As he entered the pub room looking for his contact, Kairi Shishigou took in the scene and scents of his favorite London hangout. The room was filled with the sounds of idle conversations and clinking glasses while a pungent odor of tobacco and alcohol filled the room. The building was furnished with exorbitantly expensive wood originating from the long lost great forests of Britain and hanging from each corner of the room was a small television playing anything from sports to the news.
The Rusty Turnip was a pub that catered exclusively to magi.
A place where magi could unwind, barter for goods, and trade gossip. But more importantly, it was also one of the few places that was apart of the Mage's Association where smoking wasn't frowned upon. With a puff, Kairi blew out some smoke and made his way over to a small little table across from the entrance where a student sat.
He was a young man with very average spiky brown hair and an even more plain face. With only a single glance it was obvious to anyone who looked at him that he was nothing more than a random and completely unimportant background character.
He was also Kairi's contact.
"Sorry I'm late" said Kairi as he sat down across from the brown eyed man "the police tried to arrest me again and it took me a little longer than usual to ditch them even with magecraft. Lets just say that all the police in London will be busy for the next few hours chasing fake terrorists in the country side."
"I see" said the informant nodding his head with a plain expression. Not that this was intentional, but the young man in Kairi's experience just wasn't very expressive period. It was probably the reason the brown haired spy had been hired by the Americans in the first place.
"I have a mark" said the necromancer as he placed a photo of a young man with red hair and gold eyes on the table "his name is Shirou Emiya."
Of course he had already called ahead to make sure that his informant had enough time to gather the information needed in the first place. At this point, it was strictly a matter of protocol.
"Your needs?" asked the information broker plainly.
"What his magecraft is, what his preferred tactics are, and who his friends are" said Kairi as he adjusted his shades "I want to know what I'm going to need to take down the son of the magus killer."
"You don't" stated the young brown haired man sitting across from him.
"What?" asked Kairi almost slipping in his seat and feeling a little put off "what do you mean by I don't?"
"…I forgot."
With a roll of his eyes Kairi pulled out several wads of bills and handed them over to the informant.
"Plot Armor" replied the younger man slightly more open now.
"Plot Armor?" asked Kairi with an arched eyebrow "do you think you could try to at least make your next statement a little more informative than just two words?"
"…Counter Force" said the young man sticking to his guns with the same determination held by that of all the other underpaid interns in the world. Kairi could respect that in a man.
Those two words still managed to hold a lot of weight to them.
"…Exactly how certain is the agency of this?" asked Kairi as a chill travelled down his spine with his new understanding of just what kind of BS levels of plot armor he might be up against.
The young man patiently held out his hand and with a grumble Kairi found his wallet far lighter. Informants could be so stingy when they thought that their information was oh so valuable…
"My most immediate superior enjoys watching the Grail Wars for entertainment and reports his findings to the agency for a hefty fee" said the brown eyed informant "if I recall correctly, I believe his assessment of the young man was something along the lines of; 'If any of you lesser lifeforms somehow manage to find yourselves earning the ire of that man then you should just go ahead and kill yourselves to save the rest of us the trouble,' though I might be paraphrasing a little bit…"
"So is it just that he's skilled?" asked Kairi shrewdly "because skilled people can still be killed with the proper preparation."
"When the agency asked my superior to try recruiting Shirou Emiya, he replied that any person who can 'level up' from being a third rate magus to soloing the most powerful heroic spirit of all time in less than two weeks was a person that he didn't want to be on the same continent with" replied the informant blandly.
"Ok" acknowledged Kairi as he blinked several times behind his shades "planet powered plot armor. Got it."
"Planet powered plot armor" agreed the informant with an acknowledging nod of the head.
"You know, you really should work on being more expressive" said Kairi with a sigh "people might start thinking that you're bad at civilization."
"Really?" asked the unimportant minor character with the tilt of his head to express his confusion.
"Never mind" said Kairi as he stood up from their table "I'll send the usual fee to the agency for setting up the meeting."
As he headed further into the pub, the mercenary took a quick look around noticing a few familiar faces, though there was no one from his own little circle of friends and associates. Or at least that was the case until Lord El-Melloi II stormed into the pub carrying a small orange haired menace under one of his arms. With a raised eyebrow Kairi watched the only Lord of the Clock Tower to frequent the establishment march straight to a red haired women who he hadn't noticed before.
Her habit of constantly hiding behind bounded fields could get pretty annoying at times. Not that he could blame the former sealing designate who was use to living on the run from bounty hunters such as himself.
