Nasuverse Solenoid Flux
- Thread starter fallacies
- Start date
The problem is that a lot of people can't tell when you're not trying to antagonize them (id est, when you're just being obsessed and abrasive). If you learned to be less abrasive, it would prevent new people just meeting you (who don't already agree with you on Sakura) from deciding you're trying to piss them off (except when you genuinely are, of course). It won't change the minds of a lot of people who already hate you, because that could be mistaken for admitting they were wrong, and that's something people on the internet are often very unreasonable about. New people, though, you'd have a better chance with.
I have to admit, though, that one of the reasons I have no particular problem with you, is that we're both Sakura fans (its just that I'm not obsessed about her, and no offense meant, I think you are), so I tended to already be either neutral or on your side, as long as you weren't being crazy, or contradicting facts I'd checked. If you were a Matou Shinji fan, I'd probably despise you, or hold you in the contempt I mostly reserve for fans of Spike-as-hero (BtVS) or Edward (Twilight).
I have to admit, though, that one of the reasons I have no particular problem with you, is that we're both Sakura fans (its just that I'm not obsessed about her, and no offense meant, I think you are), so I tended to already be either neutral or on your side, as long as you weren't being crazy, or contradicting facts I'd checked. If you were a Matou Shinji fan, I'd probably despise you, or hold you in the contempt I mostly reserve for fans of Spike-as-hero (BtVS) or Edward (Twilight).
This is what fallacies wrote.
Timeline A: Evangelion Canon
1992: At age 18, Kyoko receives artificial insemination. Sperm Donor is Japanese. Shirase Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
1997: 4th Grail War. Shirase goes missing shortly before the Fire of Fuyuki. Later, presumed dead. Kyoko falls into depression.
2000: Katsuragi Contact Experiment / 2nd Impact
2001: Kyoko receives artificial insemination for the second time. Asuka Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
2002-2003: After dating for some time, Kyoko marries an American by the name of Langley. Becomes involved in development of Evangelion Unit-02.
2005: Kyoko goes insane in activation experiment. Commits suicide.
Timeline B: FSN Canon
1997: 4th Grail War. Shirase goes missing shortly before the Fire of Fuyuki. Later, presumed dead. Kyoko falls into depression.
2000: Katsuragi Contact Experiment does not occur.
2001: Kyoko receives artificial insemination for the second time. Asuka Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
2007: 5th Grail War.
Timeline A: Evangelion Canon
1992: At age 18, Kyoko receives artificial insemination. Sperm Donor is Japanese. Shirase Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
1997: 4th Grail War. Shirase goes missing shortly before the Fire of Fuyuki. Later, presumed dead. Kyoko falls into depression.
2000: Katsuragi Contact Experiment / 2nd Impact
2001: Kyoko receives artificial insemination for the second time. Asuka Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
2002-2003: After dating for some time, Kyoko marries an American by the name of Langley. Becomes involved in development of Evangelion Unit-02.
2005: Kyoko goes insane in activation experiment. Commits suicide.
Timeline B: FSN Canon
1997: 4th Grail War. Shirase goes missing shortly before the Fire of Fuyuki. Later, presumed dead. Kyoko falls into depression.
2000: Katsuragi Contact Experiment does not occur.
2001: Kyoko receives artificial insemination for the second time. Asuka Sohryu-Zeppelin is born.
2007: 5th Grail War.
Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #5: In that year, she was still a child ...
// Prague, 1988
A hundred and fifty meters beneath the construction site of the Zizkov Television Tower, rows of illuminated plexiglass vessels lined the floor of a massive chamber -- otherwise unlit. Buoyed amid the orange fluid within them, eyeless fetuses -- human in appearance, despite their deformity -- slightly twitched as a balding, hook-nosed man crossed the steel catwalk above. On a platform suspended from the ceiling at the center of the chamber, an elderly German gentleman awaited, seated at the far end of a meeting table. His eyes were obscured by the circular, mirrored-black lenses of his wirerimmed sunglasses.
"The purging is concluded as you have ordered," said the hook-nosed man in a slightly accusatory tone, seating himself opposite of his host. "Ikari's Crest has been returned to the Dead Sea, and as of two hours from now, payment shall be rendered to the Magus Killer in full."
The German thinned his lips.
"Do not think that I am without regrets," he said solemnly. "Ikari Hashidate was a good man, but in the end his compassion blinded him to necessity. If not for his continued interference in the preparations for the Balkan scenario, this situation could have been avoided."
Defeatedly, the hook-nosed man sighed.
"What of the now-vacant Thirteenth Seat?" he asked. "Shall we groom Ikari's heiress to succeed him?"
"No. The seat shall remain vacant in his memory. I do not deny that the girl exhibits the natural capacities of an ideal candidate, but already she resembles her father too much in character, and we have no need for another Judas. She is a resource best applied to a different function."
"You have something in mind?"
"La Donna dell'Apocalisse," said the German. "Come the time of revelations, the world shall itself demand that we cast one of our own to this role. I can think of no better choice than she ..."
// Tokyo, 1988
The first time Kiel Lorenz spoke to Yui, it was several weeks after her father's funeral. She was eleven years old.
"You have recovered from your injuries, I hope?" he asked, noting her eye-patch and the cast on her right arm.
Sullenly, she nodded.
"You were my father's superior?" she inquired. "He often spoke of you."
"Not his superior, no," replied the foreign man. "We were merely friends and equals. In accordance with the terms of his last will and testament, I have been requested to assist in the execution of his estate, and until such a time that you have attained age of majority, I shall be serving as your legal guardian."
It struck Yui that unlike the adults that had tended to her after the incident, Chairman Lorenz did not unnecessarily simplify his language when speaking to her -- much like her father. She decided that she didn't dislike him.
"I am to understand that you are quite talented in the sciences," he said, "but your instructors at academy are of the sentiment that you do not apply yourself. Do you feel yourself unchallenged by the content of your courses?"
Yui shook her head in negative.
"I see no purpose in meeting my instructors' approval," she said. "The academy's curriculum is designed merely to communicate elementary concepts, and is devoid entirely of practical application on any front. The sort of science we are taught cannot be of aid to anyone."
For a long moment, Chairman Lorenz considered her response with a serious expression.
"Perhaps," he said after a time, "you would benefit from approaching your education from a slightly different perspective."
"How so?"
"I agree that the marks you receive in academy are empty of value, but within society, they are a means to the end of obtaining the resources you would need to implement your practical science. Even if you find no worth in the motions your instructors force you to follow, the exercise is ultimately beneficial to your goals."
Yui's frowned.
"That feels like a dishonesty, though," she said.
The reflective surface of the foreigner's sunglasses gleamed as he turned his head to look out into the garden.
"Your father did well in teaching you the worth of honesty," he said, "but in truth, all the world is a stage -- and it is built in such a manner that no man, woman, or child can survive without bearing the weight of a mask. Carrying out our true objectives is impossible unless we are prepared to act upon beliefs that are not our own."
This was Yui's first lesson in the principles of the Philosophers.
// Tokyo, 1995
Aside from maintaining a grade point average within ten percentiles of the top of her class, Ikari Yui at age eighteen was an unremarkable college freshman. In truth, she bothered to expend a minimal effort toward academics merely as a part of her obligations toward Chairman Lorenz. Her energies were otherwise invested largely in the internships she had obtained at assorted laboratories.
Yui's major of choice was molecular biology, but the research she most frequently participated within was far afield -- in the relatively young discipline of Metaphysical Biology, the exploration of life beyond the material domain.
Experimental work in physics in the late 1970's confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that analogues to biochemical structures existed within a dimensionally higher order reality -- objects that were controversially termed "souls," and representable as a waveform structure. Interest in the properties of these analogues entered the vogue of mainstream academia in 1982, when Fuyutsuki Kouzou -- a professor at the University of Kyoto -- demonstrated that interactions could be achieved between "souls" and the physical realm.
The world itself, it emerged, possessed a higher-order analogue of a much higher waveform frequency than any cellular organism. Electronically stimulating the brain of a rat to modulate its soul toward the frequency of the world created a spooky-action phenomenon within the environment -- a very weak, spherical electromagnetic field roughly two meters in diameter, centered about the rat's body. The magnitude of the 'synchronization event' was mechanically measurable via the disturbance of magnetically shielded LCL.
LCL -- or Link Connect Liquid -- was the simplest protein polymer that could carry a soul. It was, incidentally, highly sensitive to soul waveform modulation, and would molecularly rearrange itself in varying manners per synchronization events of different magnitudes and locations. During the 1980's, the United Nations backed scientific initiative AEC collaborated with the government of Japan -- the birthplace of Metaphysical Biology -- to employ LCL in a nationwide monitoring grid, intended to observe synchronization events geographically. Several years later, Katsuragi Keima of the University of Tokyo began to further refine the response time and sensitivity of the grid; adopting the colors of the spectrum to code frequencies, and forging a new theoretical model that mathematically represented soul waveforms in three dimensions -- as a spiraling coil, or a solenoid. Coded frequencies came to be described in terms of the efficiency and fidelity with which they could influence physical phenomenon.
Type:Sepia to Type:Red events -- low enough in magnitude to be regarded as background noise -- were in fact fairly rare, Katsuragi found; he referred to them as 'poltergeists,' and cursory investigations conducted by the AEC revealed that this wasn't an inaccurate terminology. Even more infrequently, however, a Type:Yellow would briefly manifest, and LCL disturbance on such occasions was exponentially higher. Katsuragi began to wonder what sort of phenomenon a creature capable of initiating a Type:Blue event could induce -- what sort of impact a synchronization at the frequency of the world itself could have.
Ikari Yui, who served as an intern at Katsuragi's laboratory, regretted that -- as a daughter of the Philosophers -- she could not impart the knowledge she possessed to her adviser: The lifeform he had so energetically hypothesized of had long been known to mankind.
Since time immemorial, they had been called Angels.
At the time, Yui did not suspect that the Philosophers had systematically concealed knowledge from her as well. The "low-efficiency" Type:Red events that she and the rest of Katsuragi's staff had been instructed to dismiss as background noise were known by another name elsewhere in the world: Magecraft, the science of Mysteries.
// Fuyuki, 1997 -- Present Day
A map of the Fuyuki metropolitan area lit the multi-panelled wall monitor at AEC-Fuyuki. Yui's eyes widened at the random splotches of red that covered the entire city.
"How long has it been like this?" she asked. Had an intelligence lockdown been implemented? She should've been informed of disturbance of this scale.
"A very, very long time," replied Kyoko, thumbing through a stack of printouts attached to a clipboard. "The database would be able to tell you when precisely the Type:Reds started to turn up. We typically see more of them at night."
"So, something's happening in the city?"
"Nothing overtly obvious aside from the recent serial killings, but ..." Kyoko's expression betrayed a bit of anxiety. "Until word came that you would be coming here to organize a response effort, the higher-ups gave us explicit orders not to look too deeply into it." She handed the clipboard she'd been holding to Yui, and said, "I was told that you would want to see this"
Yui flipped through the documents, quickly organizing the data in her mind. Apparently, four distinct Type:Yellow signatures and one Type:Green had regularly manifested in the course of the past several weeks. There was another that had appeared roughly a year prior, but it had since vanished. In the last three or four days, a Type:Cyan -- the target she'd been directed to capture -- had exhibited itself intermittently, and had on two instances shifted toward Type:Blue.
There really wasn't much information to go on -- and Yui was beginning to suspect that the dearth of detail in her orders was entirely intentional. The Philosophers were testing her capabilities. They wanted her to acquire knowledge of the situation with her own skills, and to resolve it according to her own judgment.
"Is there something wrong?" asked Kyoko.
"No, it's nothing," Yui replied, returning the clipboard to her with a smile. "I'll be needing somebody to help me unload the equipment that arrived earlier. You think you could arrange that?"
"Sure thing."
As the older woman left the room, Yui closed her eyes and gripped the locket that hung from her neck. She would not disappoint Father. She would not disappoint Chairman Lorenz.
