With Our Dying Breath [Worm/Fate]

[Tamzar]

AN: A little side-project that I've done snippets for over the last year. Finally decided I should just start tidying them up and post them in a vaguely coherent story. A word of warning for serious Fate fans, this isn't going to entirely line up with every single Word of God ever made, and I don't intend on throwing around terms like Od and Prana like they belong in America. A few characterisations and head-canons might be different, but overall the rest should be familiar.

I would like for any minor gripes with the Fate mechanics to be swept under the rug of "AU" or "Author Fiat" because there will undoubtedly be arguments about it. I have a few more chapters to post once I tidy them up, but once those are posted this won't update fast by any means - so there's some advance warning on that.

--

My muscles burned. I flex an arm experimentally and wince in pain as my aching body protests the rash movement. The locker incident had taken its toll. It was better than the sheer agony that I felt upon waking up in the hospital, but I wasn't keen to restart my morning jogging sessions anytime soon.

"Nobody even wants her here. I'm surprised she even came back-" There goes Emma again, blithely chatting away to Julia – utterly uncaring of the fact that I was in hearing range. No, that was wrong. She had chosen me as the subject matter precisely because I could hear her, I don't think that I was so prevalent in her thoughts that I would warrant a place in their regular conversations – but if it was just a continuation of their regular hazing, then it was rather tame by their standards. "It would be better for everyone if she just crawled off into some dark corner and died."

Mr Gladly drones on in the background, an unimportant lecture to a class that only pretends to be interested. Any dedicated students would either be in the very top set of classes or have transferred to another school once it became apparent just how much of a hellhole Winslow was. This was where the no-hopers of the world ended up. A good half of the class belonged to a gang, and most of the others united into vast social cliques that functioned as a gang of their own when it came to school dynamics. And then there was me. Just me.

"Worthless, ugly freak. Probably spreading her legs to-" I flip the page of my notebook over, obediently copying down the figure on the whiteboard. "-at that stupid expression on her face. I don't think she even knows how to smile, not that anyone wants to see that."

Emma turns and smiles at me spitefully. "She isn't always like that. I remember when her mother died, she cried herself to sleep for a week straight!" The girls on her table let out 'oohs' of appreciation, as if she had just destroyed me in a debate and dropped the mic on her way out.

Control. I eye her placidly, and the triumphant grin slips from her face. "Freak." She spits, before turning back around to the front of the class.

I maintain my steady gaze. She's… so small. In the end. Irrelevant. A case of bullying in a run-down high school. What happened to me here didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It was frustrating, in its own way.

Five years. Four months. Twelve days. Two hours. I glance at my watch. And twenty-two minutes exactly.

Until we all died.

Not that anyone knew about that except me. They couldn't do anything about it if they did – I had looked at studies after being discharged from hospitals. The steady decline of civilisation showed no signs of stopping. If anything, it was accelerating – blowing past the most pessimistic guesses of the worlds academic minds thanks to the efforts of the Endbringers. If anyone could do anything, then they would already be doing it.

Five years.

That was how long humanity had left if nothing was done. And I'm just sitting here, listening to Emma. Humanity is dying, and she's investing this much effort into getting a rise out of me. A flash of annoyance that didn't belong to me stirs at the back of my mind, and I repress my power until I feel the watcher's attention drift away. Not here.

I glance around. Come to think of it, why was I even here? I had come back for the first day of school out of pure habit, but what was I attending school for when I had the ability and power to try and save the world? If I simply stayed here and studied, what was I going to learn that would actually help change anything? I have power, I need to use it. I can make a difference.

More importantly than any of that, I knew the price of failure.

Five years. The world ends in five years. That's what my power told me. Gone. Pruned.

I wanted to cry.

And what would it take for everyone and everything that I knew not be snipped away like unwanted weeds? A world, a collection of worlds even, that was not only resilient to current and future threats but actively thriving. The downward spiral of Earth-Bet and it's dimensional neighbours not only had to be stopped, but actively reversed. To thrive. Flourishing with potential and the will to survive.

An almost impossible task. There's a stirring at the back of my mind at the thought, as if a dozen people had heard the thought and taken it as a personal challenge. Which was almost exactly what had happened, in fairness. Not now. I aim the thought at the back of my mind. I don't need you now.

A few listen and move away. One doesn't. I only get a moment of warning to brace myself mentally before a foreign voice thunders into my thoughts. "Beat them up girlie! Or let me out, I'll do it for you!" I drew a blank on the name of the speaker. I couldn't curl up and concentrate to truly get all the details of the spirit that I needed to identify them. From the feeling that I did get… this was a Viking of some description. Norse, or some Germanic barbarian variant. I didn't know enough famous figures to guess at his name without help. I mentally shush the man, warily maintaining my grip on the mental window between us – in case he tried to shove his way through.

"Let me handle this." I direct the thought at him, with a tad more venom than necessary.

"Bah. It's your fight if you want it lass." He settles down, swigging back his drink which almost entirely misses his mouth. A fact which only bolsters his spirits even higher. "She would hardly be worth the effort anyway. I've got better things to do, and so do you." I turn my attention away as the pressure recedes.

He wasn't wrong though. I needed to get out of school and improve my control over my power. As it is, I'm one lapse of control away from the birdcage – and I can't save humanity from there. Simply ditching class wasn't enough, I would get dragged back eventually when the school noticed my absence. I had to earn my time off.

I need to leave.

A spitball impacts my forehead as I muse. A murderous scowl crosses my face as Emma quickly turns back around in her seat to face forward, the very picture of innocence. I feel the presence of another voice tuning in. "Cave her skull in! You let one person disrespect you, and all of the rest will feel they can do the same. Set an example!"

And I need my powers to let me deal with my problems in my way. I shove back harder at the mental door as a spirit presses against them again. "She's mine." I hiss the thought. I was getting angry, and I was not entirely sure how much of the anger was genuinely mine. I nod to myself distractedly, returning my papers to my bag and slipping my pens back into my pencil case. I pull my coat off the back of my seat and stand, pulling my school-bag up with me in the same motion. Get out. Stay out.

"Taylor? Are you going somewhere?" Mr Gladly's voice, probably slightly annoyed at the interruption to his lecture.

Calm. I'm calm. Stay calm. I want to do this. This wasn't a rash, heat-of-the-moment decision, this was the product of icy, cold logic. Get out of school. Get stronger. Save the world. "The principal's office, Sir." I inform him politely, walking up between a row of desks as a bunch of drunks and mass-murderers roar out advice on the best way to kill everyone in this room.

"Might I ask why?" He replies, slightly mollified by my tone of respect – but seemingly unwilling to pass on the opportunity to appear like he cared about my existence for once.

Calm. I need to calm myself down. Only then, act. "No."

Another few steps forward are all it takes to carry me to Emma's chair, she juts her leg out in front of me in an attempted trip – but I've already come to a stop behind her. She's looking forward innocently, so she doesn't realise anything is off until my hand seizes the bulk of her red hair at the back of her skull tightly before I slam her face forward into her desk as hard as I can manage.

A series of gasps and whistles reverberate around the room, but nobody moves to stop me fast enough to stop me from pulling the dazed girl's head back up into the air and slamming it back down a second and third time. I hear something break as she struggles in my grip, trying to shield her face and screaming like a banshee.

A hand shoves me away, one of Emma's friends. I move with the motion and resume my walk to the classroom exit, leaving the bloodied face of my one-time friend to be tended to by her cronies. Behind me, the class explodes into a mix of whooping cheers and screams depending on whether or not they were in Emma's social circle or not.

Everyone loves to watch a fight in action, no matter how one-sided it might have been. Especially the watchers in my head. I can almost sense the metaphorical popcorn being passed around by the battle-junkies peering through my eyes from the other side. They would be disappointed this time. The show's over for now.

A smile crosses my face as I exit the room. It wasn't a particularly smart move to gain friends, but if it got me a few weeks off of school, then it would have served it's intended purpose. The fact that it was the most satisfying thing that I had done all year was a nice bonus as well. Well, the satisfaction wasn't entirely mine – I could sense a mixed flood of approval and disapproval from the peanut gallery. Some of the more noble spirits must have been passing through – but as long as nobody was so annoyed with my actions that they would be trying to burst through into this world without my permission, then I would take that as a win.

I quicken my pace to the principal's office. It would be best to hurry up and get suspended quickly – the last thing I wanted was to still be in school when the lesson bell rang. Sophia probably wouldn't take her friend's beating well, and she was certainly my superior when it came to a fair fight. I didn't want to know what would happen if she started to beat me in a fight, it takes enough focus to hold back the tide against biting words trips in the corridor – even if they are a bit sated for now. Best to be already on the bus home by the time somebody gets around to telling her.

Blackwell's reaction was predictably apoplectic. Three weeks out of school, an unusually harsh punishment for the crime. One gang member stabbing another could easily earn the same amount of time off, though perhaps it was precisely because I wasn't affiliated with a gang that she felt comfortable with the longer suspension.

Dad's reaction was also somewhat predictable, but after a few minutes of shouting, he reverted to his usual self and dully extracted a promise not to do it again before announcing that he had to go back to work for an emergency. I was grounded for the next few days, but that didn't pose an issue for me – there were plenty of times when he wouldn't be around to enforce it, and I didn't necessarily need to go anywhere to practice anyway.

