From her seat the El-Melloi princess stared in front of her at the bound boy tied to a chair. The young man having only woken up moments ago hadn't even bothered trying to escape. Reines had to wonder why was it that the survivors of the holy grail wars all tended to be abysmal magi. And she didn't mean that just in terms of talent either.
Her internal thoughts were sadly interrupted by a far more troublesome development.
"Do you have a super hero costume?" asked Flat with a smile as he walked up to Shirou "I personally think that the mysterious stranger disguise is the best."
"I have something in mind for a costume but I haven't found all the parts I need yet" said Shirou as he replied with an uncertain smile of his own "but I honestly hadn't considered an actual disguise. Maybe we should trade notes?"
"Oh, dear" mumbled Reines starting to realize that she might have made a terrible mistake that would haunt the world for all of eternity.
"We can be super hero buddies conquering the world through the power of friendship!" exclaimed Flat as his imagination took him to strange places where others would easily get lost "we can even have cool catch phrases and a theme song like Gandhi and Batman!"
"Flat, as entertaining as this conversation is sure to turn out, could you please wait until I have finished my business with him?" asked Reines from her raised seat before she turned back to looking down at the Emiya as if she where a judge preparing to hand out a verdict "do you know why you are here?"
"Because somebody hit my head with a frying pan" said Shirou dryly as he looked up at her "I have to admit that I was impressed by your plan to capture me. The operation perfectly took into account one of my two great weaknesses."
"Ah yes, when we learnt that a boy bearing the Emiya name was going to be attending at the Clock Tower we immediately dug up all the information we could find on him" answered Reines with a small smile forming on her lips "among the many documents we found was a certain forty-two page essay from junior high about what you wanted to do for your life. From there Flat managed to come up with a plan to capture you."
"The only trouble was losing that instructor. For some reason I don't think he wants us conquer the world" said Flat thoughtfully at the completely alien concept while Svin simply sighed is resignation.
Her maid as usual continued to dutifully stand behind her on the watch for any sudden threats.
"A little over a decade ago your adoptive father, Kiritsugu Emiya, committed a grave crime against my family" said Reines as a predatory smile crossed her face "during the fourth grail war your father murdered my older brother Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald. What made the act even more despicable was that Kiritsugu destroyed our families magic crest for absolutely no reason other than the fact that he could."
"Um, sorry?" said Shirou as he sat there fidgeting "while I don't doubt that something took place if you really felt the need to go through with all of this, I'm afraid that I don't really understand where I fit into things. My father never seemed to be the type to pointlessly kill people and I was adopted after the fourth grail war. Furthermore my fathers crest was destroyed after he died."
"That is not entirely true" said Reines as a sly smile crossed her face "while the crest your father carried on him may have been destroyed, it was only ten percent of the full Emiya family crest. The remainder of the magic crest is currently under the supervision of the Mage's Association."
At the young mans startled look Reines couldn't help but smile. Hook, line, and sinker.
"I believe that I have an offer that you can't possibly refuse" said the blond doll like girl with her voice oozing confidence "I will help you obtain part of the Emiya family crest held onto by the Mage's Association. In return for my help you will be indebted to me. Neither of us alone have the power to obtain the crest, but by combining my families influence with the favors owed to your fathers name we will have all of the leverage we need. While the crest can't be directly transplanted to an adopted child such as yourself, that doesn't mean that a new crest can't be made from it with the proper influence."
"What is the Emiya crest capable of?" asked Shirou with his curiosity piqued. The El-Melloi princess smiled at that. Of course the boy would only be interested in obtaining the crest if it was useful in helping him save people. Almost any other magus would have instead started bargaining on the details of the favors.
Fortunately, Reines didn't hate simple minded people like him.
"According to my sources the Emiya families magic crest focused on time manipulation" said Reines as she listed what few facts were known to the public "according to rumors the crests abilities bordered on the level of a reality marble."
She saw a rather odd expression cross her captives face at that.
"Thank you for the offer but I'm afraid that I will have to refuse" said Shirou in resignation sounding as if he really did regret his decision "prior experience has taught me that time traveling future versions of myself are bad for my health. It would get troublesome if I had to keep setting up false memories of where I had last slept every night along with a bunch of traps."
"What?" asked Reines at the odd statement made by her captive. She looked around at the others trying to figure out if she had misheard him and noticed that Svin and even Trimmau had perturbed looks on their faces.
Naturally, Flat who was busy balancing a pencil on the tip of his nose was of no help.
