Hotel Chaldea Ep. Leonardo da Vinci (Rider)

"Hey! Over here, Mr. Collector~!"

Leonardo da Vinci was supposed to be a stunning, voluptuous, sexy woman, the artist's own rendition of the unparalleled beauty of the Mona Lisa, perhaps among the most famous women in history despite being totally anonymous...

That was not, however, the one that greeted you as you walked towards the one calling you. No, instead, the sight that greeted you was that of a much younger girl, who bore the looks of a future beauty, but for now, only managed cute and adorable, with a bright smile, sparkling eyes that hid mischievous genius, and a colorful and sporty outfit, a swimsuit vaguely themed after her usual red, blue and gold getup, with a half jacket over her shoulders and chest, and shorts and boots that gave her outfit a more appropriate look for a visit to Chaldea Park.

While the summer camp retreat had been quite fun, there was no beating a theme park, and Chaldea had experience as an organization, apparently Ritsuka had designed it herself and had participated in the building as well. Twice, since according to Medea it once got destroyed by a meteor the first time.

The past four hours had been a whirlwind, and it had been the first time since you got to the place that you had been able to rest. Medea had taken Hekate, Haku and Roman alongside Artoria and Mordred back to the on-site hotel, the kids were absolutely bushed, and the three adults with them needed their beauty sleep themselves, so it worked itself out.

That left you and the guide that had accompanied you all to the park in the first place, and after all of that, it was time to take a break, so you got the two of you some multicolored ice cream with three scoops, one each of Buster, Quick and Arts flavor, whatever that meant, and then went to find her at a bench.

Leo, as she insisted that you call her owing to the fact that there were two of her in Chaldea at any given time, was a cheery girl. You had met her a couple of times, of course, you had seen her skating around in a maid outfit, and you had also seen her and some of the other Rider servants competing in motorsports, both of the videogame and real variety.

"Eheh, or do you prefer I call you, Big Bro?" she asked, leaning forward and wagging her eyebrows at you.

"Please don't," you said, "Illya, Miyu and Chloe will get jealous you know."

"Oooh, gotcha, then how about da-"

There was a sudden chill.

"Okay, that's a definite no," Leo said, shaking her head. "Well that would be uncomfortable for me too anyway," she said, giggling and leaning on the backrest of the bench as you approached and sat beside her, passing her the tricolor icecream on a waffle cone, just as she'd requested. "Ohhh, so decadent," she gushed, starting to work on the piece of frozen sweet sin.

It was hard to place the flavors. Sweet and spicy for the red one, cool and fresh for the blue one, and minty yet smooth for the green one... plus, the yellow sprinkles all over them seemed to compliment it really well, an odd cross between the sweet flavor of white chocolate with a dash of vanilla.

"I have no idea what I'm eating, but it's exciting!" Leo said. "This is why you let the master cook," she said and you could literally hear the inflection of the lowercase m, a strange thing to focus on, but how differently they said the word Master when talking about Ritsuka was interesting nevertheless. "You'd never expect an alchemist would make such strange ice cream but here we are!"

You hummed thoughtfully, and ate a little more of the sweet treat, getting more different flavors as you combined them.

"They call this one a Mighty Chain by the way!" Leo said, raising her finger and closing her eyes, her head shaking as she nodded and moved left and right, wagging her finger, "I personally recommend starting with a Quick scoop, then placing the Arts one second, and finishing it up with the Buster," she said, "that will get you the highest impact and take the greatest amount of advantage from the sprinkle positioning," she said.

She finished her words by shoving enough ice cream to fill her entire mouth and then some right in there, not even caring about how hilarious the image of her overstuffing her mouth and causing her cheeks to puff up was.

"Ah, ahm sho'hii," she said, then swallowed, "I've been talking a lot haven't I," she said.

"Yes," you agreed. "But I don't mind."

She spoke with great excitement and cheer, she seemed to just love having someone sitting down with her to listen to her ramble for hours on end, sharing her knowledge and talking about what interested her, in that case, all about the ice cream.

Which was starting to melt in your hand.

"Ah, uhm, are, are you going to finish that?" she asked, her eyes sparkling as she looked at the ice cream in your hand. She reminded you a bit of Artoria, any one of them really, when she saw a particularly nice meal. Maybe a lot.

Shrugging, you passed it to her, and then she wasted little time in devouring the rest of your unfinished ice cream, and then devouring the cones as well, to get the ice cream that had soaked into them as well.

As she did, however, she had made quite a mess of herself, and pulling out a handkerchief from one of your pockets, as any man going out with children should carry, you grabbed her face by her chin and held her in place while using the soft fabric to wipe the excess sweet treat that had escaped her all consuming mouth.

It only took a few seconds, but it did leave her with a flushed face and a perplexed expression.

"Was it that bad?" she asked.

"Worse," you said, folding the handkerchief and putting it back in your pocket, giving her a smile, because it was hard not to smile with how amusingly messy she had become. Using a water bottle leftover from the morning, you wet a second handkerchief and then used that to clean up her cheeks, to prevent her from becoming disgustingly sticky.

Needless to say, you had a lot of experience cleaning sticky substances from girls' cheeks.

You couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. "Huh? What's funny?"

"Sorry, nothing," you said, waving your hand as you stored the second handkerchief in the same used handkerchiefs pocket as you had the first. "Okay, all good."

"Well, thank you," Leo responded, putting her hands on the edge of the bench and pushing herself off of it, raising her left arm and putting the right on her hip, stretching first the left side of her body by leaning to the right, and then switching arms and stretching the right side of her body, before raising both hands, linking her fingers and humming in effort as she stretched her whole body at once.

"Alright, I'm back to full strength, mana restored, all systems green!" she called, clenching both hands into fists and throwing them up. "Now that the kiddies are asleep, it's time to have some adult fun!" she called, bringing her arm down and making a muscle pose, patting her right bicep with her left hand while turning to face you. "How'd you feel about ridin' me all night long?" she asked. "Don't worry, I promise you the bumpiest, craziest ride you'll ever have!"

You raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" you asked. "Are you sure about that? Not to brag but, you know where I've been and what I've done."

"Pshaw," Leo used her hand to flick her hair as she turned back around and began walking forward. "Just you follow me, I'll show you just why my class is Rider!"

With a sensible chuckle, you stood up and got off the bench as well, following the diminutive servant to where she would indeed, show you a good time...

Not too far away, at Chaldea Park's built in race car track, not like a go-kart track or such, an actual, honest to goodness professional motorsport track, used for the most elite categories and also some amateur ones, owned, maintained and operated by Chaldea.

Leo led you all the way to the garage where the test vehicles, all with Chaldea Livery, all equipped with the latest technology and sometimes with magitech outright, were stored. They were an incredible sight to say the least.

Near the back of it was one of the larger vehicles... Leonardo da Vinci's own name was plastered on it, with her red, blue and gold color scheme, as well as art drawn by herself, of herself, in both big and small forms, in the typical grid girl outfits.

It was a racing truck, that much you could see... but it looked almost like a tank. "Well, there it is! The Shadow Border GT V-Spec!! The V stands for Victory!" she called, throwing her right hand in the air, two fingers raised in a V. "Undefeated in rally categories, champion of the Destruction Derby!" she boasted.

It definitely looked like it would eat other cars for breakfast, with those huge monster-truck like wheels, its sturdy and large body and the intimidating angles of its curves.

"You know," you pointed out, getting closer to her and turning your head, having to twist your neck just to appreciate the sheer massive size of the Shadow Border GT V-Spec, "it strikes me that an older man being alone with a young girl in a swimsuit in a garage in an amusement park is... not exactly safe," he said. "What would people say?"

"Ooh, let them talk!" she called, giggling. "They are there, talking, and you're here, riding my mechanical self!" she spoke, gesturing with both hands towards her motorized baby. "Besides, anybody whose opinion matters already knows I'm a servant and if anybody's in danger here, it's you."

"I can't fault your assesment," you agreed. "So how do we get in?"

"Behold!" she called, "automatic doors!"

Suddenly two seamlessly joined panels glowed for a moment and then popped outward and separated, and a set of steps descended from the tall vehicle, bridging the gap between the ground and its massive body, to let you in.

"Are they really automatic, or are you controlling them with your mind?"

"Pish posh, what difference does it make?" she called, laughing. "Come on come on, I really wanna drive!"

"You're full of energy," you said. "Like a kid on a sugar rush."

Giggling, the started running up the steps as soon as they touched the ground, stopping halfway up, her face at eye level with yourself as she looked over her shoulder, smirking and raising her right hand also over her left shoulder to point at her own face. "I am a kid on a sugar rush!" she said, "I might have severely underestimated the amount of caffeine and sugar that the Mighty Chain contained!" she said.

"That's- That's not a good thing," you said.

"It's cool, it's cool, I just need to get moving to bleed off all of this energy!" she said, "and what better way than going for a drive!"

Something told you that the point at which you should've stopped passed, so all that was left was seeing just how things wound up going. Leo seemed like she was having fun at least.

"Oh, by the way, in this body I can't reach the pedals so you're going to have to push them for me," she said, smiling brightly.

"Wait, then how will you drive?" you asked, looking at her.

"It'll be fine, I can just sit on your lap! If I could teach Ritsuka how to drive while sitting on her lap, I can do anything!"

"Ritsuka can drive?" you asked, genuinely surprised. She seemed the kind to just teleport or fly anywhere... or be carried in a servant's arms everywhere. Considering servants would fall all over each other to be her driver, it was an interesting thought that she could actually drive.

"Come oooon!"

Unfortunately those thoughts faded from your mind as she came back down and then dragged you up the steps and into the huge car. Moving within the body was actually easier than you expected, you thought a race car would be cramped and uncomfortable but there was a large amount of space, like it was built for people who were way bigger than yourself.

She sat you down and then, as promised, sat on top of you, adjusting her seat on your lap and then pulling two safety seat belts over both of you, firmly locking them in place with satisfying sounding clicks.

She then pressed a button on the dashboard and the garage gates opened, revealing the fading light of the afternoon.

"Alright! Get ready, because this is about to get bumpy!" she said.

"... do I need an adult?" you asked.

"Baby, I am an adult!" she called, putting her hands on the wheel and "now hit the gas!"

You were not ready for the ride that would take several years off of your life.