Back in the privacy of my room, my focus turned entirely inwards. Nobody was paying attention to me right now. Nobody was watching that was likely to try and bust through my mental doorway without asking, that let me relax a little bit. I could sense my power constantly, the link that I had to that other place. Ever since the locker, I had… stowaways in my head. Perhaps 'stowaways' wasn't the right term. A door. A gateway to another place. The Throne of Heroes, as my first lucid summon had informed me. Legends of the past and future. Fact and fantasy. Servants.

And now I needed to summon one. Deliberately this time.

Lying back in my bed, I raise a hand to the ceiling. With a brief focus of effort, red lines streak across the exposed skin – that was the second thing that the locker had changed. I had some form of energy flowing through my body now, and with a bit of focus, I could manipulate it to… give myself a temporary tattoo. Command Seals. They had steadily filled into a brighter shade of red at some stage since the hospital, but even if they did refill – they were my only trump cards when it came to dealing with the rowdier spirits if my only informant was to be believed.

Time to get moving. Practice getting my power under control. Be a real hero. Or at least send a real hero out in my place.

I idly sift through those that I innately sensed would be too difficult to handle in my current state. Age, strength and fantasy seemed to be the three main factors that limited me here, the hazy image of the black knight that had rescued me from the locker flickers through my mind – I was hasty then, not fully understanding what I was doing. I had overreached my limits, and my body was still paying the price for it now.

Another of the servants had enlightened me during my stay in the hospital that the door could be pushed from the other side as well. If there was something that roused the spirit enough, such as her case of seeing me hospitalised and apparently on the brink of death from magical exhaustion of all things, then they could burst through on their own accord. Almost everything that I knew about my power, I knew from her.

Including the fact that I could slam the door shut in their faces if they stepped out of line. Forcibly un-summoning the woman after she had finished with me was unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as the idea of the PRT coming around to ask me why Florence Nightingale was walking around amputating patients in Brockton General.

Back to the topic at hand. I wanted to summon someone to go out and do… something. Anything, really. I needed to focus on more recent people, who undeniably existed and certainly didn't do any fantastical dragon-slaying with magic swords that shoot rainbow beams or something equally silly. That should keep the drain on my body to manageable levels, at least until I get better at it.

The list narrows in my mind. I didn't want someone likely to get pushy or violent. Or someone who was spoiling for a fight. Just a practice run. No heroics, just a small little test to find my limits and push at the edge of them. Walk around the block without collapsing. Go shopping.

My muscles twinge at the mere thought. Still sore, even after all of this time.

Assassin. Archer. Apparently they were usually easier to supply as a class, even if many exceptions to that existed. I flash the tattoo on my hand at the air in front of me. "Come." I focus, tugging my target through the connection. She wasn't close to my window, so my probe takes some time to find my target and establish a connection. It takes a moment, but I can feel her sluggish response becoming clearer and clearer as I maintain the summoning.

And then she is through the door in my mind, flashing into existence in front of me between one split-second and the next.

After a second of silence, she stands. My first thought is one of bitter jealousy, as the servant continues to move and jiggle long after pulling themselves up from the kneeling position that she started in. Of course, she was prettier than me. Why wouldn't she be?

I cut that thought off, mostly to make room for my second thought. Which was pain. The quietened aches of my body return to voice their complaints in full force, liquid fire racing through veins that weren't there. Constantly. Not in a single blast, a constant stream of energy being channelled through me and then into my new servant.

"You-" I begin, teeth gritting slightly. "Your name is Mata Hari. Right?"

She curtsies at me, flashing skin in the process. A lot of skin. I boggle slightly at her choice of costume. It made sense, in hindsight – but still. That was… definitely a costume. I mentally slap myself for the wandering eyes. Focus. "That's right, Master. I am-"

I try to take a step forward and stumble as another flash of searing pain makes itself known to me, a low, miserable sound escaping my throat before I can stifle it.

"Master?" The woman scoops me up, my bleary eyes focusing on a concerned face. "Are you alright?"

"Don't worry about me." I gasp, making motions for her to drop me. "Put me down. I just need to get used to it for a moment."

It's like a muscle. Strengthening when pushed. Or a raging river, wearing down the banks and slowly widening. I need to push now, to make it easier later. I can't let myself be coddled. Can't afford to hold back.

I can't afford to take it slowly. I don't have the time.

A few minutes later, I'm back on my feet – standing on my own power save for a single-arm thrown over my servant's shoulder. She doesn't offer any other comment or question, seemingly more than happy to be used as a prop to keep me upright.

"I summoned you for practice." I rasp at her before clearing my throat and speaking in a normal voice. "A test run. I need you to stay around. We're going to go out and walk. Help me get used to the strain." I retrieve my arm from her shoulder and walk stiffly towards the door. Dad wasn't back yet, so there was nothing to be concerned about.

"I see." A sympathetic edge crosses her face. "I hadn't realised, but you aren't used to magic at all – are you?" She's underestimating me. I can shut the connection off if she tries anything, if nothing else- "Does this help at all?"

The rush of energy flooding towards her diminishes rapidly as she says the words. Two-thirds of the output, maybe a little bit less.

"That did help." I begrudgingly admit, flexing an arm experimentally as it settles down to a mere pulsing ache. "What did you do?" I ask. I felt like I could maintain this if I had to, a simple walk wouldn't even be more than mildly painful. I could attempt a jog instead.

She places a hand over her heart and making an earnest expression. "I'm not the best at giving the technical details of things like that, you would probably want a Caster for specifics, but I'll give it my best. A servant's strength can vary depending on the quality of energy it gets from the master. You could think of it like life force, fuel, mana, or any number of equivalents. The more we get, the more our parameters increase and the better we can employ our skills and Noble Phantasm." More terminology that Nightingale had dumped on me in those small moments when she had seemed inclined to listen to me at all. As if the summoning and magic wasn't unbelievable enough. "-simply decreasing the rate at which I consume it will drop my abilities and parameters down to a lower-level, but make it easier on you to handle. I'm sure you could limit it yourself if you gave it some practice."

"I see." I take a moment to experiment with the connection myself – imagining that I was squeezing that flow of power, leaving the valve slightly ajar instead of slamming it shut.

She smiles kindly at me and my fumbling efforts, a smile that is quickly replaced by a slightly panicked expression as she goes slightly transparent. "Too much! I'm going to disappear!"

"Sorry." I reflexively apologise to the woman. I ease off, letting the flow re-establish itself as I turn back to her.

She already seems to have forgiven the error, sending a bright and sunny smile towards me. "Not to worry. I'm only sorry that I couldn't dematerialise entirely – that would make it even easier to manage. I'm not sure if it's something that's wrong with our connection, the environment or if it's just the lack of a Holy Grail to handle things." She gives a helpless, ditzy little giggle that somehow makes me feel a little bit better at the lack of solid information. At least she's nicer than the regular people I get poking their noses into my life.

"Dematerialise?" I ask, as yet another unfamiliar term surfaces.

"Ah, that would be where a servant such as myself switch to our spiritual body entirely instead of a physical one. It renders us invisible to most, lets us ignore physical barriers and greatly reduces our energy consumption – at the cost of being unable to interact with the physical world while in that state." She shrugs, an apologetic look on her face. "We basically turn into ghosts that need less energy to stick around. I can't seem to do it here, so I'll have to stay in this form."

"It's fine." I sigh. Turning invisible would have been useful. It might have helped us to not attract so much attention as well. Her outfit was... eye-catching. At best. "The whole point of this is to train my ability anyway. There's no point lightening the load too much. We'll just go out for a walk together, see how well I can maintain the connection. Experiment somewhere that isn't my house."

I am answered with a wink and a salute. "Understood. Leave it to me!" Mata Hari let's out a celebratory cheer. "Even if my parameters are even lower than usual, I'll keep you safe!" She bounces into a pose that was probably ripped straight from a cheerleading routine. And bounces. And bounces. She must have caught a glimpse of my annoyed expression. "Hm? Did I say something wrong?"

"Nothing." I turn away, thankful for the limited amount of light in the room. "Let's go for a walk."

The obnoxiously cheery reply follows me down the stairs. "Coming!"

One step at a time. My first deliberate summon. I wasn't half-mad and being carried out of school by a dark knight this time. I wasn't being forcibly 'fixed' by the dubious medical expertise of a woman who's knowledge is decades out of date, even if it did admittedly work out. I was in control. In pain, but in control.

Five years to change the world. I can do this.

Brockton Bay. Earth-Bet.

Here I come.

Spoiler: Power Description Spoilers For The Needy

Taylor gets a direct line from her brain to the Throne of Heroes, as well as advance notice of the upcoming Timeline pruning by the Human Order.

 

[Tamzar]

The street is cold, chilly and utterly deserted. I shiver slightly, trying not to give my scantily-clad companion another glare of jealousy. Not bothered by temperature either, even when she's dressed like… that.

It didn't matter. I keep up my pace, Mata Hari practically skipping along beside me. She flounces a few steps ahead, then starts walking backwards to face me. "Master?"

"Hm?" Then I frown. "Call me Taylor out here. I don't want people getting the wrong idea."

