A different kind of whale (Worm/FGO-based Gamer) Chapter 2

Chapter 2: 1-1 [Free Roll]

January 1st

The shelter Bitch rode into was one of the more open area ones, on the smaller side, with a fenced off area for animals, mostly dogs, to run around in some fresh air, and separated into a few sections. The dogs they grabbed off the Empire being put into an emptier one, further separated into smaller patches for each dog to have for themselves.

“At this point we’re pretty much used to handling them.” One of the volunteers, a blue eyed, black haired teen who only didn’t scream average because it would be actually a notable feature, commented wryly as he accepted one from Bitch. “Good to see she is making friends though.” He added with a grin, which in turn earned him a turned head. Glare, probably, if Bitch wasn’t wearing a mask. “And I mean, friend-friends, not the rest of that little group she started riding with a bit back.” The teen continued amicably as if he wasn’t being disapproved of by a woman who could turn dogs into bigger murderbeasts than meese. “Grue is an alright guy and Tattletale is really smart but she just… likes talking.”

“So do you.” Bitch grunted from where she kept tending to another dog.

“Someone has to!” Good lord, but the guy was upbeat. “Gotta make sure you remember how to make human noises too~. Anyway, you a new ‘sider, or is it just Bitch managing to genuinely reach out?”

“Hah, nah. Just an indie she found wandering around and decided to offer a deal for busting a ring.” Outis chuckled with a shake of her head, hands in her pockets as she rocked on her heels, “Got a tidy pile of cash, the warm fuzzies and maybe a friend within a couple hours of rolling into town. Things’re looking up.”

“Ah, not a Brocktonite, gotcha. Not that I’m one myself.” The guy admitted with a chuckle of his own. “But at least got a couple years to get used to the place. So if you need a list of great food places, I can offer, as long as it’s in the Docks. Gotta support the community, eh?”

“Now you’re talking my language!” The Assassin laughed, smile wide enough to crinkle her eyes. “And yea, I get you. Chinese side of the family run a bunch of restaurants back home in Spain.”

“Well, you’re in luck, Docks have a lot of Chinese restaurants. Them’n Japanese. Others too, ABB takes its ‘all-Asian’ creed fairly seriously, but Lóng is half’n’half for both so there’s always folks thinking they can get extra favour with him or discount for protection fees by catering to heritage.” The guy chuckled, even as his hands slowly worked on cleaning the dog which weathered his ministrations patiently. “Least most of’em are decent-to-good quality ‘cause of that.”

“Hah, I’d imagine. Nobody wants to be the guy who gave the dragon or any of his lieutenants indigestion with some dubious shia chiao.” Outis snorted, idly wondering what sort of gang leader someone calling himself after the wise dragons would be. Certainly sounded like he was at least sipping the yakuza juice, so that was promising. “Hmm, probably going for Chinese. A bit of familiarity sounds nice right about now, even if I wouldn’t say no to some unagi or yakiudon.”

“Golden Tail isn’t too far away, if you wanna Chinese. A bit hard on tofu, if you ask me, but ‘s to be expected with a patron like [Xianglu].” The boy threw a recommendation immediately, with the system instantly managing to recognise a superhuman when talked about. “Unagi and yakiudon…” He tapped his cheek for a moment before nodding. “There’s this one stall close to Boardwalk, has a nice red-and-green firework explosion for a sign to identify, really shilling that one time [Firefly] complimented him, if you want grilled fish. Homerun is on the Boardwalk proper, if you want stir fry. [Kanabo] officially isn’t ABB but she is… passionate about cultivating our culture abroad. Even in a maid dress.” He added with a sage nod and a bit of a blush. Then, he sighed, a quiet mutter escaping his lips. About the first time he looked less than persistently optimistic. “No wonder, after Kyushu.”

“A bit hard as in they specialise in it? It’s been a while since I had some good thin-fried.” The purplette asked, idly tucking away the mention of Kyushu as something to research later. Sounded like it got hit by a natural disaster. Or an unnatural one. “Also, any reliable way to get in touch with Bitch? She doesn’t seem like the sort to keep a phone on hand, unless her boss forced her to.”

She’d ask the woman directly, but the cape was busy with the dogs and had probably burned through all her human-social energy already.