//
Some miscellaneous notes:
Prague Association:
One of the larger magecraft associations under the Sea of Astray, specialized in the traditional study of alchemy -- the transmutation of matter and energy, with focus toward the production and maintenance of life. The Einzbern family is said to practice alchemy of the Prague School. The Association is led by the Philosophers of the Throne -- a body of elders primarily interested in the practical application of their collective resources to temporal governance of world affairs.
<a href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/683/0010prague.jpg/' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>
</a>
Golem of Prague:
A monstrous stone humanoid created in the 16th century by the Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, an important figure of the Association. Upon deactivation, its remains were entombed in the graveyard that is the current site of the Zizkov Television Tower. In the year 2001, the Golem-like "Tower Babies" statues were commissioned to the site in memory of those who had lost their lives in the 2nd Impact. In fact, these humanoid creations may be defensive automatons crafted by the Philosophers.
La Donna dell'Apocalisse:
"The Woman of the Apocalypse" -- a central figure of the Revelations of Saint John the Divine, which described her thus: "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered." A similar character appears within the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Fly Me to the Moon:
A popular song published in 1954 by Bart Howard. The lyrics to the first stanza are, "Fly me to the moon / Let me play among the stars / Let me see what spring is like / On Jupiter and Mars / In other words, hold my hand / In other words, baby, kiss me." Beyond the face meaning, it is difficult to discern if the author intended the lyrics to be referential.
Magus Killer:
A legendary assassin, whose final target was a respected scientist by the name of Ikari Hashidate.
UN-SEELE:
A security evaluation committee within the United Nations.
UN-AEC:
The United Nations Artificial Evolution Concern. A biosciences research initiative backed by the United Nations, intended to explore the practical applications of genetic engineering and related disciplines for the betterment of humanity. A primary contributor to the development of the N^2 Warhead, which was based upon principles outlined by Katsuragi Keima's Super Solenoid Theory. Following the 2nd Impact, it became the parent body of UN-GEHIRN, and later UN-NERV.
Black Barrel:
A conceptual weapon in the form of a rifle, thought to impose the concept of lifespan termination upon its targets. Said to be held by Atlas Academy at Alexandria, Egypt. For reasons unknown, it is also referred to as the Lancea Longini.
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #5: In that year, she was still a child ...
// Prague, 1988
A hundred and fifty meters beneath the construction site of the Zizkov Television Tower, rows of illuminated plexiglass vessels lined the floor of a massive chamber -- otherwise unlit. Buoyed amid the orange fluid within them, eyeless fetuses -- human in appearance, despite their deformity -- slightly twitched as a balding, hook-nosed man crossed the steel catwalk above. On a platform suspended from the ceiling at the center of the chamber, an elderly German gentleman awaited, seated at the far end of a meeting table. His eyes were obscured by the circular, mirrored-black lenses of his wirerimmed sunglasses.
"The purging is concluded as you have ordered," said the hook-nosed man in a slightly accusatory tone, seating himself opposite of his host. "Ikari's Crest has been returned to the Dead Sea, and as of two hours from now, payment shall be rendered to the Magus Killer in full."
The German thinned his lips.
"Do not think that I am without regrets," he said solemnly. "Ikari Hashidate was a good man, but in the end his compassion blinded him to necessity. If not for his continued interference in the preparations for the Balkan scenario, this situation could have been avoided."
Defeatedly, the hook-nosed man sighed.
"What of the now-vacant Thirteenth Seat?" he asked. "Shall we groom Ikari's heiress to succeed him?"
"No. The seat shall remain vacant in his memory. I do not deny that the girl exhibits the natural capacities of an ideal candidate, but already she resembles her father too much in character, and we have no need for another Judas. She is a resource best applied to a different function."
"You have something in mind?"
"La Donna dell'Apocalisse," said the German. "Come the time of revelations, the world shall itself demand that we cast one of our own to this role. I can think of no better choice than she ..."
// Tokyo, 1988
The first time Kiel Lorenz spoke to Yui, it was several weeks after her father's funeral. She was eleven years old.
"You have recovered from your injuries, I hope?" he asked, noting her eye-patch and the cast on her right arm.
Sullenly, she nodded.
"You were my father's superior?" she inquired. "He often spoke of you."
"Not his superior, no," replied the foreign man. "We were merely friends and equals. In accordance with the terms of his last will and testament, I have been requested to assist in the execution of his estate, and until such a time that you have attained age of majority, I shall be serving as your legal guardian."
It struck Yui that unlike the adults that had tended to her after the incident, Chairman Lorenz did not unnecessarily simplify his language when speaking to her -- much like her father. She decided that she didn't dislike him.
"I am to understand that you are quite talented in the sciences," he said, "but your instructors at academy are of the sentiment that you do not apply yourself. Do you feel yourself unchallenged by the content of your courses?"
Yui shook her head in negative.
"I see no purpose in meeting my instructors' approval," she said. "The academy's curriculum is designed merely to communicate elementary concepts, and is devoid entirely of practical application on any front. The sort of science we are taught cannot be of aid to anyone."
For a long moment, Chairman Lorenz considered her response with a serious expression.
"Perhaps," he said after a time, "you would benefit from approaching your education from a slightly different perspective."
"How so?"
"I agree that the marks you receive in academy are empty of value, but within society, they are a means to the end of obtaining the resources you would need to implement your practical science. Even if you find no worth in the motions your instructors force you to follow, the exercise is ultimately beneficial to your goals."
Yui's frowned.
"That feels like a dishonesty, though," she said.
The reflective surface of the foreigner's sunglasses gleamed as he turned his head to look out into the garden.
"Your father did well in teaching you the worth of honesty," he said, "but in truth, all the world is a stage -- and it is built in such a manner that no man, woman, or child can survive without bearing the weight of a mask. Carrying out our true objectives is impossible unless we are prepared to act upon beliefs that are not our own."
This was Yui's first lesson in the principles of the Philosophers.
// Tokyo, 1995
Aside from maintaining a grade point average within ten percentiles of the top of her class, Ikari Yui at age eighteen was an unremarkable college freshman. In truth, she bothered to expend a minimal effort toward academics merely as a part of her obligations toward Chairman Lorenz. Her energies were otherwise invested largely in the internships she had obtained at assorted laboratories.
Yui's major of choice was molecular biology, but the research she most frequently participated within was far afield -- in the relatively young discipline of Metaphysical Biology, the exploration of life beyond the material domain.
Experimental work in physics in the late 1970's confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that analogues to biochemical structures existed within a dimensionally higher order reality -- objects that were controversially termed "souls," and representable as a waveform structure. Interest in the properties of these analogues entered the vogue of mainstream academia in 1982, when Fuyutsuki Kouzou -- a professor at the University of Kyoto -- demonstrated that interactions could be achieved between "souls" and the physical realm.
The world itself, it emerged, possessed a higher-order analogue of a much higher waveform frequency than any cellular organism. Electronically stimulating the brain of a rat to modulate its soul toward the frequency of the world created a spooky-action phenomenon within the environment -- a very weak, spherical electromagnetic field roughly two meters in diameter, centered about the rat's body. The magnitude of the 'synchronization event' was mechanically measurable via the disturbance of magnetically shielded LCL.
LCL -- or Link Connect Liquid -- was the simplest protein polymer that could carry a soul. It was, incidentally, highly sensitive to soul waveform modulation, and would molecularly rearrange itself in varying manners per synchronization events of different magnitudes and locations. During the 1980's, the United Nations backed scientific initiative AEC collaborated with the government of Japan -- the birthplace of Metaphysical Biology -- to employ LCL in a nationwide monitoring grid, intended to observe synchronization events geographically. Several years later, Katsuragi Keima of the University of Tokyo began to further refine the response time and sensitivity of the grid; adopting the colors of the spectrum to code frequencies, and forging a new theoretical model that mathematically represented soul waveforms in three dimensions -- as a spiraling coil, or a solenoid. Coded frequencies came to be described in terms of the efficiency and fidelity with which they could influence physical phenomenon.
Type:Sepia to Type:Red events -- low enough in magnitude to be regarded as background noise -- were in fact fairly rare, Katsuragi found; he referred to them as 'poltergeists,' and cursory investigations conducted by the AEC revealed that this wasn't an inaccurate terminology. Even more infrequently, however, a Type:Yellow would briefly manifest, and LCL disturbance on such occasions was exponentially higher. Katsuragi began to wonder what sort of phenomenon a creature capable of initiating a Type:Blue event could induce -- what sort of impact a synchronization at the frequency of the world itself could have.
Ikari Yui, who served as an intern at Katsuragi's laboratory, regretted that -- as a daughter of the Philosophers -- she could not impart the knowledge she possessed to her adviser: The lifeform he had so energetically hypothesized of had long been known to mankind.
Since time immemorial, they had been called Angels.
At the time, Yui did not suspect that the Philosophers had systematically concealed knowledge from her as well. The "low-efficiency" Type:Red events that she and the rest of Katsuragi's staff had been instructed to dismiss as background noise were known by another name elsewhere in the world: Magecraft, the science of Mysteries.
// Fuyuki, 1997 -- Present Day
A map of the Fuyuki metropolitan area lit the multi-panelled wall monitor at AEC-Fuyuki. Yui's eyes widened at the random splotches of red that covered the entire city.
"How long has it been like this?" she asked. Had an intelligence lockdown been implemented? She should've been informed of disturbance of this scale.
"A very, very long time," replied Kyoko, thumbing through a stack of printouts attached to a clipboard. "The database would be able to tell you when precisely the Type:Reds started to turn up. We typically see more of them at night."
"So, something's happening in the city?"
"Nothing overtly obvious aside from the recent serial killings, but ..." Kyoko's expression betrayed a bit of anxiety. "Until word came that you would be coming here to organize a response effort, the higher-ups gave us explicit orders not to look too deeply into it." She handed the clipboard she'd been holding to Yui, and said, "I was told that you would want to see this"
Yui flipped through the documents, quickly organizing the data in her mind. Apparently, four distinct Type:Yellow signatures and one Type:Green had regularly manifested in the course of the past several weeks. There was another that had appeared roughly a year prior, but it had since vanished. In the last three or four days, a Type:Cyan -- the target she'd been directed to capture -- had exhibited itself intermittently, and had on two instances shifted toward Type:Blue.
There really wasn't much information to go on -- and Yui was beginning to suspect that the dearth of detail in her orders was entirely intentional. The Philosophers were testing her capabilities. They wanted her to acquire knowledge of the situation with her own skills, and to resolve it according to her own judgment.
"Is there something wrong?" asked Kyoko.
"No, it's nothing," Yui replied, returning the clipboard to her with a smile. "I'll be needing somebody to help me unload the equipment that arrived earlier. You think you could arrange that?"
"Sure thing."
As the older woman left the room, Yui closed her eyes and gripped the locket that hung from her neck. She would not disappoint Father. She would not disappoint Chairman Lorenz.
//
Some miscellaneous notes:
Prague Association:
One of the larger magecraft associations under the Sea of Astray, specialized in the traditional study of alchemy -- the transmutation of matter and energy, with focus toward the production and maintenance of life. The Einzbern family is said to practice alchemy of the Prague School. The Association is led by the Philosophers of the Throne -- a body of elders primarily interested in the practical application of their collective resources to temporal governance of world affairs.
<a href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/683/0010prague.jpg/' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>
Golem of Prague:
A monstrous stone humanoid created in the 16th century by the Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, an important figure of the Association. Upon deactivation, its remains were entombed in the graveyard that is the current site of the Zizkov Television Tower. In the year 2001, the Golem-like "Tower Babies" statues were commissioned to the site in memory of those who had lost their lives in the 2nd Impact. In fact, these humanoid creations may be defensive automatons crafted by the Philosophers.