She bobs her head in affirmation. "Taylor. I must confess, I'm not too familiar with this world – we servants usually get relevant information directly from the grail, but what I have seems a bit more incomplete than I'm used to. I have enough to blend in, but not enough to fully understand why I am here. I don't feel any support from a nearby grail either." She spins on one foot as I catch up to her, walking by my side once again. "So if there isn't a Holy Grail ready to fight over, why have I been summoned? Why is it even possible for me to be summoned?"

"Holy Grail. Right." I rub at my nose. My power had too much weirdness associated with it. "Nightingale mentioned that. As far as I know, no. There isn't a Holy Grail or anything like it. Our world doesn't have magic. We have superpowers. My superpower is to be able to interact with and summon people from your, uh, throne. Powers are pretty rare, but we have people that can fly, shoot lasers, see the future – that kind of thing."

"Hm." I don't miss the change in tone of my companion's voice. Her voice brightens up as she returns to normal. "That's interesting. I don't think I've heard of anything like that in my previous summons – not that anyone ever really intends to summon me."

I continue walking as she pouts to herself. "My power also came with a basic understanding of the Quantum time lock system. Earth-Bet and everything connected to it will be cut off from the Foundation of Humanity if nothing is done." Sometimes I didn't even know what I was saying, but the words just poured out regardless – like a speech I had performed a hundred times in advance. "We're stuck in a negative feedback loop, and dragging down the worlds parallel to us by association. Supervillains. Endbringers. It's too much to recover from at once."

"And you want to stop that?" The spy lowers her voice as a couple passes by in the opposite direction.

A flash of vertigo overtakes me for a moment. I stop, clutching at my forehead and waiting for it to pass. I wave her off as she approaches. "I'm alright. Just give me a moment." Breathe in. Breathe out. Control the mana flow again. Not too much. The street stabilises. "Right. Yes, I do. I have to, and I want you to help me."

"I would love to!" There's a happy little flush to the woman's cheeks. "Although I don't think I would be of much help, I'll do the best I can." She pumps her fist in the air at the exclamation.

Why is she so happy all the time?

"It's fine. I'm not expecting any miracles from you. We'll just do what we can for as long as I can maintain you. As long as I'm constantly stretching my power, it doesn't matter how strong the hero I have summoned is." I needed other heroes for the big work. This wasn't a permanent partnership. The Endbringers had to die. A whole batch of S-Class threats needed to disappear. Countries to stabilise and rebuild. Supervillainy in general needed to be reduced, but not eliminated – evil was just as necessary as good when it came to preventing stagnation.

So much to do.

So little time.

This will all be over before I'm legally allowed to drink. That's kind of funny, in a sad way.

"Other heroes…" Mata Hari sighs. "I'm certain that they'll answer the call to battle, there's plenty that would jump at the chance for nothing more than the fun of it." Her words drag on a tiny bit longer than needed.

"I sense a 'but' coming." I respond sourly, already knowing I wasn't going to like her response. I take a seat on a nearby bench. I'm sore. Sore everywhere. A two-minute break. Then I'll move again.

"But there's no Holy Grail." She moves behind me and presses her hands into my back gently. "And that makes things harder for you."

I lean back into the massage, feeling oddly floaty. "That feels nice." I murmur. "Why would not having a Holy Grail be a problem?"

"It's not the Grail itself, not really – although a wish-granting device would be useful for obvious reasons." She leans forward slightly. Boing. "It's a joint aim for both parties. A reason to work together. To require teamwork between the master and servant."

I close my eyes, taking her words in. "They don't have any reason to follow me. No need to obey."

"That's right." She agrees with my assessment placidly. "Like I was saying though, you'll have volunteers everywhere for any dangerous-looking fights. It would be a nice change of pace for many of them, and they would probably do it for the thrill of it alone." Her hands move from my back and start threading through my hair. "But there's no guarantee that they will stick around after the fact, or do things in the way that you want them to. Or revert back to the tendencies they had in life."

I let my eyes open again. Fantastic. I could summon Genghis Khan and watch him rampage across America with his armies shortly before I was thrown into the birdcage. "Couldn't I just cut off the energy supplying them if they posed an issue?"

"You could do that, and you have your command seals as well for anyone who needs stopping more urgently." The woman stops fiddling with my hair and takes a seat next to me. I roll my shoulders experimentally. I feel surprisingly good. I guess she had some experience with that in life. Made sense. "But there is more than one way for a servant to sustain themselves."

I sit up straighter, suddenly paying far more attention than before. "There is?" If I could support servants from further back in history-

"There is. They aren't ideal by any stretch though. Servants can eat souls as fuel, which tends to be lethal for the victim." I splutter at that. "We can consume regular food as energy as well, although it is terribly inefficient." She ticks two fingers of her hand off. "And there's also-" She looks at me for a moment and pauses before pressing on. "-a few tantric rituals that can transfer mana to a servant from a willing or unwilling partner."

"…I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last one." I'm fifteen, and fairly sure that nobody else has any amount of mana worth talking about. Mata Hari nods in sheepish understanding. "And eating souls is-" Entirely out of the question. The words die in my mouth. Everyone dies in five years. Everyone. "-an absolute last resort. Moral issues aside, killing people regularly just to keep a Servant out here isn't going to be an option. I can't do anything from a prison cell."

She beams at me encouragingly, as if I was a dog that had just done a particularly impressive trick. "That's a relief to hear, I don't really know if I could bring myself to do that – but a few other heroic spirits wouldn't be bothered at all. They don't need your permission to go out and fuel themselves, even if you cut off your connection."

"I get it." I stand, making a gesture for us to resume our walk. "I'll have to work something out before summoning anyone likely to be evil. You said normal food worked too, right? Even if it isn't as efficient?"

"At my current level, I would have to eat almost constantly to survive if you were to stop supplying me mana." She replies, helpfully. "And there isn't even anything special about me – somebody stronger would easily require more. As I said, it's terribly inefficient – a temporary solution or supplement at best."

There goes that idea. We walk along in silence for a moment. "How much weaker can you get?" At her quizzical look, I elaborate some more. "Your, uh, parameters. If you take in less energy, how much can you drop them and still stay here?"

She flexes an arm experimentally. "Not much more, because they were already so low to begin with. I have a pretty normal body, so it doesn't take up much on its own. No divinity, weird curses or magical things to worry about maintaining. Still, even if I dropped to my minimal possible power – I would be even more useless in a fight than I already am. Even if you were to restore my energy, it would take a while for me to get back to normal, if you see what I mean. It wouldn't be instantaneous."

That shot down my plan of summoning a stronger hero and keeping them on life-support until their strength was needed. "Let's start heading back." I sigh. "It's already dark, and I need to be home way before Dad, I would rather play it safe and not stay out."

I start moving after her nod of affirmation.

We don't even make it a full minute before the servant lightly pushes me behind her and keeps walking, making a silent gesture for me not to say anything.

My unspoken question is answered only a few seconds later as a man stumbles into our path. "Well now." A trio of huddled figures shuffles out of the darkness after him, reeking of alcohol and almost certainly under the influence of some drug or another. "What's a pretty lady like yourself doing out here at this time of night?"

I slow to a stop as Mata Hari moves forward to meet them, an earnest, clueless expression on her face as she faces the ragged bunch of merchants-in-the-making. It's an odd disparity. The woman doesn't fit into these streets. She's cheerful, bright, colourful. Wearing a teasing outfit with the body to match. Ill-suited to the dull, grim reality that pervaded the back streets of Brockton Bay.

"Hey! He shaid." One of the men behind him slurs. "What's a pretty lady like yourshelf doing at thish time of night?"

"Oh." Mata Hari makes an apologetic expression, clutching her hands to her chest as if she was too shy to speak. "I'm so sorry! I didn't realise you were talking to me! I was just heading back home with my friend, don't worry about me!" She giggles dizzily at the four of them. "Just a bit of shopping, nothing for you boys to trouble yourselves with."

One of the men nods dumbly at that. I scowl at the four of them. Every one of them had their eyes glued to her chest, sliding down the rest of her body with matching leers. It may well be… right there. But that's no reason for them not to look at her face once in a while. The first man to open his mouth gives off a bark of laughter. "Shopping at this time of night? Dressed like that? Call it whatever pretty name you want, but I know a whore when I see one. How about you keep us company for a little while, eh?"

Another man fishes a scrunched-up plastic bag out of his pocket, waving it in the air like a talisman. "Got some of the good stuff here as well. We know how to throw a party."

She giggles in an airheaded fashion. "Oh, I couldn't do that. I would get into so much trouble. You wouldn't believe how strict my landlord is. He's a real handful!"

"I'll bet." The man swaggers forward. "But I wasn't asking, bitch. Let's have some fun."

"What?" She quails backwards. "I don't want any trouble!" I can't see her full expression from my angle, but I can see the response from two of the men at the looks being sent their way.

The man at the back looks a bit discomforted, and turns to his companions in a pleading tone. "Come on guys, leave her alone. Be cool..."

"Yeah." Murmurs another, eyes firmly glued to Mata Hari's bare thighs. "I don't know about this one man."

