Sometime after the Great Holy Grail War
“From the shards of tattered dreams I rose, unwilling; tossed upon tides of pain which flowed and ebbed, leaving me searingly awake—and more revoltingly, alive . . .”
The harsh voice spoke words, which he understood, and certainly agreed with—but where the voice came from, and how he knew that it had an accent, or whose voice it even was, he didn’t know. He didn’t know a lot of things, when he could actually think about it—the pain made it so hard to focus . . .
“—offer no certainties; even willingly allowed, such an act—not meant to be possible. It will cause pain, and I cannot—I will endeavour to—”
Another voice, and more words; it was more solid, somehow, but even more fragmented, at the same time. And there was no context—what was she talking about?
“When it starts, try to remember the reason you’re doing this—it might help with the pain.”
“I’ve felt pain before.”
“Not like this.”
More voices—male and female this time, but different again, and back to the ephemeral sense of reality the first had carried. It was like they were dreams, or pieces of dreams, but without the whole . . . What was he hearing, and why . . .?
“It is a rare reward indeed, to be given a—hope you treasure it sincere—”
As he parsed the new sentence fragments, they brought with them a new sensation—touch. Warmth and cold, combined and unexpected, flowed through his being, bringing with them some notion of the limits and definition of his self (he was not yet aware enough to call it a “body”). The warmth was soft, delicate and brief; the cold somehow invigorating rather than chilling, sending a tingling sensation of energy through him—
And then, his sense memory latched onto the same sensations, amplified. Cold deep enough to burn and fire hot enough to numb raced through him, coalescing the pain into a great wave that hurled him into darkness—and even as he sank into the abyss of oblivion, a final, faint hymn reached his consciousness.
“Soul of the mind, key to life’s ether;
Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel . . .
Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended . . .
So the world might be mended . . .”
Unknown place, unknown time
It was the pain that woke him—a sudden spasm of his body, brought on by a white-hot jolt which sizzled along his nerves until it left the impression of being a full-body bruise, at least. It wasn’t his worst pain—he thought—but it was definitely something that caught his attention.
. . . Eventually, Frid realised that he was still alive—he was Frid, wasn’t he? Or was he Kurai, or—?
Hang on . . .
Hurt too much to want to move, but I still can—so I’m probably still alive, even if it smells like I died—or something did . . .Skin’s paler than Kurai, and more muscular than me, so Frid’s a decent bet . . . Assuming that wasn’t a hallucination or dream, anyway.
God knew, the whole “Grail Works” thing seemed like the kind of thing his subconscious would come up with, never mind the haziness of his more recent memories.
A quick scrub of his face with one palm (well “quick” for someone moving with literally agonising slowness) revealed no glasses or tangibly inhuman features—granted, he wouldn’t necessarily feel moonsilver tattoos, for example, but pointed ears and such were easy to check for. Finding none, his arm dropped to one side, and he closed his eyes against a sudden wave of dizziness. It felt like his insides had been hollowed, the void inside was dragging his mind spiralling down into oblivion . . .
Head rush, a sardonic whisper in the back of his mind murmured. It was the standard response in his family when light-headedness struck; usually as a result of standing up too quickly from a crouch or bending over, causing the edges of his vision to blur, as well.
And given that he was presently lying on the ground, Frid fuzzily thought that was a bad sign. He hadn’t felt this awful since his last bout with the flu, and this was like he’d slammed into concrete going full tilt on top of that; what the hell had happened . . .? And why did it smell so bad—?
And if he curled up and kept his eyes closed, would it all just go away?
. . . Eventually, the insistent ache in his shoulder from whatever he was lying on convinced him that first, no, the universe was not going to just leave him alone—and that second, if he didn’t move soon, the pinching of that nerve was going to leave his whole arm numb.
He hated when that happened—rubbing feeling back into it was always such a literal pain . . .
With a weak groan that nevertheless expressed how deeply he regretted moving, he began to shift, opening his eyes to behold—
“A FUCKING GARBAGE DUMP?!”
Yelling had been a mistake—now the stink of the place was in his mouth . . .
Resisting the urge to throw up (not remembering his last meal, he had no idea what would come out if he tried), he did his best to stand up immediately without touching anything, even as a shudder of revulsion ran through his body. As a hypochondriac germaphobe (or a germophobic hypochondriac? He wasn’t sure which was accurate), his present position was the stuff of nightmares. No matter what had happened or where he was, he wasn’t spending any more time in this place than he absolutely had to.