La Donna dell'Apocalisse:
"The Woman of the Apocalypse" -- a central figure of the Revelations of Saint John the Divine, which described her thus: "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered." A similar character appears within the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Fly Me to the Moon:
A popular song published in 1954 by Bart Howard. The lyrics to the first stanza are, "Fly me to the moon / Let me play among the stars / Let me see what spring is like / On Jupiter and Mars / In other words, hold my hand / In other words, baby, kiss me." Beyond the face meaning, it is difficult to discern if the author intended the lyrics to be referential.
Magus Killer:
A legendary assassin, whose final target was a respected scientist by the name of Ikari Hashidate.
UN-SEELE:
A security evaluation committee within the United Nations.
UN-AEC:
The United Nations Artificial Evolution Concern. A biosciences research initiative backed by the United Nations, intended to explore the practical applications of genetic engineering and related disciplines for the betterment of humanity. A primary contributor to the development of the N^2 Warhead, which was based upon principles outlined by Katsuragi Keima's Super Solenoid Theory. Following the 2nd Impact, it became the parent body of UN-GEHIRN, and later UN-NERV.
Black Barrel:
A conceptual weapon in the form of a rifle, thought to impose the concept of lifespan termination upon its targets. Said to be held by Atlas Academy at Alexandria, Egypt. For reasons unknown, it is also referred to as the Lancea Longini.
Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #6: Casses Circumdant I / Opening Salvo
// 08:59 PM
Despite the collapse of the Japanese asset bubble, it wasn't a matter of debate that Shinto had grown wealthier and more heavily urbanized over the past decade. The recession, however, had not left the ward entirely untouched; and the south-western bloc of the business district -- a ten minutes' walk from the Grand Hyatt -- was now a no-man's land of derelict office buildings and public infrastructure that had fallen out of maintenance. With the police advising a soft curfew in response to the recent serial killings, the originally sparse pedestrian traffic in the area had fallen to a nil.
Approaching the center of an empty street, Kariya winced as the worms relayed a response from an insect familiar he'd sent out earlier.
"It looks our friend from the hotel is getting ready to unleash whatever it is he has planned for tonight," he said. "We should probably get started as well."
Berserker manifested beside him, very obviously attempting to conceal a grimace as he clutched at the crimson stain on the side of his uniform shirt. Kariya bit his lower lip. In an ideal world, the sort of pain that was his nightly companion would afflict only the deserving -- but reality was far from kindly, and until the War came to its close, it would be Kariya's lot to serve as an author of suffering. He dared only to hope what he was putting Berserker through would amount to some good in the end.
"Are you sure you're alright with the plan?" he asked. "If not, we can just turn in for the night."
"I'm fine. Really," replied the Servant in a strained voice, turning toward him. "Let's just do this."
From the pocket of his jacket, Kariya removed and unsheathed a combat knife with an oddly designed hilt.
"I'm sorry about this," he said.
Gripping the blade with both hands, he drove it into Berserker's gut.
// 09:13 PM
Atop the superstructure of the Fuyuki Bridge, Waver Velvet abruptly ceased in his whining, turning his head toward the Grand Hyatt in stark shock. Rider, who wasn't quite so attuned to the energies of magecraft, noticed something as well -- a sharp incline in the concentration of atmospheric mana.
"Th- this bounded field ..." said Waver, eyes widening. "H- he's ... he's actually developed a working implementation ..."
It had been the subject of a treatise only recently delivered by Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi -- that, utilizing the spread of a leyline network, a standard bounded field could be imposed with a nontraditional orientation that he termed the Casses Circumdant, propagating the influence of the controlling magus over much larger region. The conceptual groundwork that the paper established was indisputably solid, but logistical difficulties and the nearly inhuman focus required to regulate the construct placed its realization and use well within what the Clock Tower regarded to be the realm of the theoretical -- something that may have been achievable in the Age of Divinities, but no longer.
This "purely theoretical" existence was now in the process of unfolding itself before Waver Velvet's senses -- blooming like a nightmarish flower of death.
Rider set his bottle of wine on the surface of the bridge frame and snapped his fingers besides Waver's ear, jolting Waver to attention.
"The Persians have a saying, boy," he said to the frightened magus. "'If you can think of nothing but defeat before you even draw your blade, the war has already been lost.'"
"D- Didn't the Persians lose to you?"
"Bah! Don't stress the details!" said the large man, chuckling heartily before turning businesslike. "Going by your reaction, though, I'm supposing that whatever sorcery that was just now isn't good news for us. Is there anything I should know about the situation?"
Waver forced himself to take a deep breath and slowly exhale before speaking.
"Did the Grail provide you with any background on radio broadcasts?" he asked. "Like what our television receives?"
"Somewhat," said Rider. "It's quite the marvel, I think. Would've made field command far simpler if we had it in my day."
"I'm oversimplifying," said Waver, "but the leylines in this city are being used to broadcast and receive signals. Within a certain distance of any line, the spellcaster can sense things, and use the broadcast to manipulate all of his familiars as if they were part of his body."
"Can't you do the same? With those pigeons of yours, I mean."
"That's nowhere near the same scale. Anyone can handle one or two familiars without a problem, but once the numbers get beyond ten or twenty, it starts to put a real a strain on the mind. It's like having that many more arms and hands and being forced to control every finger at the same time. The spellcaster that we're dealing with can do it perfectly -- probably without too much effort."
"And about how many familiars are we talking about, here?"
Waver worriedly glanced in the direction of Shinto.
"S- Several hundred, at least," he replied, "If we were in range of a leyline right now, the spellcaster could have them swarm us like insects at will. There's no way we can defeat an enemy like this ..."
Rider's face took a stern cast at his words, and Waver was afraid that he might have accidentally caused offense. He was surprised when the large man suddenly cracked a toothy smile and flicked him in the forehead.
"What was that for!?" shouted Waver, clutching the reddening spot above his brow.
"Insects indeed!" exclaimed Rider, bellowing with laughter as he stood to his full height. "If a mere thousand insects could bring us low, I would be unworthy of my title as the King of Conquerors! You, my boy, are overconcerned for all of the wrong reasons!"
"Wr- wrong reasons? Our enemy is Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi! He's the sort of genius that only turns up once a century!"
"And I'm the sort of genius that only turns up once every half a millennium," said Rider. "That makes me at least fives times the man he is." He lifted Waver to his feet by the back of his sweater. "I'm telling you, the familiars are nothing to worry about. Tactically, the advantage this sorcery gains him is a means of potentially tracking our current position -- and if you think about that for half a moment, you'll realize that it doesn't matter a whole lot unless he can locate the home of our host. Even then, what's the worst he can do? Send his Servant at us?"
"If you're so confident that we can defeat him, shouldn't we go and eliminate him right now? The fact that he can have all of this intelligence on us probably makes him the most dangerous Master ..."
Rider made a scoffing noise.
"Unless it's Caster we're talking about," he said, drawing his sword, "it isn't inherently meaningful for me to directly combat some insecure two-bit magus who hides behind hundreds of familiars. No -- we'll just ignore him until he starts to make a nuisance of himself."
"What?"
Rider swung his blade, cutting a glowing arch in the air -- which exploded with energy. Divine bulls charged through the gap, drawing forth the Wheel of Heavenly Might -- Rider's chariot, the Gordius Wheel.
"I've found us a front-row seat to what might just be the first true engagement of this War," said Rider with a wide grin. "Are you coming?"
// 09:18 PM
By force of suggestion, they had hastily obtained a fully furnished short-term apartment as a safehouse, and concealed the entire building in less obtrusive defenses than the 'fortress' Kayneth had devised for the hotel. It didn't have quite the trappings of luxury as their former lodgings, but better that they were inconvenienced than killed by compromised security.
Alone in her new living room, Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch, holding her right arm above her. The crimson Command Seals that now adorned the back of her hand were beautiful to her eyes -- but not so satisfying as she had imagined.
"Why don't you understand?" she asked of the air.
For all of her blue-blooded lineage and highborn bearing, Sola-Ui was a magus of middling talent and little true interest in furthering herself. Complicated family politics had landed her as a pawn in a power play against her father soon after birth, and she'd spent her childhood being harshly ingrained with the skills of a potential heir to the family Crest -- aware that she was a mere tool to the ambitions of her paternal uncle. Perhaps as a result of her upbringing, in the years following her uncle's untimely death and her brother's succession as the heir official, she'd offered no real resistance to her father's plans for a political marriage to the House El-Melloi.
Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi was an arrogant man-child who, by virtue of inborn talent and luck, had grown to adulthood without knowing a single shred of humility. To Sola-Ui, he was miraculous existence, on par with a virgin mother pure of Original Sin -- and often, she thought that his personality would've been much improved if his all-too-doting mother had only beaten him as a boy. Still, Kayneth Archibald was not atypical of the men she'd known in her life, and at her father's urgings, she'd resigned herself to become his bride.
Then came the War of the Holy Grail, and the summoning of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne as the Servant of the Lance.
Diarmuid was chivalrous and polite and kindly -- and every bit the gentleman that Kayneth Archibald merely claimed to be. He was the only male who'd ever treated Sola-Ui as her own person, rather than as a tool or just another pretty face. He respected her. He actually respected her.
For the first time, Sola-Ui came to know conviction: She knew the function of a tool intimately, and it was unbearable -- unacceptable -- that a good man like Diarmuid would be consigned to the fate of servitude that she had suffered. That his Master was her fiance was doubly offensive; a soulless meritocrat like Kayneth Archibald would never know Diarmuid's true worth.
Sola-Ui had resolved that she would find a way to save him.
Today, by the actions of Assassin, she had obtained a means to act upon her sole conviction. As if responding to the voice of her heart, the Grail had blessed her with the right to Diarmuid's service. Her first act as Master had been to threaten Kayneth Archibald with the expenditure of a Command Seal -- making clear that she would order Diarmuid to end his life if didn't surrender all claim to the Grail to her.
Then, everything had gone wrong. Exactly opposite of what she'd imagined, Diarmuid had not been happy at all that she'd ended his servitude and humiliation. He'd instead berated her for acting honorlessly, and gave the ultimatum that he would only accept her as a Master if she swore to act as Kayneth Archibald's proxy. If he discovered that she had gone back upon her word, he would see her parted with her arm.
"What did that scumbag ever do to deserve your loyalty, Diarmuid?" asked Sola-Ui.
Picking up a pillow from the couch, she held it against her breasts, hugging it tightly.
"Why can't you see that I'm doing this because I love you?"
// 09:11 PM
In body, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi faced the evening breeze on the rooftop helipad of the Grand Hyatt. His consciousness, however, was not entirely present. By artifice and sheer skill, he had momentarily become at one with the metropolis -- spreading himself to the expanse of the countryside to derive sensory feedback from the leylines. In his present state, even the Presence Concealment of an astralized Assassin would not permit from escape from his clairvoyance.
The Casses Circumdant was not a feat of control that could be attempted without thaumaturgical talent at least equivalent to Kayneth's own -- and certainly not without soundness of mind and body. Tonight, however, the throbbing pain in his bandaged right hand and the rage that utterly filled his being provided no inhibition to the effect of the spell. Rather, they honed his responses, giving him a single-minded focus.
Setting the seven-hundred odd wraiths that he'd bound to his command to automatic defense against entities of irregular odic pressure, he'd directed all of his remaining faculties to the identification of the Masters and Servants -- extending his senses well beyond the range of his familiar control. Even if it killed him to do so, Kayneth would locate the Master of Assassin and make him pay for the insult that had been dealt.
Of the five other Masters and Servants:
Already, Kayneth had confirmed the Master of Berserker -- a wretched, deformed scion of the House Machir, fittingly loitering about the city's slums with his Servant. It was pitiful that one of the Twelve Houses of Judea could fall so low.
At the Tohsaka Estate, Archer was demanifest, and his Master was nowhere within Kayneth's field of detection. Kayneth hadn't been able to closely observe the attack upon the manse the night previous, but as Tohsaka Tokiomi was presumably absorbed in tracking the perpetrator, it was a matter that could be dealt with later.
