I was hoping for a moment of your time.
Who, me? I'm <bzzt>, here on behalf of Finis Chaldea.
Your rayshift compatibility is off the charts. Normally somewhere like this would be outside our operating area, but-
Our mission is nothing less than the preservation of humanity...
Base Sequence: Human Genome Confirmed.
Fingerprint, Voiceprint, and DNA authentication cleared.
Magical Circuit Assessment: Complete.
Username: Matched.
Identification complete. Welcome to Chaldea.
It's like suddenly awakening after dozing off mid conversation, or perhaps shaking off a half remembered dream. She's in a hallway, but not like any hallway she's ever seen; the floor is polished to a mirror sheen, and the light from above is entirely wrong to be any sort of fire. On the ground in front of her is some kind of fluffy white creature, staring up at her with black eyes - a squirreldog, perhaps?
Blink blink.
Blinkblinkblinkblinkblink.
"You're not Appa," she accuses. "Wait, where am I?" She was- where was she? Fleeing the temple, and they went into a cloudbank to lose them (clouds, not smoke, don't think about the smoke.)
"Fou! Fou Kyuuu!"
Whatever assessment it might have been making of her before appears to be over, because it starts trying to lick her.
Which is right when a pink haired girl comes running around the corner.
"Fou? Where are you- oh, there you are. You shouldn't go running off like that!"
She scoops up the ball of fur, which it - Fou? - doesn't seem to have any objection to.
"I'm sorry about that, he should know better by now."
"Uh, hi. Who are you? Where are we? I am very lost and confused." Dechen is wearing swishy silk robes, dyed vibrant yellow and and orange. Blue arrow tattoos mark her forehead and arms, disappearing up into her hairline and into her sleeves.
"Oh, right, introductions. I'm Mashu, Mashu Kyrielight."
The girl bows to her in greeting.
"You're at Chaldea base! Didn't they have a briefing when you got here? Or do you mean where it is on a map? I can't help you with that one, it's classified."
She bows back. "I'm Dechen, of the- I'm Dechen."
"And uh, Fou was the first one I saw." She indicates the creature in Mashu's arms. "I just showed up in the hall here, kinda."
"Oh no. I know everyone's busy today, but the least they could have done was get you a pamphlet or introduction video."
She abruptly straightens, and takes on a serious expression; her voice flattens as though reading off a prepared speech.
"Ahem. The Chaldea Security Organization is a UN agency, mandated with ensuring the protection of the world. Operating out of a top-secret location to avoid any collateral damage or sabotage, Chaldea is humanity's last, best line of defense against catastrophes. Our top of the line equipment, supplied in partnership by the Mage's Association, the Holy See, and the Atlas Institute, offer an unparralleled degree of sophisticated capabilities to deal with any imaginable threat; to fulfil this mission, the world's best and brightest stand ready for any eventuality."
Her cheeks turn pink at the last bit.
"Though, um, that's not really talking about me."
Cute blush.
"I see, I see," she nods. "...I have never heard of any of that before. Is this some Earth Kingdom thing? It sounds a bit Earth-y."
"I don't think so? I've never heard of the earth kingdom before, but there's a lot of things I don't know about the outside world. We don't just work for one country, though, the United Nations is supposed to be a way for all the countries to work together. We have people from all over the world working here."
"That sounds like an Avatar thing. Someone definitely should have told me about that."
Oh no, another thing she's never heard of. She's getting a bad grade in being a human stop it.
"What's an Avatar? And, I guess someone agrees since you're here now? They're usually really selective about who gets invited, I think."
Another person rounds the corner of the hall.
"Mashu? You know you shouldn't be running off like that, there's not much time left."
His eyes take in her companion.
"Oh, you're with someone - and not someone I recognize, either. I believe that makes you Chaldea's newest recruit, master candidate #48? I'm Lev Lainur, one of the technicians here."
"Uh, if you say so. I guess I must have missed a letter or something. Mashu mentioned a briefing? But I didn't get that."