"Fuck off faggot, afraid to get your dick wet?" He flicks a knife out and twirls it with practised ease, his companion fanning out to his side with an identical motion. "You just gotta learn that no doesn't really mean no, it just means they want to play rough." I say nothing. If my understanding of Servants is correct, then she shouldn't be in any trouble here.

The man on his left lets out a gap-toothed grin. "That's right, girlie. A bit of fun and you can be on your way, you don't want any trouble now do you?"

A hand pulls him backwards, the fourth man finally speaking up. "Come on, we don't need the heat for this - Just let it go."

She squirms away from a grasping hand, a light slap brushing it away. "Don't touch me! Help! Please!" The cry for help is the last straw for the two men at the back, the man is blindsided with a sucker punch from behind – the two men dog-pile him as he reels from the blow, wrestling across the street in a drug-fuelled frenzy.

"Whore! I'll teach you your place." The only man not fighting lunges at Mata Hari, who almost absently slips past the wild thrust of the knife. The momentum carries her around, culminating in a twirling kick in mid-air to send the man ungracefully crashing into the wall a few metres away.

She settles back onto her feet gracefully, indecently short dress once more succumbing to gravity. Only a few metres away, the brief scuffle has already ended between the aggressor and her 'saviours'. She sends them a warm smile, full of gratitude. "Thank you for helping out." She murmurs. "I'm not quite sure what I would have done if two big, strong men like yourself hadn't come along."

He takes a dazed step towards her as the words filter through his slightly foggy mind. He straightens his shoulders unconsciously, trying to stand a little taller. "Yes, well. You know, that's just the kind of person I am."

The other steps forward, brushing his companion aside. "She was talking to me, idiot. You didn't do shit."

I stare blankly as the two dissolve into a blur of flying limbs and badly-aimed punches. "This isn't quite what I was thinking when I was about to summon a hero for my first few steps of practice. Cleaning up a few druggies, sure. But I was thinking…" I mime a boxing stance for a moment as Mata Hari giggles at me.

"I could have done that as well, but we're trying to blend in aren't we?" She tilts her head to the side. "And it's way less suspicious for a few people to start fighting each other over me than for one girl to knock out four attackers with knives."

"That is true." I sigh. "But you can't tell me that people won't find it strange that people are just ready to jump at their friends for your benefit at the drop of a hat – they aren't likely to tell anyone, but the point remains." A master rating was technically correct for me, but I didn't need the connotations that went with it until people understood my power. Not that I would be advertising myself as the weak link of the team for as long as I could help it.

She frowns. "What do you mean? This happened all the time when I was alive."

I take in the voluptuous woman's form again, heaving with her every breath. "I'll bet." I mumble bitterly. I shake my head as she looks at me curiously. "It's nothing. Forget it." I glance up as both of us turn towards the final survivor of the three-way brawl as he starts to approach with a slightly-woozy grin on his face.

The Assassin giggles vapidly, the action doing all sorts of interesting things to her chest that immediately draws the man's eyes downwards. "Well, I think my hero needs a reward, don't you think?"

He nods dumbly, eyes still firmly locked on her assets that look ready to burst out of her clothes at any moment. He takes a few stumbling steps closer to the radiant woman.

He doesn't see the hairpin being pulled from her hair, and by the time he registers the delicate flash of pain in his neck - he has already collapsed to the floor next to his friends with a silly smile still plastered onto his face.

She turns to me with a happy grin. "So, what should we do with them?"

I frown. "If I had a phone, I would leave these guys for the police, but there's only the landline back home. Let's just leave them to sleep it off. I'll be doing plenty more patrols in the future, and they'll probably show up again when I'm a little better prepared." I shake my head. These people didn't matter. I could clean up a thousand of them, and nothing would change. They weren't even organised in a proper gang, just leeching off of the merchants by the look of it. All they were useful for was to stretch my abilities and to find out what my servants could do. "Let's go home already."

---

Twenty minutes later, I'm safely back in my room. I cough wetly into my pillow, eliciting a concerned look from my servant. "Master? You've done enough for tonight. You should rest."

"It isn't enough." I shake my head. "I need to keep pushing myself. If I put it off, I'll have to handle it tomorrow instead. I can keep this going for another hour or so."

An unhappy frown settles on the older woman's visage as she presses a glass of water into my hand. "Pushing yourself too fast will only slow you down when you entirely exhaust yourself. You've been doing too much - your body isn't ready to constantly handle even a weak servant like me. You need to rest."

"I'm fine." I grouch at the servant, draining the glass in a single motion. "I'm going to try and summon another servant now."

She shakes her head. "Master, this simply isn't safe - at least wait until morning."

"Go back to the Throne. You've been helpful, more so than most of the people watching in my head." Speaking of them, they had been oddly quiet ever since I had summoned the Assassin. Was it just that my activities hadn't interested them? Or just some kind of sense that I couldn't support another servant out at the same time? "I'll summon you again when I'm a little better at support." I cut off her supply of mana with a thought.

A few seconds later, golden particles begin outlining the servant's form, and the woman in question looks... pleased? The room spins for a moment before righting itself. I glance down at the innocuous looking glass in my shaking hand as a wave of drowsiness flutters my eyes. She bites her lip as a light frown mars her expression. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the deception. Please take care of yourself." Her limbs dissolve into dust as I watch.

Drugged? I scowl at the disappearing woman with a slightly betrayed look, somehow unable to hate her for the deception. "I told yoush." I slur. "I dun' need a resht." She has the decency to look slightly guilty before she disappears entirely in a storm of golden sand.

The room twirls again, and I fall backwards onto the bed. Without the constant flow of mana through my body, suddenly the sense of pain from my muscles was far more acute. When faced with the state of my body, I was forced to concede that Mata Hari may have had a point. If nothing else, it's nice to have someone actually care again.

…but that didn't mean that I forgave her for tricking me. My eyes flutter short as I crawl up against my pillow. Tired…

---

I wake up feeling surprisingly refreshed. Not entirely healed from the efforts of the day before, but enough to feel more than up to the task of doing it again.

Not Mata Hari. I was still annoyed at her, no matter how nice she was. Someone recent. Non-mythical. Likely to want to help me patrol the streets of Brockton Bay.

After a moment of blank thought, I settle on the easiest solution. I send a mental probe out to the window in my mind, a simple query to anyone who was listening. "Who wants to help beat up some nazis?"

I get dozens of weak responses indicating interest within moments, while a few others return stronger and with far more passion. Probably the difference between those interested in beating up people in general and people who hate nazis personally. After a moment of perusal, I select one of the latter - they're likely to be a bit more focused on the task.

A flex of mental effort and a pull on the already-eager spirit brings the man to life in my room. I take in the sight of him. A soldier, clad almost entirely in white. A large gun of some description supported lightly in one arm. He inclines his head. "Servant Archer. I look forward to working with you." Calm. Softly-spoken.

I sag against the bed, a familiar ache surfacing across my body. Greetings could wait, I had more important questions. "Why do you need so much mana?" The drain was notably larger than Mata Hari's – even before she had dropped her parameters. I felt a bit stronger than I was yesterday, but not enough to keep this up forever. "You're even more recent than Mata Hari, you should need less – not more!"

"That would be my Noble Phantasm, Master." He replies quietly. "It's permanently active, but it should be cheaper for you to sustain once it's fully set up."

"Noble Phantasm." I nod to myself. "Where is it? I don't see anything particularly odd." My first thought was the gun, but I didn't see anything strange happening there.

The man flicks a white hood over his head and paces to the window, shoving it open. I'm entirely underdressed for the blast of cold-air that emerges through, but my shrill squeak of complaint is cut short at the slow drift of white powder that floats in through the open window. "Snow?" I push myself up and towards the window for a better look.

Sure enough, a thin coating of snow is already on the ground and the windowsill. A gentle blizzard is stretching out into the distance as far as I can see, cutting down on visibility so much that I couldn't even fully make out the details of our neighbours house.

"Your Noble Phantasm is to change the weather?" I ask the man, shutting the window again and grabbing a thick hoodie for myself.

"Something like that." He shrugs. "I'll explain more as we go." His eyes take on a steely look. "We should get on with this Nazi problem of yours."

If nothing else, this guy looks like he can hold his own in a fight. I can do a proper patrol this time. It might be meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I need to feel like I'm making an impact on some level. Gauge my servants level of strength to our opponents, so that I didn't make miscalculations later. Mata Hari had toyed with those druggies effortlessly, but how would she have fared against bullets or a cape? I didn't know – and I hoped that now, I could find out.

I nod, glancing at the time. Dad should already have left. "Let's go."

 

[Tamzar]

Donning three extra layers was not enough to deal with the snow. If my expression could be seen under the multiple layers of coats I was wearing, it would reveal a glare colder than the snow and ice around us. "Is there a need for the snowstorm? I feel like nobody is going to be outside in weather like this."

"This blizzard is an extension of myself, I have a limited sense of the movements of other people within it – and both my vision and mobility is unimpaired while inside it. It is not a whim of mine, but rather a core part of my skill set that I am greatly weakened without." He rattles off his explanation without a trace of emotion. A professional dismissal of my complaints. He trudges onwards through the snow. "And if the somewhat-limited information from my summoning is correct, we almost can't help but run into our targets if we keep in this direction."

