1: Questions

"Oh, this one is different! Just look at his parameters!"

Two technicians were examining a Servant, who materialized just a moment ago in the summoning tube. It was a graceful figure, with pale skin and two-colored eyes. His calm gaze wandered around the facility while he was scanned by the special machinery.

"Lancer class. Divinity skill. Indian origin." The first analyst was focused completely on reading the new data from the screen, but a clear admiration could be heard in his voice.

"No way… Karna?!" The jaw of his friend literally dropped at the discovery. "How fortunate the first family can be? They summoned Gilgamesh last week and now another EX++, just like that?"

"This is the power of money, Bobby. They own the biggest server."

"Too bad Gilgamesh has the same Master." The guy called Bobby sighed painfully. "I would kill to see them spar!"

"Maybe one day they will give us a show. Everything is possible on the Arena."

"I doubt any greedy magus would risk damaging his precious toy just for fun. But.. wait… What's that?"

A tiny red light started to flicker annoyingly on the screen. Both technicians looked equally surprised. No one knew the function of the button under the red point, but it couldn't mean anything good.

"I have no idea! It had never activate before."

"Shit!"

They froze, seeing the face of freshly summoned Servant. The white skin seemed damaged. A strange black mist was spreading across the ideal body of Lancer – it looked extremely painful, but he somehow managed to keep his composure. Then his material form literally shattered into pixels and vanished.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" Bobby was trying to fix this mess, his fingers kept desperately tapping the keyboard. "What's going on here? The system crashed?!"

"Impossible! It has never happened befo…" The other technician fell silent when all the lights in the facility suddenly died. Only the blue screen shone mockingly in their terrified faces.

"Reset it, dammit!"

"I'm trying!"

"Hurry up!"

And then they heard a fire alarm. But the real catastrophe was yet about to start.

"What does it mean – to be a hero?"

The man smiled; it was his typical expression, full of sadness and hidden wisdom, unusual for someone who looks as young as him. Blond, bright and handsome, he seemed more like a typical prince charming, not the greatest king of legends.

"What's with that smile?" – she asked after a moment of prolonged silence, not sure if her question was stupid enough to ignore it.

"Nothing. I was thinking how should I answer. I wanted to say that you will find out by yourself eventually, but then I realized I do not wish such cruel fate for you."

"I don't think I would have an opportunity to ever try, honestly. We live in a world without heroes." She sighed, a distant, unexpected longing in her voice. "Anyway, I heard that one of my ancestors was a hero, but no one even knows his name. There are no monuments, no stories about him, nothing… Maybe he wasn't very good at heroing?"

"I don't think so. The real heroes are the nameless ones: a mother who saved her child from flames, a soldier who died rescuing his comrades. We, Heroic Spirits, are exceptions, only because our existence entered fiction, in some cases while we were still alive."

"I'm not sure I understand…"

The golden-haired king chuckled and gently patted the girl on the head, like a playful older brother.

"Sorry, you don't have to understand. I suppose I think too much last days."

"It's because you're here?" That wasn't really a question. She lowered her head, feeling guilty again. "It's my fault."

"Not. At. All." The king accented every word by poking her chin; he continued until she smiled again. "It was my choice and mine alone, remember? But that's enough chatter for today. You have to wake up. Our knights are unusually excited today, I can feel it."

She raised her eyebrow questioningly.

"Only two of them are officially known as knights, you know?"

"Well, you're right… in a manner of speaking." His smile was somehow wicked and could not mean anything good. "But, as a king, have I no right to choose the bravest ones to join me at the Round Table?"

"Oh? Even Assassin counts?"

The golden-haired Servant laughed in response.

"They're all our knights now, the good guys," he said without hesitation, then winked. "But don't ever tell Caster I said that. Celtic heroes usually are hot-headed and he probably wouldn't like it."

"Well, I guess Lancer and Archer would be pleased to hear that from you." She couldn't hold her smile, thinking of each Servant's reaction. Archer would never admit how happy he is. Saber would most likely sigh and ignore the topic, Assassin would react with a smirk or very annoying 'Hmmmpf'. Caster truly has his own ways to beat such silly ideas out of others. And Berserker… Someone would be punched in the face, definitely.

