly in the short term, she had to be careful that she didn't lose her glasses; bad things would happen if she lost her glasses.
Kuzuki, the group's remaining male, looked at the people who were with him rather than at their surroundings. He saw three of his students – Emiya, Tohsaka, and Matou – the woman whom the world knew as his fiancée, and three people who were wearing odd clothing. He assumed that, like the woman he had agreed to let serve him, they were the same sort of beings that she was: "Heroic Spirits". The thought at the forefront of Kuzuki's mind was how to turn this situation to his advantage.
And, finally, the blue-eyed, blue-haired woman known as Caster took stock of the situation. Once again, she was in a land that was foreign to her. Once again, she had been brought to a strange place without the use of magic that could have been undone in order to send her home. Once again, she had no option other than to rely on somebody who she knew was only interested in her as to what she could provide to him. Then she noticed that the brown-haired woman approaching them had a touch of magic about her. She wasn't a mage or the subject of a mage's spells; rather, she had very recently been in the close proximity of a magical being. Perhaps Caster could survive here after all. "Who is that?" she asked while gesturing toward the woman – she was surprised to hear herself ask the question in English.
Cassiopée noticed that the blue-haired woman she assumed was Caster had pointed her out to the others, and hurried over to the group. She introduced herself, first in French, and then when that was met only with puzzled looks, in English. "Hello, everyone, and welcome to Montréal. My name is Cassiopée Bright."
"Rin Tohsaka, happy to meet you," the black-haired girl replied by rote. "This is Montréal? In Canada?"
"It is, yes," Cassiopée replied.
"I'm Souichirou Kuzuki," said the only adult who Cassiopée considered to be dressed normally. "How did you know that we'd just arrived here?"
"I was told that you would be showing up some time around now," she replied, again in English. And she noticed that she didn't have to think about which English words to use. "I manage the building that's right behind me. Would you care to come in so that we can talk about what's happened?"
"There's nothing better to do, we may as well. Oh, I'm Shirou Emiya, happy to meet you."
A few minutes later and they were all in the slightly dusty, yet orderly, closed restaurant in the ground floor of that building. "I apologize for the mess, but this is the only room large enough for everyone and that has chairs in it."
Kuzuki ran his handkerchief across a mirror that was hanging beside the restaurant door, discovering that the layer of dust was thin enough that it was likely to be less than a month old. He then joined the others, saying, "I'm surprised that we can use an entire big-city restaurant as just a place to talk."
"The bistro isn't a working business," Cassiopée replied. "It has no cooks or waiters."
"That's all well and good," Rin said, "but there's something more important that we need to discuss. Why are we in Montréal?"
"You aren't only in Montréal," Cassiopée said, "but you're also in another reality."
She waited for a moment while that sank in.
Finally, Kuzuki said, "I'm inclined to doubt your statement, miss. It sounds, not to put too fine a point on it, ludicrous."
"I can provide proof that you're all considered to be fictional characters in this reality," replied Cassiopée. "But that proof is upstairs and I'd have to get a television set as well as the media. For now, all I can say is that I'm well aware of who you are, who and what the four Heroic Spirits in your group are, and that the Servants were called to fight a Grail War."
Suddenly both Saber and Archer had swords drawn and were advancing on Cassiopée, while Caster was preparing a spell. Rider pronounced, "Outsiders who know of the Grail Wars must not be allowed to live."
Behind them, unnoticed, the surface of the mirror beside the door started to ripple like water... or a Stargate's event horizon.
Saber reached Cassiopée first and swung at her neck...
... only to have her sword be blocked by a battleaxe.
Shocked that her swing could be blocked so easily, Saber glanced at the axe's wielder, only to stop dead. Said wielder, a woman with ankle-length ash-blonde hair and blue marks on her face, had blocked her attack with her arm at full extension. She was also levitating just off the floor.
As soon as Caster saw the blonde, she stopped preparing her spell. This woman was all but radiating magic around her; she was as far above the Heroic Spirits in raw power as the Heroic Spirits were above the mortals in the room. And then Caster noticed the power limiters that the woman was wearing. She was a Goddess on par with Zeus or Hera; attacking her would be suicide. And she could see out of the corner of her eye that Rider sensed the power coming from this newcomer, as well.
"I am the Norn of the Present, known in this time and place as 'Belldandy'," she announced, suddenly holding the Grail itself where everyone could see it; the battleaxe that it had replaced was nowhere to be seen. Oddly, the Grail shifted forms, from an unadorned golden chalice, to a red lidded vessel banded in gold that was adorned with wings and hearts, to a simple wooden cup that could have been made by a carpenter's son, to something glowing that was covered with a samite cloth, to a simple Japanese-style teacup, but in all forms was recognizably the Grail to Rin and all of the Servants. More importantly, it never looked like the Grail that the Heroic Spirits remembered from previous Grail Wars. "This woman is your guide to this reality. You will refrain from violence against her or her husband."