That's true, at least, we're heading straight into Empire territory. "To be clear. I don't want this to be a bloodbath. We're not killing every Nazi that we see, got it?"

"I can restrain myself." He replies clinically. "But I have no intention of returning to the Throne having accomplished nothing."

"That's fine. I'm sure we'll find someone if we keep an eye out." I sneeze, tucking my red nose deeper under my layers of coats. "A random blizzard like this probably has them all worried about a new cape. The Protectorate will be patrolling, and the Empire will be on alert as well."

"Good." He keeps walking, leaving us in a purposeful silence for a few moments. "It's strange. Being in this body, off to hunt Nazis."

I frown. "How so?"

"I barely fought with them when I was alive. I fought the Red Army, and was hospitalised days before they called for peace – not recovering until the entire war was over. My country shared a common goal with the Nazis in fighting the Soviet Union. I didn't hate them at the time. They were useful. Not friends. We just had mutual enemies." He ushers me down a side-street. "Even if I had been part of the offensive that chased the German's out of Finland towards the end of the war, I would have taken no joy in it. They were soldiers, like me. Most of them simply fighting for their country."

I stay silent as he continues.

"I didn't learn to hate the Nazis until I was older than this form of mine. After the war, when people started to discern the truth from the propaganda. I hate the Nazi's, as anyone who understands the depths of their crimes should." He adjusts his cloak. "But to me, there is a distinction between someone fighting for Germany and someone fighting for the Nazi ideology. Duty to the homeland. Seeking glory in battle. I can understand that." He gestures at the streets ahead of us. "But these are people who chose those ideals in all their hatred. For someone to look back, with the advantage of hindsight, at the crimes of that era and try to carry on that flag for themselves? I can't forgive that."

"I'm not going to defend them." I start. "But there are a lot of people who joined up purely to keep themselves safe from the other gangs. That's why I don't want a bloodbath of people wearing their colours. I just want to cripple their dominance over the city, let the heroes clean up their mess and then move on somewhere else."

"No matter the reasoning behind it, in the past, all of them were tried for the crimes they committed. Fear for their families, coercion, duty – these reasons did not justify murder, and the world agreed." He grunts. "I died content. The Soviet Union was gone. The Nazi's were gone. The world was starting to look like a brighter place. And then I get summoned here. Where the Nazis are alive and well, unashamed in their beliefs. Infesting the heart of America. Tolerated by the public and the heroes." He lets out a long breath and turns to me. "And you want this world to survive at the expense of another."

"I live here." I level my eyes at him. "And I'm no greater fan of the Nazis than you are. Simo Hayha, if you're spoiling for a fight to help kick the Nazi's out, then we're on the same side. My goal isn't going to get accomplished if I can't do something as basic as clearing out a single gang in my city."

"Can you kill them, then?" His steely eyes meet mine. "Are you capable of that?"

"I didn't summon someone called the 'White Death' to hand out leaflets." I adopt a grim look, helping to settle over the butterflies in my stomach. "I summoned you because out of all those wanting to fight the Nazis, you were the one who could be the most precise. The Empire is only a big deal because of the number of capes that they have. The gangsters aren't the problem. If we can flip the balance of power back to the heroes, the city might just stabilise over time."

I had other options. People with a more personal axe to grind against the Nazis. Of those, only a few had a little something called subtlety. Driving down the main street in a tank and gunning down every skinhead in sight wasn't subtle – and the Empire had some serious firepower in a straight fight as well. I didn't want to get embroiled in a fair fight on the entire Empire on day two of my mission. I wanted to make a dent and walk away stronger. A dent that I could hammer away at over the next few days. Even a single cape would be a bigger blow than anything the heroes had done for months.

He stops moving entirely, almost causing me to walk into his back. "I need to hear you say it."

I wince. "…Othala, Purity and Stormtiger have gone to Endbringer fights on a fairly regular basis. I don't know how old Rune is, but she isn't an adult. If possible, I would like you to avoid killing those four." They've at least shown that they can put the interest of the world above the Empire, even if the cynical part of me told me it was only for PR reasons. I close my eyes. "The non-capes are just following their capes leadership. I don't want you to kill them if you can help it – there's so many of them that it would be pointless. They'll just recruit more innocent people to fill the ranks. For the capes, I want you to try and capture the rest. But if that can't be done-" I swallow drily. "-then you can kill them."

…dad would be disappointed to hear me say that. But I don't have the time to waste gently dismantling only one of the destabilising factors in a single American city. I had to be fast, and get faster. I needed to get to a point where I could walk into a random city and have the gangs destroyed by sunset the next day. If it took me months to clean up the bay, then all of my efforts would be undone elsewhere in the world as the next Endbringer destroyed another city.

Sure, I would be stronger than before after those few months – but I didn't have years to work with to pull off my Dauntless impression. It wasn't just about getting rid of the problems, but also recovering society to a level that would make it through the Time Lock without getting pruned.

"You don't sound sure about that." He comments placidly.

I raise one hand to ward off the snow and wind from getting into my eyes. "I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks. Hard to think about anything else, really. Who needs to go. Who needs to stay. Not just here, all over the world. I don't like it. I don't enjoy it. I don't want anyone to die, let alone for it to be my responsibility." I shake my head. "But if I fail and I know that I could have done more if I was just a bit less stubborn, I won't forgive myself." Not that it would matter at that stage. Not that anything would matter.

He holds my gaze for a moment and nods. "Very well. Let's move." He takes a step towards me, sweeps me off my feet and tucks me under his arm before bounding clear of the street and onto a nearby garage. I stifle my yelp of surprise as he jumps again onto a rooftop.

I knew Servants had ridiculous feats of agility. I knew that even in my barely lucid escape from the locker. I expected it from some ninja out of the realms of fantasy, but I wasn't expecting it from this unassuming guy. I've lost track of any sense of direction now, without visibility of the street the only thing I can see is the roof directly below me and the swirling snow in every direction around us.

"Why are we up here?" I hiss, moments before the snow slightly clears as he presses me inside a broken door – leaving me in a surprisingly warm, but clearly abandoned rooftop hideaway.

"This looks to be the safest spot to leave you that isn't too far from me. In cover, easy for you to escape quickly once the blizzard dies down." He replies casually. "There are some good angles over the rest of the city up there. I'll go and attract some attention, then head over." He points upwards into the snowstorm.

"I can't see what you're pointing at, but I'm not letting you run off completely unsupervised." I cross my arms. "We are a team. Do you even know what you are looking for?"

"In vague terms." He shrugs. "But a short distance isn't a major issue. You can look through my eyes and let me know if there's anything I need to know."

"I can?" I frown at him, not that he can see my expression.

"You can." His mouth doesn't move as his voice echoes in my head.

I stare at him, somewhat flummoxed. "Are you a telepath on top of everything else?" Some of the spirits back at the throne did that now and then, but I didn't realise that it could be done even when summoned.

"As Master and Servant, we share a bond. We can communicate remotely, and you can see through my eyes – which is the only way you'll see much of anything in this blizzard." He huffs in amusement, sending up a plume of misty air. "I've never experienced it as a Master, so you'll just have to experiment with it until you work it out. I'll head out, and leave you to it."

"Wait-" I cut myself off as he seems to vanish into the wall of snow beyond the door. "Great." I don't rate my chances of getting off of this roof safely while the blizzard is at full strength, which was probably part of his plan.

Fine. I'll at least give it a try. I can feel the bond of mana that I'm sending him. Strong, sturdy and consistent. Could I try speaking into it? Somehow? I spend a minute or two prodding at the link to try and find a way to communicate. Feeling a little silly, I send out a tentative thought at it. "Hello?" No response. I imagine pressing the thought into the stream itself. "Hello?"

"Master?" The smooth, cool voice of the Archer-class Servant echoes back to me.

"Um. Nothing. Just testing." I shake my head. Messed it up again. "Nothing. I was just testing what you were telling me a moment ago." So, if that was how I talked – then perhaps if I did the same thing with the aim of sharing his sight?

"Very well." My vision blurs as I make an attempt, two overlapping images giving me vertigo until I realise I should be closing my eyes. "I am still in the process of drawing attention to myself." The image resolves just in time for me to see a trio of Empire thugs drop to the ground screaming as his secondary gun passes over them in his vision.

"I said, no killing the non-capes!" I realise my mistake as all three of the men double over to clutch at a limb or scream into a radio. Apparently, I was a bit too quick to judge.

"These ones are all going to live. I know what I'm doing. Though I won't make any promises once the reinforcements show up." His gaze turns sideways to one of the fallen men, the new direction also happening to highlight a further dozen men on the ground crawling into cover. "This is the only way to lure out our enemy – I doubt that their standard operations would continue in these conditions, unless freak snowstorms are common around here?"

Smartass. I should have expected it, in hindsight. I watch him bound out of the area and scramble up and out onto the rooftops. His earlier words to me weren't a lie, where my own visibility barely extended out a few metres, barely making out a hint of the buildings on the other side of the street – his own eyesight wasn't touched at all. No, that wasn't quite right either. His eyesight was unnaturally good. He glances back, several hundred metres down the road to what looked like a minivan full of reinforcements – his view somehow seeming to zoom in and make out the runny nose of the driver in incredible, disgusting clarity.

