章 39: Collapsing Order
"Wow! I did not expect a thing like you to intervene on behalf of humanity, Goddess! How disgusting!"
I became wary. I stared at the man who suddenly appeared on the rim of the structure that held the Greater Grail. He was in his 40s. The man wore a green top hat, a green trenchcoat, tall black boots, and a purple tie.
"Professor Lev!" Mash called out.
"Lev!" Olga squealed. "Oh thank goodness Lev you're alive!"
Olga started running towards the man without a second thought. 'Lev' turned to face the magus and narrowed his eyes while tensing the muscles around his mouth as if trying to suppress his annoyance. He looked at Olga as though she was an irritating cockroach that just wouldn't die.
"Did you know that I died? I did but this Goddess revived me by performing a feat comparable to the Third Magic!"
As Olga ran past me to get closer to Lev, I inserted two fingers into the back of Olga's collar and hooked them on.
"Urk!"
Olga stopped, temporarily choking before I let go. The woman turned around with a furious expression on her face, the edge of her eyes was ladled with tears from both the sudden cut-off of oxygen and seeing someone important to her alive again.
"What did you do that for?!"
Before I could answer, Lev cut right in, "Yes. I did in fact know that you were dead. And you were supposed to stay dead."
Lev brought a hand up to his face and clenched his eyes shut in an expression of frustration.
"I mean for crying out loud! I literally planted the bomb right underneath your feet! But then this Black Swan that came out of nowhere and just revived you! This is literally Deus Ex Machina! And I know it is since I have full access to the memory of the man known as Lev Lainer when he took an interest in commoner literary devices."
"...What?"
Olga's voice was weak. Her expression froze like the brain behind them couldn't process what Lev had said.
"Oh, I'm sorry, was that too much for you?" Lev's tone was mocking, "Well too bad. My carefully curated plan for the annihilation of Chaldea has just been upended because some unexpected unknowable variable came right out of nowhere and decided to intervene to save your bloody asses!"
He then pointed at Olga, "And you, Romani! I know you can hear me, I thought I told you to come to the control room immediately. But you just had to slow down. My plan to snuff out the last resistance to my King's goals was so close to completion but then this stupid…" He trailed off and pointed at me.
His fingers shook as the silence dragged on. Lev seemed to struggle to produce a word, "Grrrah! I don't even know what you are, so I can't even produce a proper insult! You look like a Servant. But you're clearly not a Servant."
Ah, that's probably because of Information Defense halting all attempts at deciphering my true nature.
Lev then took a deep breath, "Anyways, enough about me. I'm sure you're all dying to know who I was so I might as well as stop pushing back my grand reveal."
He took off his top hat and bowed like a gentleman. "My name is—"
"You're Lev Lainur Flauros. You're connected to Goetia or something." I said.
Hey, I still read bosses' names, especially one that I spent 15 minutes trying to beat with my Qin Shi Huang solo-stall team. And I did read so many fanfictions of Singularity F that I'm pretty familiar with the first boss.
Lev's lips thinned. He was like a balloon filling up with rage as his eyes twitched. There, Lev threw his top hat to the ground and stomped on it.
"That is it! I've had it with you somehow knowing my name. I'm going to do some corrective measures."
A Holy Grail materialized right into his hands. Then, my eyes widened as I was alarmed at how turbulent the local spacetime became when a portal opened up behind Lev. The portal displays a crimson sphere orbited by metal rings. Waves of disturbances in spacetime too small to be noticed by human senses are registered with ease by me.
The portal was outputting gravitational waves. More than just simple gravitational radiation, the portal was brimming with light around the edge— black hole radiation, in other words, Hawking radiation as the edge of the portal was very similar to the surface of a black hole.
"That… is CHALDEAS… But it's red?" Mash uttered in shock, too quiet for anyone other than those close to her to hear but I had no issue.
"Lev! That has to be something you made up right?"
"Oh no, it's very real. With the Holy Grail, I linked spacetime together just for you Olga. Your family's masterpiece. The Microcosm that which reflects the Macrocosm. Drown in your arrogance, touch your family's treasure. This is the fate of your family's lunacy."
Just as Olga started to rise into the air as if caught by an invisible hand, I blasted off with a deafening boom and kicked Flauros's human body directly through the spacetime linkage he made and into CHALDEAS.
*Bzzt*
"AHHH!"
The thing squirmed and twitched as it lost its human form when it touched the surface of that burning sphere. Eyes, crimson eyes with black cross-shaped pupils surfaced all across Lev's body, easily breaking through the weak container known as 'clothing'.
The thing fought against being subsumed into CHALDEAS.