“Revamped the menu completely to make it all-tofu substitutes, yeah.” The teen chortled. “There’s folks who like that, but a bit of variety in fillings would be nice. As for Bitch…alas, it’s all gacha. If she isn’t hanging out with her crew, at which point good luck, your best bet is to ring every animal shelter in the Bay till you get to the one she is currently at.” Then, he leaned forward and gave Outis a conspiratorial wink. “You can totally skip the ones in Downtown, naturally.”

“Hmm… I’ll save the tofu for another day, I think. I’m still in ayunas so a one-two of the stall and Homerun sounds like a plan.” The Assassin decided after a moment, nodding to herself. “And good to know, even if it’ll be a bit of a pain in the ass. Thanks a lot. I’d introduce myself, but I think it’s funnier if Tattletale and Mr Illusive Bossman have to deal with nobody having an idea what I go by just yet.”

“Haha, I was wondering when we’d get to introductions!” The boy laughed, slapping his knee. Then, he stood up and waved Outis over. “It will definitely set Tattletale off. Funny though. C’mon, we’ve got some maps of the city, I can part with one so the directions aren’t just funny sounds for you.”

“Much appreciated.” She said as she followed, quietly wondering if google maps and smartphones weren’t commonplace here or if this was just the guy being used to dealing with people like Bitch. Ah, well, she’d find out soon enough with a bit of window shopping.

[New Objective: Sustain yourself.]

[Rewards: Don’t starve. Supposedly good food. 1x Saint Quartz. Meeting another parahuman.]

Oh nice, more contacts to make. Alright, probably best to stick to her current form and Card, then. It would keep her safe enough if things got ugly without showing too much of her (hah) hand. Besides, seeing how people reacted to a ‘cape’ just vibing would give her some useful data.

Hm.

‘Hey, partner, how do you feel about Da’at as a name?’

[Designation acknowledged.]

___________________________________________________________________________

The Docks had a lot of brutalist concrete buildings in them, at least in the part the shelter was located in. That’s not to say it was bare, there were plenty of gang signs and more innocuous street art dotting the walls, the predominance of red and green making it fairly obvious, but even then, there was still variation, almost definitely delineating internal divisions of Azn Bad Boyz’ territory. By now, only the most hardcore party goers were still resting after New Years’, so the streets had an actual bustle to them, and in the Docks that meant plenty of Asian people. Almost as if that portion of the city was a full on foreigners’ district, which in turn made Outis’ white bread complexion stand out, at least what little could be seen in Indigo Assassin’s getup. Add that the entire thing concealed her features and people seemed to spare only the briefest of glances before moving along, and that was without Presence Concealment on.

The stall she was recommended stood at an intersection leading directly for the Boardwalk from the heart of the Docks, parked in the mouth of an alley between two post-industrial apartment blocks, almost serving to delineate the border between the two, left one having signs and graffiti in… some kind of non-weeb, non-Chinese Asian language, while the right sported some Japanese decor. The stall, bereft of any cultural identifiers, in turn, compensated by going extra hard on the fireworks theme and was tended by a pair of androgynous looking twin teens, short, amber eyed, with brown hair with red and blue highlights, with red jackets thrown on. When one of them turned around to grab something from behind, she could see a golden eastern dragon emblazoned on the back. Unfortunately for whatever set-up the twins might have had, Da’at helpfully identified the left one as [Archer: Firefly].

“Ah, a very special customer approaches.” Firefly greeted Outis with a jaunty wave, hand almost hitting the menu hanging from the ceiling and held by a pair of dragonfly-themed pins. “What can the Phùng siblings do to you, newbie?”

“Excuse my sibling,” Firefly’s hypothetical sibling sighed with a roll of their eyes, their words carrying a slight accent, as they handed another person their order. “Linh so do loves teasing capes, very dangerous hobby.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re risk averse, Makoto.” Firefly snorted as they leaned on the counter. “Don’t see lot of Strangers ‘round, which I guess is kinda the point, but still.”

“Hah, no Stranger danger for tā today, rest assured.” Outis chuckled, electing to use Chinese’s utterly ambiguous pronouns as she took a seat.

“Very brave of you to use Chinese to address Japanese and Vietnamese named people.” Makoto deadpanned while their sibling snorted.

“Most folks around here know at least some. And besides, our friend is doing a clever way of avoiding tripping over our little game.” Linh shot right back, nodding in approval as they rested their head on the palm of their hand.

“And hey, you took a gamble and so did I, Phung is also a Chinese surname.” The Assassin replied with a crooked grin just barely hinted at by the crinkling of her eyes. There was also how Linh sounded 100% like a Chinese name, but Asian languages loved looting from one another and she was no expert, so whatever, “One unagidon, please.”