The Einzbern Master at the seaside was a woman, somehow capable of supplying energy to her Servant -- Saber -- while suppressing the telltale odic leakage that marked her as a participant of the War. Kayneth would attribute such a feat to talent, but it was wasted; the woman too closely accompanied her Servant, and seemed to have no sense of subterfuge.
Caster was a mutated creature with fish-like eyes, currently traveling along the sewer system with his Master -- a plain young man who lacked the presence of a Magus. Not much of a threat, Kayneth judged.
The Master of Rider was none other than Waver Velvet, participating in the War on the merit of a stolen catalyst. It incensed Kayneth that the lowborn brat would dare show his face, but punishment could wait; the boy hadn't the talent to properly reign in Rider, and that neutered him as an immediate threat.
The Master of Assassin was easy enough to find, surprisingly -- and auspiciously unaccompanied by his Servant.
Of the Servant in question, however ...
Kayneth presumed initially that he was mistaken, but fine-tuning his senses and performing a second pass, he realized that it hadn't been his imagination. Assassin was not one servant. Assassin was eighty extremely weak energy signatures, demanifested across the city.
'The Hundred-Faced Hassan,' he thought to himself. And each iteration was potentially as strong as the one that he and Lancer had fought. It confirmed within his mind that Assassin was the greatest threat of this War. But why had such a being been summoned to the service of an agent of the Vatican?
No matter, he thought. The enemy had sullied the sanctity of the war, and dealt unforgivable insult. The motives involved mattered little, and punishment was the only possible reply.
Contracting the majority of his consciousness to his flesh, he continued, "The target is a young priest, presently at a chapel to the west of the Miyama Shopping District. Assassin is not presently at his side. You know what to do."
"By your command, Master," said Lancer, astralizing from where he'd knelt.
Kayneth permitted himself a brief reprieve from his exertions upon Lancer's departure, but it was no sooner than he relaxed that he was suddenly aware of a Master's presence at the door of the stairwell. A deliberately slow clap met his ears as he turned.
"A most brilliant performance, Lord El-Melloi," said his visitor -- an Asian man wearing a fine Italian suit. "Nothing less than what I expected of a first-rate magus."
He'd avoided detection, Kayneth realized, by temporarily deactivating all of his prana circuits; even now, the man's odic circulation was in the process of gradually recovering.
"Tohsaka Tokiomi, I presume?" he asked. "Rather presumptive of you to approach me without your Servant. For your sake, I do hope that you haven't the intention to battle."
At Kayneth's mental order, the wraiths that guarded the rooftop gained visibility -- manifesting by the dozens until they encircled the building entirely. Tohsaka Tokiomi responded with no fright or panic. Instead, he calmly raised his arms, assuming a stance that Kayneth vaguely recognized as belonging to a Chinese martial art.
"I have no need to bother Archer with trivial errands that I myself can resolve," said Tohsaka, smiling pleasantly. "I'm here to bid you welcome to the Orient, Lord El-Melloi. I hope that you'll enjoy the remainder of your stay with us."
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #6: Casses Circumdant I / Opening Salvo
// 08:59 PM
Despite the collapse of the Japanese asset bubble, it wasn't a matter of debate that Shinto had grown wealthier and more heavily urbanized over the past decade. The recession, however, had not left the ward entirely untouched; and the south-western bloc of the business district -- a ten minutes' walk from the Grand Hyatt -- was now a no-man's land of derelict office buildings and public infrastructure that had fallen out of maintenance. With the police advising a soft curfew in response to the recent serial killings, the originally sparse pedestrian traffic in the area had fallen to a nil.
Approaching the center of an empty street, Kariya winced as the worms relayed a response from an insect familiar he'd sent out earlier.
"It looks our friend from the hotel is getting ready to unleash whatever it is he has planned for tonight," he said. "We should probably get started as well."
Berserker manifested beside him, very obviously attempting to conceal a grimace as he clutched at the crimson stain on the side of his uniform shirt. Kariya bit his lower lip. In an ideal world, the sort of pain that was his nightly companion would afflict only the deserving -- but reality was far from kindly, and until the War came to its close, it would be Kariya's lot to serve as an author of suffering. He dared only to hope what he was putting Berserker through would amount to some good in the end.
"Are you sure you're alright with the plan?" he asked. "If not, we can just turn in for the night."
"I'm fine. Really," replied the Servant in a strained voice, turning toward him. "Let's just do this."
From the pocket of his jacket, Kariya removed and unsheathed a combat knife with an oddly designed hilt.
"I'm sorry about this," he said.
Gripping the blade with both hands, he drove it into Berserker's gut.
// 09:13 PM
Atop the superstructure of the Fuyuki Bridge, Waver Velvet abruptly ceased in his whining, turning his head toward the Grand Hyatt in stark shock. Rider, who wasn't quite so attuned to the energies of magecraft, noticed something as well -- a sharp incline in the concentration of atmospheric mana.
"Th- this bounded field ..." said Waver, eyes widening. "H- he's ... he's actually developed a working implementation ..."
It had been the subject of a treatise only recently delivered by Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi -- that, utilizing the spread of a leyline network, a standard bounded field could be imposed with a nontraditional orientation that he termed the Casses Circumdant, propagating the influence of the controlling magus over much larger region. The conceptual groundwork that the paper established was indisputably solid, but logistical difficulties and the nearly inhuman focus required to regulate the construct placed its realization and use well within what the Clock Tower regarded to be the realm of the theoretical -- something that may have been achievable in the Age of Divinities, but no longer.
This "purely theoretical" existence was now in the process of unfolding itself before Waver Velvet's senses -- blooming like a nightmarish flower of death.
Rider set his bottle of wine on the surface of the bridge frame and snapped his fingers besides Waver's ear, jolting Waver to attention.
"The Persians have a saying, boy," he said to the frightened magus. "'If you can think of nothing but defeat before you even draw your blade, the war has already been lost.'"
"D- Didn't the Persians lose to you?"
"Bah! Don't stress the details!" said the large man, chuckling heartily before turning businesslike. "Going by your reaction, though, I'm supposing that whatever sorcery that was just now isn't good news for us. Is there anything I should know about the situation?"
Waver forced himself to take a deep breath and slowly exhale before speaking.
"Did the Grail provide you with any background on radio broadcasts?" he asked. "Like what our television receives?"
"Somewhat," said Rider. "It's quite the marvel, I think. Would've made field command far simpler if we had it in my day."
"I'm oversimplifying," said Waver, "but the leylines in this city are being used to broadcast and receive signals. Within a certain distance of any line, the spellcaster can sense things, and use the broadcast to manipulate all of his familiars as if they were part of his body."
"Can't you do the same? With those pigeons of yours, I mean."
"That's nowhere near the same scale. Anyone can handle one or two familiars without a problem, but once the numbers get beyond ten or twenty, it starts to put a real a strain on the mind. It's like having that many more arms and hands and being forced to control every finger at the same time. The spellcaster that we're dealing with can do it perfectly -- probably without too much effort."
"And about how many familiars are we talking about, here?"
Waver worriedly glanced in the direction of Shinto.
"S- Several hundred, at least," he replied, "If we were in range of a leyline right now, the spellcaster could have them swarm us like insects at will. There's no way we can defeat an enemy like this ..."
Rider's face took a stern cast at his words, and Waver was afraid that he might have accidentally caused offense. He was surprised when the large man suddenly cracked a toothy smile and flicked him in the forehead.
"What was that for!?" shouted Waver, clutching the reddening spot above his brow.
"Insects indeed!" exclaimed Rider, bellowing with laughter as he stood to his full height. "If a mere thousand insects could bring us low, I would be unworthy of my title as the King of Conquerors! You, my boy, are overconcerned for all of the wrong reasons!"
"Wr- wrong reasons? Our enemy is Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi! He's the sort of genius that only turns up once a century!"
"And I'm the sort of genius that only turns up once every half a millennium," said Rider. "That makes me at least fives times the man he is." He lifted Waver to his feet by the back of his sweater. "I'm telling you, the familiars are nothing to worry about. Tactically, the advantage this sorcery gains him is a means of potentially tracking our current position -- and if you think about that for half a moment, you'll realize that it doesn't matter a whole lot unless he can locate the home of our host. Even then, what's the worst he can do? Send his Servant at us?"
"If you're so confident that we can defeat him, shouldn't we go and eliminate him right now? The fact that he can have all of this intelligence on us probably makes him the most dangerous Master ..."
Rider made a scoffing noise.
"Unless it's Caster we're talking about," he said, drawing his sword, "it isn't inherently meaningful for me to directly combat some insecure two-bit magus who hides behind hundreds of familiars. No -- we'll just ignore him until he starts to make a nuisance of himself."
"What?"
Rider swung his blade, cutting a glowing arch in the air -- which exploded with energy. Divine bulls charged through the gap, drawing forth the Wheel of Heavenly Might -- Rider's chariot, the Gordius Wheel.
"I've found us a front-row seat to what might just be the first true engagement of this War," said Rider with a wide grin. "Are you coming?"
// 09:18 PM
By force of suggestion, they had hastily obtained a fully furnished short-term apartment as a safehouse, and concealed the entire building in less obtrusive defenses than the 'fortress' Kayneth had devised for the hotel. It didn't have quite the trappings of luxury as their former lodgings, but better that they were inconvenienced than killed by compromised security.
Alone in her new living room, Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch, holding her right arm above her. The crimson Command Seals that now adorned the back of her hand were beautiful to her eyes -- but not so satisfying as she had imagined.
"Why don't you understand?" she asked of the air.
For all of her blue-blooded lineage and highborn bearing, Sola-Ui was a magus of middling talent and little true interest in furthering herself. Complicated family politics had landed her as a pawn in a power play against her father soon after birth, and she'd spent her childhood being harshly ingrained with the skills of a potential heir to the family Crest -- aware that she was a mere tool to the ambitions of her paternal uncle. Perhaps as a result of her upbringing, in the years following her uncle's untimely death and her brother's succession as the heir official, she'd offered no real resistance to her father's plans for a political marriage to the House El-Melloi.
Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi was an arrogant man-child who, by virtue of inborn talent and luck, had grown to adulthood without knowing a single shred of humility. To Sola-Ui, he was miraculous existence, on par with a virgin mother pure of Original Sin -- and often, she thought that his personality would've been much improved if his all-too-doting mother had only beaten him as a boy. Still, Kayneth Archibald was not atypical of the men she'd known in her life, and at her father's urgings, she'd resigned herself to become his bride.
Then came the War of the Holy Grail, and the summoning of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne as the Servant of the Lance.
Diarmuid was chivalrous and polite and kindly -- and every bit the gentleman that Kayneth Archibald merely claimed to be. He was the only male who'd ever treated Sola-Ui as her own person, rather than as a tool or just another pretty face. He respected her. He actually respected her.
For the first time, Sola-Ui came to know conviction: She knew the function of a tool intimately, and it was unbearable -- unacceptable -- that a good man like Diarmuid would be consigned to the fate of servitude that she had suffered. That his Master was her fiance was doubly offensive; a soulless meritocrat like Kayneth Archibald would never know Diarmuid's true worth.
Sola-Ui had resolved that she would find a way to save him.
Today, by the actions of Assassin, she had obtained a means to act upon her sole conviction. As if responding to the voice of her heart, the Grail had blessed her with the right to Diarmuid's service. Her first act as Master had been to threaten Kayneth Archibald with the expenditure of a Command Seal -- making clear that she would order Diarmuid to end his life if didn't surrender all claim to the Grail to her.
Then, everything had gone wrong. Exactly opposite of what she'd imagined, Diarmuid had not been happy at all that she'd ended his servitude and humiliation. He'd instead berated her for acting honorlessly, and gave the ultimatum that he would only accept her as a Master if she swore to act as Kayneth Archibald's proxy. If he discovered that she had gone back upon her word, he would see her parted with her arm.
"What did that scumbag ever do to deserve your loyalty, Diarmuid?" asked Sola-Ui.