I don't even register the appearance of the gun in the bottom of his vision before he's fired it. Another leaping bound and an upwards scramble taking him up to the next rooftop before he looks back to see the minivan skid to a halt as the destroyed left tire makes itself known.

It's easy to see the danger, when looking through his vision like this. He may have low parameters, and not be particularly strong in a fair fight – just like Mata Hari. If he was to be shot by the dozen-odd men in the last warehouse then I didn't doubt he would come out the worse for it. But that wasn't going to happen. Nobody can see him, let alone hit him at this distance. It's easy to see why I could have summoned him as an Assassin instead.

A rush of voices that Simo doesn't respond to draws my attention, and I belatedly realise that they're coming from the street below my position. I poke my head out of my hideaway, only just spotting what looks like the roof of a plain, armoured van as it trundles past. It was probably a good idea for me not to be at the street level. I doubted they would be interested in a regular white-girl at first, but I didn't want any attention being brought to me at all.

A hint of steam draws my eyes downwards, to where a clump of snow had fallen onto an exposed part of my wrist, melted and evaporated into steam in the space of a few seconds. Come to think of it, I hadn't noticed the cold for a while now. I shrug out of my coats, raising my forearms for inspection.

Deep red veins ran across my arms and the rest of my body, like a particularly intricate sunburn. It didn't feel particularly tender to the touch, but it almost felt like I could fry an egg on myself. Oddly, I feel fine. Or at least, as fine as I have been ever since summoning the Finnish sniper. He was expensive to maintain compared to Mata Hari, but I could handle it for now. I wasn't having dizzy spells yet. No bleeding anywhere. Not coughing blood. I was healthy. Sort of. I leave myself standing in the doorway for a moment, allowing the hail and snow to try and cool the rest of my body.

"Master." I snap my mental gaze back to link with his vision. "I believe they have found me." His vision fills my own, gazing down his gun with unnatural precision at three distant figures soaring through the sky on some makeshift debris – more of a particularly large and flat rock than anything else.

"That's Rune." I murmur through the link, thankful for having done some research on the Empire's capes. "Telekinesis on large objects that she has marked with her power. I think the one next to her is Krieg. He's a Brute who manipulates kinetic energy around him." I frown at the next one, wearing a heavy coat that disguised his appearance. It would be hard to tell his identity if it wasn't for the torrents of air dispersing the blizzard in front of them to allow their youngest member to guide their transport in. "It's not his usual outfit, but looking at how the snow is moving – that might be Stormtiger. Powerful aerokinesis at all ranges. Those last two might be resistant to sniping."

This was unlucky. Two of the three were targets I didn't want to take out, and the group also contained two of the four Empire capes that I had little confidence in bullets doing anything to. Or perhaps it wasn't luck at all, and it was a deliberate response from the Empire – when faced with a bullet-using cape, send a team that bullets shouldn't touch.

"I don't sense any other likely targets in the area, only more grunts. I'll attract their attention, see if I can lure the others out." It seems he appreciates that there is some urgency to our mission. I can't sustain him forever and let him wait for his perfect moment. In his vision, I can see his gun rising up from the bottom of his sights to settle on Krieg's head. The gun jerks briefly as the only indicator of being fired at all, his exceptional eyesight noticing the strange, almost-unnoticeable curve the bullet takes as it starts to near the trio – the imperceptible force of Krieg's power unconsciously nudging it to the side. If it was allowed to continue untouched it would have sailed past Krieg's ear – instead, it is blasted aside by a suddenly-alert Stormtiger. Rune jumps as the sound reaches her, but after a moment of chatter the debris picks up pace towards the still-unseen Finnish sniper – Stormtiger already sending indiscriminate blasts of air in his general direction to little effect.

"That confirms it. You won't be able to hit any of them while they're all together." Simo drops down to the roof below and scrambles across the street to another line of buildings. I poke him through the link. "Stormtiger can detect air currents. You need to move."

"Have some faith." I scowl into the snowstorm.

Rune's transport of choice slows as it nears the line of buildings he was previously occupying. His gun is already pointing at the empty air ahead of them, not even a brief puff of air from breathing to draw attention to himself. The rock moves past and over him, none of the Empire capes managing to detect him.

I feel a small surge of mana on top of the usual torrent leave my body, and lean myself against the nearby wall as my legs buckle slightly. I don't leave Simo's vision for a minute as the barrel of his gun begins to glow.

This time what emerges from his gun isn't a bullet, but a solid, icy-blue beam as wide as my fist. It punches a clean hole through the rock and draws a pained cry from one of the men on the other side. "Even against that?" I hear Simo curse under his breath as he tucks away the weapon and unslings a secondary, shorter gun from his back before sprinting away through the snow and ice.

"…why does your gun shoot beams?" Wasn't he supposed to be a servant from the era of World War Two? Without Tinker-tech?

"It's not technically a beam, it just looks like one." He sounds oddly defensive about that. "It's just a small technique I can do as a Servant. Knocks my gun out of action for a bit." He responds, casually walking past as a dozen Empire thugs storm past him – barely more than a few metres away but apparently unable to spot the white-clad man among the snow and storm. "I wouldn't get hung up on it. That's on the low end of strangeness for heroic spirits." He turns around, the trio of capes approaching him once again – this time sticking far lower to the ground as they shout into their radio's. "More importantly, I'm being tracked somehow. How strong are their close-range abilities?"

"Rune's are non-existent unless she has something ready to clobber you with." I reply instantly. "Stormtiger is just as deadly up-close, if not more so. Krieg is the strongest of them all in a melee. His power is supposed to get stronger the closer to him you get. I've watched a video of him slamming Glory Girl through a wall like it was made of paper." I frown. "I don't think any of those three should be able to find you apart from Stormtiger. I would have thought the blizzard would overpower his senses, but maybe there's some trace of the direction you went in?"

"I'll take the girl then. They can't keep up with me without her." Before I can ask why he isn't running away from the fast-approaching squad of capes, I notice the focus he has on the rock beneath their feet. A crack splinters and races its way across the platform from the circular hole towards either edge, giving only a split second of warning before it splinters entirely in half.

Stormtiger is unfazed, simply levitating downwards in an extended glide as his ride crumbles beneath his feet. Krieg seems to be the one hit by the earlier shot, but fortunately for him – he is on the part of the platform marked by Rune, meaning his fall is relatively controlled – crashing gently into a large snowdrift.

Rune is not so lucky. Left on the uncontrolled half of the platform, she tumbles through the air with a scream – legs landing awkwardly on the asphalt below with a decisive snap. Archer dashes forward, a white-wraith against the snow and indelicately plucks the crippled, pain-addled girl from the ground before sprinting away.

He ducks and weaves around Stormtigers blasts before they are even fully formed, before turning and blasting at the Nazi with an awkwardly-loose, one-handed grip of his alternate gun. The storm of bullets isn't intended to hit anything. Both remaining capes can shrug them off with relative ease, but Stormtiger can't fully defend himself and attack at the same time – especially once he realises that Rune is bundled up in the Servant's grip. In the brief second of distraction, the Archer has disappeared into the snow without leaving a trace behind.

I let out a breath that I hadn't realised I was holding. One captured. That was good. No deaths. I had accepted the possibility that there would be some, but a part of me was glad of that as well. I watch him take some particularly large hops across a variety of increasingly tall obstacles to recover his elevated position once again. "You can drop her off at a police station, or there are probably a few heroes around somewh-"

"I think that I've found them." I look through his eyes again and find him looking across the rooftops to a pair of distant heroes looking down at him from a taller apartment building. It's easy to identify them at a glance. Armsmaster and Miss Militia. What was more concerning is that both of them were looking directly back at him. Miss Militia has a simple visor covering her eyes, which I could only assume is the reason why she can see over this distance in the current weather conditions.

"Heroes. Both of them. The man has futuristic armour, weapons and gadgets. The woman can create any weapon she likes on the fly." I relay what I know to the servant. "It's better not to fight them at all, but do not kill them – no matter the cost."

He drops Rune bodily onto the ground in front of him, sprinting away at a right angle as Miss Militia levels an elongated scope at him. He ducks into a roll to let it sail past him to impact the roof just past him, the bullet almost instantly expanding into a bundle of containment foam easily twice the size of the man.

By the time he's on the next building across, Armsmaster has found Rune and seems to be calling it in. A light smile comes to my face. Success. "You'll need to get off the rooftops. As long as they can see you more reinforcements will only be moments away." Armsmaster was bad enough, but Dauntless would end this chase instantly.

"That's only important if I intend to get away." He hums in amusement, continuing to sprint along the roof. "This isn't a grail war. You can afford to lose your servant if it furthers your goals. Not to mention the fact that if I die, they'll consider this a one-off incident and not think to go and look for any potential accomplice."

"Summoning a servant is way harder than maintaining one, and people will get suspicious if capes keep popping up and dying on their first day." I try my best to project my annoyance through the link. "Get back here, drop the blizzard and we'll look at another gang to make a start on. The heroes may be a little hesitant to follow you into Empire territory, but that goes double for Lung's domain."

"If you wanted me as an escape artist, you should have summoned me as an Assassin." His gaze swivels across the streets. "Aside from those heroes, there's two following me from the north, and another two waiting in an alley to the east – not moving. Stormtiger is still chasing me as well. A sniper in a window to the south." He fans his view to each side, but I can't make out the people he's pointing out.