“You cannot begin to imagine just how often she used to get into scraps with people over that confusion. It’s like she enjoys being loud and troublesome.” Makoto grumbled even as they easily grabbed strips of eels and deftly unrolled the meat onto the grill, filling the air with both the scent and the sound of sizzling meat. “At least you’re lucky, New Years means we had the time to prepare the meat. Advantage of both of us working the same shift. For once.”

“Awwww, Makoto so loves a good grumble, you’d think he is a dwarf.” Linh cooed even as she shook her head over her brother’s trip-up. “Shame English just isn’t suited to keeping the game rolling. Whenever we don’t get the strangers, that’s the small ‘s’ by the way, coming, we can keep it going for hours.”

“Hey, at least it isn’t Catalan or Spanish, fukkin everything is gendered there.” Outis snorted as she eased herself fully into the banter. It looked like she had come all Installed up for nothing… well, Firefly would probably put in good word about the funny new Stranger in town. If these two were at all indicative of the ABB, she could see herself getting a good working relationship there. Probably not membership, she didn’t look her heritage anymore and there would be major headaches with the whitehats if she fully aligned with a gang, but being cordial with and taking the odd job from one of the power blocs around here would make things a whole lot easier.

Hmm, yeah, presenting herself as a freelancer with principles and standards could be the way to go here. She’d lose out on the big bennies of joining up properly with any given group, but on the flipside less enemies to get in the way of doing her world saving business. Also nobody asking awkward questions about her powers, which she had a sneaking suspicion would raise a lot of eyebrows even if Bitch’s one trick pony stuff wasn’t the norm.

She was broken out of her musings as the bowl was slid in front of her. A little bit misshapen, indicative of not quite experienced hand-craft, but the cheerfully loud red and green paint more than made up for it. Also, what really mattered was that it was a decent size and loaded full of glistening unagi on fluffy white rice.

[Food obtained. Perhaps not enough for the amount of exertion you performed but it will definitely take the edge off. You might need a proper meal in the near future.]

[Firefly… met, in a manner of speaking.]

‘Soooo… mission accomplished?’ Outis silently asked her partner as she snapped her chopsticks open with practised ease and dug in with a pleased hum. By all rights, it should be a headache to eat with the bandana on, but Assassin proved to be a sleeper hit once again by making it trivial.

[Affirmative. Firefly will need to be met in her parahuman persona to begin work on the Bond System.]

[Reward: 1x Saint Quartz.]

[Attention: Now that you’ve accumulated the bare minimum of Saint Quartz, the gacha Servant Card Summoning System has been unlocked.]

[While it has other uses as well, the primary function of Saint Quartz is to summon Servant cards. You can obtain Saint Quartz by seeking out and completing quests, undergoing time-limited challenges or, and this is the fastest way, spending money to buy more.]

[As you are currently in the United States, the current conversion rate is ten dollars to one Saint Quartz.]

Ow ow ow. Thirty bucks for one single roll!?

…Granted, she was getting actual legendary heroes here, instead of jpegs. But still!

[A bit more predatory than usual for the market. As it turns out, the economic situation of the local reality does reflect gacha exchange rates.]

[The system is obliged to remind you that you need money for things other than quick power as well.]

[I’d advise rolling in relative privacy.]

___________________________________________________________________________

It took a bit of time and some doing to find an empty, dead end alley to hide away from the traffic of the Docks. Here, in dark backstreets, the vibrancy of ABB territory was stripped away, with old, muted tags and moss dotting the walls, in addition to grime and dirt. Amongst other things best left unmentioned. But it was empty of people, even the homeless, junkies or the drunks, so there was that.

The decor definitely didn’t improve as Da’at muted the world for Outis yet again, the monochrome filter stripping what little colour there was. Then, an intricate summoning circle flashed in glowing blue before Outis, hovering in front of her. In the middle of it, a deck of cards floated.

[Welcome to the Chamber of Guf. Simply draw the card from the deck and Fate will bring you your Servant.]

“Let silver and steel be the essence, then.” Outis whispered as she let the Install drop, indigo sloughing off her until she stood as herself and nothing else. Slowly, gingerly, her hand reached out to the deck. A jolt almost like static electricity raced from her hand to her heart as her fingers touched the card, stark white igniting into blinding iridescence as she pulled it free. Then, the light faded, revealing the stock image of Lancer on its back, before it, too, peeled away, revealing the figure of a young, pink-haired girl in a black goth-lolita dress. Dragon girl, rather, given the horns, tail and talons.