"Let them know it if you think so." His smile was calm and simply stunning. "But now please wake up, my brave and cute Master."

She wanted to say something, but any sharp or funny answer did not come on time. Her eyes opened unwillingly, leaving the brightest of kings alone in the realm of her soul.

"How's the Chaldea expedition?"

The door to the old library opened with an extremely annoying sound. Two men who entered the abandoned, traditional archive coughed from the dust in the air. The taller one with a beard, known as Doctor Rufus, cleared the room with a short spell, then he summoned more magic to light the way.

"They've already found the power generator," Harvey, the second magus, said. He was a slim individual with glasses too large to fit on his nose. "Soon we should be able to launch the old system."

"Good, it should be enough to start the operation."

"If we'll have anyone to send."

Doctor Rufus fell silent for a while, having no arguments against that simple statement. It was ironic how members of the most powerful families of magi were useless during the crisis. With all servers of 'the indestructible System' shut down, their Servants lost the main source of energy and disappeared into pixels, one by one. It looked like something devoured their bodies or rather sucked them into some strange virtual reality…

Well, some Servants were still here, mostly Archers, Assassins and some others with Independent Action skill or another sources of energy, like bloodsuckers. The weakest Heroic Spirits survived as well, because they did not drain their Masters as much as the rest did.

Harvey suggested it was magi's fault for not being able to withstand the pressure of maintaining Servants' existence traditional way. Their bodies were not trained to do so, especially for too many and too powerful ones. Even if Masters will successfully adapt, for now they're just useless, their circuits in deep shock and Servants drastically weakened.

But, if what Rufus suspected was true, they had no time to sit and wait. Someone must be send into the System, through time and space, as soon as possible. A traditionalist who's not affected by the breakdown.

There was a certain individual, infamous in the society of magi, due to her lack of abilities and 'weak' Servants. What's more, this imprudent girl did not even bother to participate in tournaments! She simply left the capital two years ago with her pathetic party and choose to live in a forest, like some kind of a weirdo.

And two most important members of the Science Department were now searching for her folder in the long abandoned library. With a bit of magic it did not take long, so they both sat on the receptionist's desk and started reading.

"Aki Emiya." The bearded magus spat this name like an insult. Actually it worked like one in their society. "Why someone like her was even allowed to perform the summoning?"

"Well, it seems that one of her ancestors won the last Grail War…"

Doctor Rufus held his breath. That was a rare achievement, indeed. Today no one even knows how such war looked like, but it's a common knowledge that it was hard to survive, not to mention winning.

"So? How many Servant this forest girl has?"

Harvey checked his glasses and got back to reading.

"Seven. No, six… No, maybe seven. Six! Or seven. Hmmm…"

Doctor Rufus impatiently cleared his throat.

"So…? What's so strange about it?"

"It's complicated. You see, she started pretty well, by summoning a Saber. I can see that he was rated EX+. Hmmm, never signed for a tournament… and then suddenly lost from records only two weeks later."

"Oh?" Rufus raised his eyebrows, clearly suspicious. "The official reason?"

"I'm checking… Here: 'The Servant's core was unstable and totally incompatible with the system; Saber vanished after two weeks.' Have you ever heard of something like that?"

"Well, technically it is possible." Rufus was about to light a cigarette, but the other scientist stopped him. The risk of losing the remnants of the traditional archive in fire was too great. "Sorry. Any Servant would certainly vanish if his Master is very weak, I think that was their problem." He frowned, thinking. If the girl has so little magic in her circuits, their last chance to fix this mess is already lost. "I guess this Saber is long gone, someone just forgot to update the archive." And Rufus did not blame this person, because all details were safe in the system until the accident. "What about the rest?"