Picking up a pillow from the couch, she held it against her breasts, hugging it tightly.
"Why can't you see that I'm doing this because I love you?"
// 09:11 PM
In body, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi faced the evening breeze on the rooftop helipad of the Grand Hyatt. His consciousness, however, was not entirely present. By artifice and sheer skill, he had momentarily become at one with the metropolis -- spreading himself to the expanse of the countryside to derive sensory feedback from the leylines. In his present state, even the Presence Concealment of an astralized Assassin would not permit from escape from his clairvoyance.
The Casses Circumdant was not a feat of control that could be attempted without thaumaturgical talent at least equivalent to Kayneth's own -- and certainly not without soundness of mind and body. Tonight, however, the throbbing pain in his bandaged right hand and the rage that utterly filled his being provided no inhibition to the effect of the spell. Rather, they honed his responses, giving him a single-minded focus.
Setting the seven-hundred odd wraiths that he'd bound to his command to automatic defense against entities of irregular odic pressure, he'd directed all of his remaining faculties to the identification of the Masters and Servants -- extending his senses well beyond the range of his familiar control. Even if it killed him to do so, Kayneth would locate the Master of Assassin and make him pay for the insult that had been dealt.
Of the five other Masters and Servants:
Already, Kayneth had confirmed the Master of Berserker -- a wretched, deformed scion of the House Machir, fittingly loitering about the city's slums with his Servant. It was pitiful that one of the Twelve Houses of Judea could fall so low.
At the Tohsaka Estate, Archer was demanifest, and his Master was nowhere within Kayneth's field of detection. Kayneth hadn't been able to closely observe the attack upon the manse the night previous, but as Tohsaka Tokiomi was presumably absorbed in tracking the perpetrator, it was a matter that could be dealt with later.
The Einzbern Master at the seaside was a woman, somehow capable of supplying energy to her Servant -- Saber -- while suppressing the telltale odic leakage that marked her as a participant of the War. Kayneth would attribute such a feat to talent, but it was wasted; the woman too closely accompanied her Servant, and seemed to have no sense of subterfuge.
Caster was a mutated creature with fish-like eyes, currently traveling along the sewer system with his Master -- a plain young man who lacked the presence of a Magus. Not much of a threat, Kayneth judged.
The Master of Rider was none other than Waver Velvet, participating in the War on the merit of a stolen catalyst. It incensed Kayneth that the lowborn brat would dare show his face, but punishment could wait; the boy hadn't the talent to properly reign in Rider, and that neutered him as an immediate threat.
The Master of Assassin was easy enough to find, surprisingly -- and auspiciously unaccompanied by his Servant.
Of the Servant in question, however ...
Kayneth presumed initially that he was mistaken, but fine-tuning his senses and performing a second pass, he realized that it hadn't been his imagination. Assassin was not one servant. Assassin was eighty extremely weak energy signatures, demanifested across the city.
'The Hundred-Faced Hassan,' he thought to himself. And each iteration was potentially as strong as the one that he and Lancer had fought. It confirmed within his mind that Assassin was the greatest threat of this War. But why had such a being been summoned to the service of an agent of the Vatican?
No matter, he thought. The enemy had sullied the sanctity of the war, and dealt unforgivable insult. The motives involved mattered little, and punishment was the only possible reply.
Contracting the majority of his consciousness to his flesh, he continued, "The target is a young priest, presently at a chapel to the west of the Miyama Shopping District. Assassin is not presently at his side. You know what to do."
"By your command, Master," said Lancer, astralizing from where he'd knelt.
Kayneth permitted himself a brief reprieve from his exertions upon Lancer's departure, but it was no sooner than he relaxed that he was suddenly aware of a Master's presence at the door of the stairwell. A deliberately slow clap met his ears as he turned.
"A most brilliant performance, Lord El-Melloi," said his visitor -- an Asian man wearing a fine Italian suit. "Nothing less than what I expected of a first-rate magus."
He'd avoided detection, Kayneth realized, by temporarily deactivating all of his prana circuits; even now, the man's odic circulation was in the process of gradually recovering.
"Tohsaka Tokiomi, I presume?" he asked. "Rather presumptive of you to approach me without your Servant. For your sake, I do hope that you haven't the intention to battle."
At Kayneth's mental order, the wraiths that guarded the rooftop gained visibility -- manifesting by the dozens until they encircled the building entirely. Tohsaka Tokiomi responded with no fright or panic. Instead, he calmly raised his arms, assuming a stance that Kayneth vaguely recognized as belonging to a Chinese martial art.
"I have no need to bother Archer with trivial errands that I myself can resolve," said Tohsaka, smiling pleasantly. "I'm here to bid you welcome to the Orient, Lord El-Melloi. I hope that you'll enjoy the remainder of your stay with us."
This was supposed to be at the end of the chapter, but I hadn't finished it ...
Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Omake #1: Fujimura Dojo, Issue 1
//
ISKANDER-SENSEI and WAVER appear, standing in the training hall of a familiar dojo. ISKANDER-SENSEI is wearing an extra-large kendo hakama and holding across his shoulder a shinai, proportioned to his body. WAVER, standing beside him, is dressed in a short-sleeved white gym shirt, a pair of bloomers, and long knee-socks. On the front of his shirt is a name sticker with "Weibaa~" written in large, sloppy hiragana.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Welcome to yet another issue of Fujimura Dojo!
I, Iskander-Sensei, shall be your substitute
trainer on this fine day! Standing beside me
is my cutest disciple and assistant, Waver-
chan!
WAVER glances down at his attire, and his face reddens in anger and embarassment.
WAVER:
W- w- what's the meaning of this, Rider!? Why
am I wearing bloomers!? Weren't we just on
top of that bridge!?
ISKANDER-SENSEI laughs heartily, slapping WAVER heavily on the back.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Your attire is nothing to be ashamed of,
Waver-chan! It is the traditional battle garb
that the Orientals assign to those of your
role and station! And to answer your question,
you're here because you Bad Ended!
WAVER:
M- my role and station?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
I believe that the scholars and gentlemen of
this nation describe those with your
characteristics as 'tsundere loli magi.'
There was some talk before the beginning of
the Grail War that your lines should be voiced
over by Kugimiya Rie.
WAVER:
Baka Baka Baka! Stop talking all this
nonsense, Rider! There must be an explanation
for this! Are we inside a Reality Marble or
something? And what do you mean Bad Ended?
ISKANDER-SENSEI shoots WAVER an awkward grin.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
That would be my fault, Waver-chan. When I
swung my sword earlier, you were accidentally
knocked off the bridge!
WAVER:
I ... I'm dead? You killed me!
WAVER collapses to his knees, and tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
But don't worry! This tutorial is intended to
explain to you exactly what you did wrong! If
you try harder, next time, you'll perform
better! Once we're through, just open your
most recent save and reload!
WAVER glares at ISKANDER-SENSEI, who has broken into chuckles.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
In any case, it's time for mail call!
A HAND reaches up from below the CAMERA, holding an envelope, which ISKANDER-SENSEI takes with a nod. Tearing it open, he removes the letter within.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Let's see now ... this letter is from Aida
Kensuke-kun of Tokyo-3. His question is, "How
does Archer have so many goddamned Noble
Phantasms!? I just can't defeat him, and I'm
already Level 52!"
WAVER:
Wait, Archer? Didn't he only use that one
crappy Noble Phantasm against the maid?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Kensuke-kun's farther along than you in the
plot, Waver-chan. You need to work harder! But
to answer the question, most of these Are-Pee-
Gees that children play on the television
these days are actually fairly accurate
representations of how heroes were in the Age
of Divinities.
WAVER stands up, looking at ISKANDER-SENSEI with a confused expression.
WAVER:
RPGs are clearly over-the-top fiction. How are
they fairly accurate?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Good question, disciple! In Are-Pee-Gees,
heroes barge their way into every house they
run across, scouring high and low for the
treasures that home-owners' have occulted away
in obscure corners! What they find, they take,
and the peoples of the nation receive their
actions in good humor in order to support
their campaign against the enemies! Such is
the royal path of heroism!
WAVER:
Wait, I don't think that's-
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Archer's primary Noble Phantasm is something
called a Heroe's Inventory! In Are-Pee-Gees,
heroes have extra-dimensional holding areas of
immense space, which they use to store all
manner of legendary Noble Phantasms that they
obtain!
WAVER:
Are you saying that game mechanics are real?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Indeed! And those who would honorlessly take
advantage of the flaws of Are-Pee-Gee
realities exist in the real world as well! I
hear that there's a scoundrel by the name of
EMIYA, who exploits something called an 'Item
Replication Bug' to created unlimited Noble
Phantasms!
WAVER:
... Is this EMIYA a S- Servant in this War?
ISKANDER-SENSEI smiles knowiningly and wags his finger at WAVER.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
That would be telling, wouldn't it? You'll
have to find out on your own merit, Waver-
chan! Now, as to how Kensuke-kun can defeat
Archer -- if you go and grind near the Fuyuki
Grand Hyatt, there's a small chance that you
might randomly encounter a type of monster
known as a Metal Slime! Try defeating it,
because it will drop massive amounts of
Experience Points! Do it enough, and soon
you'll be strong enough to defeat even
Archer's Heroic Inventory!
WAVER:
Metal Slime? Are you talking about the Volumen
Hydragyrum? That's a Mystic Code! How does it
drop Experience Points!?
Folding the letter and handing it back to the HAND that reaches in from offscreen, ISKANDER-SENSEI ignores WAVER and turns to look directly into the CAMERA.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
In any case, friends and comrades -- that's
all for today's issue! If Fate allows it, stay
tuned for the next issue of ...
ISKANDER-SENSEI flexes his muscles heroically.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
... Fujimura Dojo!!!
The CURTAINS draw.
WAVER:
Baka baka! Stop ignoring my questions, Rider!!
FEMALE (V.O.):
This issue of Fujimura Dojo was brought to you
by Square-Enix of Japan. The World is Square.
Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Omake #1: Fujimura Dojo, Issue 1
//
ISKANDER-SENSEI and WAVER appear, standing in the training hall of a familiar dojo. ISKANDER-SENSEI is wearing an extra-large kendo hakama and holding across his shoulder a shinai, proportioned to his body. WAVER, standing beside him, is dressed in a short-sleeved white gym shirt, a pair of bloomers, and long knee-socks. On the front of his shirt is a name sticker with "Weibaa~" written in large, sloppy hiragana.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Welcome to yet another issue of Fujimura Dojo!
I, Iskander-Sensei, shall be your substitute
trainer on this fine day! Standing beside me
is my cutest disciple and assistant, Waver-
chan!
WAVER glances down at his attire, and his face reddens in anger and embarassment.
WAVER:
W- w- what's the meaning of this, Rider!? Why
am I wearing bloomers!? Weren't we just on
top of that bridge!?
ISKANDER-SENSEI laughs heartily, slapping WAVER heavily on the back.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Your attire is nothing to be ashamed of,
Waver-chan! It is the traditional battle garb
that the Orientals assign to those of your
role and station! And to answer your question,
you're here because you Bad Ended!
WAVER:
M- my role and station?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
I believe that the scholars and gentlemen of
this nation describe those with your
characteristics as 'tsundere loli magi.'
There was some talk before the beginning of
the Grail War that your lines should be voiced
over by Kugimiya Rie.
WAVER:
Baka Baka Baka! Stop talking all this
nonsense, Rider! There must be an explanation
for this! Are we inside a Reality Marble or
something? And what do you mean Bad Ended?
ISKANDER-SENSEI shoots WAVER an awkward grin.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
That would be my fault, Waver-chan. When I
swung my sword earlier, you were accidentally
knocked off the bridge!
WAVER:
I ... I'm dead? You killed me!
WAVER collapses to his knees, and tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
But don't worry! This tutorial is intended to
explain to you exactly what you did wrong! If
you try harder, next time, you'll perform
better! Once we're through, just open your
most recent save and reload!