"Touko" greeted Lord El-Melloi II as he carried a wiggling form under one of his arms which he set down before the women wearing glasses "I believe that this belongs to you and I would like you to know that I never want to see it again."
"Hello squirt" said Touko as she gently patted the orange haired menace on the head.
"Look at what I found" said Gudako as she happily held out a gameboy "now I can make cute little pocket monsters fight and die at my command!"
"…I'm going to want that back" said Lord El-Melloi II grumpily as he looked at the Aozaki.
"Lord El-Melloi II" said Kairi as he approached the trio "I haven't seen you in a while."
"Shishigou" replied Lord El-Melloi II with a small respectful nod of his head.
"You know" said Kairi as he looked down at the little orange haired girl "playing video games really isn't all that healthy. You should learn to interact more with others or you'll turn into a crabby old man before your time like Lord El-Melloi II here."
"So what you are saying is" asked Gudako as she tilted her head in thought and looked at the scarred bounty hunter innocently "that rather than playing with the lives of people in video games I should instead be doing that in real life?"
"…Sure, why not?" said Kairi with a shrug as he idly scratched his cheek. That was pretty much what magi did when they could bother to be social.
"Cute kid" said Lord El-Melloi II as he stared at them all glumly.
"In my defense" said Touko as she absently typed on her laptop "I wasn't wearing my glasses at the time."
"So thats the excuse we are going with now" noted Kairi getting an eye roll from the redheaded women.
"So" said Lord El-Melloi II as he pulled out a cigar "find anything good on the Dark Amazon lately?"
"Dark Amazon?" asked Kairi with a raised eyebrow not having heard the term before.
"It's a term used to refer to a collection of web sites that various people and societies use to sell magical items" answered the youngest Lord of the Clock Tower "typically without the Association's knowledge."
That made a surprising amount of sense to Kairi. The law enforcement of the Association was mostly run by the Barthomeloi who were all staunch conservatives. Odds were that they didn't even know the internet was a thing. The irony of course was that the Enforcers who all worked for the Department of Law all had a great deal of technical know how in order to remove any incriminating evidence that modern technology could detect.
It really was a case of the blind leading the seeing.
Which made it all the more ironic that Lord El-Melloi II was one of the most knowledgable lecturers on modern technology, when strictly speaking, the El-Melloi were technically apart of the Clock Tower's conservative faction falling directly under the Barthomeloi's thumb.
"For a man who works under the head of law" mused Kairi as he let out another puff "I find it ironic that you are so knowledgable about a black market based around technology."
"As I'm sure you are well aware" said Lord El-Melloi II as he took a puff of his own "I'm not exactly the wealthiest Lord around so I'll take what bargain deals I can get. Besides, you have worked with me in the past on some of my cases so I think you can appreciate just how useful knowledge on the underground markets can be."
That drew a grunt of acknowledgment from the mercenary.
"Even then" said Touko as she formed the final member of their triad of part time smoking detectives and brought out her own cigar "there are some pretty rare items that can be found here if you know how to look for them and I think that this might just be the deal of the century."
"And what exactly would that be?" asked Lord El-Melloi II as he leaned back in his seat.
"A reproduction of Excalibur" said Touko with her eyes glued to her laptops screen.
"And whats so special about a prop item?" asked Lord El-Melloi II with a raised eyebrow "is it autographed from some movie?"
"It's a Faux Noble Phantasm" said Touko causing the youngest lord in the Clock Towers history to break out into a coughing fit as he nearly choked on his cigar.
"…That doesn't even make sense" muttered Lord El-Melloi II as he moved over to look at the screen and saw that Faux Noble Phantasms were apparently now in fact a thing "…Is that a wooden stick?"
Item: Excalibur DOUBLE EXTRA FAUX
Summery: A copy of a twig once imbued with the powers of Excalibur by the 'Lionheart.' This fake Noble Phantasm like all swords belonging to proper servants of the saber class also doubles as a mega particle beam cannon to deal with those cowardly enemies that refuse to fight in glorious and honorable melee.
Final Price: $50,000 (Each)
Quantity in Stock: 7
Seller ID: GilgameshSucks
~Description - Click to Enlarge~
"Particle beam cannon?" asked Kairi with disbelief "they certainly don't make swords like they use to if that's what was once considered proper."
"There is a reason that servants of the Saber class are considered the best" said Lord El-Melloi II with an annoyed scowl "you either fight them up close or you get nuked. Cheaters the lot of them."
"I will keep that in mind" said Kairi with a small wistful nod.
"The real question is how close are they to the original?" asked Lord El-Melloi II looking over the description "…only a four rank reduction in abilities? Thats actually not all that bad for a bunch of twigs."