"MOTHERFUCKER. YOU BITCH!" Flauros cursed as he flew out of CHALDEAS. His voice sounded nowhere close to that of a human's.
Lev entered CHALDEAS, but something else came out.
The thing didn't even have a human form anymore, but instead, something that vaguely resembled a human-sized pillar with dozens of eyes laid out across its body.
"Graaaah! That was painful!" The thing turned all of its eyes onto me. There, they shone with light as though charging up for a blast. I crossed my arms in preparation for the Demon God Pillar's response—
*Rumble*
The first stone fell. Followed by dozens, then hundreds.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" The top part of Flauros drooped as though sad at what's happening, "Are you shitting me? The Singularity is collapsing? Is this day 'ruining all of Flauros' plans day'? After all of humanity has been incinerated, is this… karma? No, what a human concept."
The thing then glared at me with all of its eyes spread out throughout its body.
"I will kill you, anomaly. I will relish in your screams. Don't you dare die before then."
The thing vanished in an explosion of particles.
"Romani, get us the fuck out of here," Olga called out as she ran to take cover underneath Mash's shield.
A new digital voice emerged from Olga's wrist. "We're trying to, but it's taking so long that the area might collapse around you first!"
I narrowed my eyes as I had a determined look. Through We Are The Winged Serpent, I grabbed Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind and formed an invisible shield of air above the group.
It can't really be called a shield, but more of an umbrella or a tornado as I churned the air right above the humans like a chef churning a pot of soup, deflecting away any fallen debris.
A single boulder fell on me.
It yielded and broke apart.
Through the broken ceiling, I could spot how the sky was being dissolved to reveal a smoky, burning world with a single ring of light above everything.
Just then, I found myself being flung across spacetime once again. Virtual particles popped in and out of existence on a time scale so small there's an argument for their nonexistence. The effect of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ruled this place as the truth of the unobservable reality was laid bare.
The crevasses between observed realities. What's there in the creeping blindspot that's always behind our head.
Before I could admire it even more, I found myself deposited back into the same room that held CHALDEAS. Mash and Ritsuka collapsed while I, Archer, and Olga were perfectly fine.
"What are you all waiting for? Get a bed for each of them!" Olga took charge as she snapped her fingers.
Several men and women came down with stretchers ready and placed the two on them. There, Olga stood tall with her arms crossed as she observed what was happening.
"I will follow my Master." Archer turned into his spirit form.
As the two were carted off, no doubt to the medical bay, Olga turned back to look straight at me.
"You." She said, trying to calm down her rapid heartbeat, "Who are you really? You are no doubt powerful. You've saved my life. Twice now. But I still don't know you, so I can't trust you."
"Think of me as a helper. You heard what Flauros said. Humanity has been incinerated. I've been called forth to aid you in your journey."
"You're a Counter Guardian?" Olga asked.
I shook my head.
"Not quite. I don't answer to Alayashiki, and my higher-ups do give me a much longer leash. Still, given what's happened, I think it's very obvious I have an interest in seeing humanity's continued survival, do I not?"
Staring right into Olga's eyes, I found the woman flinching.
"Alright. I can accept that." Olga gave me an open hand intent on a handshake, "Welcome to Chaldea, Goddess Kukulkan."
I returned the handshake.
"Although… I do have someone with me. She's an interesting kid…"
Zvezdnyy prowled this landscape, this room, this library.
The Witch has been exploring her Polkovodets' mansion all this time. The place was huge, with arches and spires that lined the outsides while tall windows that reached from floor to almost the ceiling allowed light to gleam inside. The wooden furniture like sofas and chairs was soft and finely decorated down to the smallest detail.
Eventually, as Zvezdnyy lost herself in the endless halls, she found herself inside this library full of books with no pictures.
No pictures! Why?! Why are there books with no pictures?!?
"I wish all books have pictures…" Zvezdnyy said, and in an instant, all the books had pictures in them depicting the contents.
"Yay!"
There, Zvezdnyy decided to read the first book she found; A Guide to Drama and Shakespearean Play. It was very enlightening. It helped her improve on the Way of Drama.
Then the girl picked up another book by the name of; A Guide to Victorian Fashion.
Opening the pages, Zvezdnyy found herself looking at pages of men and women dressed in very foreign-looking clothing that absolutely fascinated the girl. Just five pages in and Zvezdnyy has already begun wondering about how she could add their design elements to her own.
"These clothing are very eye-catching…" Zvezdnyy muttered to herself.
With but a gesture, reality answered her wishes as articles of clothing appeared right in front of her. They were hovering, as though being worn by an invisible mannequin.
Zvezdnyy cupped her chin and stared at the dress in front of her. It was green. It had pearls dotted on it, and the diamonds built into the dress sparkled as it caught rays of sunlight from the outside.