"Night and Fog in the alleyway." I guess. "One can change into a deadly gas, the other one… I don't really understand their power, but if you stay away they aren't a danger. The one in the window could be someone normal, but the odds are good that it's Victor. He's a skill-thief. Touches people and absorbs their ability to do a certain thing. He usually supports the empire as a sniper."

He leaps into a sideways roll, narrowly dodging a barrage of missiles that explode into more containment foam. Miss Militia again, well-hidden behind cover but providing artillery support. "I would go and try my luck against the people in the alleyway, but I don't think your hero friends are inclined to let me get a position." He glances behind, just in time to catch Armsmaster flying across the gap in the buildings with a mechanical grappling hook.

"Unknown vigilante." His voice bellows across the roof. "Cease the usage of your power and surrender to-" The voice fades away as the Archer leaps to the next roof.

The Servant twists in the air mid-jump, unnatural eyesight observing a bullet passing through where his head was a moment ago. His eyes focus on a seemingly-empty window across the street, then fanning across to see that it's far from the only open window in the building. An entire building full of potential shooting positions. "I see." He murmurs. "He's a good shot. Good at hiding as well. Cautious. Knows I'm looking for him."

"Then get out of there." I tap my feet, frustrated at being unable to act. "There's no sense in leaving yourself exposed while being chased by Armsmaster of all people."

"It's not just him." He glances back, ducking under another bullet. "That guy has been circling me for a while now." He focuses on a figure floating in the sky ahead of him that I hadn't noticed.

I grimace. "Dauntless. You can't beat him, but he doesn't know that – he's just being cautious, or he's been told to hang back because it's Empire territory." Armsmaster and Dauntless were almost certainly the strongest two parahumans in the city. I wasn't going to beat either of them without digging far deeper into my pool of heroes. Ideally, I wouldn't even need to, but still… "If you get captured, it will reveal my power too early. I'm going to summon you back." I flex a command-seal, only to find the connection of mana slam itself shut.

"You'll have to forgive my pride just this once." His words float back through the remnants of the connection, just barely strong enough for me see him. "This power of his is a bit offensive to me." He approaches the end of his roof, heavy footsteps moments behind him. "A sniper hones his skills across weeks, months and years of ceaseless practice. A battle between two of them is something sacred. A match of skill, cunning, patience and luck."

I attempt to nudge the connection back into life, but it remains inert save for what little is filtering from him to me. A one-way connection. I can hear him, share his vision – but I can't interact with him. The fact that he didn't instantly start to disappear without my mana reaching him was concerning, but he hasn't made it out entirely unaffected by its loss. The blizzard outside dies down to nothing. I walk outside – aware enough that I needed to be off the roof by the time it vanished entirely. A convenient set of fire-stairs enables my easy escape, easy to see once the snow has stopped falling.

"This Victor of yours knows nothing of this." In my minds eye, I see him dive off the roof towards the ground. "He shoots like a professional. He knows how to hide, how to wait, how to move." He stabilises in the air, head pointing at the ground and gun upside down as he levels it at an empty building. "But despite all of that, he is not a true sniper. Because he does not understand the mind of his opponent." The bullet is already fired when a focused, frowning face appears in the window – eyes scanning the rooftops for his target.

I flinch away as his head explodes in a red mass of viscera, a full half of his skull blasted clear from the rest of his body by the Servant's shot. The body slumps through the window and flops out of it into the street, landing only a few seconds after Simo himself.

A vicious surge of satisfaction pours down the remnants of the link between us. "Amateur."

I shudder my focus back to the present, trying to get my breathing under control as I notice people starting to poke their heads out of the windows and doors. I shove my coats back around me, I was starting to cool down now that my expenditure was lower – but I was still covered in red lines. I couldn't attract attention to myself.

I was fine. I knew people would die at some point. I was prepared for this to happen today. I'll have to do it again. Maybe even tomorrow. This was fine. I was fine.

Something lodges in my throat. Maybe I wasn't entirely fine. A little bit ill. That should be expected. Into the cold, heating up and then back into the cold again. It couldn't be good for me. It definitely wasn't the sight of a man's skull being blasted in half because he was in my way. It wasn't the fact that I knew for a fact that he was married.

It couldn't be that, because I couldn't allow it to be that. I had to do it again. A hundred times over. A thousand. Until Earth-Bet was fixed. Nobody else knew. Nobody else understood. There's nobody else but me.

So it can't be that. Letting out a shaky breath, I start to walk home – tuning back into Simo's vision to keep myself distracted.

He's on the ground. It looks like he's covered in snow. The blizzard must be far smaller than before, but it's no less intense. A foot plants itself in front of him as somebody walks past. Empire. Did the heroes lose track of him? Or did they just back off once the rest of the Empire closed in.

"He's around here somewhere." A voice growls. "I can smell the rat."

Ten figures in his vision alone, possibly even more if was to turn his head to the side. He doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. He's just hiding in the middle of the street, which seems to have confused the Empire capes and their cronies immensely – they're rummaging through bins, searching buildings and looking inside cars, none of them realising that their enemy has blended into the very snow beneath their feet.

He waits for so long that I start to wonder if he isn't already dead, or has paralysed himself or something. I'm already back at my house when he finally moves, having waited for one man to split slightly too far away from the safety of the more bullet-resistant capes.

Simo's gun rises out of the ground, the top side still carrying snow with it. It's the alternate gun he was using earlier – better suited for spraying out a barrage of shots at close range than the single-shot rifle. The Empire cape falls with a scream as a multitude of bullets crash into his frame with unerring accuracy. He erupts into a wall of smoke, before reverting momentarily as he falls to the floor. The damage is already done, apparently unable to maintain the transformation when injured so badly. He falls to the ground, bursting in and out of the breaker state with every breath he takes.

That was Fog. Or Night. I wasn't that concrete on their names, because they always worked as a pair. He's a bit like Shadow Stalker – except his mist had less focus on movement and more on being toxic to anything inside it.

There's little time to mull over it, Simo's vision swirls as he is bodily picked up by something and hurled into the air. I don't share his pain, only what he can see and hear – but there isn't a need for me to guess. Blood litters the snow. Something long and insectile emerges from the dark clutching at the man's legs and tossing them aside – apparently torn from his body in an instant.

Fog stops shifting and turns completely still. Everyone's eyes are on the Archer as his body starts to splinter into golden motes. There's a pause only long enough for the rest of his body to hit the ground before the rest of the Empire capes turn, as one, to finish him off.

The connection winks shut. The last feeling I feel from him is not one of pain or regret – but of satisfaction.

I reflexively pull on my connection to the Throne, as if to immediately resummon him – but the connection I make feels dormant, as if I was trying to wake a coma patient from their slumber by shaking their shoulder. His presence felt…weak compared to the spirits around him.

Gone. For now, at least. Time would tell if he would become available again, but my gut told me it wouldn't be quick or easy. Especially not for a modern servant. Their grip on the throne should be the most tenuous of all – only known and admired within the almost hundred years since the last timelock. How many alternate histories panned out the same way? Compare it to an older legend, like Alexander the Great. Every timeline and nearly every lostbelt, for millennia, had respected that man and contributed to his legend. His presence on the throne was unshakeable. Immutable.

Simo Hayha and Mata Hari? Not so much. In a few hundred years, if these timelines where they lived and became famous persisted – they might have a stronger presence on the throne. As it stands, they both pale to their older peers.

That probably applied to Earth-Bet's heroes as well. Scion. Alexandria. Hero. Well known across the world, of course. Incredible deeds and power to their names. Larger than life figures that have become something more than a simple celebrity. I didn't doubt they would be somewhere in the throne after their deaths, but whether I would be able to find such a weak presence on my own? Earth-Bet was a single timeline. There were no other parahumans aside from those worlds connected to it. A hero forged from only a single timeline, with nothing to link me to that person? That would take a mountain of blind luck to summon – and would barely be worth the effort given their relative weakness compared to the rest of my arsenal.

Well. Some of those examples would be pretty strong based purely on the abilities they had when alive, but they would have to die first – and aside from Hero, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Added to that was the fact that all three of them had already had a chance to save the world, and hadn't managed it yet. We needed something else.

I let myself through the front door of my house, letting out a sigh of relief that Dad hadn't decided to take the day off after seeing the blizzard.

I'm back. I'm safe. Rune is in PRT custody. V-Victor is dead. Very dead. I'm sure that Fog is dead as well. That's fine. Good. Success.

…Fog was supposed to be married to Night as well, right? The Empire propaganda used to talk all the time about Victor and Othala, Night and Fog. To show they were just like us. Two families broken up in the space of an hour. Did they have kids?

Stop. I need to stop. Stop thinking. I'm not bothered by this. I can't be bothered by this. I need to do something. Make dinner. Dad will be home soon. I'll make him dinner, and we'll eat together. As a family.

While we still could.


---


AN: My snippets take a big leap from this point to an approximate mid-point to the story, and then again all the way to its conclusion. That means I'm going to have to write the stuff in the middle now instead of just expanding what I already have – so updates will slow down a bit.