OK, so this universe, wherever it is, hates me more than most of them; either that or it just has a sick sense of humour—is this supposed to be a metaphor . . .? Never mind, look around! Not just for exits—what’s here? What does it say about where we are . . .?
This looks like modern garbage, he decided at last. A lot of visible plastic . . . At a guess, then, I’m somewhere on Earth in the mid-twentieth to early twenty-first century—and if they’re not recycling, err on the former side of the scale.
That was . . . Well, not great, but workable. At least it was familiar, probably—if it was before 1980, he’d likely have issues. Moreso if he was still in Romania (he had been there, right? Or had it been a dream, after all?), or back in Japan; he didn’t know enough of either country’s history to know what to expect of them, then. Hadn’t Romania been part of the USSR . . .?
I need to move very, very carefully, he decided, looking around for a way out—and maybe to get a better sense of his when and where.
He was somewhere indoors, dark enough that he immediately thought “underground”; a quick glance up showed him something that looked like a chute . . .?
Not just a dump, but—oh, please tell me this isn’t the Death Star’s trash compactor . . . No, not enough water. But somewhere industrial, given the size of the bloody thing.
There weren’t any obvious labels on anything he could see, which made it more difficult to identify where he might be in the general sense. After all, the script he’d seen in Trifas—whether from the Fate/apocrypha anime’s location designs, or actual experience, he still wasn’t sure; his immediate memory was too muddled—would definitely prove he was still in Romania. Major use of Japanese characters would point to the same, though not definitively; lots of manufacturers printed multiple options before shipping things globally, after all . . .
For him, he was dressed in clothes that looked like they’d belong in Trifas: denim pants and a long-sleeved shirt that felt like the same; colours were limited to “dark,” given the present lighting. His footwear consisted of heavy boots that zipped up along the inner tibia—snow boots, maybe? Work boots or combat boots were also a possibility, but something he’d never worn in his life—any of them, assuming he wasn’t delusional (more than usual, at least).
The whole thing was covered by a long overcoat that had runic impressions literally woven into the fabric. Of the whole ensemble, however, only the boots looked completely intact; the jeans were stained (he shuddered to think with what), and the coat was both stained and torn—or ripped, at least? Something had gone through it, it looked like, but he didn’t feel a corresponding wound . . .?
What the hell did I get myself into . . .?
Whatever it had been, he looked like a vagrant—and given the smell he’d undoubtedly picked up from lying in a place like this (he was not thinking about the likely diseases, as well), he’d have a hard time convincing anyone he wasn’t. Searching the clothes, however, turned up a wallet in a hidden pocket in the coat. It had three different identification cards (one of them reading “Godafrid Úa Súilleabháin,” which did match those impressions of Trifas), and a credit card for each—which expired in 2005, and so might not be useful, depending on when, exactly, he was. The physical currency in the wallet, however, added up to a thousand American dollars in cash and coins; all of them several decades old, even accounting for the fact that Trifas had been in 2004.
Makes sense—U.S. currency is accepted just about anywhere, even preferred, at any time post-World War II. If I needed emergency funds that weren’t particularly traceable, it’d be my go-to choice.
(And, if the whole Trifas thing had been real, it might’ve been—the guy had seemed like an analogue of himself . . .)
So, he could at least afford a hotel room (and a bath), assuming he could find one within walking distance. That would give him a chance to catch his breath and work out whether or not he could call Ilya, or needed to do something more drastic, like a Servant summoning (for some reason, he had a sense that that would work, if he tried it).
But first, he needed to get out of here, wherever that was.
And into an industrial decontamination shower, snarked that inner voice of his, preferably with an incinerator close by for the clothes.
(The disgust was shivering halfway up his spine before he could stop it—he had to stop it, or he never would stop . . .)
He couldn’t see an obvious exit—not that he’d really expected one. He had literally been pushed through a garbage chute, into whatever this place was; you wanted to segregate garbage . . . But this couldn’t be its intended final resting place, so how did they get it out of here . . .?
And failing that, can I climb back up . . .?
By now, the level of pain had dulled itself down to something approaching what used to be his “normal”: stiff and sore, with a general sense of aches and pains that came with being middle-aged and in largely poor health and fitness. Except that a second, closer look showed a lot more muscle tone than he’d ever had back then, so obviously that wasn’t the case.
And the lack of its flaring with any particular movements implied that he had no recent injuries, either—which was really surprising, given the state of his clothes—so why was he hurting so much . . .?
As there’s no physical cause notable, maybe try looking for a metaphysical one?