[Lancer: Elizabeth Bathory obtained.]

[STR: C, END: D, AGI: E, MAG: A, LCK: B, NP: D]

[Class Skills: Magic Resistance: A, Territory Creation: B]

[Personal Skills: Charisma: C, Torture Technique: A (Locked), Battle Continuation: B (Locked)]

[Noble Phantasm: Kilenc Sárkány, Báthory Erzsébet (Locked)]

“Hah, I don’t think I’m qualified to be a manager, but welcome home Liz.” Outis chuckled as the card melted into her hand, flipping through her memories of the Servant. She was drawing a fat blank on the unlocked NP, but Báthory Erzsébet temporarily summoned a castle turned stage to let Liz blast an entire army. Territory Creation was the ‘proper’ summoning of the castle, which acted primarily as a prison and torture dungeon, although with a bit of luck it could do normal castle things too. If she was insanely lucky, it’d even be able to be summoned on a temporary basis to imprison a target, but chances were that it’d just be a matter of multiple conjuration sessions bringing the castle into reality in sections. That MAG A should help there, at least.

There was also the whole concern of two Skills being completely locked together with an NP, but she could almost feel Da’at firing up the projector for a powerpoint presentation, so nothing to do but sit tight and let the tutorial carry on.

[Now that you have obtained your first Servant Card, let’s go over the differences between Chromatic and Servant Cards.]

[Servant Cards draw Heroic Spirits from the Throne of Heroes into appropriately scaled down containers. In addition, due to the… peculiarities of the current situation, these containers have been outfitted with further limiters.]

[This applies mainly to Personal Skills and Noble Phantasms of Servant Cards. Parameters themselves are unrestricted on their own. Instead, the ‘Ascension Stage’ of the card determines for how long you can safely draw on Servant Card’s physical boost, requiring the accumulation of ‘levels’ through Embers of Experience then their catalyzation with Heroic Quintessence and Monuments of Legend. Ascension Stages 1 and 3 furthermore unlock one Personal Skill each.]

[Furthermore, a Servant’s Noble Phantasm, while available, is limited in power as a safety precaution. You will need a total of five copies of the same Servant Card to allow them the usage of the Noble Phantasm to its full potential.]

[Meanwhile, Chromatic Cards carry no such limitations.]

[Additionally, you will be able to obtain blank copies of Chromatic Cards once you obtain your first duplicate Servant. Either to create multiple skillsets of a specific Class or, if you are willing to take the gamble, to grant them to others.]

[Note that only you can upgrade a Chromatic Card.]

[More excitingly, besides Installing, Servant Cards can be used another way: To manifest a copy of Servant in question in the physical world.]

[For better or worse, depending on who it is.]

[Manifested Servants cannot astralize, with the exception of Assassins and other Servants in possession of sufficient Presence Concealment. Furthermore, their parameters will be capped based on their Ascension Stage.]

[You are limited to 5 Servants manifested simultaneously.]

[In exchange all the limits imposed on them, manifested Servants require no upkeep, generating their own magical energy based on their MAG parameter.]

“What sort of data dump are they getting here, given we don’t have a Holy Grail mediating the process?” Outis asked after a moment, reeling more than a bit at the sheer torrent of information and latching into a very salient point. Namely, would these goobers even share a language with her? She didn’t feel like trying to learn Hungarian just to hold a conversation with Liz, much less having to pick up Latin or Ancient Sumerian depending on who showed up.

[Knowledge equivalent to yours. Linguistic proficiency in English as well as your own native languages is assured. Skills such as Riding or pertaining to mastery of skill proficiencies are updated to keep up with ‘mundane’ developments.]

“Right, and how much of previous summonings will they remember? Liz has been around the block, just for starters.” The Master of Guf, because pretentious titles were a must have for people in her situation, asked as another thought arose. If Chaldea was anything to go by, they would remember a fair deal, which… well, would be one hell of a double edged sword.

[They come with most of their character development intact, wherever that applies.]

