5.9.2456 CE

Ruler, better known as Jeanne d’Arc, sat in the lounge of her Master’s home, watching the Holovision with great fascination as a pile of datapads lay beside her.

While her summoning had provided enough general information on the 25th century for her to fit in, Ruler still found that certain things needed more direct explanation.

AIs were still the greatest shock she’d had to overcome, despite having lived with one for the past week or so. Artificial minds that matched, or in some cases, surpassed even the most brilliant of human minds.

Their potential alone was eye-opening.

Aliens actually didn’t need much explanation, as Jeanne had accepted their existence quite easily. It was an inevitability that sophont life would arise anywhere, after all. Faster-than-light travel had been somewhat more difficult to understand, given that it essentially broke the light speed barrier, one of the fundamental constants of the universe.

The extremely advanced technology the Galactic Defense Initiative used, even for civilian life, was mind-boggling. She’d been great at learning their usage, though.

The lack of need for money had greatly stumped her until it was explained to her how GDI’s post-scarcity society functioned. Understanding quickly followed then.

In the past week, Ruler had gradually acclimatized herself to daily life in the 25th century. Fortunately, her physical needs (owing to her possession of this body) were well-taken care of. The average person living on Eden (or anywhere in GDI space) had an unbelievably high quality of life.

Red(M) had been extremely kind as her Master, giving Ruler her own room, a rather spacious and comfortable one at that. The great view of Altia, the megacity, also helped.

Since then, she’d done the best she could to help Red(M) with his duties, grateful for the fact that life here was peaceful yet dynamic.

I must remember to thank Master for all this, thought Ruler as she idly switched off the Holovision and rested on the couch.

Her thoughts wandered to Red(M), who had been gracious enough to respect her semi-independence as his Servant. He let her do whatever she liked, and Ruler found she loved to browse the vast ocean of information that was the GDI Archives and the Extranet.

Of course, there had been a problem when she’d tried to help Red(M) in his brief times of absence.

While she knew from inhabiting Renée’s body how to read and write various languages, her mortal life as an illiterate girl had left her with one great flaw.

She was absolutely terrible at math.

Given that much of her Master’s idle pastimes involved math so advanced it was pretty much arcane magic (the subtle irony of which didn’t escape her), she’d been lost whenever she’d tried.

So instead she’d turned her focus to what she could do. Most of the time, those were rather minor matters. She’d not needed to accompany Red(M) into battle much, given that his time was mostly peaceful.

But Ruler knew he needed her help. There were times when her Master needed to make decisions that were morally ambiguous, yet aimed in the direction that benefited the most people. It was times like those when she would be his voice of reason and compassion, to remind him why he did those acts.

And when necessary, to stick with the most moral path.

She was heartened that her Master had his two wives, his female counterpart and Saber’s Master, Yuuki, to be his other anchors in life.

Giving thought to recent events in Red(M)’s life, Ruler found herself admittedly uneasy. Someone she didn’t know, a person called Wolf, had tried to speak with Saber and Yuuki.

For some reason or other, conflict had erupted when Yuuki had blatantly rejected Wolf’s advances by throwing him out the door. She wasn’t too clear on the details.

What was clear, however, that the resulting duel between Wolf and Saber had resulted in the Servant being briefly corrupted by Yuuki’s negative emotions, using her altered Noble Phantasm, Excalibur Morgan, to try and destroy Wolf.

While Wolf had survived somehow, the Excalibur Morgan had utterly destroyed the front portion of the penthouse. Yuuki and Wolf had dueled then, and again Wolf won somehow.

Given how good Yuuki’s skill with a sword was, according to both her Master and Saber, that was highly alarming.

She wasn’t too sure of what happened after Wolf left, but records told her the Initiative had later heightened its alertness, one step away from war preparations.

Wolf’s nation had been expelled from the Coalition and quarantined by then.

Ruler decided she would pay this Wolf a visit when she could. Probably a month from now. At least she would know what he was like.