WAVER glares at ISKANDER-SENSEI, who has broken into chuckles.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
In any case, it's time for mail call!
A HAND reaches up from below the CAMERA, holding an envelope, which ISKANDER-SENSEI takes with a nod. Tearing it open, he removes the letter within.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Let's see now ... this letter is from Aida
Kensuke-kun of Tokyo-3. His question is, "How
does Archer have so many goddamned Noble
Phantasms!? I just can't defeat him, and I'm
already Level 52!"
WAVER:
Wait, Archer? Didn't he only use that one
crappy Noble Phantasm against the maid?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Kensuke-kun's farther along than you in the
plot, Waver-chan. You need to work harder! But
to answer the question, most of these Are-Pee-
Gees that children play on the television
these days are actually fairly accurate
representations of how heroes were in the Age
of Divinities.
WAVER stands up, looking at ISKANDER-SENSEI with a confused expression.
WAVER:
RPGs are clearly over-the-top fiction. How are
they fairly accurate?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Good question, disciple! In Are-Pee-Gees,
heroes barge their way into every house they
run across, scouring high and low for the
treasures that home-owners' have occulted away
in obscure corners! What they find, they take,
and the peoples of the nation receive their
actions in good humor in order to support
their campaign against the enemies! Such is
the royal path of heroism!
WAVER:
Wait, I don't think that's-
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Archer's primary Noble Phantasm is something
called a Heroe's Inventory! In Are-Pee-Gees,
heroes have extra-dimensional holding areas of
immense space, which they use to store all
manner of legendary Noble Phantasms that they
obtain!
WAVER:
Are you saying that game mechanics are real?
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
Indeed! And those who would honorlessly take
advantage of the flaws of Are-Pee-Gee
realities exist in the real world as well! I
hear that there's a scoundrel by the name of
EMIYA, who exploits something called an 'Item
Replication Bug' to created unlimited Noble
Phantasms!
WAVER:
... Is this EMIYA a S- Servant in this War?
ISKANDER-SENSEI smiles knowiningly and wags his finger at WAVER.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
That would be telling, wouldn't it? You'll
have to find out on your own merit, Waver-
chan! Now, as to how Kensuke-kun can defeat
Archer -- if you go and grind near the Fuyuki
Grand Hyatt, there's a small chance that you
might randomly encounter a type of monster
known as a Metal Slime! Try defeating it,
because it will drop massive amounts of
Experience Points! Do it enough, and soon
you'll be strong enough to defeat even
Archer's Heroic Inventory!
WAVER:
Metal Slime? Are you talking about the Volumen
Hydragyrum? That's a Mystic Code! How does it
drop Experience Points!?
Folding the letter and handing it back to the HAND that reaches in from offscreen, ISKANDER-SENSEI ignores WAVER and turns to look directly into the CAMERA.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
In any case, friends and comrades -- that's
all for today's issue! If Fate allows it, stay
tuned for the next issue of ...
ISKANDER-SENSEI flexes his muscles heroically.
ISKANDER-SENSEI:
... Fujimura Dojo!!!
The CURTAINS draw.
WAVER:
Baka baka! Stop ignoring my questions, Rider!!
FEMALE (V.O.):
This issue of Fujimura Dojo was brought to you
by Square-Enix of Japan. The World is Square.
Solenoid Flux
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #7: Casses Circumdant II / This Present Illusion
// Miyama Commercial District, 09:15 PM
The church was in a quiet residential neighborhood, about ten blocks west of the commercial district in central Miyama -- too far from the leylines for Lord El-Melloi's wraith familiars to serve as Lancer's reinforcements. To the Servant, however, it wasn't a significant strategic loss; the strength of low-level familiars was immaterial, and had little place in a proper engagement between Servants. If Assassin had caught wind of the evening's offensive at all, it was doubtful that the wraiths could've made much of a difference in the first place.
The buildings and surrounding grounds were secured by a bounded field of modest strength, well-enough designed that Lancer would've been hard pressed to detect it were he not a spirit. To his senses, the protection had the same character to it as the defensive provisions his Master had enacted at the hotel -- permitting non-magi uninvolved in the War to go about their business unhindered, but blocking entrance to humans and entities of potentially threatening odic pressure. Though from lack of proximity to a leyline, the strength of the barrier here was of a far lower magnitude, its surface might have well been wrought of iron, surmountable to a typical Servant -- manifest or demanifest -- only through an exercise of uncommon force.
Lancer, however, was not a typical Servant. He was the bearer of the mystical spear, Gae Dearg -- the Crimson Rose of Exorcism.
Despite its appellation, the effect of Lancer's Noble Phantasm was not to perfectly dispel or purge magecraft. The essences that Manannan mac Lir had imbued within the red spear permitted its blade to disrupt the flows of thaumaturgical energy, temporarily interfering with phenomenon unnaturally produced. A projection of an ongoing magecraft so disrupted would inevitably begin to reassert itself upon the passing of the blade, but rate of reassertion was subject to provision of fuel. So distant from the leylines, a long slash across the church's defenses would not regenerate for at least a second.
Lancer did not require the whole of a second to clear the barrier. The telltale odic leakage of Assassin's Master -- obscured originally by the effect of the bounded field -- was laid bare the moment Lancer set foot within, placing the magus within the lighted central edifice before an audience of human non-magi. Hostages? No. By the suggestion of the Grail, it was more likely a routine religious congregation; and the justification for the orientation of the bounded field. If the non-magi were stayed by some form of suggestion, the atmosphere within would've been detectably wrong.
Lord El-Melloi had made clear early on that the War was to be fought in secrecy from non-magi wherever possible, and that this was a rule and tradition of utmost importance. Under normal circumstances, Lancer would be inclined to agree; for in the heat of combat, even warriors of nigh-legendary skill would be hard put to absolutely ensure the safety of innocents en masse. However, though Assassin had yet to arrive or manifest in defense of his Master, Lancer had realistically only a small window of time to complete his task. He was needed at Lord El-Melloi's side -- especially now that he could no longer be summoned via command seal.
Astralizing, Lancer entered the building through a stained glass window. The enemy master, apparently unaware of Lancer's arrival, lowly continued his solemn sermon -- right up until Lancer materialized before his pulpit and rammed the Gae Buidhe through his throat.
The folk of the congregation were momentarily silent in shock, but at the frightened shriek of a small girl, they erupted into pandemonium. Withdrawing his spear from the enemy's corpse, Lancer prepared to immediately demanifest -- but something about the bounded field had just changed drastically.
"I ... I can't astralize?" he asked himself, staring at the solid flesh of his hand.
In his disorientation, Lancer felt something sharp and thin pierce his lower back, right as Assassin's presence made itself known. He turned his head and found himself meeting the gaze of a smiling old woman, who had planted some medical apparatus -- a syringe, his mind supplied -- into his flesh.
The flock that had attended the sermon were no longer panicking. Instead, they silently looked upon Lancer with unsettling, identical grins -- and on the floor beside the pulpit, the corpse of the enemy Master had become that of masked skeletal man clad in black, skin-tight garb.
Lancer had been unconsciously biased to the expectation that the enemy Servant would directly engage him as he had in the hotel -- in part because he'd already done so, and in part because Lancer's own areas of specialization were so oriented. Assassin, however, did not by nature favor melee combat. In hindsight, it should've been obvious that a man like Hassan-i Sabbah would respond to known threats by setting the stage for ambush and assassination.
Presence Concealment, the Servant of the Lance belatedly realized, was a misleading name for Assassin's class ability. More accurately, it could be described as the flawless falsification of odic pressure gradients ...
// Shinto Slums, 09:15 PM
The capacity to differentiate magi from mundanes by odic pressure was a feature fundamental of bounded fields. It was with this in mind that on noticing the change that had come upon the leylines, Emiya Kiritsugu forcibly deactivated all of his prana circuits.
His assistant, Hisau Maiya, wasn't able to do the same in time. With a delay of a few seconds, half a dozen wraiths manifested in the air, sniffing out her incompletely-suppressed thaumaturgical presence like spectral bloodhounds.
The deathly creatures were invisible to most humans without active reinforcement of sight, but to the eyes of Emiya Kiritsugu -- which had been rendered low-functioning Jougan through alchemical surgery -- they had the appearance of rotting human corpses, somehow comprised of blue light. Maiya, whose eyes were unmodified, could sense them only by presence, and barely dodged aside as one of them clumsily swiped at the wall she'd been hiding behind -- breaking through the bricks with ease, and scattering debris across the rooftop.
Physical interference, thought Kiritsugu.
Of the participating Masters thus far known to the Einzberns, only one possessed sufficient skill in the relevant disciplines to employ familiars of this specific type and quality: Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi.
Twelve years ago, Kiritsugu had dispatched a cabal of necromancers who made a practice of binding and preserving the spirits of human sacrifices as highly functional familiars -- beings known as Ghost Liners, who were similar but nonequivalent to Servants. These wraiths, incapable of independent magecraft, were nowhere near the same level of threat, but the principles behind their instrumentation were virtually identical. El-Melloi had bound the souls of countless dead to the domain of his 'leyline field,' enhancing their combat utility with some Wind-Elemental technique that granted them capacity for electromagnetic interference. Their surfaces were coated with force fields, in other words, lending them apparent kinetic solidity.
There were only six of the creatures here. If Kiritsugu and Maiya had been prepared for combat against Servants or spirits in general, they might have had a chance. Instead, they'd only lightly armed themselves for maximum mobility, intending to take out the human Masters of the War by conventional gunfire. As it was, the only weapon they currently possessed that could substantially harm the wraiths was Kiritsugu's Mystic Code -- the Thompson Contender. The closest weapons cache they'd stocked with other anti-spiritual equipment was fifteen minutes away, outside of the slums.
Kiritsugu didn't have the time to deal with this. Not with Irisviel traveling unprotected; and certainly not with Berserker's sudden manifestation nearby.
Initiating the reactivation of his prana circuits, he softly intoned, "Time Alter -- Double Accel," and pulled his Mystic Code from its holster as the world slowed.
Making more time was Emiya Kiritsugu's specialty.
// Shinto Slums, 09:15 PM
Irisviel stopped the car in a wide street at the center of the slums, and disembarked along with her Servant. The vehicle, a blue Honda Saber by some odd turn of her husband's wit, had been parked near the beachfront district prior to the opening of the War -- one of eight luxury sedans situated around the city for her convenience of transportation.
Stepping into the high-beams, Irisviel studied their opponents.
The white-haired enemy Master, Matou Kariya, little resembled the photograph that Kiritsugu had shown her not long ago. The disfigurement of his sweating, haggard face felt thaumaturgical in origin, and he seemed physically taxed -- probably unused to supporting the heavy pranic demands of the War. Beside him stood his Servant, who was clad in a full suit of plate armor, and enshrouded in dark mist. There was nothing elegant or knightly about the figure, and to Irisviel, its hunched posture was more suggestive of a lower primate than a human. The intense, chaotic presence it exuded indicated that it was none other than Berserker.
"Be careful, Saber," she said.
Without taking her gaze off the enemy, the tiny, blond knight nodded seriously. The black three-piece suit she wore was replaced by her customary armored dress a moment later, and she instantly readied her weapon -- a blade rendered invisible by the Boundary of the Wind King.
Kariya couldn't help but smile, despite his pain; his patience had paid off. More softly than Saber and Irisviel could hear over their vehicle's engine, he said to himself, "You better all be watching this, you bastards ..."
// Fuyuki Grand Hyatt, 09:15 PM
It was almost like a dance.
Humans, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi had thought, could not move like this; could not avoid the coordinated, high-speed kinetic attacks of his swarm of familiars. He'd personally designed and revised the threat response algorithms multiple times to ensure it. Within the vicinity of the rooftop, there were eighty-four wraiths, and with their magnetic shells fully actualized, they could each move at around thirty kilometers an hour. Evasion should've been impossible.