“Alright. Burn three hundred bucks into Quartz and let’s go. I need a break.” Outis sighed, wincing internally at the sudden lightening of her wallet. The smart thing would be to at least do a 10-pull to get some more options, but her brain was doing a cauliflower stew impression already from all the mechanics she’d been bukkake’d with. So she’d just keep some SQ in her backpocket in case everything went to hell in a handbasket and she had to throw random Servants at the problem and carry on.

___________________________________________________________________________

According to the map of the city, Boardwalk was a beach-side district running alongside much of the sea-edge of the Docks. It was also, conveniently enough, one of the best looking parts of the town, with cleaner, well-maintained buildings and streets. Getting out of the ‘Asia-town’ also meant a first glimpse at the massive oil rig sitting in the centre of the bay, surrounded by some kind of forcefield which made it look like a bad TV picture.

The Boardwalk proper, the strip running closest to the beach, was in turn full of people loitering around even on New Years’, even with the majority of the businesses closed. Even so, the street was being patrolled by serious looking, uniformed and armed men and women. They uniformly gave Assassin suspicious looks, what with the alley robber chic, but made no move to start trouble. Cape culture woo.

She didn’t dare shit-stir to the point of giving them jaunty waves, but she did give them respectful nods and keep her hands where they could see them. No sense in upsetting a bunch of professionals just doing their jobs.

Unfortunately, New Years’ meant any electronics shops around were closed, so getting a phone would have to wait. As a silver lining, Homerun was open, the restaurant tucked between a clothing store (closed) and some sort of hobbyist place (also closed), with a cardboard figure of an indistinct baseball player holding the bat serving as an identifying feature, with the opening hours written over the cut-out’s shirt. While according to the animal shelter volunteer at least one of the staff was ‘totally-not gang affiliated’, and the place serving Japanese-style stir fry provided a similar excuse… Well, the suspicious amount of green and red in the colours of the baseball shirts hanging behind the front window and on the maps of Japan with team emblems pinned to it made it almost as brazen as the giant nazi logo graffitied onto the office building.

Honestly, why did it have to be nazis? Couldn’t it just be a bunch of loons super proud of their viking heritage or something? That’d have been fun, especially if she rolled a few nordic Servants. Ah, well, no matter. Time to enjoy herself some stir-fry. It’d been a while since she had any and it should top her up.

Opening the door caused a chime to sound out. Inside, Homerun had baseball equipment lining its wooden, dark-brown walls, with a massive tv-screen hanging over the counter.  All the tables were arranged in such a way that patrons could watch comfortably unless they deliberately took a seat facing away. There was a glass display with a couple of trophies and medals, too. The air was lightly scented with cigarette smoke, most likely due to relatively low traffic. The few patrons present, uniformly Japanese, looked away momentarily from the currently going baseball game, the display proudly announcing them as ‘Aso Helldivers vs Mashiki Smashers’ before going back to the match.

Outis wasn’t sure if it was because Indigo Assassin was pretty low-key or because parahumans were really normalised, but she’d happily take the lack of awkwardness. She’d never had much of an interest in sports, but taking a seat facing the TV cost her nothing and she wasn’t about to snub this establishment’s whole deal. Or perhaps the lack of reaction was due to the establishment employing an equally, if not more so, open parahuman.

Although as she approached Outis’ table, [Kanabo], helpfully identified by Da’at as Berserker, didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. The woman stuffed into a maid uniform just this short of being fetish wear was tall and blue skinned, with mane of white hair pulled into a ponytail, a pair of respectably long horns growing out of her temples and with golden eyes with black sclera. As she approached, Outis could definitely tell she was muscular as well. She also had a black baseball bat hooked up hanging from her waist.

In short, she looked amazing even if the maid outfit clashed more than a bit with her aesthetic.

“Welcome to Homerun.” Kanabo greeted Outis with a curt bow, an eyebrow raised over a golden eye before she schooled her feature into pleasantly smiling professionalism. Then, she handed the menu over. “What will you be having today?”

“House special stir-fry, please.” The Assassin replied without missing a beat, quietly pushing down the ponders of how fun a sparring partner the oni would be. Time and place. Also, it was very good to know that there were ‘capes’ with inhuman features, meant she could have Liz and many others around without anyone freaking out.

“Gotcha, should be ready in five to ten minutes.” Kanabo nodded before patting her bat. “No pickpocketing, no starting a brawl, no stirring shit inside. Cape business ends at the door. If it doesn’t, it will be made to stay happening outside.” With that, she walked away to the kitchen area, gently swatting wandering hands from the other patrons.

Well, Outis was definitely coming back.