"But don't worry" the boy continued oblivious to his previous statements effect on everyone "if my father did unjustly destroy your families crest then as a hero of justice it is only natural that I right the wrong. If you can provide evidence of your claims, then I would be willing to hand over the Emiya crest to you so long as you promise to never use it to aide the forces of evil."
Reines just stared. She'd had an idea as to just what she was getting into but apparently even that wasn't enough to deal with the older boy. It had taken her long enough to get use to one Flat. This was getting a little uncomfortable.
To Reines great relief a ringing sound interrupted the awkward silence before it could go on any longer. Svin walked up to the bound boy and pulled out a cellphone from the young mans pocket before handing it to Reines. At her look Shirou simply shrugged unsure of what the call could be about. Arching an eye brow Reines turned on Shirou's cell phone.
"Shirou Emiya, you insufferable and pathetic excuse of a minion, I have kidnapped your girlfriend and will claim vengeance upon you for the great offense committed against me this morning" came the sound of a gruff male voice "you know where to meet me."
Then the caller abruptly hanged up.
"Anything important" asked Shirou with a hint of genuine concern in his voice.
"It would appear that your girlfriend has been kidnapped" said Reines blinking owlishly at the phone "all he really said is that you would know where to meet him."
"Oh, thats a relief" said Shirou with a sigh of relief "for a moment there I was worried that it would be something serious."
"Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?" asked Reines as she stared at the young man. Warily she looked around the room for any devices could be a camera. Unfortunately, the Department of Modern Magecraft dealt with a lot of electronics so she couldn't be sure with all the miscellanies devices placed on shelves spread across the room.
"Oh no, not at all, my boss was being completely serious… I think" was the unconcerned reply of her captive "its just that Rin getting kidnapped is not exactly new to me. The first time she was kidnapped was by her own servant. It got a bit more complicated when an ex-friend of mine, a wrestling king, and fake priest got involved. I'm sure that she will manage to escape on her own again if I can't get to her."
Reines made a mental note to never hire any of the Tohsaka houses former servants. They were clearly unreliable. And what in the world was a fake priest supposed to be anyway?
The door to the class room opened and Lord El-Melloi II entered the room with a cigar sticking out of his mouth.
"…I don't want to know" said Waver as he saw a young man tied to a chair, his adoptive sister sitting with that ever dangerous smirk on her face, and his two most troublesome students milling around the room. With that said he marched past them with a scowl on his face into the next room.
"Huh, Professor Charism- Er… I mean Lord El-Melloi II seems to be in a good mood" noted Svin as he looked at the door oddly "normally he would just double our homework without even asking."
"Don't worry, there is plenty of time for that to change" noted the mercury maid Trimmau from her position behind Reines.
"FLAT!" yelled Waver Velvet as he barged back into the room with all the blazing fury of a volcano "why is my toilet painted gold and why are there plastic skulls hanging everywhere?"
"I thought you would want the porcelain throne to look nicer" replied Flat with a smile expecting praise.
"Elaborate" demanded Waver as he glowered down at his greatest headache producer.
"Well, with you're scowling face I figured that you would wan't a great beacon of light to brighten your day" replied Flat as if the answer was obvious "a place where you can sit down and think happy thoughts for all of eternity."
"For violating my most sacred and holy of grounds I am quadrupling everyones homework" growled Lord El-Melloi II before turning to Reines "and why is there a man tied to a chair?"
"He's another survivor of the Grail Wars" said Reines in amusement as she watched Svin start to chase Flat around the room "I figured that I should go ahead and work on completing my collection. Jealous?"
There was never a dull day in the Department of Modern Magecraft.
"You fought in the fifth Grail War?" asked Waver with surprise as he turned to study the redheaded boy more closely "what is your name?"
"Yes, I did and my name is Shirou Emiya" answered Shirou looking back at Waver in confusion.
"Shirou?" questioned Waver as a light of recognition shone through his eyes "you wouldn't happen to be the same Shirou working for Zelretch?"
The El-Melloi princess nearly fell out of her seat at that little revelation. She had abducted a servant of Zelretch! She had tried to bribe a minion of Zelretch! She had received a threatening phone call from Zelretch…!
And then, as if there was some sort of a massive bad luck magnet in the vicinity, the door to the room was smashed open as a large pompous man barreled into the room along with a small orange haired girl leading a small ragtag army of children.
"I'm sorry master" whined Gray pitifully on the verge of tears from her position bound by ropes as she was hoisted into the air by several of the children "I have failed you…"
"Don't be afraid Gray" said a girl with short pale blond hair as she soothingly patted the young women's head with a cheerful smile "soon everything will be all better and you will never have to worry about anything ever again…"