"Wouldn't this have at least been covered in the training, even if someone decided they were too busy to handle onboarding? How would they teach you without... nevermind. I knew some people were trying to rush things with the public applicants, but I didn't think it was this bad. The director will be very unhappy with them, even if it did mean we got to fill out our roster in time."
He glances at his wrist.
"I'd be happy to answer any questions you have - it's the least I can do, for someone who got dragged into this - but unfortunately Mashu and I need to get to the command room for the Director's announcement. You should attend too; it would be irresponsible to send you out on deployment without any training, but at the very least you could meet some of your coworkers and get a sense of what your job is like. Once things have calmed down a bit we can explain everything."
Then Lev will set off at a brisk pace down the hallway he just came from. It's a bit confusing to navigate with how similar so much of the place looks, but he doesn't seem to have any issues and as long as she doesn't fall behind she won't either.
There are already a number of people there! Front and center is a group of seven eccentric-looking people that Mash makes her way to.
While Lev heads off towards a group at the far right. Judging by his gestures, she's probably supposed to be in the middle, near the back?
The front part of the room is taken up by an enormous glowing globe, hovering inside a protective array of rotating rings. It's rotating, but almost too slowly to notice; it would take a full day to make a full revolution. There's a podium arranged in front of it, but they seem to have at least arrived before whoever was going to be speaking.
That's. Uh. That's not what the world looks like. Dechen's an Air Nomad, she knows what the continent looks like from above. And it's not like that.
Well. Her world doesn't look like that. She is increasingly coming around to the idea that this isn't her world. Whether some sort of spirit trick, or an Avatar vision, or, or, or whatever. On the one hand, there doesn't seem to be any Fire Nation trying to kill her here. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any Fire Nation here that she can stop from killing everyone else. So. Yeah. Let's just put that in the back of the closet and think about it never.
Is the announcement thing gonna start soon or else is there someone around she can chat with to kill some time?
That's about when the director arrives, yep.
"Good, it looks like we're all here. For those of you just joining us, welcome to Finis Chaldea. I'm the director, Olga Marie Animusphere.
"You have been selected or discovered from each nation due to your unique talents. Some of you are top class magi with bloodlines going back hundreds of years, others brilliant scientists and engineers with the ability to operate on the bleeding edge of technology, and a fortunate few are simply blessed with an inherent compatibility with pseudo-spiritron conversion. Whatever the case, know this: Chaldea - and humanity itself - is counting on the efforts of each and every one of you.
"Unfortunately, I can't just end things there. The Near Future Observation Lens, Sheba, has discovered an anomaly in its efforts to measure humanity's history; a wrinkle in the fabric of space and time that stretches and distorts the past around it. The existence of such phenomenon has been theorized before, but never directly observed, and even the worst case assumptions don't explain the rate at which the distortion is expanding. This phenomenon, which we have dubbed 'Singularity F,' is in the process of growing into a genuine threat to the fabric of history. We are not about to let that happen. Solving this situation will be the inaugural mission of the Chaldea Security-"
Whatever she was about to say was is cut off as the ground under her feet suddenly decides it wants to be somewhere else as swiftly as it can possibly manage. There's a flash of bright light, followed a fraction of a second later by an enormously loud noise; shards of metal fly off at high speeds, shredding everyone unfortunate enough to get in their way. Smoke roils up from the floor, obscuring the impact zone from sight. A detached observer might also be able to notice a second explosion set off in the support staff seating, or feel from the vibrations the retort of even more distant explosions elsewhere in the facility, but it would be a rather large ask for anyone in the room themself. They'd be too busy dying.
Anyone, that is, except for the few people immediately behind Dechen. Though they will likely be otherwise distracted by the furious wall of wind deflecting both debris and the shock of the blast and the way the fires that catch are immediately strangled out of existence and the eerie glow that overtakes the figure that was a girl less than a moment ago.