Tohsaka Tokiomi was performing it casually, as if it were merely a light warm-up exercise. Infuriatingly, he wasn't even moving very quickly -- just at the minimal speed required to cleanly avoid each attack. Kayneth supposed that he was reading the familiars' attacks somehow, but short of analyzing and interpreting the spellwork in real-time, he couldn't see a theoretical means to do so -- much less a practical one.
"Did you know," said the Asian man, sidestepping an incoming wraith without breaking stance, "that I was born with a mere eighteen prana circuits? Not of very high-quality, either. My daughters far surpass me innate talent."
Kayneth stared. Was this some obscure Oriental humor? Tohsaka's claim was belied by the very fact that he wasn't yet deceased; and it took an uncommon sort to raise his hand against the genius of Clock Tower and survive unharmed. Every passing moment, Tohsaka's slow advance across the rooftop grew more improbable, and Kayneth could feel a distinct growth in the magnitude of his odic pressure. It was almost as if the man's entire body had become one circuit of unreasonably high quality.
"There is a limit to the amount of provocation that I shall tolerate from you without reprise, Tohsaka," Kayneth snarled, removing a stoppered glass tube from the inner pocket his cassock. "You would dare claim to be a third-rate magus? That a mere peasant could avoid being crushed by my familiars!?"
Tohsaka laughed congenially.
"No, not at all," he replied, weaving his way past another barrage of attacks. He was now only five meters away. "I'm merely indicating that within the context of Occidental thaumaturgy, my talents and skills would rank me as little more than a third-rate magus."
So saying, the man clapped his hands together, and Kayneth felt a wave of prana cross his body. It was too simple in structure to be described as an act of magecraft, and he could detect no discernible effect within his flesh -- but across the helipad, more than forty of his familiars were instantly annihilated. This wasn't a typical act of purification or exorcism. The structures of the wraiths were dissolved -- reduced to their component prana and dissipated purely by Tohsaka's force of presence. The remnant energies of the force fields that had given the creatures solidity crackled in the air.
"There is, however, more to the world than Occidental magecraft," said Tohsaka, amused at Kayneth's expression of incomprehension. "If you're willing to dedicate the time, the study of the traditions of the Orient is most rewarding."
Unbelievably, it seemed as if Tohsaka had nothing to fear from the wraiths; but Kayneth was a man who had never known failure, and he was not so easily put off. Not bothering to unstopper his glass tube, Kayneth angrily smashed it against the pavement. The metallic droplets of his Mystic Code settled briefly in separate beads for a moment before rejoining, growing in external volume until it was the rough size of an attack hound.
"Fervor, mei sanguis," Kayneth intoned. "Automatoportum defensio; automatoportum quaerere; dilectus incursio."
As his weapon readied itself, Kayneth glared at Tohsaka, daring him to make a move. The Volumen Hydragyrum was not so fragile that it could be eliminated with the sort of parlor trick that had destroyed his familiars. However, the Asian man's damnable smile exhibited not a trace of anxiety.
"Ire sanctio!" Kayneth shouted.
At nearly the speed of sound, the mercury sphere shot out a whip-like tendril, sharpened with an edge of diamond-like consistency maybe several molecules across. The cement blocks that Kayneth had tested the technique upon frequently appeared to remain intact for seconds after being bisected; and at the moment, he no greater desire than to see Tohsaka Tokiomi surprised at the fact of his own beheading. There was no avoiding the slash; no human had the response time to do so without magecraft, and the Japanese magus wasn't using any discernible reinforcement.
Or so Kayneth presumed.
Rather than meeting its target, the bladed tendril struck the gem of a ring on Tohsaka's right hand -- and simply stopped rigid. From the point of contact, blue crystal began to spread across the rest of the Volumen Hydragyrum, rapidly enveloping the mercury in a solid block of translucent azure -- and leeching away at the prana invested within.
"The Oriental methodology of Breathing and Walking was conceived of as a path by which to reach and interact with the Void at the root of existence," explained Tohsaka, pacing past the frozen Mystic Code. "However, such a feat might require multiple lifespans to attain. It's far easier to connect with existences that actively seek out temporary vessels to inhabit. Counter Forces, for example. I refer to my technique as Musou Tensei -- the Phantasmal Metempsychosis. It's a perfect counter to any strong thaumaturgy that distorts the world."
Not of his own accord, Kayneth backed away. His heart was pounding audibly.
"I intended no insult in confronting you myself, Lord El-Melloi," continued Tohsaka, stopping right as he violated Kayneth's personal space. "You see, Archer is loathe to waste his time fighting those who fail to qualify as Heroic Spirits. It's really just as well, because I haven't come here as a Master seeking to defeat you. I'm here in my official capacity as the Administrator of the Land of Fuyuki -- and you, my Lord, no longer bear the Command Seals that mark you as a participant of the Grail War. I have no choice but to recognize you as an interloper."
For the first time that Kayneth could remember, he was beset by a weakness in his legs, and found himself collapsing to pavement.
"Are you familiar with Spaghetti Westerns, my lord? I saw a number of them when I was studying in Italy. Quite enjoyable." Tohsaka Tokiomi leaned toward him, hands folded behind his back. "But a common plot device within them is applicable here."
"Wh- What are you saying?" asked Kayneth, confused by the non-sequitur.
"Surrender your Crest to the House of Tohsaka and leave this place alive," replied the Asian man, "or refuse, and I send you to meet your maker. It's your choice."
An Evangelion / Fate Zero Crossover Concept
Snippet #7: Casses Circumdant II / This Present Illusion
// Miyama Commercial District, 09:15 PM
The church was in a quiet residential neighborhood, about ten blocks west of the commercial district in central Miyama -- too far from the leylines for Lord El-Melloi's wraith familiars to serve as Lancer's reinforcements. To the Servant, however, it wasn't a significant strategic loss; the strength of low-level familiars was immaterial, and had little place in a proper engagement between Servants. If Assassin had caught wind of the evening's offensive at all, it was doubtful that the wraiths could've made much of a difference in the first place.
The buildings and surrounding grounds were secured by a bounded field of modest strength, well-enough designed that Lancer would've been hard pressed to detect it were he not a spirit. To his senses, the protection had the same character to it as the defensive provisions his Master had enacted at the hotel -- permitting non-magi uninvolved in the War to go about their business unhindered, but blocking entrance to humans and entities of potentially threatening odic pressure. Though from lack of proximity to a leyline, the strength of the barrier here was of a far lower magnitude, its surface might have well been wrought of iron, surmountable to a typical Servant -- manifest or demanifest -- only through an exercise of uncommon force.
Lancer, however, was not a typical Servant. He was the bearer of the mystical spear, Gae Dearg -- the Crimson Rose of Exorcism.
Despite its appellation, the effect of Lancer's Noble Phantasm was not to perfectly dispel or purge magecraft. The essences that Manannan mac Lir had imbued within the red spear permitted its blade to disrupt the flows of thaumaturgical energy, temporarily interfering with phenomenon unnaturally produced. A projection of an ongoing magecraft so disrupted would inevitably begin to reassert itself upon the passing of the blade, but rate of reassertion was subject to provision of fuel. So distant from the leylines, a long slash across the church's defenses would not regenerate for at least a second.
Lancer did not require the whole of a second to clear the barrier. The telltale odic leakage of Assassin's Master -- obscured originally by the effect of the bounded field -- was laid bare the moment Lancer set foot within, placing the magus within the lighted central edifice before an audience of human non-magi. Hostages? No. By the suggestion of the Grail, it was more likely a routine religious congregation; and the justification for the orientation of the bounded field. If the non-magi were stayed by some form of suggestion, the atmosphere within would've been detectably wrong.
Lord El-Melloi had made clear early on that the War was to be fought in secrecy from non-magi wherever possible, and that this was a rule and tradition of utmost importance. Under normal circumstances, Lancer would be inclined to agree; for in the heat of combat, even warriors of nigh-legendary skill would be hard put to absolutely ensure the safety of innocents en masse. However, though Assassin had yet to arrive or manifest in defense of his Master, Lancer had realistically only a small window of time to complete his task. He was needed at Lord El-Melloi's side -- especially now that he could no longer be summoned via command seal.
Astralizing, Lancer entered the building through a stained glass window. The enemy master, apparently unaware of Lancer's arrival, lowly continued his solemn sermon -- right up until Lancer materialized before his pulpit and rammed the Gae Buidhe through his throat.
The folk of the congregation were momentarily silent in shock, but at the frightened shriek of a small girl, they erupted into pandemonium. Withdrawing his spear from the enemy's corpse, Lancer prepared to immediately demanifest -- but something about the bounded field had just changed drastically.
"I ... I can't astralize?" he asked himself, staring at the solid flesh of his hand.
In his disorientation, Lancer felt something sharp and thin pierce his lower back, right as Assassin's presence made itself known. He turned his head and found himself meeting the gaze of a smiling old woman, who had planted some medical apparatus -- a syringe, his mind supplied -- into his flesh.
The flock that had attended the sermon were no longer panicking. Instead, they silently looked upon Lancer with unsettling, identical grins -- and on the floor beside the pulpit, the corpse of the enemy Master had become that of masked skeletal man clad in black, skin-tight garb.
Lancer had been unconsciously biased to the expectation that the enemy Servant would directly engage him as he had in the hotel -- in part because he'd already done so, and in part because Lancer's own areas of specialization were so oriented. Assassin, however, did not by nature favor melee combat. In hindsight, it should've been obvious that a man like Hassan-i Sabbah would respond to known threats by setting the stage for ambush and assassination.
Presence Concealment, the Servant of the Lance belatedly realized, was a misleading name for Assassin's class ability. More accurately, it could be described as the flawless falsification of odic pressure gradients ...
// Shinto Slums, 09:15 PM
The capacity to differentiate magi from mundanes by odic pressure was a feature fundamental of bounded fields. It was with this in mind that on noticing the change that had come upon the leylines, Emiya Kiritsugu forcibly deactivated all of his prana circuits.
His assistant, Hisau Maiya, wasn't able to do the same in time. With a delay of a few seconds, half a dozen wraiths manifested in the air, sniffing out her incompletely-suppressed thaumaturgical presence like spectral bloodhounds.
The deathly creatures were invisible to most humans without active reinforcement of sight, but to the eyes of Emiya Kiritsugu -- which had been rendered low-functioning Jougan through alchemical surgery -- they had the appearance of rotting human corpses, somehow comprised of blue light. Maiya, whose eyes were unmodified, could sense them only by presence, and barely dodged aside as one of them clumsily swiped at the wall she'd been hiding behind -- breaking through the bricks with ease, and scattering debris across the rooftop.
Physical interference, thought Kiritsugu.
Of the participating Masters thus far known to the Einzberns, only one possessed sufficient skill in the relevant disciplines to employ familiars of this specific type and quality: Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi.
Twelve years ago, Kiritsugu had dispatched a cabal of necromancers who made a practice of binding and preserving the spirits of human sacrifices as highly functional familiars -- beings known as Ghost Liners, who were similar but nonequivalent to Servants. These wraiths, incapable of independent magecraft, were nowhere near the same level of threat, but the principles behind their instrumentation were virtually identical. El-Melloi had bound the souls of countless dead to the domain of his 'leyline field,' enhancing their combat utility with some Wind-Elemental technique that granted them capacity for electromagnetic interference. Their surfaces were coated with force fields, in other words, lending them apparent kinetic solidity.
There were only six of the creatures here. If Kiritsugu and Maiya had been prepared for combat against Servants or spirits in general, they might have had a chance. Instead, they'd only lightly armed themselves for maximum mobility, intending to take out the human Masters of the War by conventional gunfire. As it was, the only weapon they currently possessed that could substantially harm the wraiths was Kiritsugu's Mystic Code -- the Thompson Contender. The closest weapons cache they'd stocked with other anti-spiritual equipment was fifteen minutes away, outside of the slums.