"It doesn't look good," Harvey said quietly with a painful expression. "Her next Servant was a Lancer, rated C. A dual wielder, nothing more worth saying. Then she participated in the multiple summoning and managed to get three more Servants. The best one was another Saber, rated A-… or B+, the experts were not sure. The note says that this Servant is highly specialized, so he seems useful only in specific conditions, although overall stats are not bad. Next one was Archer, rank C, almost zero combat utility as noted in remarks. And the last one is a catastrophe, Assassin, not even rated."

"Why?"

"It's a fictional Heroic Spirit. Useless at first glance."

"Oh." Rufus was not able to say anything more. He though he's prepared for the worst, but it was just unimaginable. He put the rest of his shattered hope into his last question: "And the other two?"

"No details as well, Caster, rank B. The last one is surprisingly a Berserker, rank A for physical traits, but probably… sane. None of them ever participated in tournaments, so we had no material to work on, no data to compare."

"Don't you think it's strange? She wasn't able to keep one Servant and now manages to have six without any problems? Including a Berserker?"

"Five weaklings and sane Berserker," Harvey corrected mechanically, clearly not impressed.

"Maybe. But I think it's strange anyway."

"If she still has them..."

"That's what we must find out."

They both sighed, clearly not enjoying the thought of a trip to the wild that awaited them.

The king ordered her to wake up, so she did, not even sure why she was asleep.

Aki Emiya realized that she's resting on something hard and hot. It was comfortable, like she was sleeping on a surprisingly nice radiator.

Well, it was a radiator. Kind of.

"What are you doing here, Berserker?" She blinked but did not bother – yet – to stand up. His muscular abdomen WAS a comfortable spot to sleep on, no joking.

"Huh?"Aki's Servant, a big man with unnaturally brown skin, covered in scars, looked at her questioningly. "Guarding my sleeping Master?"

"And you're sure that you're not just… taking advantage… of the situation?"

Berserker smiled, his white teeth contrasted the dark skin. Aki found the view quite fascinating.

"Don't worry, Master. You're safe here." He chuckled. "As safe as in a bear's cave!"

"Very funny."

He referred to his name – Beowulf - in jokes many times. It was made of two words, 'a bee' and 'a wolf', so it meant a honey-eating-wolf. In short: a bear.

Old languages are truly fascinating, she thought.

"Don't worry, you can rest on my lap as long as you want, Master. Bears are simple creatures. So I really enjoy little pleasures: eating, fighting, spending time with cute girls..."

"Punching them?" Aki thought she would regret saying this, but she just couldn't resist.

"Nah…" His smile widened dangerously. "There are much better things to do with cute girls."

"Shut up."

"Need some help, Master?" A calm but somehow cold voice came from the outside.

"No, Saber, thank you! I have everything under control."

"Good." But he didn't sound convinced. Aki could see the tip of his scaled tail in the doorway. It was moving quickly from side to side, like a tail of a very nervous – or maybe jealous? - cat. Something must have happened while she was asleep.

"Where's Diarmuid?" - she asked, realizing that the entire situation wouldn't be even possible with Lancer nearby. Usually he was guarding her like a mad dog. Convincing him that at least the bathroom is a safe place for Aki to go alone was a miracle.

Although he's not the real dog here. She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, imagining her shining king laughing at her later in another dream. Dragons, bears and dogs… I live in a zoo. And you say they're your knights? Really?

"Patrolling," Saber explained simply. "Caster said that his runes had shown some dangerous visitors approaching. We'll be prepared."

"Ah," Aki answered mechanically. What was this strange feeling? A foreboding or anticipation? "I'm sure you will."

She was also strangely sure that, after the visit of these unexpected guests, her life would never be the same anymore.

So, here's the beginning of a completely new story! I really would like to know what You think!

I want to explore the legends of many Servants in this one, even things not said in Fate directly. There will be many guest stars later, so, please, give Aki a chance!

Another chapter of "Rebellion Zero" is coming as well. There will be also at least two bonus chapters of "Another Time" soon, one dedicated to my dear friend hyperomegasonic26.

Some names, characters and ideas used in the story belong to their rightful owners, of course. ;)