Caster was the first to say, "I agree," quickly followed by the other Servants, Rin, and Sakura. They all felt a magical effect take hold; breaking the wyrd that they had all agreed to would have dire consequences.
Belldandy then turned to Cassiopée. "I suggest you choose your words more carefully in the future, Mme. Bright. Vár told me that you were familiar with your new residents' story."
Before Cassiopée could reply, Shirou said, "I don't understand any of this. A woman asks whether I'm her master, we're brought here along with everybody else, another woman tells us that we're in a completely different world, she mentions a Grail War and is almost killed for knowing about it, and she's only alive because a Norse Goddess saved her. I can only shrug off so much weirdness. Please, somebody tell me what's going on!"
So they did.
Rin explained the Grail Wars: how seven people with magical potential summoned incredibly powerful Servants to battle until all but one of the Servants were eliminated by killing either the Servant or the summoner. The final remaining Servant would be allowed to make a wish on the Holy Grail... although, after seeing the various Grails that Belldandy had shown them, nobody was certain any more whether the Grail War's Grail was the True Grail.
Belldandy explained the rest: that something had happened to affect multiple realities including their home reality, the forces of Heaven and Hell were working together to contain the damage, and that they had been brought to this refuge reality in order to stay alive.
A the end of it all, Shirou said, "I still don't get it, but at least now I know what I don't know. Thanks. I think. We can't go home?"
Belldandy shook her head. "Not at this time. We are still determining the extent of the damage done to the realities. We apologize for the inconvenience." She turned to walk back to the mirror that she had come to Earth through, only to be stopped by Cassiopée. "Belldandy, if I was to try calling the Goddess Relief Agency, would I get through?"
Belldandy turned back to look at Cassiopée. "You have connected to that number once already today, Cassiopée. But I suspect that that is not what you are really asking. Yes, you qualify for a wish. Did you want to make it now?"
"I do. It would be a bad thing if anybody was to be harmed simply by my residents being present in Montréal. If it is at all possible, I would prefer to see that this never happens. And isn't that what most wishes are; 'make it didn't happen'?"
Belldandy smiled, a sad smile to begin with. "That is what most grief-filled wishes are, yes; people don't want to lose their loved ones or their prized possessions. But that isn't what you intend with your wish. You want to protect people you've never met, don't you?"
"I have everything I need and most of what I want, now that I'm working as the residence manager here. It's time for me to think of other people."
"Are you certain that you want to use your wish this way? Barring extraordinary circumstances, you only get one wish."
Cassiopée thought on Belldandy's question for a moment, then answered, "I am. The job ad said « disposé à aider les personnes qui l'entourent »."
The ten of them discussed the wording of Cassiopée's wish for a while. Belldandy needed to point out more than once that Cassiopée only got one wish, not a set of related wishes, but Caster managed to get the wording down to a single sentence while including the most important parts of their shared desires... save only for their desire to return home.
Belldandy finally asked the formal question: "Have you reached a decision?"
"I have," Cassiopée replied just as formally.
"What is your wish?"
"I wish that, without changing the personalities or abilities of anyone here, reality be altered to the minimum necessary so that nobody on Earth is put at risk simply because of the presence or actions of the Heroic Spirits, save only for normal risks involved in combat that the Heroic Spirits do not initiate."
A sudden pillar of light, the purest light that anyone present had ever seen, arose from Belldandy and passed through the bistro's ceiling harmlessly.
"Wish granted." Belldandy smiled. "And it was a pleasure to grant a selfless wish, Cassiopée. Even my husband's wish, which has brought so much happiness to both our lives, was not selfless. I would be honoured to be allowed to call you 'friend'."
"The honour is mine, Belldandy," she replied.
Then Saber said, "I feel odd."
"Yeah, so do I," Archer added. "I've felt this way before, but I don't remember when."
"I've never felt like this, I think," Rider said.
"I have, long, long ago," Caster announced. "It's a sensation that I haven't felt in millennia. I'm hungry."
Shirou grinned; the first smile that either Saber or Cassiopée had ever seen on his face. "This is a restaurant, right? If there are supplies in the kitchen, I can make something for everybody to eat."
As he and Cassiopée headed for the bistro's kitchen, Belldandy turned to the others. "In this place, at this time, the Grail War must not be. There must not be any changes to reality that will make it more difficult to repair the current damage; thus, all wishes must be discussed with a celestial or infernal being before being granted. Your reason to fight does not apply here. Therefore, you will refrain from violence against each other or anyone who knows of the Grail Wars."
Sakura smiled widely; the divine intervention that she had hoped for had actually come to pass. "Thank you, Belldandy-sama!"
--
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown