Voyage Through the Multiverse (Ended) [IC]

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

"Shiiiit!"

Miria tugged at her hair. "My snow wall!"

She broke off and started running towards the camp, before turning to motion a quick "one second" to Link. She jumped up into the branches above them, quickly climbing trees and moving from one limb to another so that she could get a good vantage point, hoping to obscure her own presence among the branches and remaining leaves while she got a good look at the massive creature that had been brought her way. On particularly springy branches, she was able to afford a harder landing to help launch herself into a position where she could make out the rest of the group below her, running about and dodging the massive serpent's attacks - one of which nearly caught the tree she was in. She was Astonished by the size of the creature, as well as by the group's ability to consistently get into trouble and cause massive collateral damage. The chimera just didn't seem to be going down, but it would need to if she wanted to avoid it doing any significant damage to the forest, or their camp. Attacking it's scales honestly didn't seem to be working, however...

Miria rubbed her chin, fiddled with her glasses, and thought to herself. It had tough, scaley armour, and she doubted that it would be so easily pierced. What options did that leave them? Blinding it would just make it even angrier, and...well, snakes didn't need eyesight that much any way, if she remembered correctly. The only other idea she had...was wreckless, to say the least. Still, she was convinced it might work. It was good enough for her to jump down again, landing by Link once more, and then pointing towards the others. "We should tell them that someone needs to get inside the thing to kill it!", She said. "It sounds crazy, but snakes don't chew, right? And there's only one way to go. Get inside and kill it from within, instead of wasting time tackling it's armour!"

[Skylus]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion; December/Lanseh 1st, 2019/1756; Sgoil Draoidheachd; Arden Forest

The younger Hylian stared at Miria for a second, then looked back at the massive snake, then back at her. "Miara, you are an absolute Faring genius. Stay right there, I'll go tell Lee."

However, before he could run off to tell Lee what Miria was planning, something exploded and pieces of metal flew across the clearing.

A pained wail rose over the roars of the Chimera, which soon turned to tortured screams as the shock faded, the source was revealed to be a tan and dark green furred wolf, covered in blood, writhing in pain and pawing helplessly at his face, he then went silent for a second, struggling to breathe, then began keening as the wolf tried to drag himself away from the fight, perhaps from sheer instinct.

It was downright pitiful.

The Hero of Winds left Miria's side without a word and ran across the clearing, somehow dodging the massive snake as it tried to attack him - well, Ammy blocked the attack and continued to drive the snake backwards - and eventually knelt besides the injured shapeshifter, then leapt back as the wolf snarled and snapped at him, narrowly just avoiding biting him in the arm. But in doing so, Link got a good look at the other hero's injury.

The transformed Hero of Twilight's left eye had been mostly destroyed, with a fair bit of the remains still inside the eye socket. His fur was dyed crimson and he had finally gone silent, the wolf's remaining good eye currently staring at nothing; it was glazed over and distant. He didn't even react when Midna dodged a tendril and flew over to him, he simply ignored her.

"He can still fight with one eye, can't he?"

Link shook his head as he looked down at the injured wolf. "No, you don't understand, anyone that uses weapons needs both eyes to judge distance, how far your enemy is from you, if you can dodge attacks or not, and lots of other things. Your ability to fight is almost zero if you lose an eye, regardless of your skill. I got lucky, because when I lost an eye, AEGIS gave me a new one."

"The people we're fighting helped you?"

"Yeah, I wasn't fighting them then."

The younger Hero then realized that, since everyone else was busy fighting the thing, that he would have to help Miria kill the massive snake. Somehow. But then she had told him exactly how to kill it, hadn't she? Link got up from where he and been kneeling and ran back over to Miria. "If you really want to do this, then we need to do it now. if you intend to be the one to kill the thing, then yeah, I'll help however I can."

And so, he ran over to Lee and informed him of what Miria wanted to do, then told Madi to follow him and the two left Lee and Miria to kill the Chimera while they crossed the clearing over to the injured wolf, who by now had turned back to normal and had thankfully passed out.

Madi was back to normal as well and she frowned as she saw something metal covered in blood lying on the ground and picked it up, examined it, then realized what it had been.

"If this was in his eye...Lee's gonna hate himself after this..."

[Skylus]

Miria nodded; they would need to be quick, now that everyone was vulnerable again. She felt bad about even getting her idea, but negotiation seemed rather out of the question, and they couldn't afford to get tossed around much longer. She thought back to Mnemosyne, and what had happened then when she tried to diffuse the situation, and silently resolved not to let the same happen now; she had to help kill that serpent. She'd just think of it like her Coming-of-Age hunt back home.

Glancing Lee's way, she pointed towards the snake's head. "We need to be quick now! If we can get in all in one piece, then I should be able to guide the way. There's really only one way to go, so the hard part should just be keeping our footing and finding the heart."

Lee nodded. "I can get us in there nice and quick, maybe use a Mana Shield for the more dangerous parts once my MP recharges." He went silent for a moment. "I remember once hearing of there being dungeons inside some of the bigger monsters back home. Not sure if it was true or not, but this reminded me of it." Then he levitated himself into the air a bit. "You ready?"

Miria cocked her head and winced a bit. "Sure?", She sure, more confused by his language than she was hesitant to hop in. "I mean, um, sure!", She quickly corrected herself. She nodded and balled her hands into fists, shaking off her anxiety.

Lee focused and Miria floated up into the air. The sensation was surely disconcerting, having your feet touch not the ground and yet not falling towards it, so he made sure to support her feet to not distract her as much. Even with him making both of them float, his MP was still recharging albeit a bit more slowly. "Now to wait for the right moment." He started to move him and her around, trying to keep them near the head. As it roared once more, he flung both of them into the gullet of the beast, well past the teeth.

Miria, thankfully, wasn't too scared of floating; to her, it was like being in Zero-G, in fact! The sensation did tickle her stomach, however, thankfully distracting her until she felt Lee kick off, and saw the snake's maw rapidly growing closer. She yelped and closed her eyes, and braced for impact. It wasn't a pretty landing, and Miria bounced and rolled for a bit before stopping - stopping for just a moment before feeling the wet surface beneath her contracting and pulling them in. Miria tugged her scarf up over her nose quickly, and held onto her glasses.

Lee was surprised that the throat was actually able to properly swallow them. The first thing he did, though, was cover his face with his shirt and made sure nothing was pulled away. He thankfully couldn't smell anything through his shirt. It had an enchantment specifically to help with smells. "This is more horrible than I imagined! Thank the gods I can't smell anything. Well, I guess we have to wait now. Any idea how long it'll be?"

Miria struggled to hop to. She shuddered and frantically shook her hands off. "Not long if I can help it!", She whined, scrunching her nose and looking back and forth. She made a note of where they'd come from, and then attempted to look around, although even she was having some difficulty seeing. "Do you have anything magical?", She asked, grabbing her dagger. "We can use this for light. I think we should try to listen or feel for a heartbeat."

"I do, actually. Several things, actually." He brought out one of his swords, which was glowing slightly. "Hopefully this helps. And, from what I remember in Biology class, we should pass right by it on the way to the stomach. That is, if this thing's insides are like a snake's. Hopefully it is. I don't wanna have to go out the other end and try again." As he said this, he kept his hand pressed against the 'wall,' feeling for when the heartbeat felt strongest.

"Yeah, let's not have that happen to us.", Said Miria, shuddering again. She continued on, mumbling a steady "gross gross gross" under her breath as they walked, and as she scanned their surrounding. She held her dagger up, and was happy to at least see it light up in reaction to Lee's gear. It cast a red glow around them, at least partially illuminating the cavern that was their enemy's body, exposing walls of flesh and thin bone, and a "floor" riddled with swallowed trees and prior fallen prey. "Hunting back home was way less disgusting.", She commented. "We shouldn't have to move too far. We just have to find what we're looking for, take care of it, and get out as fast as possible.", She told Lee. "At the most, we might have to hold onto something until it's, um...you know. Then we'll be able to climb out of its mouth."

"Right. You're probably going to have to take the lead because you can see better. Also, you know the game the Floor is Lava? It's simple, touch the floor, you lose. Except here, the actual floor is acid. I'm not sure if we're in the stomach proper or not, but better safe than horribly burned and possibly dead." He jumped onto the nearest tree and waited for her to take the lead.

Miria swallowed hard. "Acid. Right."

She suddenly felt her legs turn to jelly. Fortunately, she was confident in her ability to move around, but what she wasn't confident about what their chances of getting across before the snake moved or lashed around and shook up the place. She figured that they would just have to move much faster. It was scary as hell, but also a bit of a relief, if it meant that they would get done sooner. Miria jumped ahead, landing on a fallen tree, and then hopping ahead. Her training was thankfully coming in handy for something other than...well, actually, no, it was for killing this time, too. She tried not to think about it. She just kept moving forward.

Lee followed Miria, keeping close but not getting in the way. Noticing her expression, he said, "Don't worry, if the Chimera decides to shake up this place, I can Shield us from the acid and catch us if thrown. It's better to be careful, though." He paused for a moment before moving towards one of the walls. "I'm gonna check the heartbeat." He put his hand against the wall and felt. "I think it's gotten stronger. We're closer." He moved away from the wall and caught up to Miria.

"That's good!", Miria said, looking up, then around them. As they grew closer to the heart, she felt her own start beating much harder. She was hot, and feeling quite nauseas. She wanted to say that it was all due to being inside of the thing, but it was also the fact that she was helping to kill something so big that was making her feel so bad. She wanted to turn back, but then she reminded herself of what was happening outside, and she felt motivated again. She led Lee ahead, breathing a sigh of relief once they were past what looked like the deepest part of the acid, and began to speed up as the heartbeat grew louder and louder.

By now, the heartbeat was loud and close enough that Lee would've taken the lead if he could see ahead. Jokingly, he said, "Be careful now. As we get closer to the heart, the gods of fate might want to screw with us a bit." He was taking alternate paths to Miria's now, nearly being by her side sometimes. The fact that they were so close to their goal was making him anxious. Then his shirt slipped off his face. He immediately stopped breathing, but a whiff of the smell got in. He felt the bile rise in his throat. He started exhaling very slowly, so the smell exited his nose. He slipped his shirt back onto his face and waited a few moments before breathing normally again.

"Those gods are not mine.", Miria drawled, narrowing her eyes. She reached out to feel the "walls", but paused, and then turned her hand to that she didn't have to touch it with her open palms. "Do you think you can make the shot?", She asked, craning her head back his way.

Lee nodded. "Yeah. Is it here or further on?" He cupped his hands around his ear and tried to see if he could pinpoint the sound of the heartbeat.

"It's...hmm..."

Miria winced and held her ear closer. She should have been able to hear a bit better, although that didn't necessarily mean she'd get it. "I think it's close.", She said. "Maybe a bit further, but we have to be close. I don't think I can really do much here, but maybe you can."

"Okay." Delving into thought, he wondered how he could find the exact place of the heart. Sifting through his spells, he noticed that his healing spell had a subspell that scanned the body of the receiver, which helped lo. Unfortunately, it had no name. But maybe... Grasping that subspell mentally and magically, he intoned "Name Skill: Body Scan." Opening his eyes, he made glanced at Miria to see her reaction before moving over to the 'wall.' "Body Scan" And suddenly he could sense every single blood vessel, every nerve, every muscle, every cell. His mind was almost overloaded before he limited to what he could sense to the tissue in front of his hand. "Okay, I almost overloaded my brain." He didn't remember what he had picked up in that Scan. It was too much for his mind to process. Shaking himself back to the task at hand, he extended his reach further outward, following the arteries and veins to the heart. Having his target acquired, he shut off the spell and stepped back. "Up and to the right." He pulled out his gun and almost shot it before he remembered one quirk he had noticed about the blood of the beast. It was hyper-condensed, meaning that if he wounded it from in here, it would spray like a fireman's hose. Most likely harder. Taking the obvious precaution, he told Miria about what he sensed and cast Mana Shield on both of them. "Okay, are you ready? Because once I shoot it, all hell's going to break loose."

Miria gulped and took a step back. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be.", She said, nodding. "I'm going to book it as soon as you shoot, so, uh...please don't be slow."

"Okay." Prepping himself, Lee lined himself up for the shot. "Three... two... one... GO!" As he said the last word, he pulled the trigger and started running like hell was after him.

Hopefully both Lee and Miria noticed that in the second before the heart exploded from it being shot, a sword punched through it, then was withdrawn as its owner no doubt ran for their life. Then, the heart exploded.
The snake roared and started to thrash around, then fell to the ground, sending a shockwave in all directions as it appeared to be finally dead.

The explosion and sound of rushing blood sent Miria into high gear. A bit of blood hit her boots, but she was luckily fast enough to start hopping back towards the front of the snake's body, although she nearly stumbled towards the end of its belly. She kept her knife thrust out for illumination, and hit the back of its throat in a sprint, until she and Lee were able to see light once more. In her panic, she fell, almost faceplanting as she jumped from the Chimera's maw and onto the ground. The cold air immediately chilled her, but the smell of ozone and pine trees was welcome enough for her to not care.

"Gross gross gross gross gross", was all that she could say as she shivered and walked away, trying not to gag. She was definitely washing up now.

Lee followed Miria, easily keeping up with her. Seeing the light ahead, he rushed faster, overtaking Miria and barging ahead and out the mouth of the thing. As soon as he got out, he shuddered. Then he shuddered again. "I so wish we had modern plumbing back at camp." Sighing, he allowed his body to relax naturally. But he couldn't for some reason. Suddenly, he murmured, "Something's wrong, but what is it?" He had no idea. He just knew something he always looked forward to hadn't happened.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was gathered around the Hero of Twilight, who had woken up a few minutes before and had decided to deal with his grievous injury by creating a makeshift wrapping for his head, - from the hem of his tunic, revealing chainmail underneath - specifically his left side. it had been he who had helped kill the snake by stabbing it from the outside, the snake's blood dripping from his sword to the turned up dirt below.

"Well, Ammy, I'd say despite everything that happened, I'd call this battle a success. Now that we can relax, how about one of your famous victory howls?" Ammy nodded as she glanced at the others; they didn't seem to be paying any attention to her, so Ammy got up from her crouching position, shook herself, took a deep breath, then, as Issun drew his sword and twirled it around, the Sun Goddess began to snarl, twist her head back and forth, and hop a few inches forwards every other second, after the four time of this, she knocked her head back and -

- Something moved. Ammy white ears flicked as she sensed the ground move beneath her paws and she lowered her head and spun around, then started to slowly pad forwards towards the seemingly dead snake. A moment later, someone - she didn't recognize the voice - said something along the lines of "It's not dead".

Before anyone could react, the snake shot upwards with a low hiss and towered over the group, swaying back and forth, blood pouring from the open hole in its body. Ammy and Issun stared up at the thing while the others started panicking. "It's alive?! How is it alive?!"

The snake then fell to the ground and didn't rise again, but it was still alive, judging by the fact that it's body was moving up and down. it was quickly suggested that the group find Kiara as soon as possible and the group took off from the clearing towards the camp, the Hero of Twilight ignoring anyone asking to help him walk. He figured that since he had survived everything else, he would survive losing an eye.

When they reached the camp, it was unanimously decided that Link would speak to Kiara, being that he was the one that was injured. A few moments later, he was somehow standing before the woman, his sword still undrawn and covered in blood, looking like he was going to pass out at any given time. "Yes, I know what you're thinking. I'm reckless. It's true, I wasn't paying attention and I dearly paid for it, but despite this major setback I can still fight...I'll have to get used to always having a blind spot and countless other nuisances, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about. We injured the massive snake, but it's still alive. You need to kill it. There's no way around it, I'm afraid, I would go back and kill it for you if I was able to, but you hear Renik earlier. And if you think I'm traveling with you, it's best that I not..." The amount of pain he was in increased tenfold, and as he unknowingly collapsed before Kiara, his mind fell into darkness and he knew no more.

[The Empire of Tau]

Seeds of Anxiety
Steve
Co-Write Between Tau and Naval Monte

Everything is black...pitch black….then light. The eyes of Steve, our blocky man, opens up, blinking rapidly. In a few seconds, Steve springs up from the ground and looks about the local area. It appears that Steve has been thrown into another dimension of sorts with different fundamental logic for its world. Steve pats himself down, checking if he was injured and for his items. Steve’s hands land on his man-purse, one made from cow leather. Checking inside, Steve would find his Necronomicon, Book of Blood Magic, his Waystone Kit, and the series of Big Tech Book Vol. 1-20. Closing his man-purse, Steve looks to his immediate left side. Steve’s Riftblade lays upon a pile of plastic trash. He takes the blade into his left hand. Now that Steve thinks of it, there is a lot of trash around here, and it smells bad. Rats move in groups, collecting food scraps from the massive piles of metal, clothing, plastics, and what else in the garage plies. Plus, Steve appears to be in a warehouse, 16th century looking. Steve stands up and simply thinks. “Where the heck am I….”

However the warehouse was in a complete mess. The shelves were toppled over, spilling everything on the floor which was covered in dust, flecks of dried paint, and puddles of stagnant water. Ancient machines that were so corroded by time and the environment made it impossible to determine what they once were. Worse was the smell. It smelt dank and moldy. It smelt almost like someone died in the warehouse. Steve would hear the sound of something falling somewhere in the warehouse and soon hear movement within the building. It didn't take long for him to hear voices.

"What the fuck! I didn't wake up to be caught in a freakin gang war like this! We aren't ready yet for this kind of shit!" He heard a man shout out in panic.

Not exactly the most pleasurable place, but whatever. Steve has been through worse areas in his lifetime. While Steve would have loved to pick apart this warehouse, a certain voice caught his attention. Someone is there. So, Steve walked himself towards the source of the sound, the voice.

As Steve got closer the argument grew louder. "Would you shut up! None of us signed up for this either but this is our job! We have to deal with it the best we can." An older voice said. "The best we can? We only survived because Ava is a walking glitch in reality and Valerian is an edgy Superman. What hope do we have against those masked freaks!" A feminine voice shouted, almost on the verge of crying.

When Steve was close he would see people wearing casual clothing that was dirty and torn up arguing with each other about seemingly what happened in the warehouse. Though the only clues were masked freaks and it being their job to deal with them.

Steve would quickly notice that these people were not blocky, but um, slender as one might say. Whatever the case, Steve, having walked up close to the two persons arguing among themselves, poked the female and handed them a piece of paper. Steve could not talk, having no mouth to speak of. The paper itself stated the following. “Who are the people over there? The people in the masks. Do you need help? I can help. Your names? My name is Steve, different universe as you can tell from my blocky looks.”

The woman was still feeling her nerves shot from the earlier ambush and near death experience would not be in the mood for any sudden surprises. So when she felt something touching her Steve would hear shriek loudly as she turned around and whacked him on the head with a baton.

"What.. what the hell is that!?" She shouted as she still held on to the baton in a defensive manner. "Amber calm down!" He heard one agent said. Steve would see several more people carrying odd items on the hands appear, almost all of them pointing the items at him.

"The masked freaks are classified just as who we are. We apologize for the attack but we need to know why are you here Steve and what are your intentions?" The man moved his arms up to make a wide swiping gesture. "Because you are too late to help us with this mess."

Steve gets a small bruise upon his head as the female hits him with her baton. He rubs his bruise, taking out another piece of paper from his man-purse. Steve quickly writes and hands the female the written paper.

“Ow. I’m going to help you here. I have a Book of Blood Magic. I’m going to cast a summoning ritual. I am going to find a rat and stab it. I will get another piece of paper and translate some text from the book. I will drop the paper onto the rat and cut myself. I am going to let my blood drip from my hand onto the paper and rat. Lastly, I will use a lighter to burn the whole thing, and then a horde of man-eating rats will summon nearby, eating your issues away.”

Steve does what he said he would do on the paper. Once everything was done, Steve burns the rat and paper. After a few seconds, that is ten seconds, a horde of rats came forth from the warehouse. Oddly, the rats themselves were blocky and not the normal rats that one would find in real life.

The rats swarms over towards the masked mutants and pile upon them. Each rat bites and claws their way into the person’s inside - eating through flesh and cloth like nothing. Anything metal might be a bit too hard to chew on, but these rats can just bite onto another spot. Steve writes once more.

“Do you need anything else?”

As the surviving masked assailants were being attacked by the rats the agents looked at the scene with a mixture of awe and horror. The masked assailants screamed in horror and agony as the rats devoured them alive. However from the swarm an explosion of fire burned away the rats as one of the people transformed into a massive wheel that was on fire, in the center was a demonic humanoid face. A massive firestorm would spread out and along with burning away the rats it would lit other items on fire, including the floor.

"Shit if you can stop that then do so! Otherwise we have to get out of here!" The agent screamed as the fire approached them.

Steve has no power to stop this fire right now...So, Steve has to get out of here. He nods to the agent that started to go, and quickly moves with the agents to move out of the fire zone.

As the agents began to flee several began to open fire at the creature, most bullets missing and hitting other objects but a few managed to hit the creature's face, making it scream loudly. "VALE! WE CAN USE YOUR BULLSHIT SUPERPOWERS ABOUT NOW!" one of the agents screamed, a few screaminging in agony as the fire consumed them.

Looks like Steve has some serious work to do now. He flips to a new page. Steve gets a piece of paper out, translates some text from the Blood Magic Book to the paper. Steve quickly runs himself to one of the agents on fire. He grabs the left hand of said flaming agent, opening the palm and does a cut before forcing the hand to hold the paper.

Once the agent and paper has been properly engulfed in flame. Clouds start to form around the area. A storm of rain falls down onto the area. Heavy rain, big droplets of water pouring down in massive waves - likely getting everyone and things wet in the process within a few seconds.

Once the rain kicked in, a giant flaming black marble statue appeared out of nowhere. The statue itself is a David Michelangelo, a renaissance sculpture. Smoke comes off of David, rain pouring on his body. Yet, the flames do not go away. David raises a hand and snaps his index fingers. All the fire in the local area simply goes away, dying down within a few seconds. Sadly, the mutants are engulfed in never-ending flame. David himself goes to one of the mutans, raising his left foot, and crushes the poor thing.

[Naval Monte]

Eight Lines Tales
New York City
Sanctum Sanctorum

"I'll tell the guys at the deli, maybe they can make you a metaphysical ham on rye." Strange told Wong as he climbed down the stairs. Behind him Wong began to search through his belt. "Wait. Wait. I think I have 200." Before he finished his sentence he was interrupted by Strange. "Dollars?" His friend would pull out rupees "Ruppes." He told Strange as he gave him a smile.

The sorcerer shrugged and rolled his eyes as he made his way down the stairs. "What do you want?" He asked as Wong put away his money. The sorcerer claps his hands and begins to rub them. "I don't want to say no to a Tuna Melt." The sorcerer told Strange. 

Before they can walk out of the stairs a rift would suddenly appear before them. "What the?" A confused Wong would utter as Strange left his hand to grab his cape as it flew towards him. As he put on his cape his casual clothing began to change to his robes. "You think one of the masters is coming through?" Strange asked Wong.

As he got closer to the rift he would hear Wong say it doesn't feel like the portals made by the other masters of the mystic arts, that it was the rifts that have been appearing throughout the world. "Great." The sorcerer muttered. He summoned forth twin Mandalas from his hands. "Looks like we better close this thing before something comes through." Strange rose his hands high to his chest as Wong did the same.

As the two sorcerers were getting prepared to cast a spell to close the rift they would hear gunshots coming from the rift. "That's new." Strange stated. Suddenly the two would feel a strong gust pulling them into the rift. The two mages held on to the rails of the stairs. "HOLD ON!" Wong shouted.

"Easier said than done!" Strange shouted back as his cape wrapping itself around the rails to make sure he won't fly into the rift. The two sorcerers struggle to not fall into the rift was immense. They could hear the wood groaning as the wind was growing in strength. Ultimately it would become too much for Strange as he lost his grip, it was only by his cape that he didn't fly into the rift. 

"STRANGE!" Wong called out as he saw his friend was almost dragged into the rift. Strange reached out and grabbed on to his cape, pulling himself while fighting against the immense force pushing him into the rift.

As he climbed towards the rail he would hear a sound he hoped not to hear. The sound of wood splintering. The noise would get louder as he saw cracks appearing on the rail. He looked to Wong just as the rail finally spanned, the gust dragging Strange to the rift. The final thing Stephen Strange saw was Wong reaching out for Strange as he called out his name. The look of pure horror forever burned into Strange's mind. Once he entered the rift darkness greeted him.

---

Tokyo, Japan

Cold and Hard. Those were the words that came ro Strange's mind as he felt his consciousness returning to him. "This is the worst bed I ever slept on." he thought sleeping on beds on Kamaja- Ja was bad before, this bed makes those feel like high end mattresses he used to sleep on back in his years as a neurosurgeon. "What happened?" The man said as he let out a loud groan as he began to pull himself up, feeling the hard concrete of the road below him.

That seems to wake him up as he looks down as he rubbed the palm of his hand on the concrete. "What on Earth?" He looked around and saw not only a pickup truck being caught in the middle of a gun fight but he was only alive because it was in front of him. "What's going on? Where am I?" The startled sorcerer asked as he quickly got up. He quickly patted himself to make sure he wasn't shot in his sleep nor anyone stole anything from him. Once he was sure he was fine and no one took advantage of his unconscious body the sorcerer would make a gesture with both hands and moved his arms as he unleash a dome of energy around the truck that was made from his mandalas

"That should keep them busy for a while. Now tell me what is going on?" He asked the strange group before him

---

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain
Club Midnight

Remy rubbed his chin as Elena explained more of the book. "So this one book would count as a weapon of mass destruction. Quite the hefty price it would fetch if we ever sell it." He would give her a smile. "Well, if we ever sell it that is. There are some items that are too valuable or dangerous even for us to sell to anyone. This book fall into that category." He would take a long drag on his cigar before blowing the smoke up to the ceiling.

"So you want our help to get the book and crush two former superpowers?" He particularly fall on to the swivel chair that was behind the desk, spinning around before he stop himself to face her. "Great plan. But we will need to plan this out carefully my dear. Former powerhouses like them will act like cornered animals, they are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure they survive or they make sure whoever takes them out bleeds to death. More importantly we have to make sure griuos like AEGIS or the Order finds out about this. Those bastards would make our lives a living hell if they get involved. But..." that grin of his grew more feral.

"If we can get them to strike out on the IGSE and Chimera without alerting the book to them than those idiots will make our job much easier." He began to laugh. "Hell we can throw them at the Vatican while we're at it."he said in between his laughter. As he began to calm down he would hear what Elena said about Arcana finding a potential gateway to the hotel and she wants the two groups to force an entry to it.

"Well isn't that interesting. Where is this entry way? Is it in the town?" The mage was interested in tte idea of being ine of the first to enter the mythical hotel.

[Nagakawa]

The Eight Line Tale
Tokyo, Japan
A road leading out of the city to Haneda Airport

-

With bullets evaporated midair (one right in front of Edward's face, no less- he'd been fortunate), the Descendants slowly gathered their wits and reloaded their weapons, only later noticing the energy field and the odd man in the red cloak who had created it.

"Who's this guy?" said Edward.

"Strange??" As he climbed out of the shotgun seat, reloading his shotgun, the 100-year-old man's eyes widened, and he rushed over to Strange with an expression of glee.

"They seem to know each other", Salome remarked.

"Strange! It's been so goddamn long, my friend!" The 100-year-old man embraced Dr Strange and patted him hard on the back several times. "Do you remember me? It's Steffen! Steffen Lunes. We met back in the Bonacci Hotel, 60 years ago... I mean, you haven't aged a bit. It's been fuckin' 58 years since then... Fuck, you haven't aged a bit. Me? I've gotten quite a bit older. My tattoo's faded away. But I'm still the same old Steffen..."

Edward straightened out his suit and gently pulled Steffen away from the bemused Strange.

"I suppose we owe you our thanks, Mister... Strange?" he said, bowing sharply to Strange. "And introductions too."

He glanced outside; the soldiers were still having trouble dealing with the effects of Strange's protective energy dome. It was, thus, safe to stand around and offer introductions.

"My name is Edward Saladass. I am the leader of the Descendants- we are a small group of people seeking to end the conflict that has been taking place in our side of the Multiverse since the conclusion of the Nameless War, fifty years ago."

He turned to look at the others in the group.

"This is Salome Haikarakainen, our driver and technician. Hitomi Namikawa, our occult expert. Isamu Ikegami, our spy and runner. And, of course, Steffen. With whom, it seems, you are familiar."

Checking again to make sure that all was well, Edward continued, "Might I ask... How do you know Steffen?"

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding War | Kiara and Polly

Kiara’d been there for… how long? Minutes? Hours? She’d stopped paying attention a while ago. Ever since she’d run away, ever since she’d left them to fend for themselves, she’d dedicated each of her waking moments - every last iota of concentration and willpower that she possessed, meagre as they were - to simply keep herself from doing something brash. She’d been forced to choose between killing something wonderfully ancient - almost arcane in its beauty and strength - or leaving her little gaggle of naive, ideologically charged companions to fend for themselves. Her acquaintances thought of themselves as peaceful, there was no mistaking it. They were utterly convinced of their own righteousnesses, totally absorbed by delusions of moral integrity and a belief that the will and strength to seize a goal were justifications in their own right to work towards it. Lee, Link, Amaterasu, Madison, they all fit into the archetype. Each and every one of them was disaffected by violence in a way that nobody should be. The moment that someone learned to turn beautifully complex living beings into worm food was the moment that they, in her mind, devolved from people into something… less. Miria was the closest thing the group had to a normal person, but she was the last person Kiara wanted to associate with. It wasn’t because she disliked the woman, oh no - to the contrary, the Kalmite had yet to meet someone so personable in this universe - it was that she didn’t want to harm her any more than she already had. Miria had no grand aspirations nor did she consider herself a hero, she was a perfectly typical girl trying to find her way home. But it wasn’t as if she could blame any of her apparent peers for believing what they did. They stood at the top of each of their respective fields, and it was difficult for anyone to think that their success was not due to their own efforts. However, she stood above - or at least adjacent to - them and from where she was, she could see that their high towers were built on foundations of corpses. Her feelings were hard to explain. She did not hate them for what they were, nor what they had done. She was merely disappointed.

But of course Kiara’s thoughts were not always consumed by such ethically obsessed ramblings. As she sat in her tent, shivering and clutching her head, she thought of nothing but running away and going home, returning with a guttering flame in her heart and one lost friend. She had a duty to fulfil, still, and a promise to keep. She knew she was not strong enough to bear the weight of either responsibility, the only question was whether she should try anyway or give up and forsake every last one of her principles. She was a Kalmite, she’d live forever. What kind of person would she become if she gave up now and forsook every last boon she’d been granted, denying every kind word ever spoken to her? She did not want to think about it. Link found her during one of her more intense episodes. She smelled his blood, thick like cream within his skull. Every time he blinked the muscles in his empty eye would twitch ever so slightly, producing just the faintest - yet most deafening - squelch. He and her were the only ones who could hear it, the only ones privy to the gurgling within the center of his head. She thought, as her arms lowered themselves from her scalp, that she’d fly into some apologetic tantrum, that she’d rant and rave about how sorry she was and all that. But such a reaction was immature, unhelpful and most of all, overdone. She was emotionally barren, the crop of sadness and grief that she’d been cultivating had already been reaped. So in the vacuum that the departure of sorrow left, vitriol and anger flooded in. ”Why. Didn’t. You. Run?!” Her voice pealed like thunder. Each syllable pierced his ears like the crack of a gunshot. She had once believed that he was a warrior, a grizzled combatant who’d seen all that humanity had to offer and had found it wanting for strength and needing correction. Now, she saw him in a different light. As an innocent, foolhardy boy who’d thrown himself at every obstacle he’d ever encountered and only ever pulled through because his natural talents had kept his head above the water. “I thought you were better than this. Why’d you stand and fight? To nurse your pride? To prove to yourself that you could handle yourself? You’re an insecure moron, and no amount of ‘courage’ is going to make up for how you failed Hyrule.” Her words ebbed and flowed like tar through a grate, each of them inundating him with her malice. Her loathing was far more infectious than any disease, she conveyed it better than anyone else could’ve.

Kiara knew that she was causing a ruckus and that she’d pay dearly for her emotional transgressions. She knew that she was wrong, that she should’ve met him with compassion. Yet her anger was too great, her spite for his self image too titanic to resist. She was as angry as she would’ve been sad, and she had never been able to rein in her anguish before. She would’ve said more but at that moment the boy collapsed. She caught him as he fell and placed him on his back, she still meant him no harm. Without him, however, she found herself having to find other targets for her hatred. As she rummaged through her pockets for painkillers and made an inventory of the tent, already knowing that she had no antibiotics, she lambasted Amaterasu. “You, “goddess”, so high and mighty. Don’t you feel responsible for any of this? When calamity came our way, why did you decide that your desire for honor came first? You must’ve known that you couldn’t have delayed the snake.” The goddess could’ve retorted that killing the chimera had been done in the name of saving the ghosts at the ruins, but Kiara had a response to that. She had many, many counters to anything that they could’ve said. She used a set of tweezers to reach into Link’s eye - she could already picture where the wooden shrapnel was embedded - and tugged on something nestled between the two halves of his eyeball. As the arms of the tweezers slid into his skull little trails of transparent humour leaked from his sclera, alongside a deluge of tears and blood. The air was rank with the smell of rust and brine. “And Lee, what were you thinking by staying to fight?” She could read it on his face. He had been the only one to try to protect his allies, and the one to ultimately bring the chimera down. That did not mean he was without fault in her mind. “You should’ve gotten them out of there. You shouldn’t have shielded then, enabling their desire to fight.” He stood at the fringe of the tent, looking inward balefully. Why did he look so guilty? Was this his fault? She did not blame him for that, at least. It had been an accident, for sure. Link’s eye popped and she withdrew her hand. A clump of flesh hung from the end of her tweezers as well as a wooden shard that more resembled the tip of a knife’s blade than a piece of timber. She placed it on the ground beside her and set to work with the scalpel, excising tainted flesh and the remains of his eye.

The truth was that Kiara was only doing this to feel useful. She was preoccupying herself with her fury and this medical procedure in order to distract herself from the fact that she, more than anyone else around her, had failed the team. She had run away from the challenge meant for her, and had done nothing to help them. Even though she could’ve broken up the fight, even though she could’ve prevented this from happening in the first place, she had spent the last half an hour sitting in her bed, bemoaning her own failures without doing anything to correct them. She deserved to be chastised more than anyone else, and that fact was both unsurprising and terrifying to her. Perhaps she was being angry in order to invite that kind of criticism upon herself, perhaps she was being angry so as to perform an emotional preemptive strike of sorts. She did not know, and did not particularly want to. Ambiguous situations were squishy and could be moulded to fit her personal narrative, while situations with certainty were ice cold and stiff as steel. She could practically see the light fading from her peers’ eyes, their mental images of who she was curdling like old milk. With every indignant sentence she spat at them she lost a little more of their respect. “Good”, she thought. “Let them hate me, it’s what I need”. She was tired of being mollycoddled, of being treated like an untouchable pariah because of her condition. She wanted for them to be honest with her, to treat her like an equal, even if it meant that they’d despise her. She whispered under her breath, enunciating each harsh consonant with furious gusto. “You forced me into that situation without telling me what was going on, without asking me whether you could do it. No consent, no information, nothing. Did you ever consider what I wanted? What I would do? Did any of that ever even cross your mind? You selfish bastard...” She could’ve hurt him. It would’ve been so easy in that moment to ‘botch’ the operation, to make an incision a millimetre too deep, and to open up an artery. It would’ve glutted her desire for revenge, but so what? What she wanted was irrelevant. The loss of an eye was retribution enough for this man, whose whole life had been spent being dealt fate’s best cards. He had gone through hardship, yes, but he was still standing. He was here, on his two feet, and still fighting. That was more than what could be said for many of the people of Hyrule. In no time at all a pile of thin, wet slivers of flesh lay next to her alongside a mound of whitish jelly that’d clouded over with cataract-esque stains. She drained a small amount of his blood into a jar and swirled it in her hand so quickly that it created a whistling noise and the glass cracked with the momentum of the fluid pressing against it from within. It acted as a centrifuge, and she placed Link’s iris and cornea into a platter of yellow plasma. They were not salvageable, but maybe they could be used for something else, someday. She sutured the inside of his eye shut. Every time the needle pierced one of his membranes or a piece of muscle it met with a dull resistance, then slid through with a grainy pop. She’d not removed his nerves or his muscles. An eye transplant was still possible, although she could not begin to imagine where she would find the equipment. Her hands were steady but not to the point where she could reconnect individual nerve fibres. She jabbed a syringe into his neck hard enough to bruise and filled up his veins with a cocktail of painkillers and more… exotic compounds.

First light dawned on Link’s face. He was abruptly pulled by chemical hooks into the twilight of consciousness. Kiara knelt over him with a scalpel in her hand, the blade of which was still decorated with gore. She washed it with a damp cloth, one of many dozens that she’d discarded after they’d been saturated with his blood. As his mind dwelled on the threshold between sleeping and waking, it was left vulnerable. He registered the tiniest scintilla of pain. Outwardly he showed no reaction but Kiara’s eyes saw more deeply than the exterior. All that wrath that she had harboured vanished at that moment, banished by empathy. She was left cold and empty, and the dampening waters of simple, unhysterical misery flooded in to fill the space left behind. She fell on her rear and rested on her elbow, regarding her patient with a gaze that communicated sheer regret. “I’m sorry, I did- I did all I could.” She licked her lips, even though she needed no moisture to talk. It was a tic she’d picked up, a social protocol that she’d accidentally absorbed. “And, I...” was she hoarse by choice or because she was truly so lost for words? It was difficult for anyone, even Kiara herself, to know when she was acting and when she was being sincere. There was perhaps no boundary at all. “A-and… I…” Her timbre shifted from uncertainty to solidarity. She expressed a decision in certain, unshakeable terms; it had been built on the foundations of her identity. She could not renege on it. “I won’t kill the chimera.”

[Skylus]

TGWR

Link felt as if he was floating. Well, not floating, per say, rather stuck in the period between sleeping and waking. He was, in fact, aware of what Kiara had done, for he had never actually fainted, but rather had been mostly unconscious. The Hero of Twilight supposed he had a lot of things to think about, most importantly what Kiara had said to him before he had collapsed earlier, however long it had been, and he eventually came to a conclusion that she was right. He had in fact failed Hyrule, not once, but twice, no, three times all at once. The first, was letting Dragmire destroy the castle, the second, was letting Zelda be taken, and the third, was him. Renik.

He utterly despised the man, even if he didn’t say anything about it. Some things he chose to keep to himself, and his opinion about the so-called ‘Dark Lord’ was one of them.

Back to what Kiara had done. Link self-consciously knew he would lose his left eye, he had seen the same injury on the battlefield, men had died from losing eyes due to infection and the like and he wondered if he would share the same fate. He also wondered what to say to Kiara when he woke up. Then, he noticed a dim light, yet half of his vision remained dark. The light continued to brighten until he found himself looking at something, which eventually focused into the vaulted ceiling of a pitched cloth tent. Again, half of his vision was dark, evidence of his lost eye, and the Hylian realized he would have to adapt to fighting with having a permanent blind spot. He then felt as if he had been slashed across the left side of his face, only the pain was a lot worse then that and his remaining vision went dark for a few seconds.

’Slowly.’, he thought to himself as his vision started to return. ’Let your vision focus…What’s left of it…’ The pitched tent’s vaulted ceiling once again appeared above him, shadows of tree branches visible as they moved back and forth from wind. He could hear it hitting the tent, causing the material above him to ripple. ’That’s it. Can’t do anything about the pain it seems, an inconvenience, sure - wait what did…’

Link found himself gazing at Kiara, one of her hands holding something metal that was stained with blood, the other was holding a bloodied cloth. She was looking at him with empathy, and as the Hylian felt something wrapped around his head and blindly reached up to see what it was, she told him that she wouldn’t kill the Chimera. He ignored her for a few seconds, instead tracing the cloth band until he found that he was wearing an eyepatch, then let his left hand fall to the ground as he attempted to sit up.

The pain flared for a second and he froze, instinctively closing his remaining eye as he simply waited for a second, instead listening to his pained breathing and mentally felt for any other injuries. He found none other than his lost eye and he opened his remaining one, then turned his head slightly towards Kiara. The scarred hero wondered for a second if he could speak, then what he could say. It was clear her decision was final, yet she had been chosen…

“I could kill it for you.” His voice was barely audible, slightly higher pitched than normal, with just a hint as to how much pain he was currently in. He realized how completely idiotic that sounded but it was too late to take it back. “And what you said earlier, it’s true. All of it. I failed you, them, and Hyrule, I’m wounded in a foreign world with no clear way to get back home, and if I hadn’t gone to the ruins, none of this would have happened. I know you expect some sort of apology, but what am I supposed to say? Anything that serves as some sort of apology seems weak.” While Link waited for a response, he looked down at himself and noted that his clothes were still stained with blood, and that his sword was lying on the ground nearby to his right. Dried snake blood coated the blade and crossguard as he reached out and pulled it towards him, then picked it up and pointed it straight for a second, the sword wavering slightly before he stabbed it into the dirt. He then studied his reflection, the golden chain and Curse Stone resting against his collarbone and glinting in the dim lighting.

By studying his reflection in the stained sword blade, he realized that the left side of his neck was covered in veins and a small bruise, and he reached up with his left hand, then tentatively felt the bruise and veins before he lowered his hand a bit, glanced at the two Triforce pieces he now possessed, then gave the woman who had helped him a confused look. “What...What did you do?”

Menshen gave me permission to mod Kiara

"I extracted the remains of your eye. It..." she gestured at her own eye, splaying her fingers as if to mime an explosion. "... wasn't salvageable. I sutured shut the arteries and veins that the shrapnel had lacerated, but the socket's still open. There may be some fluidic buildup, so, just keep that in mind. There are painkillers and stimulants running through your bloodstream right now but not any antibiotics. We need to get our hands on some of that, stat."

"I really don't think giving someone advanced medicines is a good idea...Yet I feel fine...."

[The Japanese Americans]

The Great Wizarding War | Kiara and Polly

-snip-

Lee had saw the piece of blood covered shrapnel that had pierced Link's eye. He had cast Observation on it to find out where it had come from. He regretted using those grenades now. He was the reason Link had lost an eye. Now he was forever crippled in combat, and Lee couldn't heal eyes damaged that badly. He knew that in all honesty it had been an accident, but it was still his fault. Kiara was busy removing the remnants of it from Link's head now. It was his fault that this operation was even required. What was clear was that she was mad at them for something he couldn't make sense of right now with the way his mind was. She had started on Link first before he passed out before turning to Amaterasu and starting on her. Watching the operation, he felt no bile climbing up his throat like it normally would. He was too consumed by guilt. He didn't even hear Kiara start on him. After a few moments, he realized she was talking to him. He just looked at her for a couple seconds before walking away without a word. He just walked over to his tent and sat down. He had to deal with his guilt first before he even considered being useful to the team again, otherwise this guilt could consume him. If it would simply make him kill himself or make him obsessed with harming himself to atone for any sins, perceived or real, that had caused the others harm, he didn't know.

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

While Kiara worked on Link's wound, and while Lee watched and fretted, Miria avoided being anywhere near the scene. Just thinking about the gruesome image of someone - especially someone who she knew to at least a small degree - having their mangled eye removed, it made her sick. Blood always freaked her out, honestly. She'd gotten used to seeing it in recent weeks, but even then, she had a way of separating "just blood" from "Gross wounds and bodies", and even then, she tended to separate "dismembered limbs" from "eye stuff", which particularly unsettled her. It had something to do with the eyes being such important body parts, and then just how weird they could be. There was a little fear of eye-based injuries, especially as it concerned the bespectacled girl, who didn't exactly have the best sight to begin with. At least she still had both eyes, however, even if they didn't work the best.

She sat at the opposite end of the camp, with her back to the others. She'd hunched over her tablet, underneath her hammock and snug beside the snow banks that she had pushed up, engrossed in a handful of videos and articles that she had saved to the device. It wasn't much, but she would take any entertainment that she could get, especially if it meant taking her mind off of the subject of eye injury. She waited until it appeared that the most graphic parts of the procedure were finished, when Link came back to, and when Lee and Kiara started speaking up. She could barely make out their voices, and looked back to confirm that all was relatively calm again, before she finally got up to join them. She approached silently, not quite intending to, although the sound of her glasses jostling hopefully tipped the others off, as she adjusted them. "What's happening?", She asked, keeping her voice down. She avoided looking towards Kiara and Link, still unsettled by the reality of what was happening. She felt strange, as though she should have been more sad or worried about what had happened, but she just didn't seem to have let it entirely sink in yet. Instead, she peered off into the woods again, in the direction of the battle that had raged just a short while before.

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding War | Kiara and Polly

Link’s tone was the final straw. He was so apologetic and so sullen that she could not even remember why she’d been angry in the first place. Where there’d been steel and fire in her heart before, now it was filled with self doubt and loathing. She had not been justified in castigating him. He’d been under great pressure and saddled with a burden he was simply unequipped to bear. It may have seemed as if there were commonalities between them, but she recognised that the two of them existed in different hemispheres of morality, personality and self image. Whereas he was assertive and aggressive, she folded like canvas paper in the face of mounting odds. Whereas he was naive and courageous she was sickeningly cynical - although just as unknowledgeable as he was; cynicism did not necessarily arise from a better understanding of the world - and constantly vacillated between episodes of intense apathy and fear. If there was a lesson to be learned from that particular bout of introspection, she’d be hard pressed to put it into words. It did, however, have an effect. It made her realise that finally, at last, she thought of her companions as individuals, each possessing emotions she could not possibly sympathise with and capabilities she could not replicate. She had considered them her equals in physical aptitude before, but now she was beginning to think of them as her intellectual equals as well. She still considered it her onus to protect them - a fireman would not say that a man stronger than himself did not deserve to be pulled from a burning building - but it was quickly becoming clear that what she had considered to be her role within the group, the protector, was an unnecessary and nigh nonexistent one. In reality, she was just a glorified nurse. It was at once liberating to feel like she was surrounded by real people and terrifying to think that she no longer occupied the peak of the food chain. She was in unfamiliar territory now, having been thrust into a world which seemed hellbent on throwing problems at her with no easy resolutions. So what was she supposed to do? What could she do, in the face of all this? When she felt so useless, so small, so pitifully disappointed in herself, what should she do? She knew the answer to that, at least. Everything that she could to make things right.

“Shut up, Link.” Her voice hardly rose a decibel above the whisper of the wind. She sounded like the sound of sea surf over crags in the distance, or the gentle tap of rain on loamy soil. “Don’t just sit there and take it. Where’s your pride? You should be hopeful, determined to pull it all back rather than letting it slip through your fingers. Who cares what I - a little girl, the youngest of all of you - say? There are still people relying on you, and failing that, aggressors who need to be cowed. You still have your strength and your wits. Your eye may be gone, but does that make you any less of a good man than you were before? Fuck no.” Was it kind to let him keep indulging his fantasies and delusions? Yes. She could see - no, anyone could see - that Link was still a net positive for the world. He had hurt her immensely, but if she looked at the situation without regard for her ego, examining it from a distance, she could see that objectively speaking he’d still done more good than harm. And she, disregarding her own emotions and safety as always, could see no reason not to build him back up to what he had been before. The truth was, however, that she wasn’t just doing it out of kindness or pragmatism. She was also scared of - petrified by, even - the idea of changing the people around her. She didn’t want to damage Link’s sense of self because that would mean that she’d played a hand in shaping who he would become after doing so, and that meant she’d be culpable for whatever sort of person he’d become. If there was one sort of responsibility she wasn’t prepared to handle, it was responsibility for other people. “I swear to you, I’ll make this right. I’ll do everything that I can to help, alright? So don’t be afraid to come to me if you ever need anything.” Of course she recognised that his chauvinistic sense of amour propre wouldn’t allow him to ask a “girl” for help, but what else could she have offered? A new eye? As soon as Miria walked in she visibly slumped, knowing that the conversation was no longer just between herself and Link. It was a relief, really, to talk to someone she wasn’t responsible for the injury of. “Ah, nothing. I just took the shrapnel out of Link’s eye, is all.” The camp felt startlingly empty without the others inhabiting it. There were many empty beds and a great deal of unfinished food. Whereas before the whole place had practically thrummed with human heartbeats - each pulsating according to their own rhythm yet retaining the synchronicity of an orchestra - it was now cold, dead and lonely. She wished that the ground underfoot still spoke to her in her darkest hours, she wished that the air and the birds still lived only to bring her joy. Her crusade against the saprophytes had been a crusade against everything that’d ever made her happy, a crusade against her home. And she knew, though the thought hadn’t entirely dawned on her yet, that if Skye were to come back in any reduced capacity, she’d have to kill her too. “Hey, don’t worry about the chimera. The woods are safe now, I guarantee it. Although, since it was so large and tore down so many trees, we may need to move soon. That could be nice, actually. I’ve always wanted to live in a city.” Something was off about her voice. It was sickly sweet and oppressively warm, like a tropical wind sweeping over a meadow choked with technicolour flowers. She was talking to Miria as if she were a child, using simple sentences and an excessively gentle tone with her. Of course, the girl (well, woman: she was older than Kiara by a few years) had been hit by her blood the hardest. She knew what kind of effect it had on people. She wasn’t trying to be nice to Miria, or even apologetic. She was terrified of her, and terrified of what could be happening to her on the inside. “I never really said sorry for what happened to you. It’s a little late, but consider this my official apology. Are you feeling any better, by the way? Any trouble sleeping?”

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Miria

Miria sort of figured that Kiara was being soft on her. She didn't mind, however, or, at least, she didn't think that she did. It felt a little reassuring, in a way. Maybe it was just because she was still a bit childish any way, but she didn't feel particularly put off by the way that Kiara spoke.

Still, when Kiara asked if she was okay, Miria found herself almost involuntarily slinking back a bit. She appeared to be pondering the question. One eye narrowed, and then the other, just as the first widened again. Her brow furrowed, and then unfurrowed. For a moment, she just looked at the ground, until her tongue started pushing at the inside of her cheek. A quick shimmer in her eye seemed to indicate that she had snapped back to the present, before the girl spoke. "I...", She began, before her eyes drifted towards Link - not quite reaching him, however. "I could be worse.", She stated, nodding slowly, ignoring the nauseas feeling in her gut. Her voice was a tiny bit scratchy still, still recovering like her eyes from weeks of shrieking and crying. "I kind of remember a lot. A bit. It's a bit of a haze since I finally got some sleep.", She said; her eyes started to dart around again, although she wasn't actually looking at anything specific. She almost looked ashamed, thinking about it. Remembering how she'd been for the longest time after being exposed scared her. Kiara scared her still, just for what happened, even though Miria told herself that Kiara herself wasn't a bad person. It was just something that she couldn't exactly control or rationalize.

"I can see better now.", She said, looking back, waving a hand in front of her face. "I don't think it's all there yet though, but it's not hindering me as much. Getting rest has really helped.", She told Kiara. At least she wasn't crying blood any more, and her eyes didn't ache constantly. She was still worried about any potential lingering issues, but after seeing her sight get better so quickly, she was feeling optimistic that it would all be fine. She'd already had her eyes damaged before, and she was terrified of the thought of having them completely ruined, or worse. "Some things are hazy, but it's not as bad as when I take my glasses off. I still sort of feel like doing crazy dangerous things every now and then, but I can ignore it. I don't know if that was, uh...you know...something related to what happened. Oh, and I'm sleeping fine. I still have trouble here and there, but I was never the most sound sleeper any way."


Her eyes twitched again. They settled right on Kiara, as Miria shot a sideways look her way. Her eyes remained open, though her pupils narrowed into slits. "I know you're not really Human, but...what exactly happened? Like, back then?"

[Skylus]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion; December/Lanseh 1st, 2019/1756; The Clearing; Arden Forest

Link didn’t know how long he simply looked at Kiara for before he reached out and pulled upwards on the Master Sword, freeing the bloodstained blade from the dirt and then got up. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right, Kiara. Losing an eye will no doubt cause some setbacks, but that doesn’t change who I am, what I’ve done, what my purpose is. And besides, I made a promise to those spirits, and by Hylia, I’m going to keep it.”

“You’d think losing an eye would upset you but I guess not.” Midna was floating near the front of the tent, arms crossed, a single fang showing in a grin. “That eyepatch suits you by the way, did you know that?” The imp uncrossed her arms, flew over to Link, circled, then ended up in front of him. “What do you plan to do?”

“I have an obligation to fill.”

“Well then, let’s go kill the massive snake and fulfill it, shall we?” Midna glanced at Kiara and grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nothing happens. And if it does, you’ll be the first to know.”

The Hylian stepped out of the way as Miria entered, then looked back towards the young woman who had, without a doubt, saved his life. “Kiara. Thank you. And I’ll take you up on your offer if I ever need it.” Then he and his companion were gone, off to kill yet another massive monster.

---

Sgoil Draoidheachd; Arden Forest

“Well, it’s still alive. Question is, how do we kill it?” The Hero of Twilight was down on one knee, currently studying the hopefully near dead Chimera from across the clearing as Midna flew in and out of his line of sight, which secretly annoyed him.

“Well, I see three options. One, I use my magic; two, you stab it; three, you turn wolf and kill it that way.”

“Pretty obvious stabbing it will be the best option.” Link got up and eyed the massive snake before he raised Evil’s Bane and started walking, Midna following him.

“You know, I missed this, just the two of us, traveling, helping people.”

“Me too. Won’t be like this for too much longer.”

“Yeah…”

“Where to stab it though…The heart seems like the best option, but yet if I miss it won’t be good, could also stab the head…”

“Just above the eye or did you forget about the Lizalfos?”

“Right.” Link spun the sword in a circle in front of him as he approached the hopefully slumbering Chimera and poised the blade to stab it in the head, when the snake slid open an eye and stared at him. He froze, Midna hissing at him to stab it, then he did so. Just above the open eye. Thankfully, the snake never moved and it stopped breathing shortly after.

“That was close.”

“Yeah. It was. You have a habit of danger finding you, maybe you should stop being so reckless.”

“Well I’m sorry for trying to be sarcastic.”

-

Five minutes later, the wounded hero was back at the ruins, standing before Martin and his fellow scholars and students. “Link, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. I have held something from you; the real reason Renik slayed us is that we guarded a powerful weapon, one that we still and will watch over until we find someone worthy enough to wield it. This weapon is named Blacktalon.”

The spirit floated over to the main structure and beckoned Link to follow. Once the Hylian walked under the broken archway, Martin then gestured to a wall that was crumbled and burnt, as if someone had tried to bring it down.

The hero approached said wall and examined it, then noticed discoloration in the stone and moved closer, only to leap back as the discolored stone gave way, revealing a long hidden alcove with a lone dagger resting on a small stone platform. “Link, this is Blacktalon, and she now belongs to you.”

The dagger was a foot in length - its blade, six inches in length, two in width, point five in height at the crossguard, point two at the tip, was made of Damascus and Moonstone; its hilt of ivory and bone; twine of Dragon Heartstring and Phoenix Feather; the crossguard, its edges like clenched talons of a falcon, were of Silver and gold; and the pommel of Unicorn Horn. There were runes engraved in the arcane weapon, and when the moonlight filtering down through the remaining stone roof above struck them, they glowled dimly. Blacktalon was truly one of a kind.

“I...I can’t accept this…” But even so, Link returned the now cleaned Evil’s Bane to its scabbard, reached out and picked up the dagger, then lifted it from its resting place; and as he did so, the dagger suddenly caught alight and he almost dropped it to avoid the blue arcane fire as it traveled down the blade, the crossguard, hilt, pommel, and then watched as it set his gauntlet aflame. Yet, it didn’t hurt, and as the leather burnt away, revealing the Triforce of Wisdom and Courage, and his hand was laid bare, he could have sworn the dagger’s fire changed from blue to gold in color.

“She has chosen you to be her new wielder. A great honor, considering Blacktalon’s history. If she had not deemed you worthy, your hand would have been burned and you may have perhaps died.”

“What is it with holy swords and them burning people…”

The head scholar of the destroyed magical school seemed to ignore the previous statement and nodded. “We are able to leave this place, thanks to you and your allies. The upcoming months will test you, but you will prevail. Farewell, Link.” As Martin and the spirits around him began to vanish, the Hylian looked down at the dagger in his hand, then up towards the long dead scholar and took a step forward, “Wait, you never told me why Blacktalon is powerful!”

“I sense him approaching. Perhaps he can tell you about the lone weapon that can pierce his heart.”

“...’Him’? Lone weapon? Wait a second, you mean Blacktalon can kill Renik?!”

It was too late to question more, as the spirits then vanished and Link was the only one there besides Midna.

The black fog from earlier covered the ruins, there was a crack, then Link found himself looking up at Ableton, who smiled grimly as the fog cleared away to reveal that he was, once again, standing on a gravestone. “So, you freed them. Typical of heroes, they always want to help people. Feels good to finally have a unhealable injury doesn’t it?”

“What do you want?” Link stepped back as the man leapt from the gravestone to the forest floor.

“I’ll have you know your Queen has been very kind to me.”

“...What is that supposed to mean?”

“Are you so naive that you can’t understand what I meant? Very well, I shall explain it to you. I have made your Queen my wife, naturally speaking, and together she and I will rule over this world from my castle, Castellum Chalybis Atri.”

Link spent a few seconds trying to determine what the translation was, then shook his head. “Like I believe you, and what does that name even mean?

“It means castle of black steel, you dolt.”

He promptly ignored the insult. “How am I supposed to know what language that is?”

“That’s right, you don’t. It seems the rift you came through was faulty.”

This argument went on for a few more minutes until Ableton decided he had wasted enough time and cast a blue bolt of magic towards Link, who moved the dagger to his right hand, then drew the Master Sword and sent the spell back towards the Wizard.

Ableton blocked the magic with his robe and grinned. “You can’t harm me, remember? I’m not actually here.”

“Then stop hiding behind illusions and fight me!”

Ableton had appeared semi-solid before, but now he was clearly standing before Link. “Of course. Is this fight for honor, or is it to distract yourself from your new knowledge?”

“Far off, Renik.”

“Ah, there it is again. I’ve struck a nerve. Good.” Ableton smiled as he watched the Hylian set his jaw and start walking towards him.

“You’re too late to save her, you know. She is still alive, but her purity and magic are long gone, she caters to my every whelm,” the man stepped close to Link as he drew near and grinned openly, “and she is mine.”

Blood flew as Link swung the dagger at Renik and the Scion of the Order of the Midnight Sun’s face whipped to the side, then his jaw dropped as he glanced down at the Hylian. “How...How did you…” He reached up and felt blood running down his face on his right side, starting from his cheek. “That dagger...Where did you…” The man’s voice was naught but a whisper and his eyes filled with horror as he took a step back from Link and attempted to heal himself with magic, but nothing happened.

Link looked down at Blacktalon and then raised it. “Martin gave me this.”

He watched Renik’s face turn deathly pale as the man started to slowly walk backwards. “That...That is the weapon that sent me forward in time...The one they killed me with…”

Noting the Dark Lord’s reaction, Link swung the dagger and smiled slightly as the man began to back up even faster. “Then why was it here? Martin said they died to keep it safe from you, yet if you died to it…”

“Godric must have retrieved it then! I knew something was wrong when I killed Stalson.” Ableton walked backwards into a gravestone, which of course caused him to stop walking backwards. “And now it has chosen you of all people. What do you plan to do? Stab me? I am here, after all.”

“Gladly.” The Hero of Twilight threw the dagger in the air, caught it, then ran forwards, intending to injure Renik, but the man dodged, then tripped Link and as he fell, Ableton cast an orange bolt in his direction.

There was no way he could dodge the attack. Link simply raised the dagger, closed his eye, and waited for the spell to hit. Except nothing happened. He waited a second, then opened his eye to find a golden magical shield above him and Ableton attempting to break it with magic. In other words, he was trapped.

Then the Dark Lord was hit with magical energy and he flew backwards, the shield dissipated and Link got up, then silently nodded to Midna as she flew up to him, made sure he was okay, then began to cast her own magic at Ableton.

As the fight progressed, Link realized that this wasn’t about honor, or avenging Zelda, it was about proving himself. Ableton always stayed on his blind side and attacked without warning, earning him more eventual scars. More proof to back up his claims at least. But yet, Blacktalon was somehow hurting Renik.

Eventually Ableton seemed to grow tired of the fight and ended it cheaply by running up on Link’s blind side and knocked him out with a punch to the face, then apparated away. When Link woke up, he found that he only had more questions than answers and decided to head back to the clearing to inform the others of his discovery.

---

The Clearing; Arden Forest

The fact that he had fought Ableton yet again was concerning enough, however, Madi appeared to be over the moon that Link had possibly found something invaluable.

“Well it’s old…Really old…” Madi titled the dagger away from her. “Hang on, there’s runes…” She narrowed her eyes for a second and titled the dagger back and forth until she sighed and shook her head slightly. “I can’t make them out.” She held the dagger out in front of her and then looked thoughtful. “I have seen this dagger somewhere…” Her eyes lit up. “That’s it! Link, you know what this dagger is, right?”

“Well, I know it’s named Blacktalon and when I fought Ableton he seemed terrified of it. He said it’s the one he died to.”

“Yes! There’s an entire prophecy connected to it!” The Witch’s eyes sparkled in the light cast by the roaring fire nearby and she started to ramble on about ancient magic. As she talked, Link simply looked up at the night sky.

“Even more prophecies, wonderful.”

---

Link then stopped by Kiara’s tent to tell her and Miria that the Chimera had been killed, the spirits freed, and the ruins purified, before he decided to go talk to Lee in his tent and had sat down next to the man without invitation. He didn’t see anything wrong with it.

That had been five minutes ago and he had been talking to him about the fight with Ableton ever since. “I don’t know why Renik seems to be utterly infatuated -“ He realized what he had said and backtracked. “Not like that, more like he won’t leave me alone - wouldn’t it make sense for him to seek Madi out instead of me? Because of the whole prophecy she was caught up in? Wasn’t it fulfilled when she killed him the first time? If so, then what role do I have in this...I just don’t understand…”

He gave the Healer a side glance, then adjusted his weapons and gear and leaned back to look up at the pitched tent ceiling. “I’m honestly tired of prophecies. They don’t seem to serve any purpose except somehow telling what might happen. Hel, most of the time, they don’t even get fulfilled; every so often they do, but not enough that they’re credible.” Link slightly moved his head to the right and looked up at Lee. “What about you? What’s your opinion on them?”

[The Japanese Americans]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion; December/Lanseh 1st, 2019/1756; The Clearing; Arden Forest

Link then stopped by Kiara’s tent to tell her and Miria that the Chimera had been killed, the spirits freed, and the ruins purified, before he decided to go talk to Lee in his tent and had sat down next to the man without invitation. He didn’t see anything wrong with it.

That had been five minutes ago and he had been talking to him about the fight with Ableton ever since. “I don’t know why Renik seems to be utterly infatuated -“ He realized what he had said and backtracked. “Not like that, more like he won’t leave me alone - wouldn’t it make sense for him to seek Madi out instead of me? Because of the whole prophecy she was caught up in? Wasn’t it fulfilled when she killed him the first time? If so, then what role do I have in this...I just don’t understand…”

He gave the Healer a side glance, then adjusted his weapons and gear and leaned back to look up at the pitched tent ceiling. “I’m honestly tired of prophecies. They don’t seem to serve any purpose except somehow telling what might happen. Hel, most of the time, they don’t even get fulfilled; every so often they do, but not enough that they’re credible.” Link slightly moved his head to the right and looked up at Lee. “What about you? What’s your opinion on them?”

Lee took another swig from his can of alcohol before crumpling it and putting it in his Inventory. He had spent the last little while getting drunk, having finished four cans by now. He was quite drunk by now, and had temporarily drowned any guilt he had. So far he had mostly listened to Link, only affirming that he was listening at the proper times. "Well, I think they're complete bullshit and serve no other reason than to entertain the celestial beings above. From what I've seen in my world, it's either a fetch quest that takes way too long or save the world while facing numerous bullshit challenges. And, what's more, is that at least a ninth of the world population is related to a god somehow. An easy example is Zeus. Lord of the Sky and Storms, King of the Greek Gods. Back in the olden days, pretty much whenever a pretty Greek girl turned fourteen or so, he showed up and tried to get them pregnant. I know of at least fifteen people related to him either as a father or grandfather. And that's personally. Now, thankfully, he waits until they turn 18, at least. And, to finally loop back to prophecies, a lot of his kids are involved in some one way or another. Any Greek prophecies, at least. I know that sometimes a demigod will have kids with another pantheon, and things get kind of confusing then." He paused for a moment, taking into consideration how much he had just said. "How much of my drunken rambling did you understand?"

Link hadn't realized that Lee had taken to drinking spirits and he felt slightly uncomfortable knowing that the man was drunk. On the other hand, Lee seemed to be the non violent type. "I understood enough. How many bottles of spirits have you downed?"

"Four cans of beer. Tastes good, surprisingly enough. Usually, beer tastes horrible. Want some?" Fumbling around in his Inventory, he eventually drug out two cans. He held one out to Link. Keeping some of his sense, at least, he realized that Link may not know how to open it. "You know how to open cans? It just occurred to me that you may not know how."

Link eyed the metal container in Lee's hand, then glanced towards the front of the tent and sat up, then shook his head. "No. Cork glass bottles, those I know how to open, if you have any." 'Am I really doing this? Then again, I think I honestly deserve every right to.'

Lee eyes seemed to unfocus for a moment before he reached into his Inventory and pulled a cork bottle out. "Took this from the ship before all hell broke loose, along with a few other bottles. I think it's also beer, but I'm not sure. Ironically, I don't know how to open these while you don't know how to open cans." He handed the bottle to Link and tossed the second can back into his Inventory.

The Hylian seemed to hesitate, then he took the glass bottle from the Healer and looked at it. 'Wait. This is Venison Draught. How did Lee get this?' Venison Draught had long been renowned in Hyrule and the surrounding kingdoms as being "a warrior's spirit", a rum one commoningly drank before battle and afterwards. Link had heard rumors of competitions between the strongest warriors and knights to see who could down the most pints in one sitting. "Lee..." Link titled the bottle back a bit, watching the dark liquid inside slosh around before he titled it towards him. "This is the most popular spirit in Hyrule." The Hero of Twilight honestly thought about saying no and setting down the bottle, but then, he figured, he had every right in the world. And so, he used the dagger to pull the cork from the bottle, set the dagger down, then eyed Lee. "If anything happens to me, it'll be your fault. This is my first time drinking spirits, and I have no idea what my tolerance level is." He then, after a moment, sampled the rum and held the bottle away from him a bit. "Hmm...It...It's certainly interesting..."

Lee simply smiled. "Oh please, we'll probably both be passed out drunk in an hour or two at the most. Though, it is interesting that that came from your world. It's entirely possible that I just looted some boxes and just don't remember it. I was quite tired when we got to that storeroom." He popped his can open and took a swig out of it. "Now, I will try to help you so this time isn't a bad experience for you, but if we both wake up naked next morning inside the dead snake, we're both to blame. Mainly because I said so right now and warned both of us."

Link simply stared at Lee. "...Well....I've heard rumors of worse things happening....Let me just say several people were fired because of what happened while they were drunk." he glanced towards the front of the tent again, then raised the glass bottle a bit. "Let's find out how high my tolerance level is, shall we?"

Lee raised his can and clinked it against Link's bottle. "We shall." And then he took another swig.

---

'. . . ? . . . What . . . Where. . .Where am I...? I don't...remember? Ow...my head....What happened?'

'Wait....What's that...Glass? ...glass....bottle.......Wait.'

'Far.'

'I...I drank spirits. Okay, okay, focus. Ah...Am I still in Lee's tent or...?'

Lee's eyes snapped open and then immediately closed shut again. Oh, this one was a doozy. Okay, focus. Left leg is fine. Right leg is fine. Left arm is... under something warm and furry? Oh fuck, what happened last night? He slapped himself in the face with his right hand and muttered, "Heal." Opening his eyes, he found what he had expected. Link in wolf form, who he had clearly cuddled up to during the cold night due to a lack of blankets to keep warm, judging by the pile of them in the corner. Curse his drunk mind! Focusing his magic through his left hand, he cast Heal on Link as well before extracting his trapped arm from under Link.

Link's mind suddenly focused and he realized that he was in Wolf Form, then that something moved beneath him and he turned his head to find himself looking at Lee. His mind went blank for a second. '...Do...Do I even want to know what happened....?'

"Before you ask, I have no idea what happened last night. We got drunk, we clinked drinks, and that's all I can be sure about. Other than that, I remember running through the woods naked. Not even sure it was real. We just have to hope, and not ponder whether a certain body part feels sore." He paused for a moment. "Fuck, I made us think about it."

In response, the wolf merely shook his head, then pawed at his face for a bit. Hopefully Lee got the memo that he wasn't turning back any time soon. And that he too, was severely hoping what Lee was obviously referencing did not happen. Because, neither of them remembered what had happened, therefore, it very well could have happened, and neither of them would have been any none the wiser.

"Moving on then. How did you like your first time?" He paused for a moment, before his expression changed to show his internal screaming at the double meaning of it.

Link decided to purposely misinterpret the question, just to see what Lee's reaction was. "Well, even IF it didn't happen between us, my actual first time, I admit, it was certainly awkward, I mean, no one is supposed to be a god at it all, but we figured it out...I wonder how she's doing....how much time has passed back home...To answer your possible question, drinking spirits is quite interesting." On a whim, he - the Master Sword was gone. The wolf looked around, but didn't see it anywhere in the tent, nor the golden chain. Meaning he couldn't change back. "Far."

Lee almost freaked out when Link started his answer but calmed down when he realized Link was messing with him. Then, noticing that Link's sword and his chain were gone, Lee chuckled. "Well, at least I still ha- .... Fuck. Mine are gone, too. I must have been massively shitfaced for that to happen." Lee, of course, checked his Inventory first. No such luck. "Well, time to backtrack our drunken escapades."

"It'd help if we can remember anything...It would also help if we left your tent." The wolf trotted over to the front of the tent, looked at it for a second, then took the drawstring in his jaws and started attempting to open the flap.

Lee watched as Link struggled with the flap of the tent. Then he turned around and opened the other side. "The entrance is over here. That's the window."

Link watched as Lee opened the other flap of the tent, then looked down at the drawstring, dropped it, then the wolf absentmindedly sniffed the ground near the 'window' and trotted over to Lee. "You might want to watch where you aim. Just a thought." Link then left the tent before Lee could start yelling at him.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if everyone had made up their own theories as to what had happened and Madi informed them that they had climbed trees and tried to kill each other with their weapons several times - Link noted whether he had been clothed or not wasn't mentioned which worried him - After Madi yelled at Lee for letting Link drink alcohol, she gestured towards the Hot Springs. "Your stuff is somewhere over there."

The wolf took off towards the Hot Springs, Lee hopefully following.

Lee was cool with what had been explained to them. At least they hadn't done that as far as they still knew. And he took the berating from Madi in stride. Link deserved some alcohol after what happened, he had reasoned. What's more was that he was surprised they had a hot spring nearby. He hadn't seen or heard of it before now, which made him happy because he had simply been using his survival hygeine kit so far. He followed after Link to the hot springs with a quite upbeat perspective on their situation.

The Hot Springs was a secluded area with trees surrounding a natural pool of water, fed by a waterfall and river above. Heating ducts warmed the water above in the river and below in the springs. There was a natural cavern behind the waterfall and a stone path around the pool. The two would find their weapons in the cavern. Thankfully, Link was wearing mostlyeverything when he turned back, save for that he was barefoot, and the two also discovered that nothing had happened between them. Faced with this information, the two returned to the camp and then parted ways, Link deciding to merely sleep the day away in his tent.

Lee, meanwhile, wanted to take the time to do something he had been wanting to do ever since he learned that Electricity Control book. And to do so, he headed off into the woods.

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

”Lagoon-5, this is Canary. Dropping out of approach vector, we’re setting down twenty metres from the rendezvous on a bearing of fifty twenty.” ”Canary, this is Lagoon-5, message acknowledged. You are clear for landing.” ”Agent September, this is HQ Argos. How copy? Over?” ”This is September actual. I copy, ten-ten.” ”What’s your status, over?” ”HQ, all operatives are ready and-... all operatives are accounted for.” ”Omission noted. Are they not ready? Over?” ”Not yet. No impact on ETA.” ”Copy that. I’ll switch you over to ground command. Terminating channel, over.”

She awoke to the sound of radio chatter and the smell of ozone. Something clattered in front of her head and without thinking, Polly reached out and pressed her hand against the top of her rifle, holding it to the bench in order to keep it from shaking. The dull chop of rotor blades carried through the walls and the floor, carrying on to the same rhythm as the throbbing inside her head. “Rough night?” Caitlin posed the question so casually that for a moment, she forgot that she was on an op to begin with. “More like a rough day,” she quipped back. It wasn’t a dishonest answer. Every minute of every hour was spent exercising, learning or coping with something.Her nerves ached like her muscles. Her ligatures trembled on their retaining bones, praying not to be exerted. She’d done well enough to hide the bruises of her own overexertion but there was nothing she could do to conceal how much she’d been abusing herself mentally. Thankfully, nobody had seemed to notice. Perhaps they just trusted a forty-something woman with a face like tempered steel to know her own limits. That, or they’d been ordered not to talk to her; the reasons varied on a case-by-case basis. She sat up and started dislodging lumps of coagulated rheum from her eyelids. She slid each orange lump off of her lashes with two fingernails then flicked them onto the floor, not knowing nor caring where they’d eventually end up. Her eye boogers’d find good homes down there, in amongst all the trash and hardware. There were seams in the ground of the old gunship, its last deployment having been on another planet, another universe entirely. No expense had been spared bringing the Argos into this dimension. Of course, that meant that expense had necessarily been spared on… well, literally everything else. Anything beyond her capacity to control was cheap, old or otherwise poorly maintained. Her service weapon, at least, was something that she could ensure the quality of. Every spring and locking mechanism had been polished, each facet of its construction affected by a judicious care. Stringency had always been one of her strong suits, though perhaps not caution or self-interest. It wasn’t that she lacked those things, it was just that she was following in the footsteps of her predecessor. She was treading old ground, learning to be someone that’d already come and gone. It felt like a futile effort, but it beat having nothing to strive for at all.

Caitlin dusted off her own weapon, a sleek looking thing made of silver and chrome as opposed to the black standard-issue AR that Polly had been issued. The moment that Cait laid her hands on her gun, Polly understood that the mission had begun in earnest. “Give HQ your sig, we’re getting off.” “Understood, September.” Now that they’d set down, their formal names were in use. In Caitlin’s case her alias was a pseudonym whose origin, when asked after, consistently elicited a fearsome glare and raised fist from the woman. Polly spoke into her cheek; “This is Delilah. Touching down.” Her partner nodded and stepped up toward the back of the gunship as a thin seam opened up near the point where the wall careened into the roof and sank a good two inches into the ceiling. The click of dozens of latches and the swelling thrum of activating electronics echoed about the ship’s chassis. A moment later the ground seemed to rise up to meet Polly’s feet, forcing her down on one knee just in time for the back of the vessel to gape like the mouth of a feeding whale, revealing a good dozen men and women in gray fatigues standing to attention, arranged like plastic soldiers in their orderly rows. Their rigid commander stood out front and as the door came down he and she locked eyes. His first reaction was plain disappointment. Nonetheless he declined to comment and laid two fingers on the radio in his breast pocket, demanding the attention of whoever was on the other end of the line with a voice like splitting wood and proximate thunder. “AEGIS is on the ground. Foxhound-8, you are cleared to disperse.” A thick black fog, dense as smoke and twice as pungent, seethed just above the ground. It stunk of peat and rotting algae, the effluvium of the natural world. Through it she could see tents and vehicles outlined in smog, emitting a sterile light that diffused and scattered in the mist. It was early morning and though the sun was out, it could not penetrate the thicket of moisture hanging over the bog. ”It’s an honour, Lieutenant Colonel Holdridge,” September began as she alighted from the landing craft. A little clearing had been made for the ship to land in, and its rotors had dispersed just enough of the fog that it looked as if the world cut off just a dozen metres from where Polly was standing, dropping off past that point into a ghastly realm of shadows and hazy silhouettes. “I am Agent September, this unit’s CO.” She did not pause to address him, instead she looked about three feet to his left and continued to walk in that direction as she spoke. He turned on his heel before her shoulder passed his, allowing himself to fall in beside her. They moved in lockstep, neither party willing to hesitate or pause for the sake of the other.

Polly followed closely and watched as the colonel’s retainers slid aside to permit the two most powerful people on site to walk between them. She cursed herself for not taking the initiative; now she was trailing behind her superior like a lost puppy. “I received a minimal briefing.” September intimated with no hint of derision in her tone yet bucketfuls of it in her words. Polly understood what she was trying to say. In summary: ”Your department didn’t give me any intel, jackass. What’ve you got to say for yourself?” Holdridge remained unperturbed. “Details were tight when you were dispatched. The situation has developed very little since then. Where’s the rest of your team, agent?” ”Did AEGIS send their dregs?” “Midnight Fenrir is on a different mission, suppressing militant groups in Inverclyde and Greater Glasgow. This situation did not seem to warrant an extreme application of force, as MSTs are trained to apply.” ”You’re far from being the most important thing on today’s itinerary.” As they made their way through the heart of the colonel’s camp the green haze closed around them. It felt warm against Polly’s face and it pressed upon her chest like a firm guiding hand. She crinkled her nose at the oppressive aroma of gasoline and fungal musk. A triangular light loomed out from the clag - a tent flap. The colonel and September pushed their way inward. Holdridge pulled back the flap just far enough that September would have to duck in order to enter. She shoved it out of the way entirely, taking Holdridge’s hand with it. The two stood at opposite ends of a wooden cartographic bench, flanked on either side by whiteboards, markers, security monitors and radio equipment, leaving only a scant few places for Polly to stand. She chose AEGIS’ end of the table. Sep and the colonel shared a look: ”Which way are we orienting the map?” Polly made the first move. She flipped the whole thing one-eighty degrees so that it was oriented toward her. The blue backlight beneath the map shone through the thick canvas and painted the room with an eerie pallor. The map was intricately detailed, like a close-up rendering of an old man’s face. Every crease and wrinkle represented an escarpment of earth or a dip in the landscape, each icon labelled the position of some important geographical feature. Great red lines demarcated patrol routes, troop lines and areas that’d been cordoned off. Notably, however, she could see that no roads had been highlighted, nor had the colonel marked the positions of any military bases. That meant, in all likelihood, that there were no supply lines for the camp nor any incoming reinforcements. Whatever the royal infantry were here to do, they expected it to be over before ever needing to resupply. She jabbed the centre of the map, around which a jagged black perimeter had been drawn. ”HMDS dispatch told us that we were being called in for a hostage rescue operation but nothing else. I want the identities of who we’re dealing with, who the hostages are, enemy headcounts and a summary of the resources at our disposal.” If either September or Holdridge disapproved of her seizing the moment, neither of them showed it. The colonel reached under the table and withdrew a manilla parcel with creased, well-worn edges. He extracted a baker’s dozen of laminated photographs from within it and handed them to Polly like he was presenting a hand of poker cards. “They’re wizards, a militant group calling themselves the Union for the Reunification of the Ministry of Magic. At 0200 hours today, the police picked up panicked calls from the buildings surrounding a warehouse by the River Aire, Leeds. First responders were on the scene in twenty minutes. They found the corpses of two of the seven dockhands who’d been working there that night. The other five, alongside a number of witnesses, couldn’t be located. That was, until someone managed to get a signal out from in the middle of Chat Moss, around eighty kilometres South West of their last reported location. At that point, the situation was out of the police’s hands. The thirty first, my unit, were called in to resolve the situation. We arrived, set up reality anchors around where they’ve fortified themselves and made ourselves known. Since then, no progress has been made. Every attempt that we’ve made to approach them has been met with overwhelming force. We only barely managed to set up a line of communications using one of the hostages’ phones. We aren’t sure of their precise location, but the phone’s signal is coming from somewhere within that black circle. The fog has made it impossible to triangulate its exact position.” He eyed the zone which Polly had gestured at earlier. ”What sort of requests have they been making?” She was trying hard to remember her lessons, those hours spent drilling the steps of hostage negotiation and the nuances of language into her brain. All the knowledge that she’d accumulated over these past few months still felt raw, like livid wounds in her psyche that’d not yet fully scabbed over. She was leaking information all the time, forgetting things almost as quickly as she was learning them. “Sensationalist ideological jargon - demands that we disperse and allow them to return to their homes, demands that the United Kingdom establish an independent magical state in Cornwall - things that we can’t and won’t do.” There had to be a deeper reason for them to have attacked the warehouse than just hatred for the United Kingdom. The wizarding underworld had been rife with civil and humanitarian crises for some time, it was likely that they’d seized resources of some kind. If they’d just wanted hostages they would’ve selected much more relevant targets, such as diplomats or officers of the military.

”Were any goods reported stolen from the warehouse?” The colonel shrugged with one shoulder. “We don’t have access to the building’s ledger, the only persons who had access to that data are dead or in the custody of terrorists. There’s no way to tell which crates were moved, either; the workers were in the middle of sorting recently received shipments when they were attacked. Forensics can’t help us determine what was stolen, if anything was taken to begin with. They might’ve taken anything from canned molasses to construction grade timber.” Polly didn’t entirely trust Holdridge to be honest with her but she saw no reason to doubt his testimony on that specific matter. Besides, it wouldn’t have mattered what the wizards had seized anyway. What was important was gathering actionable intelligence and extracting the hostages. ”Have they tried to escape? Launched any attacks, tried to apparate, et cetera?” “Absolutely. Our reality anchors are picking up EVE disturbances once every thirty seconds. They’re constantly probing our grid, trying to find a gap.” ”Have you made any agreements with them yet?” “They’ve stated that as long as we keep the reality anchors from affecting the area within the blackzone, they won’t arbitrarily terminate any of the hostages.” The easiest way to resolve the situation would’ve been to power down the arrays and let the wizards leave, of course, but then they’d have no way of guaranteeing the hostages’ safety. There would be nothing stopping the wizards from just taking their captives with them following the jump. If that happened, the lives of those civilians would be held over the army’s head until god-knows-when. If the colonel had decided to bring AEGIS into the equation, that could only mean one thing. ”You want the UMM dead and the hostages in one piece.” “That’s the idea, yes.” ”And you understand that by having us engage in combat, you’re giving up operational authority within the blackzone to AEGIS?” Holdridge scowled. “Those may be the terms of our agreement but I’m not obliged to abide by the rulebook. Those are my people, I won’t let diplomacy endanger their lives.” September interrupted him with a declaration of her own, backing her words with just enough mettle that they scythed through his conviction to speak while not coming off as entirely antagonistic. “I would warn you against addressing my subordinate that way, colonel. If we enter the blackzone, I won’t have your gung-ho attitude imperilling my men.” They locked eyes for a moment and an electric crackle seemed to build in the air between them. All the hairs on the back of Polly’s neck stood on end. She wasn’t sure whether it was because she was worried for herself or September, who was putting herself on the line to protect her. “Of course, Agent.” September leaned back; Polly hadn’t even noticed that the woman had moved forward so much as she’d confronted the colonel. At that moment a man slipped his way into the tent behind them. He clicked his heels together and gave Holdridge a stiff salute. “Sir!“ The colonel took long strides toward him and held out his hand. The soldier passed him a small, brutal looking black device hewn from plastic and iron. With a quick word of dismissal the colonel sent his lackey out of the room and returned to his position at the head of the table. He held out the phone, presenting it like a gemstone to the assembly before him. “This is the device that we’ve been using to keep in contact with the UMM.” He placed it on the table, pressed a button on the side and stepped back. Polly shot him a confused glance. He gestured at the phone as if to suggest… something. Polly spoke directly at it. ”Come in, this is Agent Delilah of MST-ALU Midnight Fenrir. Who’s on the other end of the line?” A voice came through the speaker then, made demonic with distortion and the crackle of barely registered background noise. “I am Crane Selket, special auror of the Ministry of Magic, first class.” She could hear him spitting into the receiver, punctuating every word with a mote of malice. Polly couldn’t help but notice that September was hanging back, looking to her subordinate to guide the conversation. Was she doing this for her benefit, or was it some kind of test? She didn’t want to look bad in front of her CO, let alone someone as close to her as Sep, so she kept her voice steady and her language as formal as her limited vocabulary would allow. ”You are a member of the UMM, correct?” “The Union for the Restoration of the Ministry of Magic, yes.” ”Good, then we’re on the same page. Tell me, what is the goal of your organisation?” “To drive your ilk back into the hovels from which you crawled, obviously. I wonder why you recoiled when you first ‘discovered’ us. Are you afraid?” He had a warbling laugh, like a hyena’s. The conversation was not developing as she’d hoped it would. She’d avoided telling him that she was with AEGIS but apparently, his spite for nonwizards was great enough that it hadn’t mattered. And, furthermore, he’d just stated that his goal was to oppose the muggles, not to save his own people. If he had said that he desired the latter, she could’ve taken advantage of that to get some information out of him. Even so, she was sure she could still get a little blood from this stone.

”Are you willing to negotiate, Mr. Selket?” “Oh, absolutely; we’ll sort out the terms of your surrender.” Again, a dead end. Christ, what would get through to this guy? She didn’t dare risk asking to be put on the line with someone else, she already knew that he’d refuse. Unless... she could get someone who superseded him in authority to pick up the phone. ”Is there anyone else listening in on this conversation?” “Absolutely nobody that you need to meet.” well, nevermind then. She chewed on her lower lip, knowing that if she asked him directly, he’d wise up to what she was trying to do. Any application of verbal force would be met with even greater resistance. The man was like oobleck, hardening every time he got under pressure. A few sentences ago he’d responded to the suggestion that they negotiate with mockery. However, he hadn’t turned down the idea in its entirety. That meant that the idea of being pliable was still open to him, however slim the chances of him deciding to cooperate were. Still, she avoided presenting her suggestion as such. “I have absolutely no interest in harming your organisation’s goal of reinstating the Ministry of Magic. Fact is, the only thing that matters to me is the lives of my people. I would advise that you cut your losses. None of you need to be jailed or killed today; you still have an opportunity to get out of this without losing anything.” She appealed to a higher ideological power, knowing that his motivations were driven by strong moral convictions and a firm worldview rather than mere greed or a misunderstanding of the situation. In doing so she hoped to make him stop thinking of himself as an individual and start considering his circumstances from the perspective of a member of a community. He was trapped, alongside his associates. If he grew conscientious about the group, rather than just himself, he’d be much easier to work with. Or at least, that was her theory. ”Think about whether this is the hill that you want to die on. When the dust settles, we’ll need strong leaders to forge a new peace.” She had a hunch that he considered himself the leader of the group. Whether that was true or not was entirely irrelevant. Besides, she wasn’t only talking to him, she was also talking to anyone who happened to be listening to the conversation. Even if she couldn’t get through to him, she hoped that she could convince one of his accomplices to start having second thoughts about what they were doing, doubting whether Selket was the best negotiator they had on hand. People tended to grow stubborn when they were afraid, but anyone’s resolve would crumble in the face of uncertainty. ”We’ll arrange a trade in bodies. We’ll let two of you go if you agree to release one hostage.” She couldn’t possibly offer to bring down the reality anchors. If she did, then there’d be nothing stopping them from slipping away all at once, or from bringing a hostage with them. ”You’ll make your way out on foot with the hostage between you. The hostage will remain at a distance of at least two metres from you, while we will not come any closer than ten metres.” The intent of that clause was to ensure that they couldn’t maintain skin contact with the hostage, therefore preventing them from apparating away with them once they’d left the reality anchors’ area of effect. ”Once you have reached a pre-established location beyond the influence of the reality anchors, you will apparate to whatever location you wish, leaving the hostage behind.” Her plan was solid. There were no ways for either side to take advantage of the situation, as far as she knew. And beyond that, she’d just ensured that if the UMM agreed to the transaction, one of the members that they’d send would have to be capable of apparition; ergo if they accepted the deal, they’d be forced to give up someone with an indispensable talent. She’d created a no-loss situation for herself. If the wizards took the deal, their numbers would be reduced. If they didn’t, she would lose nothing. Plus, by bringing up the deal, she’d just told them - without being overt about it - that escape was possible. The people she was facing up against were civilians and former government officials, not soldiers. If even one of them started to succumb to self interest, she could count on them to, if not betray the group, then at the very least argue against harming the hostages, since Polly had just ascribed a degree of value to them. One hostage was now worth two wizards’ lives; a bargain price.

Silence on the other end. Then finally, a quieter, yet still firm response. “As if we could ever fall for such an obvious lie. This conversation is over.“ The line went dead. Holdridge pocketed the phone and made no comment. September turned to her protege and put on the faintest trace of a smile. “I think that went well.” ”Really?” “No big missteps. I would’ve done it very differently, but I think your approach is as workable as any. So what’s next?” She was immediately taken aback by those words. Was she really being asked to direct the mission? Sep had taken an extremely hands-off approach to the op thus far, only stepping in in order to support Polly in some way. ”You’ll belay anything that I say if it’s obviously wrong, right?” “There’s no right or wrong, there’s only planned and unplanned.” That wasn’t an answer, but Polly wasn’t about to bring that up with her commanding officer. ”... I think we’re inevitably going to have to breach. I was only trying to soften their defences with diplomacy, my intent was to make them let down their guard and sacrifice some of their members. I don’t think we’ll be able to resolve the situation without getting our hands dirty. Selket is just too concerned with his dogma and xenophobia to pack up and leave, and the same probably goes for at least a few of his allies.” “So are we going loud?” ”Possibly. There might be a few more little things to sort out; information to gather, leads to pursue, stuff like that.” Sep crossed her arms and nodded. “I’ll suit up, then. Be back in five, wait here.” She stepped out into the dark, taking all of Polly’s self assurance and confidence with her. She couldn’t help but feel as if this was a test, and that she was the only person who wasn’t in on it. Was September assessing her? Trying to see whether she was ready to become a permanent fixture of the squad? She’d been on her toes since she’d joined AEGIS, always worried that she was being manipulated somehow. Johann’s attempts to control her had, at the very least, been relatively transparent. Ever since he’d gone mad, though, it had seemed as if she’d been accepted fully into AEGIS. She still didn’t trust them, however, and couldn’t help but wonder whether someone else was pulling the strings now; someone more competent than Johann had ever been, so much so that she didn’t even know that she was being played. It hurt, more than anything else, to know that the people she felt close to were also those most likely to be puppeteering her. She felt like a leper, kept from getting too close to anyone else yet still feeling a need for connection. She just wanted… someone. Anyone she could talk to. She hadn’t let herself be vulnerable in so long that she’d forgotten who she was, underneath that gruff and shiny exterior. She was almost afraid to let herself go, in case her true self was uglier, weaker, more cowardly than she’d remembered. “I asked after you in specificity.” Holdridge’s words intruded into her palace of introspection, bringing her back to the present. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you on the list. The last time I saw you was when you were in London. Czernobog brought our nation to its knees, and I watched you burn it to little cinders.” ”You had high expectations when you called me down here?” “No, I didn’t.” He was strangely sombre, sorrowful even. “In fact, I’m almost certain that you’re not going to get this mission done. Not after what I just saw.” She didn’t understand. What was he getting at? Was he insulting her abilities for the sake of doing so? “My son died in London. He was in Saint Thomas’ Hospital evacuating the maternity ward when the roof caved in. He wasn’t anywhere near the combat zone. How do you think he died?” ”I’m guessing that you’re about to tell me.” “The upper floors and roof of the building were supported by steel girders, which were themselves surrounded by thin frames of plaster and timber. The official report says that the beams were ripped out of the ground at mach four. The whole building came down in five seconds, maybe less.” Her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers went numb. “I had to know what you looked like. More importantly though, I had to know whether you remember that; killing my son.” She gripped the edge of the table. ”That’s classified.” “No, don’t talk to me as an officer, talk to me as a father. Do you remember doing that?” ”It can’t be true. I wouldn’t have.” On the outside it seemed as if she’d dismissed his claim outright. Internally, however, a seed of doubt began to grow. Her past self was all the proof that she had that she could be strong, maybe even good. She railed against disillusionment. If she had known that the colonel was going to tell her this before he’d dropped it on her, she would’ve had time to put up her mental defences. Now that he’d pierced her psychological barriers, however, her mind was laid open and raw. Even if she hadn’t been trying to hurt anyone, she’d still been wildly irresponsible. What would’ve driven her to do something like that, she wondered? Saying that she’d done it for the greater good felt like a lame excuse, and even then working toward the greater good wasn’t necessarily an admirable thing to do to begin with. If she couldn’t protect that which was right in front of her, how could she hope to help the world at large? “It happened. Not just to me, either.” ”So what are you going to do?” “Keep living. I just thought you ought to know.”

Holdridge left to command his men and Polly was left in the tent. She had just enough time to collect herself before September came back. She wasn’t really okay; her insides still churned and she still felt an inescapable sense of disappointment about herself, but she’d gotten very good at hiding her feelings over the past few months. It’d been necessary to her survival and keeping her true feelings unknown to AEGIS. Sep walked in with a stout metal briefcase in her hand. She gently folded up the colonel’s map and stowed it away beneath the table before setting the case down. It was a sturdy thing with two great locks on its front, each of which Sep flipped up. The case did not open along a single seam, no; it folded open like a piece of origami being made in reverse, splitting along many planes until it had unfurled into a roughly rectangular plate lined with black velvet. Polly knew the items in the case by heart. There was a thin white garment covered in hexagons to be worn over her shirt - a nullification matrix to prevent her from being killed or lobotomised instantly by a stray spell. She slipped it over her arms then watched as it adopted the texture and colour of the tent’s canvas, already serving to conceal where she was. Then there was the assortment of knives, the NV goggles, the flares and the rolls of tourniquets, gauze and bandages. Everything was flat-packed, even the radios: she didn’t know how AEGIS had managed to make them so thin and to be honest, the answer would’ve gone over her head anyway. She packed light, taking only a flashlight, pistol, gasmask and unfolding shield with her in addition to the standard fare. She was halfway through strapping an ammo pouch to her belt when September began talking. “They really screwed the pooch on this one. Truth is, we’re living through the aftermath of a blunder bad enough to make Operation Barbarossa blush.” ”Hm? How so?” “You heard what Holdridge said. His troops were met with overwhelming force when he tried to venture into the blackzone. That means he tried to get in, and failed. That’s probably why Selket was so damn wary; it’s ‘cause he thinks we’re trying to kill him.” ”So you think he called us in to clean up his mess.” “I know he did. I’ve been on enough missions to know the difference between when we’re cleaning up one of mother nature’s mistakes, and when we’re cleaning up after some dipshit CO who made the wrong call.” She sighed deeply. “So, are you ready?”

[Rostavykhan]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion
Katya

Katya was annoyed.

Scratch that - Katyusha was annoyed. She followed the plan, but it didn't terribly interest her - nothing ever did when it involved hushed plotting and drawn-out conferences over dimly-lit tables. She just wanted to get moving, and get the mission done, honestly. The planning, she understood, was important. Like with so many things, planning was the most important thing to do, but it was also the most tedious. It was the most stressful. Talking about how to skin the metaphorical cat, getting worked up over what-ifs and bickering when lines needed to redrawn, and stressing out as anxiety and doubt crept at them, gnawing and growing fat on their fears, all while they waited to move from planning to implementation. For Katya's part, she was thankful that she had some help to control that gnawing. Medication helped her to suppress that angst better. Otherwise, she would have been a pacing, impatient mess throughout the briefing and negotiation.

For once, she didn't quite feel like being the centre of attention. AEGIS was collaborating with the British, and that meant that she wanted to keep as low of a profile as possible. Seeing as she was a foreign agent, it wouldn't have been very good for her if her true identity or allegiance was disclosed to them. She'd lay low and avoid the gazes of those soldiers, and if they did happen to look her way, then she'd let them continue to believe that she was simply another operative in league with the other shady reality-hoppers. While September butted heads with the other CO, and while Polly swapped words with their target, Katya had held her tongue. She'd been oddly quiet for most of the ride there, either staring off into space on their transport, or staying behind the other two women throughout their plotting. She figured that it was more their business than hers anyhow, and besides, she had other things on her mind that morning than impressing September or being recognized by Holdridge.

Once the chatter was over, she made her move, meeting back up with Polly and September, after spending most of the conversation in the corner. She watched them get outfitted, and wondered if she would also be receiving any of that fancy armour. "So, we can assume that our enemy is stronger than we'd been led to believe?", She asked, lowering her voice and propping her hands on her hips. "And what sort of blunder are we discussing here?"

[Naval Monte]

---

Strange saw an old man holding a shotgun stepping out of the van and began to approach  him. At first Strange was on guard just encased the old man tried to do anything but he would surprise the sorcerer when the old man called him out and said he was an old friend, the hug only further confused him greatly.

So many questions were going through Strange's mind about the man but luckily the old man would provide the sorcerer the answers he seeks when he revealed not only his name but the name of a place he hasn't heard for a very long time. "Steffen? Steffen is that really you? My god you have aged a lot. What happened to you?" The surprised sorcerer asked. He pondered if perhaps Steffen was cursed to age rapidly or he was stuck in a dimension that caused him to age much faster than him?

Strange would soon be made aware of Steffen's other party members as Edward introduced himself and thanked him for assisting them. "Your welcome." Before he can ask what was going on his mind would be struck by recognition over Edward's last name, one that brought back even more memories.

"Saladass, as in the same family that Henry Saladass belongs in? Are you his brother? Cousin?" When Edward mentioned he leads a group called the Descendants and their mission to end a conflict since the end of a war Strange would say. "Bloody hell, Heney found a wife. I never thought that would ever happen." The bemused sorcerer said as the realization struck him hard.

He would then be shocked to hear that Haikarakainen was working with them! "Are you sure that Haikarakainen can be trusted Edward?" He asked. He would hear the others and once more he was soon chosen why they chose Descendants as their group name. "Jeez now you all are making me feel old by being around you all. All we need is to be inside a spaceship for the nostalgia to truly hit me." Strange let out a chuckle as some of the memories from his past adventure return to him.

When asked how the two knew each other the sorcerer would look around. "I will share the full story once we aren't being shot at but to abridge it we fought against the IGSE and Chimera a long time ago with several people on our side." He explained. "Now tell me what have I've woken up to a d why was I dragged into this mess?"

---

Seeds of Anxiety

Chaos reigned in the warehouse as the yokais flames spread throughout the warehouse. Ancient machines began to have their rusty metals groan loudly as the heat began to reach the boiling point of such useless metals. Stained and moldy papers containing barely eligible documentation of past activities of what the warehouse once engaged in during better times were now being reduced to ash, the information they once held now lost forever. Old computer monitors exploded due to the heat of the flames, hurling shards of glass at any nearby targets. 

The aged wood, even those wet, easily caught on fire. Throughout the building smoke began to travel throughout the structure and even exit it from the broken windows and the hole made from the demon. Dowell saw the smoke exiting the building and cursed. "Damn thing is going to attract the fire department to our location. We have to banish that thing and get out of here before they show up." The old agent shouted. 

Just as some were preparing to fight against the yokai all action would cease as a terrible noise would be heard. A scream that none ever heard would not only assault their eyes but their very mind and soul. The scream was one of pain, fear, and rage of levels hitherto unfathomable to everyone who heard it. But worse than the feeling it brought was the sheer raw power behind it. It far eclipsed anything in the town that AEGIS was aware of. Neither the demon nor the yokai can hope to match it. The power felt was primal, eldritch, and immensely dark. While those sensitive to ethereal forces were hit the hardest like Paige who fell to her knees shivering in pure horror over what she was feeling, those who could not sense supernatural phenomena grew pale as the scream and the power accompanying it hit them suddenly.

The fire that raged in the warehouse ceased as the Yokai had a look of pure horror over the same thing they experienced. Without warning the Yokai would begin to spin his body and break through the wall to flee. The remaining masked intruders would also begin to flee in a mad panic as due a few agents. The agent close to Steve would draw his gun and point at him. "Don't you dare use that book against them. We are not having a repeat of that sudden Yokai attack. Hand over the book now."

As the agent delivered the threat he and the others would hear a new sound that while not as terrible as the scream was still a sound none wanted to hear. They heard wood groaning and spiltener along with metal supports groaning loudly. Denton screamed out what was on everyone's mind. "The whole place is coming down! We need to leave now!" The ceiling above would begin to collapse above the agents as those outside would see levels of the warehouse falling down onto itself.

In the other warehouse the demon still remained in spirit. It left its body to create the false sense of security that the group defeated it and that it was dead. It was planning on possessing one of them but the scream made it hesitant on doing so. As the demon watch the warehouse collapsing on most of the group it decided to stay back and let the aging structure do its job.

[Demincia]

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain, Cymru
Kivela

Pieces of wood and rubble fell, some of them hitting the werewolf across the back which served to enrage her more. She roared and threw the debris to one side, still focused on one thing. She sniffed the air a couple of times before flattening her body close to the ground. "Still hereeee..." she growled, sensing the continuing presence of another demon.

She paced around the exterior of the collapsing structure, still on guard. "You can't hide from me! I smell your stench!" Kivela hissed. "This won't save you... I enjoy the hunt."

[Nagakawa]

The Eight Line Tale
Tokyo
On the highway to Haneda Airport

-

"I think we should talk a bit more", said Edward, drawing an eight-chambered revolver from his suit, "but first..." He unleashed a series of perfectly-aimed shots that took out the soldiers in the immediate vicinity of the truck. At the same time, Hitomi climbed off the back of the truck gingerly, tapping along with her cane and stepping out of the force shield, and then coming face to face with the commander of the platoon that had intercepted their pickup truck.

"I see you", she said to the commander, smiling and opening her eyelids to reveal her blind eyes.

The commander suddenly tensed up violently and collapsed headfirst onto the ground, frothing at the mouth, as if he had been cursed. With a wave of her hand, the energy field disappeared, and the highway suddenly became silent.

"Come, friends", said Salome in her usual deadpan voice. "Let's take one of their trucks."

...

Having stolen the key from one of the bodies, Salome managed to start up and refuel one of the armoured military jeeps, and thus, the five Descendants and Strange got into the truck and drove onwards to Haneda Airport, the morning sun slowly rising over the chillingly empty roads.

"I suppose the most logical explanation for the... gap in age... is that time passes differently in different dimensions", said Edward, sitting in the shotgun seat and shaking the ashes of his cigarette out the window as Salome sped along the highway at 70kph and complained to herself under her breath that the armoured jeep could go no faster. "Like, say, if Tweedledum and Tweedledee were to spend time in Manichaean Plane and the Gnosis Verse, they would no longer be the same if they were to return to their home dimension..."

"Yea, but it feels so fucking long", Steffen complained, playing with his dentures with his tongue. "And yet... Strange, you've not aged a bit. By the way, have you realised that we have the same first name? Different spelling, maybe, but..."

In the seat to the other side of Strange, Isamu sat pensively, holding on to the briefcase in which the Maju Codex had been hidden. It seemed a dark cloud had descended over his face, as if the emotional and spiritual burden of holding on to the book was beginning to take a toll on his physical body.

"The IGSE and the Chimaera are both gone", explained Salome, breaking her characteristic silence to fill Strange in on the details of the time following his absence. "My grandfather Isaiah Haikarakainen was killed when his ship collided with the thing he had ordered released. The thing that the IGSE had created to secure its grip over the future was the very thing that destroyed it. Ironic." She chuckled in an almost sadistic fashion.

"Jaldabaoth", Edward explained for Salome, who was too young to know what exactly had transpired during the Nameless War. "It was a superweapon created by the IGSE. The weapon to end all weapons. It has, since the end of the war, disappeared. Most of us still don't quite know what, let alone where, it is."

They drove along the highway a little longer.

...

As they drove onward towards the airport, the scenery outside seemed to warp. Distortions appeared in the landscape, as if it were all a screen that was glitching due to a corruption in data. The blue sky too seemed to open and close like a great maw, revealing cracks in the fabric of reality.

"It's happening", Steffen declared darkly, raising his hands up as Salome continued speeding down the highway which, by now, seemed to be endless. "The End of the Ages. Henry warned us about this..."

Isamu clutched the briefcase and winced in agony. Tears welled up in his eyes. Holding on to the Maju Codex was taking an immense toll on his mortal body.

"Let somebody else hold the book, for pity's sake", Edward pleaded, then, turning to Strange, continued, "Sorry you have to see this. We're a little... well..."

A bolt of black lightning cracked the sky open, hurtling down furiously towards the ground and splitting the road in half, throwing the jeep into the sky.

"HOLY SHIT!"

"FUCK ME!"

Salome slammed her foot down on the accelerator in vain, as if attempting to deploy wings that weren't there, only to be hit in the face by an airbag, causing blood to splurt down her mouth as she bit her tongue from the shock of the airbag. Steffen, Hitomi, and Edward leaned forward and cradled their heads in their arms, preparing for the eventual impact.

Except it didn't come.

...

When they came to, Strange and the Descendants found themselves in a land composed entirely of amethyst. In the deep night sky hung a great planet looming ominously over the crystalline landscape (suggesting that they were in fact on a moon), and in the distance, what seemed like a massive pillar of light shooting into the sky could be seen, along with a gunmetal starship parked near to it.

The six were out of the jeep. It had been mangled beyond all recognition, just as one would expect if it had taken the fall that it did, but aside from bruises and scratches, Strange and the Descendants had escaped relatively unscathed.

"Where's the Codex?" Isamu frantically searched about, fumbling in his tattered school uniform for the briefcase which he, upon regaining his wits, now realised was missing. His terrified eyes reflected the purple surface of the planet, and then a silhouette of a thin man standing at the edge of the cliff, holding the briefcase in his right hand and looking out into the distance, at the pillar of light and the starship. The colour seemed to flicker away here and there around the man- an aura of colourlessness, for lack of a better description.

"Hey! Who the hell are you!? Give back the briefcase!"

The man turned around halfway and pointed a finger at Isamu- the same way Hitomi had cursed the commander, Isamu fell forward and smashed into the ground, struggling to stand up as if he had been crushed under an invisible boulder.

"Are you not going to thank me?" the thin man asked rhetorically, "for saving you all?"

Hitomi smiled.

"I see you", she said, like a witch. "You've come to find us. You're the Thin White Duke."

The Thin White Duke
Leader of Arcana

"No, the Codex..."

"The Codex is beyond your control", the Duke said. "Not in these realms, no less. Do you really think mortals like you have the strength to rein in an ancient consciousness with power the likes of which our planes of existence have not seen for millennia?"

"You... bastard", Isamu gurgled, fighting hard against the invisible force pinning him to the ground. "Give... it... back..."

"And let you all be consumed by its darkness?" the Duke retorted. "I think not. I fear the worst... should the consciousness within the Codex use you as a conduit to claw its way back into our reality..."

The others remained mournfully silent.

"But enough of this", said the Duke. "Look over there- that pillar of light you see. We are on the moon of Chlununn-IV. That is the Northern Obelisk... one of the last remaining links into a nexus between worlds known as the Hotel."

Edward's eyes widened.

"You're kidding."

"Of course he's kidding", Steffen muttered. "We can't trust people like that. Who does he even think he is, and where did he even come from?"

"Go see for yourself", said the Thin White Duke, lifting his finger and releasing Isamu from the curse that pinned him to the ground. "I, too, shall follow you for the time being. It is in both our interests that no harm should come to you. Especially you, Dr Stephen Strange." He pointed at Strange. "I can tell you know a lot more than you are letting on..."

Edward looked at Strange and the rest of the group, as if seeking advice from them on whether or not to proceed with what the Thin White Duke had suggested.

"He's left us no choice", said Steffen, cracking his knuckles and turning around, unzipping his pants and taking a leak. "We should just try."

"Wise words", said the Duke coldly. "I can only hope you will eventually see reason."

And with that, with the briefcase in hand, the Thin White Duke leapt off the side of the cliff and charged towards the pillar of light at an inhumanly fast speed. He raised his free hand, and an eye appeared in his palm.

"Elena", he spoke to the eye, which functioned as a communication channel of sorts, "I have the Codex. Your assignment has changed. After you have signed the contract with the Fates, go to the moon of Nuoc-II with Hardin. There... you will await my further instruction."

...

Seeds of Anxiety
Lludw Cigfrain
Club Midnight

"Understood", said Elena. Then the eye in her own hand disappeared, and she quickly turned to face Remy once again.

"Apologies for the interruption, just some orders from my boss", she explained cooly. "As I was saying... the entrance to the Hotel of which we are currently aware is located on the moon of Chlununn-IV, at the northernmost pole. There is a ritual that has to be performed there. The specifics will be settled by my colleague, who has expertise in these things.

"So, what do you say, Mr Remy?" Elena smiled. "Deal, or no deal?"

...

[Nagakawa]

2 July 2080

Dear diary,
My name is Cpl David Nguyen. Born 11 November 2057, age 22, blood type O+, height 168cm, weight 64kg. I am a field medic in the 553rd Parachute Battalion, Foxtrot Company- at least I was. I don't normally like to keep diaries, but seeing as there's a big chance I'm probably gonna die in some horrible accident or something like that, I figured it's a good time to start. So much has happened in the past two days that I feel that I cannot not record it.

The general idea is that I have been moved from the 553rd to central Defence Force HQ. On paper, that's what it says. In reality, however, I have been posted to a top secret unit called ASSG 2131. I'm not even sure what I'm allowed to write in this diary. They told me that I can't post anything on the internet or tell anything to my family (it's just me and Gramps anyway), and the only record of my work I'm permitted to keep is a personal pen-and-paper diary which has to be on me at all times. Fair enough, I say, except if I die out in the field, who knows who this diary's gonna end up with.

I'm not even sure why I'm in ASSG 2131. It's a relatively new unit (hell, it doesn't even have a name, only a designation number), set up to monitor the rifts that keep opening up outside the Silver Knight. There's at most 70 people here, and that's including all the support staff like the clerks and the janitors. A lot of the other military guys here are special forces operators, veteran EOD techies with cyborg parts, and other mythical beasts like them.

Surprisingly, Bradan is here too. I think they posted him here as a clerk after he had that crazy allergic reaction to inathirolol, and also because of his high clearance level- no point wasting somebody with a clearance level like his by discharging him early. I just didn't expect he'd show up here of all places. Man's voice is loud as ever- I can hear him yelling "Dye-vid! Dye-vid!" down the corridor at me as I write.

--

It seems like shit is going down pretty damn fast. We just had a briefing from the commanding officer of ASSG 2131- this old guy, Dr Erasmus Forseti. He's a retired colonel and a microbiologist from the Central Government's infectious disease research unit. Anyway... there's a disease that's been going around outside, in the Wastelands. The Silver Knight is protected by the two walls, but outside... I can't even begin to imagine what's going on outside.

The disease doesn't have a name yet. It's caused by a mycobacterium of some sort, and it looks, on the outside, like leprosy. More terrifyingly, the case studies we've been shown indicate that the method of transmission is unknown, so we can't tell for sure if it's airborne, waterborne, whatever. Perhaps the scariest thing, however, is that the disease, in the mid-stages between its first becoming symptomatic and its finally killing the patient, causes a strange delirium of sort that causes the infected to speak in a language nobody has ever heard of. It's not even gibberish- the linguists in 2131 have assured us otherwise.

For now, we refer to it as the Rift Disease: RIDI. Incidences of RIDI, as the name suggests, seems to be clustered in the areas of the Wastelands where the concentration of the rifts are heaviest. That much is evident from the statistics they've found, but Dr Forseti wants to be hell sure. He has a point. There have been occasional rifts opening inside the Silver Knight in recent years, and god forbid the disease comes in too.

Tomorrow, a task force of nine men will be going out into the Wasteland to investigate further. Tomorrow, I will be leaving the Silver Knight for the first time in my life.

If there is a god, I pray to him that he will be with us.

---

Naval Monte and Nagakawa present
THE EIGHT LINE TALE

---

Part I of VIII: Twilight of a World

---

Nuoc-II (in orbit around the planet Nuoc)
Secure Inhabitation Installation 1 "Silver Knight"
Government Quarter
20 July, 2080

"So, the task force we sent into the Wasteland to investigate the link between the mycobacterium and the Rifts... has yet to come back or provide any form of sit-rep?"

"Yes, sir." The young lady in the military uniform nodded, scrolling through the several pages of reports on her data pad. The old man had a grandfatherly air about him, but still commanded respect and fear in equal proportion nonetheless. "We were last able to get through to them on 17-07-2080, at 0009hrs and 0014hrs. Two sit-reps from Corporal David Nguyen and Staff Sergeant Warren Chase."

sorry for the late report. medical checks on the team have been conducted. no abnormal lesions or red eyes in any of us. all team members have been administered with one tabs exepridin. -Cpl D. X. T. Nguyen

Apologies for the slight delay. We have asked around and found that one man living in a shack at MGR 2256-7013 is currently speaking in tongues. We are heading there to investigate. -SSgt W. E. Chase

"We believe that the speaker of tongues has something to do with their sit-rep being delayed", the young lady in the uniform continued explaining to the commander, scrolling furiously through the notes on her data pad. "Major Tom has been trying to reach them through the emergency channels, but no reply has been given."

"As I suspected", the commander mused to himself.

"Sir?"

Lifting his glass of piping hot oolong tea, the old commander took a sip, leaned back in his chair, and wiped the fog from his glasses. To the bemusement of the young lady, he began to chuckle, almost in a neurotic manner.

"Ah, it's nothing", he said, putting down his glass of oolong tea. "You're new here, yes? I don't remember your face."

"Yes sir." The young lady suddenly clicked her heels and stood to attention.

"What is your name, young lady?"

"First lieutenant Ashley Cichol", she said sharply. "Age 25, blood type B-"

"Lieutenant Cichol." The old commander smiled genially. "The future of our nation and our people rests on our shoulders now. From the bottom of my heart... I thank you for the sacrifices you are about to make, as a member of Unit 2131."

Dr Erasmus Adrianus Forseti
Commanding Officer of ASSG 2131
Age: 66 | Blood type: A+ | Citizenship: Nuoc (Silver Knight)

"Anyway, back to business." Dr Forseti put his glasses back on. "The disappearance of our first ever task force is an event that should not be treated lightly. I do not simply mean that we should all be on guard, but that we should also not be intellectually sloppy in our handling of the case. I have already notified the police with regards to the monitoring of all cases of RIDI within the Silver Knight. Thus far, the six cases are under control in the Central Laboratory, and the patients' conditions stable.

"Still..." In one final gulp, Dr Forseti finished off the oolong tea in his glass. "If my theories are correct... then we must make haste in all regards. First... if the RIDI mycobacterium spreads through the gates. And secondly... secondly, if the speakers of tongues can, perhaps, also lose all human faculty, and descend into animal urges... Or worse..."

...

Nuoc-II
Wasteland (16km away from the Silver Knight)

"Augh, damn, I suppose that's the last of the snow yams."

The vagabond wrapped his scarf tighter around his face and held up his basket with his ruddy, icy fingers, the hairs of which were all coated in little crystals of snow. Three little roots barely the size of a parsnip each, little crystalline hairs sticking out at odd angles.

"Guess this shit'll have to do for the time being", he gurgled to himself, trudging through the deep snow back to where his llama sat placidly. "Come on, Benjy. Let's get back to the shack, shall we?"

Benjy the llama brayed nervously and looked up at the sky.

"Mm?"

The familiar sight of the great planet Nuoc hanging in the sky, around which the sole inhabitable moon Nuoc-II orbited, was interrupted by the opening of a massive rift, one that resembled a great black hurricane. It sucked up ice and spewed out extradimensional matter in almost equal quantities- that is to say, little at all.

And then the rifts on the icy folds below began to peel open. And people emerged from the rifts. People of all shapes and all sizes, colours and tongues, homelands and homeworlds.

The rifts, today, had brought something other than disease.

"Well, fuck me senseless", the vagabond muttered to himself as he climbed onto Benjy the llama's back and hid his three hard-found snow yams into his coat. "Don't tell me they're here for my food too."

...

[Wysten]

Sanguinius
Eight Line Tale
Amethyst

The Primarch did not remember what had happened and instead now felt the sensation of falling as his eyes opened and saw the odd purple crystal ground approaching him, unfurling his wings the Primarch quickly but safely descended onto the ground his sword drawn he spun around and quickly got his bearings. Behind him was nothing but a plain of purple glass but infront sat an odd white beam shooting straight up into the night sky with an odd obelisk. Given his positioning Sanguinius knew he was on a moon and saw the odd looking space craft near him. Choosing the safe route the golden Primarch decided to unfurl his wings yet again and patrol over the space craft as he made his way towards the obelisk.

[Naval Monte]

Collab between Naval, Menschenfleisch, and Deminica

Secrets of the Raven

While Elizabeth was focused forward on the angels, a familiar voice came from behind. "You lot sure do like taking your time with things." Dawn walked up, glancing first over at Jackie and Terry then at Elizabeth. Her gaze lingered for only a fraction of a second longer, before she looked up at the sky. "Are you styling your hair different? Or did you use a different shade of lipstick?" she asked, looking at the angels above. "It seems things are going to get worse before they get better, which is unfortunate for you."

She turned and looked behind them just before a rift opened and Celeste stepped out. "You and your plots, I wish you'd elaborate more before you rope me into them." the redhead complained. 

"As long as you have faith that I know what I'm doing, you should have no issues whatever I rope you into." Dawn replied. Celeste only gave a halfhearted 'hmph' in response, which Dawn took as acceptance. "You can release her now, there's no point in continuing the charade."

Celeste's eyes flashed green and another rift appeared, and a soft voice was heard on the other side. "Ich muss jetzt gehen... Mutti, Vati... Ich werde Sie nie vergessen. Ich vermisse Sie jeden Tag." 

After a few inaudible moments, Lilith stepped through the rift. She wiped a few tears from her eye, and bowed to the two goddesses. "Herzlichen Dank... Ich... Daß..." she started, but Celeste raised a hand and stopped her.

"Don't worry about it. I only apologize that it was so brief." all previous hints of malice were gone, and Celeste’s voice seemed almost… warm?

"N-no! It was more than I could ever have imagined. Even though I knew it was not real it still... Vielen, vielen Dank!" her eyes fell upon the mutated figure of Elizabeth and the vampire visibly recoiled. “Mein Gott… Was ist daß?” she gasped.

Dawn clapped her on the back once. “Relax. Sister von Brandt. Don’t you recognize your old friend, Elizabeth? She’s going through a tough time at the moment, but I wouldn't be so pessimistic about it being permanent.”

Lilith glanced between the goddess and the witch. “E..Elizabeth? Es tut mir leid... I had no idea…”

Elizabeth would stop attacking the angels as the divine twins appeared, the tendrils becoming  still as tree branches. The angels used the reprieve to fly away from the transformed witch as she stared at the two red heads. As they talked to her they would see cracks forming on the mask where her mouth should be, a hissing noise coming through the cracks. Six of the eye balls on her eyes began to slide off from the blackish red slime that was oozing out of her sockets, the pair still attached seem to be going glassy and opaque as though it was going blind. Throughout her body more eyes were growing throughout her body with small horns growing from her head.

The tentacles were aimed at the two when they suddenly brought out Lilith from a rift who was in tears, yet she seemed to be happy as she stepped out? As the vampire talked with the two goddesses she would see what Elizabeth was like now and recoil at the sight. The witch seems to ignore the reaction as she began to crawl towards the two, the tendrils now going limp as they fell on to the ground and were being dragged as the witch moved forward, leaving a trail of mucus. As she was getting closer the shattered pieces of broken mask fell out to reveal not only rows of sharp teeth but an additional row of teeth within her mouth as she opened her mouth impossibly wide, so wide that even her neck was being stretched open. The two saw a large eyeball within her mouth.

As eyeballs began to form on her wings they would see the angels preparing to open fire on the group with their guns and arrows. Elizabeth would launch out feathers like they were projectiles, the metal blades shredding the angels. Some that landed still alive soon found her tentacles flying towards them and impaling them. One angel on the other hand was grabbed by her tentacle and was dragged forth to the witch. As it was brought before her it would see her open her mouth wide and was moving forward to bite the creature's head off.

Lilith took a few steps back when Elizabeth continued to transform, still not comfortable with the visage before her. Celeste stepped in front of her, facing the angel. “Relax, this won’t take long. I don’t think they quite realize the degree to which they’ve fucked up.” She walked towards the one Elizabeth was dragging and held it aloft. “You’re taking too long, Ashwood. You know how impatient my dear sister is.” She held the creature by the throat and stared directly into its eyes. “My way is much faster.” Her own eyes glowed green once more and the angel began to disappear into dust as Celeste rented its atoms from each other. 

Elizabeth looked at the angel turning into dust before her eyes. Her eyes turned to the other angels and as she raised her hand she would point towards them. A bright flash would erupt from them as the angels were vaporized before the group. She looked back at Celeste, a sense of smugness can be seen in her eyes or at least it appeared to be smugness. 

Celeste didn’t seem bothered by Elizabeth’s display, instead just nodding her head slightly. “I thought that would motivate you.”

Dawn rested one foot on Elizabeth’s back as she glanced down at her. She let out a drawn out whistle as she inspected the witch’s new form. “You know, even though I already knew this was gonna happen, finally seeing it in person is still quite the experience.” She motioned towards the mask shards with one hand, “I know, I know, you can’t talk. Just take my word for it, everything happens for a reason. Nothing that you’re going to see hasn’t been planned for, got it? Wiggle a couple eyes at me so I know you understand.”

As Dawn stepped on her back the markings on the spikes began to glow red. The eyes stared at her and instead of wiggling some shot out like spears towards her. 

All of the projectiles that came close to striking Dawn dissolved around her, save for one that was going to hit her square in the face. The redhead reached her hand up with alarming speed and caught it. Wordlessly, she turned it around and drove it back downward into the spot where it came from. “None of that, can’t have you forgetting whose side you’re on. Do try to keep focused. I’d hate to see you lose control now and have to be dealt with after things are taken care of.”  She applied a little more pressure with her foot, forcing the witch’s body down closer to the ground. “Understand now?”

The witch began to growl as she was forced down onto the ground, the sockets releasing more blood as the eyeballs began to grow back. The witch looked at her as though it was wondering what the redhead wants. 

Dawn rolled her eyes and leaned down closer to the mutant. “Come on, Liz don’t you pay attention? Keep up. I don’t want you to get all excited because you see something that doesn’t quite make sense to you or that seems wrong. I promise no more tricks, they’ve already run their course and they brought us here. Don’t suddenly start going after everyone because things get weird and you think everyone’s gone mad. Got it?”

The witch still looked at Dawn but the creature ultimately decided to wiggle her eyes to show she understands what Dawn was saying. Dawn would feel her back sinking into Elizabeth's back as the flesh began to give away like it was mud. From underneath more of the slime would come out from her body. 

“Was that so hard?” Dawn asked before she disappeared and reappeared on the opposite side of the witch. “Try not to ruin my pants, I just had these dry cleaned and I don’t want them shrinking any more than they already have.” She glanced up to her sister and gave a slight nod, which Celeste returned before disappearing through another rift. “Good, things are in motion. Shall we?” she asked motioning for Elizabeth to take the lead.

The witch looked at Dawn as her sister retreated into a rift. She understood that she wanted her to go into the spire but the issue with Andarta still remained. When she spoke out more of the alien language came out, which made Terry scream in pain as the words brought an overbearing pressure to his mind. More to the point the arcane energy in the air shifted when it heard her voice. Elizabeth recoiled when she heard Terry screaming; the wings stood up on ends and the tentacles began to move around wildly. More organs began to leak out from her body as she opened her mouth, three serpentine tongues coming out.

From the tongues drops of salvia would drop down to the ground. She would produce more until their color darken into black and she moved the fluids to form words. The words unfortunately were in strange symbols. The witch groaned, pointing at the still paralyzed witch..

Dawn crossed her arms in front of her. “You don’t say, and there I’d completely forgotten she was here.” she said sarcastically. “Unless deep down you like your new makeover, I’d suggest we get a move on and actually solve a problem for once instead of multiplying it, yes? If you’re that concerned, you’ve had plenty of time by now, go ahead. Kill her while she can’t fight back. It’d make life a lot easier for everyone.”

The witch looked at Andarta as she heard her fate was on her hands. She can so easily destroy her. She rend her atoms to pieces. Cancel out the vibrations of the strings that maintain her existence. Shatter her soul. So many ways to finally put an end to her carnage. The witch looked at her opponent and turned away, crawling towards the Spire.

Dawn watched Elizabeth go past Andarta without doing anything. “That’s what I thought. Still so afraid to act, you think you can save everyone, that everyone has good in their heart. What a shame.” She disappeared from where she stood and appeared along the path to the spire. “I hope you’re a bit more committed when we get there,” she said. “Otherwise you might as well just leave now and let everything come apart at the seams. Either do what needs to be done or resign everyone else to their fate.”

Elizabeth ignored Dawn as she kept going to the Spire. She can use her powers to take out Andarta before she changes back. As the witch crawled forward several thoughts came to her. Could she have prevented this if she changed Claudia's life to be better, thus preventing all of this from ever happening? She shook her head. There was no way Dawn will allow that to happen. Perhaps she can bring back all of her loved ones? That won't cause any interference from her right? 

But another idea came to her, what if she used the Spire to change everything? Make a world where the supernatural was never hidden? One where her loved ones never died? Make a better world but without sacrificing the lives of so many people? The idea of tantalizing and with the Spire so close she can do it. She can change the world and then close it. She will make sure no one will find it after she fixes the world. 

Dawn shrugged her shoulders and walked one step behind Elizabeth. She took one quick glance behind her towards Andarta, “Don’t say I didn’t try.” she mused and kept walking. “I hope you have a backup plan, as in, not whatever you’re probably thinking right now. I’m still here you know, I do intend to have some say in what you do up there instead of standing by idly and watching you do whatever you want, so you’d better make it a good plan. For everyone’s sake.”

The witch stopped and turned to face Dawn. The glare she was giving her was her attempt to tell her that she has everything planned out. As she turned back to look at the spire some of her eyes would pop out from her body. The eyes would form membranous wings and tentacles, hovering over everyone. The flying eyeballs began to search for the relics and the book. As the Spire was within arms reach four of the eyes would find the relics and begin to fly towards Elizabeth, the pairs carrying the two artifacts.

Dawn shook her head. “Go ahead, glare at me. As if I can’t see the future and don’t know what your first choice would be. Let’s keep pretending, then.” As the pair walked, a cloud of mist appeared in front of them and Lilith materialized out of it. 

“Where are we? I tried to find an exit but I was unable.” she asked, wincing a little still when she saw Elizabeth.

“Oh, that’s a long story. A very long one. For the moment you’re stuck here, you all are, unless you’ve been hiding some crazy abilities from everyone-and I’d know if you were. You might as well come with us, we might need a second set of hands.” Dawn replied. “Other than however many she grows between now and then.”

Lilith seemed uneasy at the idea of taking part in whatever journey was underway, but she felt like she didn’t really have a choice if she wanted to get out anytime soon. “I suppose Celeste brought me out here for a reason rather than returning me to the mansion where she picked me up.”

Dawn clapped a little, “Finally, you all are beginning to get it! It’s only taken this long.”

The eyes carrying the book flew to Lilith as soon her role became clear. The artefact flew to Elizabeth awaiting hands as she began to stand up, standing much taller than before. Her new height was double than that of Rolo's. As she rubbed the relic she began to chant in that strange language, though by telepathy. As both spires began to grow brightly. 

Dawn lifted her wrist and stared into her watch, seemingly uninterested in what Liz was doing. “There are still a few ways this can go…” she said, not really directed at anyone.

Lilith stepped closer to the goddess, “What do you mean? How many of them are good?” she asked, concerned.

Dawn cracked half of a smile, not looking at the nun. “It depends, good for whom? None of them are bad for me, most of them are bad for everyone on the outside, or were you asking for more personal reasons?”

Lilith took a small step backwards. “Never mind, I should not have asked.” 

Elizabeth would make smooth waves with her arms as she traced strange symbols in the air in tandem with her mental chanting. As the ritual continues the witch can feel the very melody of existence beginning to change as the Spire emitted new vibrations, new musical notes to play the requiem of the old world and the ballad for the new world that will take its place.

A small part within Elizabeth raged within her mind, trying to convince her to leave this path that she just put herself on. That she would be no different to Claudia if she went through with changing the world against everyone's will. Yet a new part in her mind told her that this was her only chance to bring about the world she truly wants, the one she knew was the right one for everyone. That in the world's current state the world powers would rather burn the whole world and everyone in it than to let the truth be revealed and lose their power. If they had a say then many people will either be exploited or exterminated for simply being anomalous by the dominated consensus.

She can't allow that to happen! She will prevent that terrible future that Rachel was dragged out of from ever occurring by any means necessary. Now that she was given the chance to change the world for the better no one would stop her, not even herself! As Elizabeth focused her attention on the ritual she didn't notice that a new presence entered the scene though still unseen, nor did she see the relic glow changing from red to white.

By the time she realized something was amiss the relic would unleash a burst of white light. As the light began to fade everyone would see Elizabeth was now back to normal, though her eyes were still of that monstrous form from before. She looked at her hands and down at her body, shocked that she was now back in her human form. She was going to turn to face the others when suddenly she felt a flash of intense pain shot throughout her body as she heard her shirt and vest being torn and blood splashing on the ground.


Music


The witch would look down and she would see a long single edge blade with an upward curved at the end going through her chest. As blood dripped off the blade she tried to understand how she couldn't sense the attack from happening. "You wanted to know who's Kether? Well you finally got your answer." a deep baritone voice said from behind the witch as the figure pulled the blade back, steel grinding against bones and slicing through flesh and tissues, blood spilling out once the blade was pulled out from her body.

Elizabeth would stagger forward, taking a few steps, before falling down on her knees, dropping the relic and book. Holding on to her chest with her left hand she would try to reach out for the rolling relic until it stopped and began to float up in the air, flying towards and past the witch as a new hand caught it. Elizabeth would try to turn but she instead found herself falling forward to the ground, hearing several voices calling out her name.

"To think you humans were so close to breaking the natural order, or you believed you were close to doing so." The figure told them as the light of the Spire changed from sanguine red to pale white. The figures white crystalline scale wings rose up, the light reflecting off the scales. The figures ivory armor also reflected light as dark robes contrast the figures armor and wings. He wore a white mask that hid his face but the group can still see his eyes, similar to Elizabeth's save for the ter being replaced with white. 

"Your every move was anticipated and planned for every possible eventuality. No matter what happened we knew that one of you two would reach the Spire and try to undo our world. The rifts caused is a few issues but as Ashwood can attest it didn't take long for a solution for that small dilemma to be found." Kether pointed his falchion at Dawn. "You in particular were the most frustrating error to try and find a solution to. But I believe I found one." The blade would begin to turn black as fumes began to come off it.

"Just like Claudia and Elizabeth, your role in this story will come to an end, and a new chapter to our new story will begin." 

Dawn let her scythe stand on its own as she crossed her arms. “I can just tell you right now whether or not your solution works, I’ve known for a long time now and the suspense is building.” she said, clearly not showing any signs of being intimidated or even concerned by the new guest. 

“So go ahead, tell us your story. Get your monologue out of the way, let us know what your plan is and how they’re all insects waiting to be crushed beneath your boot. I’ve got all the time in the multiverse for it.”

Kether simply stabbed in the air rapidly, not saying a word to Dawn. While it seems he just stabbed at nothing the redhead time walker would have felt her chest being stabbed by a blade, looking down she would see the bleeding hole of such an attack. But from the hole she would feel something growing within her chest. Dawn would feel a powerful force sucking her entire being within herself as the Abyssal spell within her created a black hole that twisted and pulled her body into the singularity of oblivion.

As Dawn's body was ripped and teared to spaghetti like pieces in front of the still conscious group Kether would turn his attention to Jackie, lifeless white eyes staring into fearful greens. "I must admit Jacquelyn, you and the esper gave me much concern when you two initially arrived. Before the two deific interlopers decide to interfere in matters that aren't their concern you two had abilities that could have interfered with what we had planned for the Spire. The one you called Kyle could have discovered our existence if you hadn't assisted us in eliminating him and Claudia in turn removing your powers." Kether looked to the paralyzed cultist.

"And you have my gratitude for preparing everything for me to correct the flaws of this world. Your crusade against the anomalous shall soon come to an end as I will remove all of that to insure my new world will not have people corrupt and break it like this one." 

He would raise the blade high above his head. "It's a shame that neither of you will ever see my new world." Kether told the two as he brought his blade down.

[Menschenfleisch]

The Great Wizarding Rebellion | Kiara and Polly

Windless rain. Clear as glass, velvety as snow. The pitter patter of water against leaves, and the dull thud of raindrops upon dampening mud. The sensation of agglomerated hairs parting, stuck together by moisture and combed through by downy fingers. The kiss of winter’s breath, nipping at one’s skin, careful not to pierce to the bone. The drizzle was polite and gentle, comforting rather than assailing. Kiara opened her eyes to the fleecy sky and let the rain find her eyes. Storm and wind tapped on the side of a wooden pail that lay between her calves, nested by her legs. Water and fish sloshed about within it. This was a distant river, one that she hadn’t tainted. It had fish and algae, natural mosses galore. The world still felt eerily dead to her but it was still relaxing to sit beneath the clouds and feel the touch of unfamiliarity on her skin, the whims of a world beyond her control. She enjoyed the feeling, like she was beholding a picture or a painting she’d never seen before.

---

September gave Katya naught but a lonesome shrug. “We weren’t told anything about the enemy to begin with. I assumed that we’d be facing stiff opposition, though; the United Kingdom isn’t fond of us. They’d only call us in if they thought that there was a situation that they were genuinely incapable of handling. You two should be honoured: it hardly ever happens.” There was a simple explanation for why the conflict between the muggles and wizards seemed to favour the former so much. While the remnants of the magical underworld believed themselves to be at war - the actions of the UK were jeopardising their very right to exist - the British government thought of the magical crisis in the context of a natural disaster or a civil uprising. There were men and women sipping coffee and smoking cigars in dimly lit cafes still, children trading cards in the yards of schools, beleaguered parents nursing migraines and shopping in cramped grocery aisles. Whereas the foundations of magical society had crumbled beneath its dependents’ feet, life had gone on as usual for everyone else. The issue of the existence of magic was just another subject to slap on the front page of a modern tabloid, or to address in some newspaper’s oft-forgotten editorial section. No armies had been levied, no conscription notices had been dispatched; the stock value of military hardware had actually decreased as a result of foreign tensions having been eased by Russia and China choosing to tend to their own fields, each undergoing a similar ‘crisis’ to the UK. It was only called a crisis to begin with because of the fall of London, and even that had been an issue with Czernobog - not with the Ministry of Magic. The wizards and witches of the British isles were fighting tooth and nail to preserve what they had. The army was still made up of volunteers and professionals, still equipped with outdated equipment originally meant to be deployed in a pitched battle against the European Communist bloc, still commanded by men who were used to commanding troops in Iraq and Ireland, still trained to watch out for IEDs and wire traps. The infantry’s curriculum hadn’t been altered by a word. Despite appearances, the efforts of all the martially minded witches and wizards of Britannia hadn’t stretched the UK’s resources thin, not even a little. All the gryphons, dragons and whomping willows in the world couldn’t possibly stand up to the tried and tested military industrial complex. “As for the blunder, I can only guess that the colonel tried to brute-force his way into the blackzone and got his ass handed to him, although that conclusion’s just the byproduct of informed guesswork. It’s not as if I could see whether there were any wounded through all that smog… and it’s not as if wizards leave wounded anyway.” She loaded a shot into her rifle, patted the breaching charges on her belt and polished the edge of her knife with her thumb and index finger. “Get yourself geared up too, Kat; no need to be coy about putting them on. These suits are hand-me-downs, nobody’s going to miss them.”

With the memory of how the air smelled inside the tent fresh in her mind, Polly found the bog’s unique aroma to be even more unbearable than before. As she plunged into the mist, not knowing which step would take her over the black line nor whether she’d ever step out, she found herself growing ever more conscious of each of her senses. She felt beads of sweat condensing on the back of her neck, her eyes drying with every second that she refused to blink, and the cool touch of the trigger beneath her finger. She had thought that she’d known her weapon before. Not so. With nothing to look at except for the occasional silhouette that would leer out of the fog, she found herself continually fidgeting with the grip of her rifle, acquainting herself with every little score and scratch on its surface. Her feet sank up to her ankles in mud with every step she took. The water came up to her knees, sometimes up to her waist, and it clung to her like honey to a spoon; it sloshed about between her legs and it lapped at her hips. She left a berth through the scum on the surface of the swamp as she pushed aside floats of algae and tightly-knitted rafts of long-dead leaves. She saw a withered oak wreathed in murk and choked by thorny vines. Had it once stood proud, alone in this place? Had it fought bravely against the dark, even as it was strangled by creepers? What shade had its bark been before it had turned to a mottled gray? It disappeared into her periphery, leaving her no time to investigate. The clothes on her body cooled as the wind picked up. The muscles in her cheeks seized up in response and she tightened her jaw so as to avoid a shiver. Her hair clung to her scalp in greasy clumps. Fragments of leaves, blades of grass and portions of moss hung onto her for dear life. A dead tree about the same height as her emerged from the unseen depths and she swore that she felt her stomach leap into her mouth. Why had she elected to be the point-man? She’d never fired her weapon on a mission, let alone killed anybody. She’d shot dogs and monsters before, yes, but they were… different. Somehow. She took in one steady breath and held it for a second. She counted her heartbeats - One. Two. Three. Four. - and let it out again. ”Sep, I never got the opportunity to ask, but, do we even know what happened to the men that the colonel lost?” She didn’t dare turn her head. Even the thought of doing so caused her to shiver. What if she turned around and her companions weren’t there, having disappeared into the dark? What if she’d gone too quickly, and they’d lost sight of her? What if she turned around and two strangers with similar voices were standing in their place? “Not much. Around three hours before we arrived Holdridge sent three squads into the blackzone from the East - twenty four men in total - and two squads in from the North. Eastside got picked off quickly; they reported something big moving through the mist, opened fire on an undescribed bogey, and then they cut out entirely. The Northern team had better luck. They encountered a force of about a dozen magicians who’d been trying to leave the blackzone. They gunned them down but they lost half their number. Following the loss of the Eastern attack squad, their CO decided to bring them back to base.” No wonder Selket had sounded so strained over the radio. Holdridge’s actions had essentially annihilated any chance of them resolving the situation peacefully.

A flutter of movement to Polly’s left. She turned her head and saw something distant, maybe twenty paces from where she was, and shaped like a man. She suppressed the instinct to dive into the water - it would produce far too much noise, and the human eye was trained to spot motion, not shapes - and instead, she slowly raised her rifle so that she could peer into the dark through its scope. ”Sep!” She hissed. ”Unidentified humanoid figure, ten o’clock. No vector. Upper torso is visible.” There was a distinct possibility that their presence had been noticed; The Ministry of Magic had impressive surveillance technology. However, the figure didn’t seem to be facing them. It had something in its hand - most probably a wand - but it wasn’t moving, nor reacting to the team. A moment passed as they all stood still with their hearts in their mouths. Finally, September broke the anything-but-tranquil silence “Could be a civvie. Move in to detain. Delilah, take the right. Katyusha, you’re on the left.” They were aided by the fact that the figure had its back turned to them, and that it appeared to be at rest. As they drew closer they saw that behind its back was a stout mound of dirt and beneath it lay a shallow but relatively solid mire of dirt and silt. Polly assured herself that she couldn’t be seen - the suits were supposed to keep them practically invisible to the untrained eye even at distances of a dozen metres or less - but even then, she couldn’t help but think of what might happen should she be found out. If the wizard chose to attack her, what would she do? Dive and hope for the best, or take the safer way out and put a bullet in their head? ”If I hadn’t lost my memories I wouldn’t think twice,” she assured herself. ”Killing isn’t a sin, being a bystander is.” Something heavy brushed past her leg. It was about as heavy as a piece of driftwood but it was much softer and had a less jagged surface. There was a strange scent in her nose, like shredded steel. She tried to push past it but it had far less give than she expected. It pushed against her as she stepped forward and she lost her balance, her foot sinking into an unseen pit in the peat bog’s bed. She fell inexorably forward. The swamp slipped around her head like a glove. It was warm and thick, not cold as she’d thought that it would be. But her eyes spotted, just a moment before she snapped them shut, two dim white orbs in the water. Her head moved downward under its own momentum and lodged in something wet and greasy, as if she’d just headbutted a chocolate cake. Earthy grime flooded into her nostrils and slid under her eyelids. It wormed its way into her ears, filling every available cavity. She couldn’t breathe - it smelled so disgusting - and she’d fallen face-first into the bog, she had to get to the surface before whoever was up there killed her! She straightened her back and emerged explosively from under the water. She rubbed her face furiously and floundered about, simultaneously trying to stay low and stand up. Her rifle pointed every which way, she was completely blind. A voice barked through her radio: “stand down! It’s safe.” She wiped a layer of black sludge off of her brow and looked up, squinting at where the silhouette had been. September knelt next to it, holding something in her hand. “This guy’s dog tag is barely readable. Captain Ramirez of the 31st, part of the Eastern attack force, reported MIA three hours ago. Make that a K, he’s dead..” Polly brushed herself off and offered only a meek response. ”I’m sorry for falling, ma’am. Won’t happen again.” “Make sure it doesn’t. There’s a first time for everything; you’re probably not going to get a chance to do this for a third.” It took her a moment to unpack that particular idiom. ”How’d he die?” September turned his head to one side then checked the other. On both ends there was a red hole. On his right, a livid dent in his skull around as wide as a pea and turned inward like a sphincter. On the left, a gaping void shaped like a discus. “Gunshot, self inflicted. Angle’s too low to be a mercy killing.” ”Was it suicide, or was he putting himself out of his misery?” “Same difference, and we haven’t got time to perform an autopsy.” ”Please, just check for me.” She wasn’t too young to understand that she was undermining her CO’s authority. September knew that she knew, too. Maybe that’s why, after a few seconds, she relented. “Fine. The ground beneath him is wet but not bloody. He had a few cuts and scrapes on him, but he wasn’t lethally injured before he shot himself.” She got up and brushed off her rifle, picking grunge from the firing assembly and grip. “Team, we’re moving out. Delilah, check equipment. If you’ve lost anything, we’ll boogey out.”

Polly glanced at her rifle as she held it up to the light. Although it was slick to the touch and festooned with black creepers, it was still relatively functional. She tactilely confirmed that her radio was still strapped to her vest and glanced down a-... ”Sep?” Her voice was deathly quiet. She received no response. She hadn’t been heard. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat but found that she could hardly feel her own lips, tongue and face. Her body ran cold; her hands and feet were chilled to the bone. ”There are… th-...” She couldn’t bring herself to speak up. Her fingers, clammy as they were, could hardly hold down the transmit button to begin with. She didn’t want to admit that she was scared, she knew that September would pull out if she admitted to being even slightly perturbed. She wanted this mission, she needed to do it, for no other reason than to prove that she could be brave. She could be strong, she could be courageous. ”Sep!” She barked more harshly than she had intended. Her CO didn’t even need her radio to hear her. ”There’s dead people in the water.” She spoke with a frightening calm. “Say again?” ”Dead people. In the water.” Two milky marbles stared up at her from just beneath the surface. There was a dent between them, a negative space in the shape of a face. She had fallen right into it, planted her lips into it. The corpse was green and brown, its skin coming off in chunks like wallpaper tearing off drywall. There was a lump of algae next to her hip. She brushed her hand over its surface. Below that layer of gangrenous green, there was angry red. She looked again at her rifle. Those weren’t creepers, those were strips of flesh. The acrid scourge in her nose wasn’t the smell of the swamp, it was the smell of old blood. Rust, metal and curdled cream. She raised her foot and scrubbed her heel with the palm of her hand. She dislodged lumps of what felt like cheese from its surface but when she brought those chunks out of the water she saw that they were fragments of a skull. She had fallen after stepping into someone’s head, not even onto it. Fragments of bone glittered at the bottom of the brackish sea, each a star amongst a green night sky. “So this is where East company ended up… dammit, what happened?” September reached into the bog and pulled out a long, slimy looking totem of flesh. An arm, Polly realised, right before she casually tossed it aside and reached down to pull up the rest of the body. Sep dragged it up and onto dry land where she laid it out like a lab specimen. She fondled its head, pressing into its temples with her fingers until they sank through its scalp and touched the softening bone beneath. “Not a suicide victim, at the very least. No holes in the head.” She peeled layers of gunk from its torso and, having spotted something, thrust her hand into its abdomen. It went straight through and she sank up to her wrist into it. “There’s our lethal injury. Large laceration, about...” she sifted through its guts with a mighty squelch. The sides of the cadaver bloated and finally burst, splitting down the middle and causing lumps of blubber to burble and spurt out. Nauseating, traumatic, disgusting, all those terms applied to what was going on. “Twelve inches wide, nine inches deep. The man was practically bisected, it’s a wonder that his body’s still in one piece.” She glanced at his arm. “Well, mostly. Heads up everybody, weapons hot. One team’s already died here, let’s not make it a habit.”

Seeds of Anxiety | Avarice and Tone

A string of broken glass and nails ripped through Valerian’s skull. He heard two voices and two songs. The voices did not song, the singers did not speak. He felt new scars becoming old, calluses growing over calluses. A fresh deposit of nightmares settled over the previous one and hardened like cooling iron. He saw red and white. He saw green. ”Ha! Qui es? Quod iocus est ridiculissimus! Prohibe, prohibe, nescio respirare!” Avarice bled from the eyes and threw up a fridge sized mound of decrepit machinery. ”Oh man, that was the funniest thing I have ever heard. Eheheh... it- it really is so stupid...” ”What is? And… you understood that?” ”Y-yeah, I did, and it roughly translates to- ahahahah… ‘life is a meaningless joke’. I never thought about it like that! It’s so simple, right? So how come nobody realises that it’s true?” He had come to realise throughout his interactions with Ava that she only spoke in absolutes. Everything that came out of her mouth was, in some way or another, objectively true. Ignoring the fact that she, the most qualified person in the multiverse to be making existential judgements, had just said that existence didn’t mean nothing, but that it was actively farcical, there was also the matter of: ”Why is that funny?” She brushed a tear out of her eye and wiped her rust-stained mouth with the back of her hand. ”If life is a meaningless joke, then that means that everything is hilarious. How is that not funny? Literally everything that you can and can’t perceive is a joke! I mean, look at this rock;” she looked straight down at the floor. ”Which rock? You’re looking at the floor.” ”The biggest one. It’s around… five metres wide, according to an observer travelling relative to it at a speed of 99.999999999% the speed of light. Its name is Jeremy, but most people just call it Earth. And I mean, c’mon, how can you- pff how can you not think that it’s just the funniest thing you’ve ever seen? I-it’s so… ahahah, it’s covered in food! Delicious, human-shaped meat nuggets!” She squinted as if to get a better look at… well, the ground. ”Wait, no. Those are just the interdimensional predators incubating in your planet’s core. Pssh, every planet’s got a dozen of those. Boring.” ”What?” ”Oh, nothing that you should worry about. After all, they are inevitably going to devour all of creation. Why stress yourself out about such small things?” The warehouse trembled above them. Splintered timbers and chunks of stone began to fall, and it was all Valerian could do to see through the haze and avoid those falling objects as best he could. ”This place is coming down around us, we need to get out!” ”Not necessarily. You could always stay here.” ”I’ll die!” ”... so? I already knew that. How’s that relevant to what we’re talking-” He grabbed her by the shoulder, squeezing so tightly that he drew blood from her skin. ”Just fucking go!” ”Fuck Ingo?” ”Get out of here!” She snapped her finger at him and grinned as her face lit up in comprehension. ”Gotcha! I’ll be back in a minute.” The two of them ran from the building as it crumbled behind them. The roof caved in, allowing plumes of smoke and ash to choke the sky. There was a sound like distant gunfire, and then the walls gave way. The whole structure caved inward like a- ”Like a collapsing building!” Valerian shot her a look. She ducked. ”Oh, and, by the way, I got ‘Out of Here’, the critically acclaimed but obscure sequel to Up. I can get Up and Out Of Here if you want to watch them back to back.” ”What the fuck is this.” ”A repetitive and tired joke.” She dropped the cassette-tape-shaped human heart she’d been carrying - the one with “Out of Here” scrawled on it in black marker - and looked back toward the warehouse, now completely swallowed up by the fire. ”That wasn’t the… smoothest operation, was it?” ”Well, practically nothing that happened in there could’ve been predicted beforehand. I think, considering the circumstances, that we performed fairly admirably.” ”And the wounded; will they be safe?” ”That’s the first time you’ve asked me a question about something objective. Do you not know?” ”I don’t want to figure it out on my own, in case I don’t like the answer. I’m a little afraid of what might end up happening, y’know?” ”Surely you could just change the future, alter the world to do what you want it to.” ”And paint over the figurative waterfall with my figurative paint? Bad analogy. What I mean is that controlling everything is stifling. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen next. That’s why I’m still with you, why I’m still learning things: even though I could figure it out in a second, I want the experience of learning… even if I could just learn that, too. Huh. Now that I think about it, my goals don’t make a lot of sense.” ”Do they have to?” ”I would’ve given you a different answer just a few days ago, but… no. I guess they don’t.”

[Petrokovia]

Tides of Change

The Vindicator, Kabal Orbit

General Rico chuckled through the voice filter of his armor, amused by the idea Ovelia had proposed, and explained that he was "Johnny" Rico, the 'many-times great grandson' of the General Rico from the Multiversal War; he had been given the same code name by his squad. She blinked, doing a double take.
"Oh, that's enlightening!"

They still don't have our ships in their data banks... Maybe they just got separated when exploring a new universe? ...No, the timeline still wouldn't quite match up...

Ovelia wasn't sure what to make of the Vindicator, and the group was nearing the meeting room anyway, so she decided to let her mind rest a bit.

Upon entering the meeting room, it was immediately clear to Ovelia that something had gone awry; as the door slid open, the warm, humid stench of gasoline and sweaty people assaulted Sagalyn's nostrils, apparently the result of seven large, empty glass bottles of... "absinthe" strewn across the floor. Ovelia had her doubts about the authenticity of the label. Strewn across the floor intermittently were many empty pill bottles, some prescription (probably someone else's), some not.

The meeting table was topped with a large chandelier that had been ripped out of the ceiling above, dropped haphazardly upside down, and adorned with several dozen empty liquor bottles. The metal chairs had been cut up and welded to the walls as shelves for what appeared to be an illegal meth lab, which ended with a large, plastic bag filled with a generous handful of azure powder. The wall also has a large hole where something-probably a monitor of some sort, by Ovelia's reckoning-had been ripped out. More holes were knocked into the wall in various places, and dicks had been crudely burned into it. Though hard to see, there were tiny green specks in the carpet.

Across the table was a dainty figure sitting-well, that lack of any imprint on the chair made it seem more like floating-with a relaxed-yet-unamused expression, and holding an aluminum can. Seeing the group enter, she hopped out of her chair energetically, and immediately headed over to the bag of blue dust.
"Oh, you're early."

The strange girl looked at the product of her laboratory setup. Talking to herself, she took the bag, raised it above her head, and dumped the entire contents into her eyes; they sounded like they were dissolving.

The sheer amount of drugs, alcohol, and... mystery liquid were all certainly strange for Ovelia to witness, but this was on an entirely different level. Whoever this person was was so absurd, the admiral had no idea how to respond, instead, choosing to watch in silent bewilderment, though she tried to keep her appearance as respectful as she could. Ovelia thought it couldn't get any weirder, but then the girl introduced herself.
"Right! My name's Sayuri Kataigida, and I'm your Critic-assigned Arbiter. What's an Arbiter? Good question, and one that I might never get around to answering because I predict that in two seconds, I have a nineteen percent chance of instantly dying."

The stench-filled air hung for a couple seconds, before she continued her explanation; apparently, an Arbiter was someone who was beholden to speak the truth and punish lies, to the extent that if she lied, she would die immediately. Apparently, the state of the room wasn't just a simple mess, but was somehow organized along the lines of something called "Fukinsei," though Ovelia had never heard of it.

The strange girl turned to Ovelia herself, and offered several versions of what she called... "human milk," consisting of one carton of fresh gourmet milk, a soggy condom, and two other cartons of "milk" that smelled very suspect. Sayuri claimed that these were all safe to drink (or more accurately, the only things she could consume in the room that wouldn't kill a human), but Ovelia had doubts about their contents. The admiral frowned, her brow furrowing slightly as she held back her contempt; having known Sayuri for all of two minutes, she couldn't tell if the person standing before her was actively trying to insult her, or if she was like this in general, and so held her tongue.

"...I'm fine. Thank you, but I don't have much of an appetite right now." she said, trying to keep from insulting Sayuri. It wasn't anything that should trip the Arbiter up-after all, Ovelia truly didn't feel like eating, even if part of the reason she wasn't hungry in the first place was the very thing being offered.

Captain Wilson-clearly irritated-made a call for the meeting to be moved to the bridge, then warned Sayuri not to mess with any of the other rooms. The group made the long walk to the new meeting place, led by Wilson. Ovelia, perplexed and jarred, followed into the bridge, unsure of what to expect.

[Petrokovia]

Tides of Change - Kongou's Stories

"Then what happened?" Valerie asked, intrigued by the story.

Kongou smiled, before continuing her story...

---

CAV Jewel's Crown - Cornerian 1st Advanced Fleet

"Enemy is deploying drones and fighters. They've restored limited communications, but their sensors are still heavily crippled."

Pepper nodded, focused on the war table in front of him. It suddenly blinked, updating the position of the Venomian fleet; while Pepper's fleet had formed a circular position over Katina, the Venomians that had been orbiting around the rest of the planet had suddenly surrounded him, with a massive sphere of lighter capital ships making the shell, and battleships pushing in from all angles.

Pepper smiled confidently.
"They took the bait."

The old dog turned to his own communications adjutant.
"It's time for the flip. Start the clock."

The officer nodded with some enthusiasm, and patched the war table to the fleet. One of the VelPos screens above the general switched to a a dark red screen with white digital numbers counting down from three minutes. General Pepper picked up the chunky, brick-like phone and held it to the side of his head, speaking clearly.
"Fleet Actual to all vessels, prep for second hyperlight jump using emergency graviton reserves from your G-Diffusers. Plot the coordinates for the Big Flip."

Officers called out on the Jewel's Crown's bridge with haste.
"FTL plotting jump."
"Fighters moving into position, weapons counting down to five second hold."
"All sensor systems ready for jump."
"Gravity Diffusers entering exponential particle development."
"Graviton levels increasing steadily. 42 percent capacity... 54 percent... 70 percent..."
As the officers scurried about their stations, the clock hit one minute.
"100 percent graviton generation achieved, Isolated mass increased 42,000 percent."
"Dumping gravitons to FTL drive."
"FTL spooling at 50 percent... 60 percent..."

As the FTL charged up, the flagship began shaking, as the Venomian fleet pelted the fleet more and more. A massive hit struck the bow of Pepper's flagship, causing the CIC to rumble. Pepper was thrown forward and over the wartable. As he fell through the air, he came down on top of the edge, jabbing his rib cage hard and falling to the floor.

"General!" one of the officers exclaimed, rushing to him.

Pepper coughed, holding his side, and took the canine officer's hand for some help up.
"I'll be fine." he reassured, still completely focused on the battle. He turned to the clock, just as the FTL finished spooling.

"3... 2... 1... Critical degeneracy achieved, FTL ready for jump."

Pepper nodded, his brow furrowed with determination.
"Do it."

The entire Cornerian fleet blinked out from inside the Venomian swarm, instantly taking positions surrounding the ball of ships in a similar manner.

---

Venomian 15th Advanced Fleet, Earth-A

Music

All was quiet on the Terran Front, as Admiral Viktor Sodsran-previously assigned to Hosnian Prime-walked into the CIC of the Salvadora-III.

"Attention, Fleet Admiral on deck!" an officer called out. Instantly, the entire CIC stopped what they were doing and gave the admiral a salute before returning to their work.

"As you were." Sodsran replied off-handedly. Other things preoccupied his mind.

President Bowman's public speeches lately seem... different. Andross said to ignore the council if they conflicted with Bowman's vision. There's trouble in the air.

The simian's nostrils flared.
"I don't like it."

The room grew still, as the crew slowly turned their heads to Viktor.
"It's been too quiet for too long." he muttered.

Another high-ranking officer on the upper walkway, the ship's captain, nodded.
"Yes. The Earthlings ran further into the Asteroid Belt for protection, and ever since, we haven't seen a single ship..."

Suddenly, an alarm rang out, and the lights in the room transitioned to a deep, dim red glow.
"Rogue Body Alarm! Massive asteroid detected, 52 kilometers long with a circumference of 30 kilometers and moving at relativistic speeds, point-one-four-see in reference to our fleet. It's headed straight at us!"

"Move us out of the way! Hurry!" Viktor's eyes widened in terror, as his ship's entire frame shook with the might of its engines, only to be futile to the ludicrous speed of the ball of rock and iron barreling towards him.

The asteroid struck the dorsal side of the massive ship square on, exploding in a massive ball of molten sludge and fire fed by the oxygen escaping from the ship. Slag seeped through the top of the ship into rapidly depressurizing rooms below, where it melted machinery and boiled crew alive. By the time the asteroid had stopped flowing, a massive hole had been burned in the ship, only to be plugged with a mangled slab of re-hardened steel, several hundred crew had died, and the Salvadora-III was permanently crippled beyond its ability to self-repair. A great deal of the explosive energy was absorbed by the battleship's shields, disabling them completely.

With the fleet's flagship taken out of the battle, several long-range missiles rushed in, cutting paths directly to both Venomian ships and the larger chunks of asteroid that were dangerously close to Earth.
In the CIC, dozens of officers slowly got off of the floor, having been thrown like rag dolls despite the heavy inertial compensation and artificial gravity of the ship. An officer groggily cleared his throat, before shouting again.

"Enemy ordnance detected! Over 350 missiles are headed our way!"

"Battlestations! Launch all fighters in the fleet and set us to Condition One." Viktor said calmly, reassuring his crew. "Plot the trajectory of that astroid and prepare a strike team to disable their launching system."

---

Superbattleship Zashudar

"Sir, the Cornerians just jumped into a new formation surrounding our fleet!"

The Venomian admiral clenched his jaw in anger.
"What!?"

He hastily pulled out a stop watch from his pocket ad looked at it. It read 12 minutes.
But it should take a full 20 minutes at minimum! the man thought, perplexed.

He hit the reset button on the watch, turning to the officer.
"Do we know how he did it?"
"No, sir."
"What about the recon units? What have they found?"
"Nothing, sir. The site has been abandoned by Tadayoshi. We believe his fleet were recalled, as the Cornerians have just opened a front at Earth-A."
"Then Pepper's fleet is all he's got. I'm willing to bet that was his trump card, yet he failed to encircle our core group."

The impeccably uniformed gecko let a wicked grin come across his face.
To think, I will be the one to take down the great General Cornelius Pepper...
He turned to the FTL station.
"Jump us into a position surrounding Pepper's fleet. From there, we'll close in and have the inner bubble expand, pincering Pepper's forces."
"Yes, sir."

Suddenly as the core fleet was spooling up, one of the bridge officers rang out.
"VelPos reading! Contact dead ahead!"
"Who?"
"...It's MUS Kongou, sir."

The admiral looked out through the large window at the front of the bridge, spotting Kongou's glowing ship unmistakably.
"Jump the rest of the fleet, stand our FTL down. Have three cruisers join us while the rest fight our main prey."

They must have pulled a similar stunt as Pepper. Tadayoshi's softness for his 'friends' will lose him and Pepper two battles today instead of one.

---

MUS Kongou

Tadayoshi sat in the captain's chair, looking at the displays on both his chair's console as well as Kongou's. Kongou's displayed the battle over Katina, while his displayed the battle above Earth-A; the Earth-A forces were surrounding the planet. The man looked over to the Katina battle, then to a stopwatch on the arm of his chair, and began counting dow mentally as he gave directions to his crew.
"Marguerite, is the scan done?"

"Oui!"

"I've plotted the jump coordinates needed for the fleet." Kongou stated. "I analyzed their formation and the power of their weapons and shields, and distributed the plots to ships myself, so that we may have the most devastating first strike possible."

"Thank you, Kongou." Tadayoshi smiled. "Send the signal to Hawking's Revenge now."

Kongou nodded with a smile.
"Sending the signal now."

In mere seconds, the full might of the 1st Multiversal Task Force arrived around the planet, several ships blinking in while others came out of hyperspace, opening fire with a plethora of lasers, plasma, and railgun rounds. It was immediately clear that the Venomians had become instantly outgunned.

---

Superbattleship Zashudar

Gaito stared at his now-brought-online VelPos screen, shocked and angered. His fleet had no more options...
"Launch all fighters and drones. If I can't outplay Pepper, I'll just overwhelm him with sheer numbers. He may be smart, but Corneria doesn't believe in superweapons... He won't have anything to match my firepower."
A wicked grin quickly grew on the gecko's face.

"Prioritize shielding over guns for our ships; we just need to last a few minutes, and I'm sure the Cornerians will submit."

He turned his attention to the large red splotch on the VelPos screen representing Tadayoshi's fleet.
"As for them, what are their electronic warfare capabilities?"

An officer from the EW department stood and spoke crisply.
"Sir, it appears that the majority of their fleet has lesser electronic capabilities than us, though Kongou is unhackable by conventional means."

Gaito chuckled menacingly, walking down a set of stairs into the Electronic Warfare station and taking a small brass key out of his breast pocket. The EW officer took out an identical key, and the pair inserted their keys and turned them in synchronized timing.
One, two, three, insert, one, two, three, turn, one, two, turn back, withdraw

There was a clunk inside the console, as a door at the bottom slid open, revealing a large computer port which looked more like the coupling for a gas line. An officer ran into the station with a massive, eight inch thick cable. On the end was a large metallic cylinder that plugged into the computer port, housing a vast number of contacts.
Once the line was connected, several massive breakers disconnected from the ship's central computer, and were rerouted via cables to a second central computer held in the cargo bay. The massive cables had rectangular connectors large enough to require teams of six to carry each plug.

In the Electronic Warfare station of the bridge, several buttons on the console with solid green lights turned red, began flashing yellow, then turned back to green, this time flashing.

The second computer used the Zashudar's systems to transmit signals to Kongou, a virus slipping past her firewalls without issue.
"...Transmission Successful..." the EW officer blinked, stunned by how effortless it seemed. Admiral Gaito only laughed, heading up the stairs to resume his position above the others.

---

MUS Kongou

Terrell looked at his computer, shocked.
"W-we've just been infected by a computer virus!"

Tadayoshi turned to Kongou, who nodded with a troubled expression.

"It's moving fast, even for my capabilities." Kongou's eyes darted back and forth, and glowing white markings appeared across her face and arms as she interfaced with the Zashudar's computer.

"It's an evolving virus that's constantly updated by the computer in the Zashudar in real time via some kind of signal, and it's trying to cut me off from using my weapons, shields... and now any facility."

Tadayoshi tore his eyes away from his screens for a moment.
"Can you shut them down?" his voice wavered slightly with worry.

Kongou seemed unsure for a moment, unable to say something. After several seconds, she sighed, her shoulders drooping.
"I don't think have enough processing power, even if I had a full crew."

Hyuuga casually walked across the bridge to Tadayoshi and Kongou, Maya in tow. Kongou shook her head sorrowfully.

Hyuuga squinted her eyes, an idea forming.
"Maya and I were watching a movie where two people had to connect their minds to share a large processing load, and Tadayoshi's mind is connected through a neural mesh to that supercomputer on his belt, and by extension, the supercomputer network IMPDO uses!"

The large battleship snapped her fingers ad smiled excitedly.
"I propose that Kongou mind meld with Tadayoshi in order to gain access to IMPDO's systems and use their processing power, in addition to Maya and I giving you ours."

"You're asking to let us in each other's heads..." Tadayoshi doubted. "That's asking a lot, Hyuuga."

"That's why I only recommended it be between you and Kongou. Doing it with a friend or crew member might be awkward." Hyuuga nodded knowingly. "But if any two people here are compatible enough for it, it's you."

Kongou looked over to Tadayoshi, in deep contemplation. After the longest few seconds of her life, Kongou nodded with a soft smile.
"I agree to it."

Tadayoshi hesitated.
"...There's a lot of baggage up in there..."

Kongou placed a hand on Tadayoshi's shoulder, squeezing it softly.
"Remember who you're talking to." she winked.

Tadayoshi couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle, fidgeting slightly in his chair.
"Yeah, good point..."

He turned to Hyuuga.
"Okay. I agree to your plan as well."

Hyuuga smiled happily, twirling her finger and pulling nanomaterials out of the floor. The silver sand quickly took the form of two headsets, each connected to a large computer of some sort by several thick cables.

"Once I turn this on, IMPDO's network will be connected through Tadayoshi to Kongou, who will act as the connection to the ship's central systems, which Kongou, Maya, and I will use to counter the virus. At the same time, The rest of the crew will operate all of the battlestations. As you're being connected, you'll drift through each other's memories and psyche. Try not to get caught up in it too much. After the connection is made, Kongou will be able to focus consciously on her hacking, but Tadayoshi will likely be in some kind of semi-awake state."

Tadayoshi raised an eyebrow, and Hyuuga clarified.
"You'll be able to interface with the computers in the ship, so you'll still be able to direct the battles, but won't be able to speak or move on your own. There's limits to even a superhuman brain, after all."

Tadayoshi thought for a moment.
"Actually, if this is going to work out we've got to switch some positions around. Reroute the engine room controls to a new console behind Teru so he can operate them in Muffet and Ty's absence, and patch Marguerite's computer data to Terrell."

The captain looked past Hyuuga for a moment, to the front of the bridge.
"Marguerite, can you take over this battle?"

Marguerite swiveled around in her chair swiftly, giving a salute with a smile.
"On it!"

Tadayoshi transferred the Katina battle data from Kongou's screen to Marguerite's, and swiveled the screen back to Kongou.
"I'll direct the Earth-A mission. We just need to hold the line at that front from this point anyway."

He cleared his throat, sitting up straight and clearing his mind.
"I'm ready."

Kongou mirrored her captain.
"So am I."

Hyuuga's eyes flashed as she pulled a large level on the side of the computer, booting it up and activating the neural connection between Tadayoshi and Kongou's mental model.

Kongou felt the strangest sensations as data flowed in and out of her processors at an unprecedented rate. Physically, she felt all of her muscles relax, and her mental model's thinking slowed drastically; what seemed to be pulses of energy felt like they were washing over her brain, until she passed out.

---

???

Kongou woke in a pitch black void. Despite the darkness of the void and the lack of any light source, she could see herself easily as if well lit in a bright room. The woman looked around, seeing nothing but the inky abyss.
She tried walking around, but found that she became dizzy quickly, her muscles feeling weak.
I need to catch my-wait...

As soon as Kongou remembered her identity, the room stopped spinning, though it remained dark and infinite. Kongou felt wind behind her, and turned to see a decrepit city, with crumbling infrastructure and trash strewn about the roads. Gusts of wind blew dust, silt, and rubble across the surface of the cracked roads. As Kongou walked, she saw reflections in the broken glass of the buildings, but not of herself. Each reflection seemed to be a glimpse into Tadayoshi's life.

The first few times Kongou looked, there was no image, just the faint sounds of distant shouting between adults.
She continued looking as she walked, her pace slowing considerably.

Moving across the country.
A childhood friend's death, another moving away.
Living in poverty.

Teachers' voices chided and berated, shouting out in a cacophony of hate. Faces formed from a crowd, shifting and morphing between each other. After some time, one face and voice stuck out in particular, bringing forward complicated feelings of love, despair, neglect, fear, hate, and rage. Kongou couldn't tell why, but she felt she instinctively knew this woman. She looked at Kongou, though it didn't seem like it was Kongou she was staring at.
You're brilliant, even smarter than me. You can do anything, so why can't you figure this out? Just try harder. You're just not trying. You're my child. I want what's best for you. I want to see you succeed. So just try harder for me, okay?

The face morphed into that of Supreme Flagship Yamato's mental model. Kongou blinked rapidly, jarred by the transition.

You're a very strong battleship, Kongou. But there is some data that you're just not privy to. I know what the correct course is, but if I divulge too much to my officers then security would be out of the window wouldn't it? Plus, you gained a core long after I did. There are some things that I've picked up that you simply haven't yet, that's okay. Trust me, I know best. Do as I say, and report back to me more regularly. *smile smile*

Kongou winced at the words, brows furrowed with frustration.
"No. That is unacceptable. I wish to live my own way, to sail by my own compass."

That would be a mistake, Kongou. Again, some things just come with exp-
"If you feel there is something you know which could help me, why not just tell me this information and let me go on my way?"

The face transformed again, back to Tadayoshi's mother.
No! Don't do that! I don't want you to go out there! It's dangerous! Stay here where it's safe! Stay out of trouble, and you'll be fine!

Kongou shook her head as the voices grew louder and louder. She clenched her eyes shut, as the ambient atmospheric pressure built up. Kongou found it difficult to move, as if every fiber of her being were being restrained by shadowy rope.
"I am my own person!"

The crowd's faces all morphed into Yamato's, an army of the flagship's mental models staring Kongou down with cold, glowing eyes.
You are a Fog battleship, and you will do as I say! You are a reflection of the Fog. How do you think your actions would make the Fog look? Your disobedience makes me look like a bad flagship! You will follow my command as long as you are in my fleet! And leaving the fleet would be bad, right?

"WRONG!"

Kongou's eyes flashed open, irises glowing a bright scarlet with anger and determination. She saw her own reflection flash in the glass, followed by Tadayoshi, and in an instant it disappeared and she was struck with an overwhelming set of emotions, ones very familiar to her; grief, rage, fear, disgust... But above all else, she felt another shared emotion. Resolution. Her arms and face glowed brightly with Fog tribal marks as her Klein field activated around her. The shadowy tendrils vaporized as she dumped the energy built up from her Klein field as an unfocused, sudden release of electrical energy. The ground around her pitted and cratered as bolts of electromagnetic plasma carved up the road, shattering all of the surrounding glass into dust.

She shook her head in pain, breaking contact.
I didn't realize he went through all of this, too...

The battleship felt the shattered glass at it crunched under her shoes, giving it but a moment's thought before moving on with her mission. Kongou looked to the other side of the street. The buildings were slightly smaller and fewer in number, but better kept. In the reflections of the windows seemed to be happier memories.

Playing in the snow.
Another move across the country.
Meeting new friends.

She watched as Tadayoshi went through training at IMPDO, meeting many people from various backgrounds along the way. Her heart felt calmer here than it did on the other side of the road. The further back in time the memories went, the murkier they got, as if obscured by mist. There were several patches where the mist obscured the middle of Tadayoshi's memories.

However, when Kongou saw her reflection again, it was clear and vivid, and this time she felt a relaxing warmth swell up from within. Unlike the previous cold mirror reflection, this time it was like she was looking at a clone of herself from the other side of an open window. The mental model could see herself in great detail, from the ripples of her purple satin dress to the shade of her blue lipstick. It was honestly impressive.

The memory-clone smiled, and the entire surrounding area was engulfed in a swirling, tornado-like vortex for several seconds before the clouds subsided and dissipated, revealing a much more familiar location. A forest clearing in the mountains overlooking Tokyo on Earth-A, the stars above visible through a large hole in the sea of leaves. Kongou felt herself laying in the cool, damp grass now. Her heart melted as she allowed herself to relax; her boundaries seemed to fade away as she became connected to everything in the environment. She listened to the chatter of the night wildlife, the wind rustling softly through the trees, through her hair... She felt as one with the world, and as one with the past version of Kongou who was laying next to her.

...That's why I like them. I want to see them one day. The horizon and the sky have always felt so far away to me. Unreachable... I feel confined...

Kongou's heart sank as she turned to face the past-Kongou, who was looking out longingly to the constellations above, tears beginning to well up. Her vision blurred with tears, too.

"I know that feeling well." Kongou said, though she knew it wasn't really her speaking. She already had memories of hearing these words, not saying them. "When I got rifted, a part of me kinda wanted to run. To just disappear into the multiverse and leave the world behind. No more bills, no more rent... I wouldn't have to deal with Marcus, and I wouldn't have to worry which news was real and what's just a bunch of lies told by vindictive psychopaths..."

Why do you want to stay in this world, then?

Kongou sighed. Lots of thoughts ran through her mind of Marguerite, Chase, Terrell, Teru, the Commissioner... She thought of many other people whose faces she didn't quite know, before the answer emerged.

"Whether I'm here, or on Corneria, or fuck I dunno, somewhere on the other side of the infinite expanse, there'll always be challenges. So running away like that isn't really the solution. However, I've found a nice family here, of sorts. My team. I'm allowed to leave if I want, but I've found that happiness doesn't come from a location, but the people around you. My job is frustrating at times, and can be physically demanding, but that's a constant-after all, 'labor is hard' isn't exactly a mind-blowing conclusion. The people I'm with are what's important; I haven't always had nearly such good luck, especially as a kid, but by chance I'm currently in a group where everyone has each other's happiness and well being at heart, and I think that's beautiful. I would miss that forever-it'd feel like they were missing."

Kongou looked at her past self, something eating away at the former’s mind.
”Hey, I really like hanging out with you, and I’m sure they’d love to, too. I could get something together for us all to hang out sometime if you would like.”

The past-Kongou closed her eyes, sighing as hot tears streamed down her face. Kongou offered her hand, which her past self took in her own hand.
...Thank you. Do you think we could talk more about this together later? I feel like it would help.

Kongou nodded gently.
"Yes, I'd like that too..."

The past-Kongou slowly smiled, chuckling from relief.
Thank you, Tadayoshi.
"Any time, Kongou."

The memory faded, leaving Kongou standing by herself again, this time in the middle of a busy, dirty, crowded city. Clearly not Tokyo, though Kongou had never visited this place before. She shook her head, refocusing herself.

What is my empathetic protocol doing? Kongou wondered. This question plagued her as she continued her journey, until the answer dawned on her.
"If I'm passing through Tadayoshi's psyche right now, then these emotions and visions are actually..."

Kongou moved a little faster, though she was very intrigued by everything around her.
Right, Hyuuga said not to get stuck...

As she passed Tadayoshi's recent memories, one seemed to stick out. Tadayoshi and Kongou were on vacation, and the former had forgotten clothes to put on after the shower. Kongou made copy of her dress for him as a joke, but the man actually wore it.

Kongou chuckled to herself.
I wonder why that's such an important memory.

She stopped for a moment out of curiosity, looking at the memory through Tadayoshi's perspective as she had before but making sure not to delve too deep so as not to lose herself. As she watched Tadayoshi through the bathroom mirror, he handled the dress carefully as they put it on with a happy smile.

Their heart raced with nervousness and anticipation as they opened the door. It felt almost like it would explode from panic.
"Hey, Kongou! How do I look?" Tadayoshi's voice echoed faintly.

"Marvelous." Kongou heard her own words like a siren's song as a warm feeling washed over her. She got a sudden rush of joy and a feeling of validation as she saw past-Kongou smiling sweetly.

Kongou pulled herself away from the memory, still smiling. She walked into the heart of the city, finding a field covered in short grass and sleeping flowers in the middle of the square roundabout where City Hall used to be. In the middle was a young woman with long, curly brown hair, standing in the center.

Kongou approached with slight hesitation; her facial recognition software wasn't part of her subconscious, but the girl looked familiar. As Kongou walked through the field, she could see the woman more clearly; she looked like...
"Tadayoshi... or..."

The young woman nodded with a somber expression. Kongou stepped forward, hugging her tight in a close embrace.
"I love you, and I will always be right here with you."

Kongou caressed Tadayoshi's cheek gently while giving her a passionate kiss as reassurance. Slowly, the field began blooming all matter of vibrant colors as Tadayoshi kissed Kongou in return. There was a bright flash of white, and-

---

MUS Kongou

Kongou jolted awake, her entire body spasming violently for a second as she came back online. She drew larger breaths for some time, as her sensors recalibrated and she was again conscious of reality. She clutched her head in slight pain for a moment, as she spoke to Hyuuga.

"You would not believe..." she trailed off, clearing her throat. "Anyway, the connection was successful. I have complete use of IMPDO's computer network. Apparently that includes any PC or phone hooked to it, too, not just the supercomputer network... With all of this, I should be able to counter the Venomian supercomputer."

Kongou turned to look at Tadayoshi, who was on the surface, staring blankly ahead unresponsively, though a closer look revealed streams of tears flowing from her eyes. She felt an even deeper connection with her partner than ever before, as if their souls had touched.
Thank you, my love.

---

???

Tadayoshi felt her body fade away, as if she were floating in a sensory deprivation tank. Soon, she became nothing but her consciousness, as the environment below her shifted between different scenes in Kongou's memory. It seemed that most of her early existence was either sailing and talking with members of the Fleet of Fog, or bickering with them, but some stuck out well.

The Fog-Humanity War, and the massive naval battle where the world's fleets were destroyed.
Kongou ramming a ship, breaking it, and splitting it in half out of spite.
Yamato's constant surveillance and prodding.
The constant questioning of purpose.
Iona sinking her with a bomb from a seaplane, and Kongou's blood thirst and attempt at killing Gunzou.

Kongou's regret and torment flooded Tadayoshi's mind momentarily. However, several happier memories stuck out later, including their dates, hanging out with the crew, and even a few snippets of the recent meetings since the start of the multiversal-scale war.

As Kongou's memories reached the present and stopped appearing, Tadayoshi felt warmth wrap around her, and she took a moment to appreciate the comforting sensation.

Everything flashed to black for a moment, and the likeness of a massive, glowing, cross-shaped pillar of energy appeared for a fraction of a second, before the void returned to its normal, blank state. At this point, Tadayoshi felt a slight shift in her consciousness, as if lucid dreaming.
I should be able to control my mind again. Or at least my subconscious? I guess...

She tried making a room with a war table, and she found that he somehow was already in one. It was brightly lit, with a simple rectangular table in the middle, displaying the data for the battle above Earth-A. The woman blinked and shook her head a couple of times, readjusting her vision before focusing on the map of the fight.
Jesus, that's trippy... Anyway, time to get to work.

---

The Northern Seas, The High Kingdom of Eprelia
Music

Bloodfyre stood at the helm of the Eprelian greatship-of-the-line, an enchanted, five-mast, 120 meter long wooden sailing ship with a total of 138 guns and a reinforced bow ram. The knight gripped the wooden wheel tightly, as the pride of the navy was tossed to and fro in the middle of a massive sea storm. A rogue wave swelled under them, sending the ship airborne.

"Link!" the old knight shouted loudly, his voice still not carrying over to the young man on the main deck as he finished tying some fuses. Bloodfyre almost let a complaint seep into his thoughts regarding Havthena's ban on the use of magic during the trial.

Bloodfyre pressed a foot pedal at the base of the steering wheel, locking the rudder in place. He ran to the stairs and slid down the railing, landing with a roll. As the ship rocked side to side, Bloodfyre stumbled forward, moving past several battle droids as they manned the rigging of the ship.

I'm not as spry as I used to be... the middle aged man lamented, rushing over to Link.
"Link!"

The boy turned to face Bloodfyre.

"It's right on our tail! Are the guns ready!?" his voice was partially drowned by the gusts of wind and massive walls of spray.

To answer, Link held up a large rope insulated by a thick, waxy substance, which trailed across the deck and into a small grating leading to the decks below.

"Muffet!" Bloodfyre turned and walked briskly to the spider girl, who was holding onto several ropes, rigging that had snapped due to the pressure of the wind; Bloodfyre was surprised the sails hadn't simply torn instead.

Muffet adjusted the two arms she was using to anchor herself to the railing before turning to the man.
"I'm fine."

The Eprelian nodded in response, rushing back across the deck to Link. He may have had to leave his equipment in the ship, and the crew may have been banned from using their magic, but the Pride of Eprelia held true to its name, its enchantments weren't covered under the rule, and Bloodfyre felt confident in the ship's ability to defeat the sea beast on their tail.

Suddenly, the Moon and the stars were blotted out, as a massive rogue wave smashed into the port side of the ship, washing everyone across the deck and into the railing on the starboard side. As Bloodfyre looked up, the sky was still pitch black in front of the ship, as if there were some vague silhouette.

Lightning struck, revealing an eyeball ten meters wide.

Long, writhing tentacles made their way out of the water and over the railing on both sides of the ship, wrapping slowly around it. The wood was compressed, beginning to splinter under the constricting motion of the beast.

Bloodfyre took a step back ad instinctively took a fighting stance as he looked in determined awe at the huge cephalopod.
"Link, light the fuse!"

The Hylian took out a primitive match and struck it against his belt buckle, lighting it and the thick rope fuse. The rope caught fire and showered sparks like a sparkler, the spark travelling quickly down the line and through the grate, where it made its way across split fuses to each cannon. From just lighting the fuse, Link started a chain reaction, firing off all 138 guns-the ones on the starboard side having been moved to port and shoved awkwardly through the gun ports. Bloodfyre had placed all of the ship's cargo on the other side of the decks to balance the weight.

The cannons sent roar after deafening roar to the horizon and back, much louder and more powerful than comparable enchanted items. Cannonballs whizzed through the air at hypersonic speeds, ripping large holes through the colossal octopus, who screeched loudly.

The tentacles writhed and swept across the main deck, smashing two of the masts and bringing them down on top of the ship. Muffet gripped the ropes she was holding tighter, holding one of the masts back before it could fall on top of Link and Bloodfyre. As the two rushed out of the way, the ropes snapped, and the pillar of wood smashed into the top of the ship, breaking the main deck in half and embedding itself in the deck below.

"Automatons, open fire!" Bloodfyre commanded, and in response the dozens of battle droids crewing the ship drew their blasters. In seconds, hundreds of superheated plasma rounds impacted the sea monster, causing severe burns and welts. The creature smashed its tentacles on the bottom of the ship, cracking the hull and sending the ship into the air yet again, before retreating.

The ship landed hard, tossing Bloodfyre, Link, Muffet, and all of the droids to the bow like rag dolls. As soon as the ship hit the water, the storm faded away, leaving the crew laying exhausted on the broken main deck. The sunlight grew brighter and brighter, and the air grew hot, thick, and humid.

Bloodfyre struggled to get up, feeling his clothes stick to him underneath the heavy, waterlogged gambeson. While his armor usually was manageable, every movement felt like he was wearing a suit of lead.

"Grand Duke Raene Guischard Bloodfyre the Great, Third of the Family Name, General of the Eprelian Cavalry, Second in Command of the High King's Forces, Knight of the High Table of Saint Tavsera, Lorekeeper and Professor of Alchemic Processes of the Eprelian Grand Library, and Heir Apparent of the Holy Sword, step forward."

Bloodfyre took one confident, dutiful step towards the ball of light floating above their ship, then knelt with his head bowed down. The luminous sphere crackled for some time, eventually forming into an attractive, nude woman in her 30's. She looked to Link and Muffet, who seemed surprised by her appearance. Havthena was displeased at their lack of immediate respect, but could easily tell they weren't from this world. Either way, Bloodfyre was the one who led the expedition, so her business was with him.

"I suppose thou art here for thy wife?" Havthena asked in a fasley-sweet tone.

Bloodfyre's eyes widened in surprise, but he dared not lift his head to a goddess.
"You have power enough to bring her back to me? In good health?"

Havthena nodded with a smile. She shifted her weight to the other foot, and placed a hand to her chin.
"Yes, I possess power beyond thy conception. Observe."

Havthena closed her eyes and raised her arms as if picking up something on either side of her. Soon, small pillars of muddy water came from the sea floor, arcing over onto the ship and forming a large bubble. Once all of the water needed was amassed, it morphed, taking the form of a woman in her forties. The woman gasped for air.

Bloodfyre lifted his head, seeing his wife on the deck on the ship. He rushed to the woman, holding her mostly limp figure in his body.

"...Raene..."

The knight's vision quickly blurred with tears as he held his wife closely. His heart raced, dozens of emotions flooding their way back to the fore.

"It's okay, Raene... I'm here..."

Bloodfyre's heart sank, as he knew what his wife was telling him.
"Great Goddess..." the man spoke softly, eliciting a bemused expression from Havthena. "This is not the reason I have come."

"I know why thou hath sailed here. I offer this in exchange. Your love, in exchange for your mission."

Bloodfyre thought for quite some time, thinking back on the many years he spent with the woman in his arms. He remembered meeting her in the Eprelian Grand Library when they were both in their early teens, and how they would later raise their children in that very library; she was an alchemist, even better than he, and taught not only their children many things, but Bloodfyre as well. If he refused the offer, she would remain in Afterworld and the MUDP would get the fleet they needed to turn the tide of the war. If he accepted, the MUDP would likely be mired in conflict for generations before collapsing, but he would have the love of his life back by his side. The knight thought long and hard about what his decision should be.
The man shook his head.

"I can not accept. My wife's time has already passed, and she may wait for me in Afterworld. Without those ships, many worlds will suffer, and trillions will die. I can not truly comprehend this number, but I know the loss of an innocent life is inexcusable, even to see my beloved once more."

Bloodfyre's wife turned back into water, spilling through his arms and disapearing into the soaked deck. The man was startled, but remained kneeling where his wife had been.

"Bloodfyre the Great, thou art a man of thy name. I judge thee worthy of my blessing. I will raise the ships thou wishest to be raised. In doing this deed, thou hath demanded much of me, and I do not forget a face. Do not journey here again, or thou and thy Union shall suffer my wrath."

---

???

Tadayoshi pushed several small figurines of warships around a 3D hologram of the battle above Earth-A, the figurines suspended in midair. The battle has stalled, and the officer couldn't concentrate well, taking some time to react.
Shit, now I'm running low on processing power...

Like a beacon from paradise, a voice came over a speaker above the door to the room-a door that honestly led to nowhere, and was only there because Tadayoshi wasn't used to being in rooms without doors.
"General Bloodfyre to MUS Kongou, we've finished our mission. Havthena is performing the raising ceremony now."

There were faint cheers from the speaker, and Tadayoshi looked around the room. After some time, she thought up a chair, and dragged it to the speaker. The woman stood on the chair and spoke loudly into it.

"Earth-A is ready for the ground assault. Tell Pepper to send the troops to the ships now!"

No idea if this will work, but who the hell knows how the subconscious works anyway?

---

MUS Kongou

Without breaking his trance, Tadayoshi began speaking in a dead, monotone voice.
"Allied warships confirmed at Earth-A. Moving to next phase. Opening communications with CAV Jewel's Crown. Open transmission; Operation Sea Raid is a success-Deploy troop transports in 613th Detachment to Earth-A. Stop. End transmission."

Kongou looked over to Tadayoshi with a concerned expression, holding her captain's hand as her processors were taken to their limits.
Stay strong, my angel.

---

Pacific Ocean, Earth-A

Aachalendra and Kamaria looked through one of the windows in the side of the Flying Fortress they chose as the command center of the newly and hastily upgraded air wing. The tall, anthropomorphic tiger watched the Scarlet Fleet detachment below, placing a hand on a tiny table in front of the window. It felt electrified by the hum of the jets which had replaced the old plane's propeller-driven motors.

"Do you like our odds, Captain?" the man's voice was deep and resonant.

The second of the two, a tall secretary bird with a calm demeanor, looked intently at the Fog Battleship Scharnhorst.

"It's still hard to tell, but they've been holding their ground surprisingly well. Their ships have a truly ridiculous amount of point defense batteries. But we're really just here to help hold the line." she explained.

"Ah, yes... Do we know how long it should take before Bloodfyre gets us the ships?"

Kamaria looked over to a clock hung on the side of the fuselage, frowning.
"We're running a little late alread-"

The words had hardly escaped her beak when the sky erupted into a brilliant cacophony of color; aurora filled the air around the entire planet as it was saturated in life energy by Havthena.
"It's beautiful!" Aachalendra muttered.

"That's not all!"

Kamaria pointed to a patch of the ocean not too far from the Scarlet Fleet, where the water began churning heavily, a bright white light glowing ever brighter from the depths, until a white sphere of energy broke the surface and floated half-submerged. The energy ball dissipated, leaving behind the perfectly restored USS Utah; a Florida-class battleship that had been underwater since the Attack on Pearl Harbor was now afloat in mint condition, ready for combat.

"He actually did it!" Aachalendra gasped.

A voice called out through the plane in an excited tone.
"Flash Division transports have just jumped into orbit! Shuttle 9-9-8-Alpha-7-3 is reqesting confirmation for Plan Delta!"

Kamaria smiled triumphantly, clasping her hands together.
"Captain Kamaria, confirming Plan Delta, authentication code 1-5-R-3-W-4!"

In mere seconds, massive shuttles soared through the air, each filled with newly trained crew for the resurrected ships. One such shuttle hovered above the Utah, the bottom of the cargo section lowering on massive hydraulic pistons, and sailors poured out onto the deck and rushed directly to their battlestations.

"I almost can't believe this fuckin' worked." the Cornerian tiger laughed.

Kamaria gave a soft smile, as Utah's cannons roared to life with thick, green beams of light.
"One for the history books, I'm sure."

---

CAV Jewel's Crown, Katina

"Multiversal Task Force has taken position around us! The Venomian fleet has been trapped!"
General Pepper watched the VelPos screen with a slight sense of relief, but only for a brief moment. He focused intently on the screen; each of the red dots on VelPos had a tiny yellow triangle on the outside to indicate the direction the ship was pointed, and every instinct inside the hound was screaming. As he watched the little yellow triangles, the canine's fur stood on end.

"Don't let up." the general ordered.

The Venomian ships turned quickly, with massive energy readings. Pepper's eyes widened as he turned to the sensory station of the CIC.
"Would they really-"

"Negative, sir. We're getting visual confirmation from fighters that all Granby-class ships have... bifurcated and began charging super graviton cannons!?

A countdown began on one of the central screens, starting at 33 seconds... 32 seconds... 31...

Pepper felt time slow to a crawl as adrenaline rushed through his body.
Every single Granby-class battleship in that fleet is manufactured with those synthetic nanomaterials, and contains an SGC? Just those ships alone would be enough to kill us, let alone the dozens of carriers.

The general's demeanor suddenly shifted, and he seemed to lose all of his stress. He calmly but briskly walked to the special weapons station, where only one other officer stood, now saluting. Pepper turned around as the officer unlocked a drawer; the general took a spare officer's headset and put it on, speaking into the microphone.
"Patch me in to the fleet... Thank you..."

After only 2 seconds, Pepper began speaking.
"The time we predicted has come; Venom has surpassed Corneria technologically and is in a position to destroy our fleet and by extension, our homeland. It is time to utilize the Ultimate Failsafe. Prepare to accept shutdown signal."

Music

Pepper returned the headset to its place. He turned to the officer, who handed him a large, three pronged key; each prong was placed in a row along a small metal rod, and set via an internal system of gears to turn at the same time with the center key.

On the front of the special weapons console was a sliding panel, the sides of which were bordered with painted red-and-yellow caution tape. The door itself was painted white, with a plethora of black text describing what was contained inside and the process for using it. Pepper had read it before, of course. Cutting through the red tape and lawyer-speak, the process was actually quite straightforward; Pepper used an emergency contact line to explain the situation, the captains were given two seconds to decide before voting (which only took another second), and if-of those who decided in the allotted time frame-the fleet agrees with Pepper, the door to the keyhole would unlock and slide open.

The few seconds felt like an eternity to Cornelius, before the door slammed open like lightning. Below was a circular port with three smaller circles inside, each an independently turning keyhole. Pepper carefully guided the triple key into the console.
Right quarter turn, left half turn, right quarter turn, left quarter turn.

There was a slight pause, then all throughout the Cornerian fleet, the lights shut off, the weapons powered down, and their shields faded away. Cornerian ships that were once suspended above Katina were now slowly sinking into the upper atmosphere as the planet spun beneath them.

---

Superbattleship Zashudar

Admiral Gaito watched the battle from the bridge, confused to all hell.
"Wait... what? What are the Cornerians doing?"

"Their ships are powering down, sir. Maybe they've given up?"

"Pepper's tenacity is somethin' else." the gecko muttered, shaking his head.

Suddenly, the bridge erupted.
"Energy spike detected from the Jewel's Crown!"
"Radiological Alarm! Deuterium-tritium reactor core of Pepper's ship has exceeded estimated limits!"
"A massive device has just been deployed on the bottom of the enemy flagship!"

The reptilian admiral's mind went blank.
"...What...?"

---

CAV Jewel's Crown

On the bottom of the ship, a large antenna appeared, the scaffolding unfolding and extending to 150 meters.
The massive amount of energy built up in the Jewel's Crown quickly poured out through the antenna and out into space in every direction as a massive expanding blue sphere of crackling energy.

As soon as it struck the Cornerian ships next to the Jewel's crown, they simply continued drifting downwards, falling into a lower orbit due to lack of engine power. But as soon as it struck the Venomian ships, it was first intercepted by their shields, which overloaded. Many Venomian ships began exploding or struggling with meltdowns, their reactors and batteries unable to cope with the overwhelming EMP attack despite their shielding against it.

As the Jewel's Crown entered Katina's atmosphere, the front began glowing a bright orange, and the antenna tower snapped off, disintegrating instantly. A massive sonic cone formed around the flagship as it flew, obscuring parts in a white haze.

Inside the CIC, Pepper stumbled through the jackhammering, turbulent room back to the wartable as officers rushed to glass panes with markers, mechanical calculators, and typewriters. In a matter of seconds, the entire room was loud with the sound of clacking, printing, and paper tearing. Anything not bolted down rattled and shook, getting lighter and lighter until eventually floating in midair. Officers throughout the CIC activated magnetic strips on the bottom of their boots, sticking to the ground.

"Deploy all flaps, fall back on manual controls..." Pepper turned to the navigation station, where several officers were calculating the orbital trajectory of the ship on a glowing glass board, the light supplied by an engineered strip of bioluminescent cells around the edges of the glass. A circle had been drawn in the middle, and several officers with clipboards and markers took turns drawing arcs around it, and double-checking the work.

One of the anthropomorphic officers went to the rear of the station and quickly relayed the order to several people, who all lined up at massive levers along the wall. These control switches were carefully engineered each as a series of levers and reduction gears to allow direct, mechanical control of the atmospheric control surfaces of the ship. The crew was directed by the helmsman, who called out lever adjustments by letter and degree.
One of the navigational officers snapped a photo of their board with a Polaroid, and stuck it in a clear, plastic cylinder about one foot long and half a foot in diameter, along with several other papers. He placed this container into a tube at his desk, and locked the tube's opening. With the press of a few buttons, the tube filled with compressed nitrogen from an air tank under the floor, and shot the mail down the tube at high speed to the weapons department, who used a similar system to then distribute orders to each gun placement.

"Emergency! Emergency! Collision Course Detected! Cruiser on parallel, dead ahead." a small speaker on the side of the console in the navigations station carried the voice of an observer on the recreation deck who could guide the ship visually to the navigations team.

"Flaps one through six, drop by thirty degrees! Flaps 25 through 30, drop all the way!" shouted the helmsman. In response, several officers moved a massive all-flap lever which controlled the six dorsal flaps, as well as the all-flap lever which activated all of the air brakes and landing flaps.

The Cornerian flagship deployed its massive air brakes along with several directional flaps on the dorsal side, quickly falling like a lead ingot at the last second. The top of the recreational bridge of the Jewel's Crown scraped along the bottom out the cruiser, and several armored plates on each surface turned to orange goo, sloughing off and misting as the ships flew.

"How long before we're back online?" Pepper asked. We can't keep this up forever...

"We'll be back online in 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Mark..."

The lights flickered back on as the ships systems reset.
"Ship's computer is back online."

Pepper nodded.
"Power the engines on and swing us back around to orbit. The Venomians wouldn't have enough time to shut down their computers, so their systems should be completely fried."

---

MUS Kongou

Tadayoshi's vision blurred white as he tried to open her eyes, her head was pounding, and she felt like she had just sprinted an entire marathon.

Hyuuga removed the headgear from the woman's head, and her vision focused quickly.
Terrell, Marguerite, Chase, Maya, Hyuuga, Teru...

She turned to her right.
"Kongou, are you alright?"

Kongou faced the woman, slumped in her chair and clearly tired but otherwise seemingly fine.
"I'll be fine..." she sighed, exhausted, yet relieved and happy.

Tadayoshi still hadn't fully come back to her senses; she felt that he needed to be asking questions, but right now she was too exhausted to think. It was as if her brain refused to work for a second.

"We did it, Darling."

Kongou's voice snapped Tadayoshi back into reality, and everything came flooding back.
"Oh, sitrep?"

"We defeated the strange supercomputer aboard the Zashudar, Pepper used some kind of defensive superweapon, and Admiral Gaito's flagship made an emergency jump, abandoning his fleet. His successor immediately surrendered, unconditionally." Kongou summarized. "I was able to disconnect us quickly enough to avoid getting caught by the EMP, but I had to prioritize pulling us out and breaking the link as quickly as possible, so our systems were hit."

"Is everyone okay?"

Hyuuga chuckled, looking over to the drift computer; its shell had warped with heat, and steam and smoke trickled from the cracks in the shell.
"I'd be more worried about yourself." she teased.

"I'm fine." Tadayoshi smiled. "Thanks."

The captain turned to Kongou, who gave him a smile, before pressing her forehead to hers.
"I love you."

Tadayoshi smiled, holding Kongou's hand.
"I love you, too."

Chase sank into his chair, practically tearing the headset from his head and lazily tossing it somewhere in the vicinity of his keyboard. He slouched heavily, sinking low into his chair as he turned to face Terrell.
"We're breaking out the new shit tonight. The 180 proof."

"Yeah, I need it." Terrell laughed, taking his headset off and wiping his brow with the sleeve of his uniform.

Tadayoshi looked around the bridge, observing her exhausted crew. She also felt exhausted, but it was clear the fight was over.
"All personnel, mission accomplished. Set Condition Three throughout the fleet. Withdraw fighters and drones."
She switched her chair's intercom from fleet-wide to just ship-wide.

"MUS Kongou personnel, this is your captain speaking. Effective immediately, all personnel are to set schedules to Pattern B ad get some rest. That is all."

She turned to his bridge crew.
"You're all clear to go."

"You sure you don't need any help getting the systems online?" Terrell asked, looking around at the bridge.

Tadayoshi shook her head.
"The backup comm system is still functional, so the EMP didn't wipe us out. The rest of the ships from outside of Lylat should still be operable, since they're mostly crewed and not networked anyway."

"Luckily, we can just bypass the central network for a bit while it reboots, because none of the backups were running at the time." Kongou nodded with approval. "It doesn't take more than one person to throw the switch to transfer back over."

With a few more rounds of "good job," the crew eventually staggered out of the bridge, leaving Tadayoshi and Kongou alone together.

"It's been a long time since it's just been the two of us." Kongou mused, taking in the silence.

Tadayoshi nodded, reminiscent.
"Yeah... I never would've imagined that this is how my life would turn out..."

Kongou turned to face Tadayoshi.
"Do you regret how things turned out?"

Tadayoshi thought for a few seconds, but smiled, matching Kongou's gaze.
"Nah. There's some things I still need to do, obviously. But I'd say right now, I'm pretty happy."

Kongou gave Tadayoshi a warm kiss on this lips, and embraced her.
"So am I."