"Assuming that they are real in the first place" said Kairi before he let out a low whistle "does this guy have some sort of a factory to make them? They might not be a low price, but they are definitely going for a whole lot less than they should be if this is the real deal with those kinds of stats."
"Something of the sort" said Touko as she pointed to a detail they had missed "they have an expiration date when not stored in the proper type of bounded field. Each artificial phantasm comes in a special box that can store the phantasm while sealed. When not sealed they will last an average of four hours."
"Now the question is if this is worth the risk of them being apart of a scam?" asked Lord El-Melloi II with a frown.
"I think there shouldn't be any problem if I ordered just one and waited to see if this is the real deal" said Touko as she made a purchase.
"You should probably just go ahead and blow all your savings while you still can" said Gudako as she continued to play Lord El-Melloi II's game.
"Hm…" hummed Touko with a frown before nodding her head slowly "I guess you're right."
"…Shouldn't you at least wait for you're first order?" questioned Lord El-Melloi II as he stared at her with his cigar barely hanging from his jaws.
"Nothing ventured nothing gained" said Touko as she placed fake phantasm after fake phantasm into her cart "besides, according to this, half of the proceeds are going to orphanages while the remaining half will be used to fight against all of the worlds evils. This right here is good karma."
Kairi took note to never trust Touko when it came to financial advice ever again. This knowledge was nothing new to him, but sometimes it was important to remind himself of the reasons why. He also amended that Gudako gives bad advice. Period.
He still wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.
"…Isn't the Association technically evil?" asked Kairi as he scratched his chin in concern. For some reason he felt a strange sense of foreshadowing at the thought.
"Meh" said Touko waving away the concern out of hand "a minor detail."
Kairi shrugged his shoulders at that. After all, there was no way that any first rate magus capable of making artificial noble phantasms would be the unreasonable type to take on the likes of the entire Association over something as ambiguous as 'justice' and 'evil,' right?
"So" said Lord El-Melloi II as he turned back to the scarred bounty hunter "what brought you all the way back to London in the first place Shishigou? Last I checked you were headed to the airport for a small job out in Africa."
"My plans changed when a hefty bounty on the son of the magus killer came out" said Kairi with a wince "…I have since been persuaded to look for alternative targets."
"Ah" acknowledged the young Lord "so you found out that he's one of Zelretch's then?"
"What?" asked Kairi almost stumbling for a moment.
"Oh, you didn't know?" asked Lord El-Melloi II as he puffed on his cigar.
"Huh" said Kairi before he downed one of Touko's shots in a single gulp earning a mild glare "now I kind of feel sorry for all those suckers who decided to go for the hit. It's for the things like this that you always gather information on your target first."
"So then" asked Touko as she adjusted her glasses "what was it that originally persuaded you to give up?"
"Plot armor" said Kairi as he leaned back in his seat.
"Ah" was the simultaneous response from his two companions showing that they had at least a passing understanding. They must have had prior experience in the matter.
"Professor Charisma" said Touko with a quirked lip as she moved to show them another sale displayed on her laptop "I think I might have found another item that you will be a little more interested in."
Item: Lord El-Melloi II's underwear
Summery: A pair of dirty underwear once worn by the great Professor of Charisma. They have been left unwashed to ensure that they still permeate with his holy greatness. Brought to you by the one trusted source on all items Lord El-Melloi II.
Starting Bidding Price: $3
Highest Bid: $1,475,789
Quantity in Stock: 1
Seller ID: Reines_is#1
~Description - Click to Enlarge~
"Tha-" said Kairi as he let out a chocking laugh and beat his fist against his chest "that just made my day. How do you plan to get back at her for this one?"
"I don't" said Lord El-Melloi II as he stared at the seven digit number blankly "if anything, I'm more impressed with her deviant little mind than anything else. If I had known just how stupid people could be I would have bought some briefs, tossed them into a sewer for several days, and then sold them as my own."
"What about your pride as a magus?" asked Touko with a raised eyebrow in amusement.
"According to my legal contract" said Lord El-Melloi II his eyes unblinking "I am officially recognized by the Clock Tower as Reines pet Guinea Pig. I have no pride."
"…That actually explains so much" said Kairi his eyes holding absolutely no pity for the Clock Tower Lord.
"Hey, Lord El-Melloi!" called out one of the pub patrons as he pointed at one of the televisions hanging from the wall "Isn't that your new car on the TV? The one with the blonde kid waving up at the news helicopter?"
"I don't even know what Flat has done yet" growled Lord El-Melloi II with a scowl as the glass cup in his hands shattered "but I can already guarantee that no one will ever find the body."