With a single snap of her fingers, the gown disappeared. Next, Zvezdnyy turned to the page of men's clothing. The top hats. She wants that. It'll make her appear taller.
So with another snap of her fingers, a top hat adorned the invisible mannequin.
"Hmm… I want the sharp suits as well…" Zvezdnyy bemoaned, and reality answered her wishes as the clothing changed to reveal a green suit, "And make it blue! Make everything blue!"
All the clothing turned into varying shades of blue. But there aren't any jewelry… Zvezdnyy wants her clothing to sparkle like she is, so jewelry is a must.
Zvezdnyy flipped through the pages of the book once more until she saw a page that described pendants; pieces of jewelry that hang from necklaces. So she simply conjured one up and placed it right between where her heart and her neck were. From the pendant sprung forth a white curtain of something the book called a 'cravat'.
Then, Zvezdnyy added tight sleeves, tight collars, an overskirt, and a dark blue blazer covering everything that drapes down below Zvezdnyy's thighs on the back.
Perfect. It had class. It had luxury. It was eye-catching. It was something that her Polkovodets would surely praise her for.
Snapping her fingers again, Zvezdnyy stripped the invisible mannequin of its clothing and made it appear on her own body. Then, she reached for and picked up the hat. The top hat that's very plain… hmm…
Zvezdnyy narrowed her eyes as she stared at the top hat. The book didn't really offer any aid in improving this bland design…
Oh well. The Witch placed the hat over her head, before adjusting it so it was tilting a little off to the side as though it could fall at any moment.
"Hehe, that should cause some people to try and adjust my hat."
"Zvezdnyy!"
The girl perked up once she heard her name being called by her Polkovodets. Ah, her Smotritel.
Taking a few moments to think about how she was going to do this, Zvezdnyy then teleported into the doorframe that separated the portal room from the rest of the manor.
The lights were dim. Darkness shrouded the room as the only light source came from above and shone upon the visage of the Zvezdnyy Rebenok, the Witch who will save all of humanity.
Placing a hand over her pendant, Zvezdnyy began, putting her readings into practice "Greetings, my Polkovodets, how is our army planning? Have we recruited any locals to our great Storona?" There, Zvezdnyy raised her hand to emphasize what she was about to say, "The Storona of the great Zvezdnyy Rebenok? The cause of the saving of humanity?"
Her Polkovodets had a face full of confusion. Then; understanding.
"Um. Yes. Yes actually. I've made contact with a local group who's dedicated to the preservation of humanity."
"Mhmm," Zvezdnyy nodded slowly, "Exquisite! Most Velikolepnyy, indeed! Yet, have they embraced the call to unite under my banner and champion my noble Prichinoy?"
Her Polkovodets suddenly turned around and muttered to herself, "Holy, how does… get even more chuuni?"
Then she turned back around and faced Zvezdnyy, "Um. No. They decided to operate as an independent entity. But they are our allies in this world."
Zvezdnyy looked sad. Hmm.
"A tad disheartening to hear people rejecting my noble Prichinoy, though not entirely unforeseen, Ya Dumayu."
Her Polkovodets recoiled subtly as though shot, "Wait wait! Just because they're our allies doesn't mean they won't join your cause! You just need to show them your majesty. Learn from them just as they will learn from you!"
Zvezdnyy tilted her head to the side and thought about it. Her head was tilted so far that if her hat had been normal, it would've slid right off.
"You're right, my Polkovodets! I must display my might to them, just as I unveiled it to you. I shall astound them, as I did with you! Then, I'll secure their allegiance, just like I did with you! Haha!"
Without a second thought, Zvezdnyy snapped her fingers and teleported right into the middle of a ruined room with a large orb in the center of it.
The girl stood out with ease, if not because of her clothing, then her being the shortest one here.
She announced, "Ahahaha! Greetings…!"
Trailing off, Zvezdnyy's mind blanked on what their name was supposed to be.
The Witch suddenly realized how she didn't even ask for their name from her Polkovodets.
Oh no! This is a disaster!
_________
AN: Did I just make Zvezdnyy dress almost the same as Furina? Why yes I did. Do I regret it? Not at all.
What do you call a WC fic where the side characters are being developed as though they're the main character? An impossibility!
But yeah, in all seriousness, since FGO Singularities will be an absolute breeze for Kuku. I don't like stomp fics, so to make things interesting, the FGO portion that's all about humanity isn't going to be Kuku's story, it'll be Zvezdnyy's. Basically, Zvezdnyy is being promoted to protagonist status while Kuku serves more as a support role.
Beta: Old man of the mountain/Darklord331
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