Kiritsugu didn't have the time to deal with this. Not with Irisviel traveling unprotected; and certainly not with Berserker's sudden manifestation nearby.
Initiating the reactivation of his prana circuits, he softly intoned, "Time Alter -- Double Accel," and pulled his Mystic Code from its holster as the world slowed.
Making more time was Emiya Kiritsugu's specialty.
// Shinto Slums, 09:15 PM
Irisviel stopped the car in a wide street at the center of the slums, and disembarked along with her Servant. The vehicle, a blue Honda Saber by some odd turn of her husband's wit, had been parked near the beachfront district prior to the opening of the War -- one of eight luxury sedans situated around the city for her convenience of transportation.
Stepping into the high-beams, Irisviel studied their opponents.
The white-haired enemy Master, Matou Kariya, little resembled the photograph that Kiritsugu had shown her not long ago. The disfigurement of his sweating, haggard face felt thaumaturgical in origin, and he seemed physically taxed -- probably unused to supporting the heavy pranic demands of the War. Beside him stood his Servant, who was clad in a full suit of plate armor, and enshrouded in dark mist. There was nothing elegant or knightly about the figure, and to Irisviel, its hunched posture was more suggestive of a lower primate than a human. The intense, chaotic presence it exuded indicated that it was none other than Berserker.
"Be careful, Saber," she said.
Without taking her gaze off the enemy, the tiny, blond knight nodded seriously. The black three-piece suit she wore was replaced by her customary armored dress a moment later, and she instantly readied her weapon -- a blade rendered invisible by the Boundary of the Wind King.
Kariya couldn't help but smile, despite his pain; his patience had paid off. More softly than Saber and Irisviel could hear over their vehicle's engine, he said to himself, "You better all be watching this, you bastards ..."
// Fuyuki Grand Hyatt, 09:15 PM
It was almost like a dance.
Humans, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi had thought, could not move like this; could not avoid the coordinated, high-speed kinetic attacks of his swarm of familiars. He'd personally designed and revised the threat response algorithms multiple times to ensure it. Within the vicinity of the rooftop, there were eighty-four wraiths, and with their magnetic shells fully actualized, they could each move at around thirty kilometers an hour. Evasion should've been impossible.
Tohsaka Tokiomi was performing it casually, as if it were merely a light warm-up exercise. Infuriatingly, he wasn't even moving very quickly -- just at the minimal speed required to cleanly avoid each attack. Kayneth supposed that he was reading the familiars' attacks somehow, but short of analyzing and interpreting the spellwork in real-time, he couldn't see a theoretical means to do so -- much less a practical one.
"Did you know," said the Asian man, sidestepping an incoming wraith without breaking stance, "that I was born with a mere eighteen prana circuits? Not of very high-quality, either. My daughters far surpass me innate talent."
Kayneth stared. Was this some obscure Oriental humor? Tohsaka's claim was belied by the very fact that he wasn't yet deceased; and it took an uncommon sort to raise his hand against the genius of Clock Tower and survive unharmed. Every passing moment, Tohsaka's slow advance across the rooftop grew more improbable, and Kayneth could feel a distinct growth in the magnitude of his odic pressure. It was almost as if the man's entire body had become one circuit of unreasonably high quality.
"There is a limit to the amount of provocation that I shall tolerate from you without reprise, Tohsaka," Kayneth snarled, removing a stoppered glass tube from the inner pocket his cassock. "You would dare claim to be a third-rate magus? That a mere peasant could avoid being crushed by my familiars!?"
Tohsaka laughed congenially.
"No, not at all," he replied, weaving his way past another barrage of attacks. He was now only five meters away. "I'm merely indicating that within the context of Occidental thaumaturgy, my talents and skills would rank me as little more than a third-rate magus."
So saying, the man clapped his hands together, and Kayneth felt a wave of prana cross his body. It was too simple in structure to be described as an act of magecraft, and he could detect no discernible effect within his flesh -- but across the helipad, more than forty of his familiars were instantly annihilated. This wasn't a typical act of purification or exorcism. The structures of the wraiths were dissolved -- reduced to their component prana and dissipated purely by Tohsaka's force of presence. The remnant energies of the force fields that had given the creatures solidity crackled in the air.
"There is, however, more to the world than Occidental magecraft," said Tohsaka, amused at Kayneth's expression of incomprehension. "If you're willing to dedicate the time, the study of the traditions of the Orient is most rewarding."
Unbelievably, it seemed as if Tohsaka had nothing to fear from the wraiths; but Kayneth was a man who had never known failure, and he was not so easily put off. Not bothering to unstopper his glass tube, Kayneth angrily smashed it against the pavement. The metallic droplets of his Mystic Code settled briefly in separate beads for a moment before rejoining, growing in external volume until it was the rough size of an attack hound.
"Fervor, mei sanguis," Kayneth intoned. "Automatoportum defensio; automatoportum quaerere; dilectus incursio."
As his weapon readied itself, Kayneth glared at Tohsaka, daring him to make a move. The Volumen Hydragyrum was not so fragile that it could be eliminated with the sort of parlor trick that had destroyed his familiars. However, the Asian man's damnable smile exhibited not a trace of anxiety.
"Ire sanctio!" Kayneth shouted.
At nearly the speed of sound, the mercury sphere shot out a whip-like tendril, sharpened with an edge of diamond-like consistency maybe several molecules across. The cement blocks that Kayneth had tested the technique upon frequently appeared to remain intact for seconds after being bisected; and at the moment, he no greater desire than to see Tohsaka Tokiomi surprised at the fact of his own beheading. There was no avoiding the slash; no human had the response time to do so without magecraft, and the Japanese magus wasn't using any discernible reinforcement.
Or so Kayneth presumed.
Rather than meeting its target, the bladed tendril struck the gem of a ring on Tohsaka's right hand -- and simply stopped rigid. From the point of contact, blue crystal began to spread across the rest of the Volumen Hydragyrum, rapidly enveloping the mercury in a solid block of translucent azure -- and leeching away at the prana invested within.
"The Oriental methodology of Breathing and Walking was conceived of as a path by which to reach and interact with the Void at the root of existence," explained Tohsaka, pacing past the frozen Mystic Code. "However, such a feat might require multiple lifespans to attain. It's far easier to connect with existences that actively seek out temporary vessels to inhabit. Counter Forces, for example. I refer to my technique as Musou Tensei -- the Phantasmal Metempsychosis. It's a perfect counter to any strong thaumaturgy that distorts the world."
Not of his own accord, Kayneth backed away. His heart was pounding audibly.
"I intended no insult in confronting you myself, Lord El-Melloi," continued Tohsaka, stopping right as he violated Kayneth's personal space. "You see, Archer is loathe to waste his time fighting those who fail to qualify as Heroic Spirits. It's really just as well, because I haven't come here as a Master seeking to defeat you. I'm here in my official capacity as the Administrator of the Land of Fuyuki -- and you, my Lord, no longer bear the Command Seals that mark you as a participant of the Grail War. I have no choice but to recognize you as an interloper."
For the first time that Kayneth could remember, he was beset by a weakness in his legs, and found himself collapsing to pavement.
"Are you familiar with Spaghetti Westerns, my lord? I saw a number of them when I was studying in Italy. Quite enjoyable." Tohsaka Tokiomi leaned toward him, hands folded behind his back. "But a common plot device within them is applicable here."
"Wh- What are you saying?" asked Kayneth, confused by the non-sequitur.
"Surrender your Crest to the House of Tohsaka and leave this place alive," replied the Asian man, "or refuse, and I send you to meet your maker. It's your choice."
Some misc notes:
1) Master's Perspective:
Similar to the thing where Shirou wasn't able to see the Anti-Army iteration of Gae Bolg, if a real Master (like Kiritsugu) were observing the fight, he would see The Beast described as something like a Rank B Support-Type Noble Phantasm that enhances combat performance under Mad Enhancement.
2) Assumptions regarding AT-field mechanics:
The visible "barrier" of a canonical AT-field is not what the AT-field itself is. Rather, that's merely an electromagnetic phenomenon. What's actually referred to as the AT-field is the "phenomenon" or "process" by which the soul "expresses" itself within physical reality. Thus, when the Anti-AT-field created by Lilith collapsed the AT-fields / "expressions" of human souls, humanity was turned into orange goop.
To reiterate, if the Angels could be considered "masters" of the AT-field implementations that they employed to attack NERV, Shinji's imitations are of the level of an apprentice -- and he's capable mostly of generating Angelic phenomenon in human scale, limited by the amount of prana that Kariya can comfortably provide (or, that he's willing to draw). Energy requirements for various implementations differ more strongly by degree of complexity than scale. The lowest-cost usages are flat or spherical barriers, followed by remote kinetic interference of more complicated shape. Usages such as Leliel's imaginary space or flesh reconstitution may exhaust up to 75% or more of his maximum personal prana supply.
Under Mad Enhancement, complicated tactical use of AT-field manipulation (such as the twin technique) is probably out, but instinctive access to tactically simple usages (even if the mechanics involved are complex) is possible -- and overall effectiveness/strength of these abilities is higher than in Shinji's normal state, at the cost of efficiency. The "black mist" that appears with Mad Enhancement is the result of electromagnetic interaction between a chaotically oriented, energy-wasteful AT-field and elements of the air; Shinji is literally bleeding energy.
3) Musou Tensei:
Note that Tokiomi's technique is only really effective against phenomenon that classifies as High Thaumaturgy. In more mechanical terms, what he's specifically doing during the fight is utilizing the Counter Force as a sort of Laplace's Demon.
Musou Tensei (????, Phantasmal Metempsychosis) and Hokuto Musou Tensei (?? ????, Hokuto Void-Thought Metempsychosis) are two distinct techniques. Ryougi Shiki could probably qualify as a natural practitioner of the latter.
1) Master's Perspective:
Similar to the thing where Shirou wasn't able to see the Anti-Army iteration of Gae Bolg, if a real Master (like Kiritsugu) were observing the fight, he would see The Beast described as something like a Rank B Support-Type Noble Phantasm that enhances combat performance under Mad Enhancement.
2) Assumptions regarding AT-field mechanics:
The visible "barrier" of a canonical AT-field is not what the AT-field itself is. Rather, that's merely an electromagnetic phenomenon. What's actually referred to as the AT-field is the "phenomenon" or "process" by which the soul "expresses" itself within physical reality. Thus, when the Anti-AT-field created by Lilith collapsed the AT-fields / "expressions" of human souls, humanity was turned into orange goop.
To reiterate, if the Angels could be considered "masters" of the AT-field implementations that they employed to attack NERV, Shinji's imitations are of the level of an apprentice -- and he's capable mostly of generating Angelic phenomenon in human scale, limited by the amount of prana that Kariya can comfortably provide (or, that he's willing to draw). Energy requirements for various implementations differ more strongly by degree of complexity than scale. The lowest-cost usages are flat or spherical barriers, followed by remote kinetic interference of more complicated shape. Usages such as Leliel's imaginary space or flesh reconstitution may exhaust up to 75% or more of his maximum personal prana supply.
Under Mad Enhancement, complicated tactical use of AT-field manipulation (such as the twin technique) is probably out, but instinctive access to tactically simple usages (even if the mechanics involved are complex) is possible -- and overall effectiveness/strength of these abilities is higher than in Shinji's normal state, at the cost of efficiency. The "black mist" that appears with Mad Enhancement is the result of electromagnetic interaction between a chaotically oriented, energy-wasteful AT-field and elements of the air; Shinji is literally bleeding energy.
3) Musou Tensei:
Note that Tokiomi's technique is only really effective against phenomenon that classifies as High Thaumaturgy. In more mechanical terms, what he's specifically doing during the fight is utilizing the Counter Force as a sort of Laplace's Demon.
Musou Tensei (????, Phantasmal Metempsychosis) and Hokuto Musou Tensei (?? ????, Hokuto Void-Thought Metempsychosis) are two distinct techniques. Ryougi Shiki could probably qualify as a natural practitioner of the latter.