Standing in place, he closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as he dared given the presence of such stench, trying to centre himself and see if he could determine a mental or magical reason for feeling like he’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler . . .
He found nothing.
More specifically, there were no mental switches to indicate shape-changing capability, or any other supernatural abilities that need to be turned on; no memorised spells or rituals to summon powers beyond mortal ken—there was just a sense of numbness. Either he’d done something so overwhelming that he’d overstressed everything for the time being, or he was somehow stuck without any powers at all.
. . . Well, that argues for the whole Grail Works thing being a hallucination—except I wouldn’t look like this if it had been.
Still, he looked athletic enough; climbing might be worth a try . . .
It was, as it turned out, but it was in no way easy. He had to jump up, spread-eagle himself to catch the edges of the chute, and then inch his way upwards—something that took more than a little trial-and-error (many, many errors—very painful errors) to achieve. Then he got to the lid of the chute . . .
Which, of course, opened downward.
Wasting several seconds on cursing in every language he could remember, Frid (for lack of a better name; and it was on his ID, after all) tried kicking the hatch in, but couldn’t get enough leverage to do it properly. In desperation, he tried grabbing at an edge and pulling it down with his own weight—which did work (the second time he tried it)—only to face a long, gruelling scrabble up the over the edge.
. . . Finally, filthy, battered and scraped, he crawled onto the floor of what looked like some form of industrial kitchen, and sagged in complete total exhaustion.
I am, Frid decided, absolutely done with all of this. No force on this planet—whichever planet it happens to be—is going to make do anything other than lie down here and wait to die . . .
“Ladies and gentlemen,” an intercom broadcast announced, “thank you for visiting, and we hope you enjoyed the show. Freddy and the gang are pretty tired, but they’ll be back again next week, after a few days of scheduled maintenance . . . Freddy Fazbear’s Mega PizzaplexTM has now closed. Initiating nighttime protocols.”
He shot bolt upright in horror. “OH, COME ON—!”
The last thing Frid heard was a screech—and then, darkness . . .
“My daughter, if you can hear me, I knew you would return as well. It’s in your nature to protect the innocent.”
He was right—it was her nature. It had driven her to become what she had, to do what she’d done . . .
“I’m sorry that on that day—the day you were shut out and left to die—no one was there to lift you into their arms, the way you lifted others into yours. And then, what became of you . . . I should have known you wouldn’t be content to disappear—not my daughter. I couldn’t save you then, so let me save you now. It’s time to rest, for you, and for those you have carried in your arms—this ends, for all of us . . .”
And indeed, it might have ended, but for one soul—one of her charges who refused to let go, refused to give up their hatred, and the object of it—which meant that, much as she wished to listen to her father, there were innocents who would need her protection. . . But no way back remained for her to help—her vessel was long since destroyed . . .
Until.
He was a grown-up, not someone she normally would have bothered with—but he’d been touched by forces in ways that meant she could use him. It wouldn’t be the same as before; she would be relying on him to do most of the heavy lifting—but it was a way back, a way to help . . .
A way to stop him.
To her surprise, he recognised her, though she did not know him—he even knew her name. Still, it made communicating easier, and would hopefully make their partnership a successful one. The Bargain was struck, and she flowed into the cracks of his dying soul, to mend them back together in an entirely different way than she was used to, and carry them both back through the Twilight . . .
Frid awoke, finding a green bracelet on his wrist: the symbol of his being newly-Bound, as it was the Keystone of the girl formerly known as Charlotte Emily, now the Geist known as The Puppet—in essence, her unbeating heart.
With a thought, he sent it back into Twilight, where it would be safe—but the presence of The Puppet failed to fade with it. They were one and the same now, in many ways, united in body, soul, and purpose.
While Frid was far from fully-informed about this place—the game had still been in development when he had stumbled into the Works—his other was absolutely sure that William Afton was around somewhere, continuing his old habits. And that, really, was all he needed to know.
Which breaks this down into me, with an entirely new body, as well as a new—and honestly, weaker—set of powers, versus several killer animatronics and an undead serial killer-animatronic hybrid . . .
This, Frid thought, was going to be one hell of a night.
Insecurity: A Sin-Eater Story (FNAF: Security Breach crossover)
Writer Notes: Of the three near-complete snippets I had available, this was the first one to be really ready. And while I probably should have used Little Red Riding Hood, as per earlier installments, (and very likely could, with little adjustment, since Vanny is implied to be active for some time before the game starts), the Puppet seemed appropriate . . .
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Originally Posted by Arbitrarity