When the smoke clears -
Well. The smoke doesn't clear, exactly. The bombs seem to have set off some fires, and they're all quite enthusiastic about replenishing the supplies of smoke. But it does lessen, a bit, and reveal a scene of utter devastation. And there's a lot of bodies. Some of them are too mangled to make out, while others are bad enough that one might wish they were; the girl with glasses standing next to Mash had a chunk of steel punch straight through her throat and spinal cord, and if she wasn't lying horizontal there'd be a number of internal organs attempting to exit her body. Some parts of the ceiling have collapsed, burying people under rubble. Perhaps it's a mercy that the people under them can't be seen.
"Kyao! Fou fou!"
Outside of Dechen, there's only one being in the room that can move under their own power. The squirreldog is nosing at Mash, concern audible in its voice.
There will be a reckoning.
Stance set wide, hands sweep low. Rubble and wreckage shifts and removes neatly from the bodies, living and dead. Hands above head, brought down in wavy arcs with a spin. Blood stops its seeping and returns to its body as wounds begin to knit closed. Straighten, arms snap to cross over chest. Burning fires wink out. Relax legs, hands push out then up and down. Inhaled smoke vacates damaged lungs, replaced by fresh air.
But not yet.
And Dechen stumbles, catching herself on one knee with a gasp, meeting the sight of the carnage around her with trembling gaze.
That... might have helped? It doesn't do anything for the people who were killed on impact, but at least none of the people who are just dying instead of dead are getting more crushed? And some of the rubble was pretty unstable before, and this probably averted any secondary collapses.
The situation is still pretty grim. Most of the light in the room is coming from fires; all the local light fixtures were smashed, and the ones in the hallway outside have dimmed to a dull red. There's a keening alarm klaxon interspersed with emergency announcements about fires and the power supply and containment walls, but nobody seems to be rushing to respond to them from the rest of the facility.
He's coming, okay? He's a doctor, not an Olympian sprinter, and he needs to prioritize getting the backup generator online anyway.
She's got some freedom to move around now. That would be great, except for how she can't feel half her limbs and wishes she couldn't feel the other half. Something is licking her - oh, it's Fou. She can see movement in the distance. Her glasses are cracked and the air is smokey and her eyes are watering, so it's hard to make out any details, but if she tilts her head a bit-
"Dechen?"
"You're... okay?"
Her voice is more of a whisper than anything, and she follows it up with some horrible, half-aborted hacking coughs.
"Emergency Override: System switching to the final phase of rayshift. Coordinates: CE 2004, January 30th, Fuyuki, Japan. Laplace shifting protection established. Unsummon program set..."
"Something exploded, but - I don't know what, it was supposed to be safe. You should get out of here."
"Warning: Chaldeas' state has changed. Rewriting Sheba's Near-Future Prediction data... Error, unable to detect the continued existance of mankind. Unable to confirm human survivors."
"Damage to systems spreading. Emergency Override: sealing central area..."
The blast doors come down; the thud of the impact echoes as they finally seal shut.
"Coffin Vitals: Baseline not reached, no eligible masters found. Searching for alternative qualifying masters... successful. Unsummon Program, start. Spiritron Conversion, start. Rayshift starting in 3... 2... 1..."
"First order, commence."
The world seems to blur around her, and for a brief moment the data her senses provides is overwhelmed with nonsense. Then, just as suddenly as she arrived in Chaldea, Dechen finds herself elsewhere.
She flinches when the doors slam shut, then again when everything blurs out.
Now what?
She's prone on her back in a city in flames! Honestly it's not that different than the place she just came from, but most of the fire is more distant and she's not totally sealed in by walls.
There's also someone standing over her! She looks familiar, but she's wearing complete different clothing, has an impractically large shield, and doesn't look like half her body just got totally crushed.
"Thank goodness, you're okay!"
"Yes, it's me. Are you feeling okay? No dizziness, shortness of breath, pain?"
"N-no, but- How did we get here? What happened to the bomb? Why are you-" alive "standing?"
"We rayshifted here; I think this is singularity F. Chaldeas turning red must have triggered an emergency subroutine somewhere in Trismegistus somewhere, and you got dragged along as one of the only qualified masters in range. The reason I'm okay now - it's because I transformed into a servant."