Simo Hayha is a massive meme in the fate community as "Mr Modern Servant" who is often touted as the example of someone capable of becoming a servant despite Nasu's statement of "No modern servants these days". Despite the memery, he's ideal for the stated limits of "Recent, famous, non-fantasy and not magical." Which Taylor is currently working with until she gets stronger. I've never seen him in a story before, so I figured I would go ahead. I liked how he came out in the end, there were other modern people that I could have picked – especially ones who actually fought the Nazis, but very few of them both fit into this stage of the story and also carried the weight and gravitas that Simo's name has. The White Death feels a bit larger than life compared to some of the stories of odd people in the war doing silly things ending up in the newspaper. I hope that makes a bit of sense.

When writing from this perspective, it's easy to get carried away. This guy is a huge badass right? Trails of blood! Destroy the Empire in a hail of bullets! Hoorah! I have to consciously hold back my writing because I can't have a single modern servant turn the biggest batch of capes in the city into a bunch of chumps. The Empire makes a smart response to his abilities by sending a group to find him that isn't just going to get gunned down. But it isn't only about respecting both sides of a series in a "fair" crossover. Just as there needs to be respect for the characters of Worm, there also needs to be a difference between the different strengths of people in Fate. If Minimato-no-Raikou, Altera or Gilgamesh was summoned, sure – they would murk the Empire 1v12, and that should look appropriately awesome as a top-tier servant fighting should, as opposed to that being something that any servant could do in their sleep.

I've probably got a bunch of things wrong in this update that people are going to poke me for, especially on the history front – I have the edit button to hand, I'll fix it if you point it out! Honest! (Nasu mechanics on timelines and the Throne probably don't count – Author Fiat to justify my writing!)

I would write a proper sheet for Simo, but it's all been done before. The broad strokes are: Eye of the Mind (True), Clairvoyance, Presence Concealment and a power-shot/mana-burst style thing on his rifle to simulate the 1shot-polykill feat he gets credited with. NP is not a reality marble as every other sheet seems to give him, it's more in the line of a permanent Territory Creation centred on him thanks to the wide-ranging weather effect.

TLDR: Updates slowing down. Simo is a meme boy but fun. Fair power levels hard to write but good to do. Show mercy.

 

[Tamzar]

"…is that once again it is the Empire who have stood up for the people of Brockton Bay and put an end to this menace. Where were the heroes? Once again, nowhere to be seen. The Empire has always put their bodies on the line for the citizens of America. Victor and Fog sacrificed everything for this country. Those willing to lay down their lives as patriots…" I switch the TV off as Dad enters the room.

"Nasty business." He nods his head at the TV as he gently places his coffee down at the table. "The whole incident has stirred the Empire up worse than I've ever seen them. I thought they were pushy enough to the boys at the docks before, but now the pressure is something else entirely."

"But it will die down eventually, won't it? The Empire is weaker now, and they'll have to be more careful about throwing their weight around." Dad doesn't reply. I move on. "What are they saying about the cape at your work? The blizzard one?"

He shrugs. "There isn't much to say. There's plenty of people with good reason to hate the Empire in the Bay. A guy gets powers and immediately goes out in a blaze of glory against them? I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often." He grimaces. "I heard there was nothing left of him after the Empire caught him, not even enough to identify the body. You can't help but feel sorry for his family. Not knowing."

I say nothing. I don't have an answer to that. Nothing that wouldn't be hypocritical for me to say.

He grimaces. "Well. Let's not linger on such a grim topic. How was sch- ah, how was your day?" He stumbles over his words, his usual routine catching up to him.

"Fine." I reply shortly.

He winces, but can't seem to find anything else to say. There's an awkward silence for a few seconds before he makes a show of dusting himself off. "Anyway. I just came in here to let you know that work called – there's a bit of an emergency that they need me in for. I'll most likely be back late."

I nod. "Alright, then." My voice comes out cracked. "I'll see you later."

I wait by the window to watch him leave, not moving an inch until he's already motoring down the street out of sight. This was ideal. As long as Dad was around, I couldn't afford to fully engage with my power for fear of him walking in on me while I was coated in the red lines that spread across me at higher outputs. That meant keeping my output low, which was fine, in its own way. It wasn't being wasted – I had resummoned Mata Hari and sent her out in my place to scout around. Her relatively small output didn't result in me turning into a small, glowing furnace. It also didn't make me feel like throwing up every few seconds, letting me recover nicely from the exertion of the last few days.

More than anything else, the ex-spy was helpful. The voices in my head were mostly quiet now that I wasn't doing anything of interest. But then, even when they were inclined to talk, despite the vast amounts of knowledge inside their heads, none of those closest to my awareness seemed that inclined to share it with me or volunteer useful information. Mata Hari shared the information freely and easily, from brief discussions about faint memories of past grail wars, a more in-depth explanation of the Servant system and also some valuable information about some common skills. Presence Concealment. Clairvoyance. Protection from Arrows.

And the two most important ones to me. Magic Resistance, and Independent Action. One to allow Servants to potentially resist my Command Seals, and the other to enable them to survive without being supplied mana at all for lengthy periods. Independent Action was how Simo had been able to cut himself off from me and go off on his own yesterday without immediately starting to disappear thanks to a lack of energy. If he had been a more rebellious Servant and ditched the effect of his Noble Phantasm, he might have lasted hours or even days before he started to vanish. Plenty of time for him to work out other methods of scrounging up mana.

He didn't, that was good.

But he could have. And every other Archer I summon could do that too if I wasn't careful. The skill came with the benefit of being able to operate at a much larger range away from me, which was admittedly useful. The range limitation was grating for me to put up with now, I had hopes that it would improve with time as I got stronger – but it put a dampener on my mood for now. With Mata Hari only able to patrol within the admittedly-fairly-large sphere around my house, it meant that there wasn't much in the way of serious gang activity to be stopped – I had some potential places of interest to investigate later, but no actual progress was being made on my mission.

The downsides of being grounded were obvious – drawing the simple question: Could I leave? No. That wasn't the right question. I unquestionably had the ability to run away and survive. Should I leave, now? That was the question.

Leaving home was inevitable, most likely without the approval of my Dad. Was the extra time gained by being more free to work at the gangs worth the sudden interest that being named as a runaway teen would get me? How long before I was outed as a cape? It wasn't like I intended to expose myself as the Master, but with my range somewhat limited and the obvious tells on my body, it was hard enough to keep out of sight. Eventually, people were going to get suspicious about the sudden surge in suicidal capes not leaving a body behind and start looking for a master.

For now, at least, the answer to my question was: Not yet. Dad was away often enough to make my 'grounding' limited to outside of office hours – and with his overtime at work, that trend continued into the evenings and weekend. I could work with that.

I mentally flail for my connection to my active Servant, it's far from the surging torrent of energy that it once was – it's a testament to my progress that I almost don't even notice that it's there most of the time. What was once a crippling rate of mana consumption paled in comparison to what Simo had continuously required, and that gulf in required power would only continue to expand as I delved deeper into the pool of talent at my disposal. Having found the link, I reach out to the Assassin-class Servant that was currently out wandering the city. "Come back here. I'm going out."

"Coming, Master!" Her cheerful, practically eager response comes back immediately.

For now, I want to deal with the Merchants. Lawless drug-dealers and their clients, gravitating around Squealer and Skidmark. A vehicle tinker and… whatever the hell it was that Skidmark did. Nobody online agreed with the specifics of his powerset aside from the obvious. There were rumours online that another cape had joined up at some point, but no concrete facts.

Not that it was just as easy as finding the Capes and walking away in a single day. Officially, the Merchants had the smallest slice of territory out of all of the real gangs – if you could even call it that. They had the scraps that nobody was bothered to fight them for yet. They were found in the parts of the downtown area far from the edges of E88's land, the residential area next to the Trainyard and the occasional sighting in the Docks area. It wasn't territory in the traditional sense. They didn't defend it, and they didn't tend to charge protection money. They didn't care to come out and fight the Protectorate if they started to meddle with them.

That was the Merchant playbook. To walk away and never take a fair fight. With no concrete base of operations and no base of supporters that they were expected to defend, there was almost no way to force the Merchants out of hiding and into a fight that they didn't want. They were like water. When their operations were attacked, the spear of the assault would slide through their territory facing little resistance – and they would move elsewhere until the aggressor abandoned the region, allowing them to flow back in with no losses.

That wasn't to say that they were purely minding their own business and acting defensively. They were a nuisance all over the city, and however poorly trained and equipped – a hypermobile gang of druggies with more money and guns than sense was dangerous enough to allow them the ability to attack and get their own back on slights against them.

For me, they are the perfect target. A minor gang. Only a couple of capes, a few gang members and a lot of supporters in the form of their clientele. There wasn't the threat of revenge to me there like there was with the Empire if and when they found out that I was responsible for their recent losses. If I did have to kill one of the Capes, there were good odds that nobody outside of the gang would particularly care anymore than they would for any normal person showing up dead – if the news even got out in the first place.

"I'm here!" The mental announcement from my Servant shakes me from my thoughts. That was fast, especially as I had asked her not to use her near-superhuman speed out in the city if it wasn't necessary. My irritation at her failure to listen to my simple instructions fizzles to nothing as I spot the ex-spy through the window.

It only takes a moment for me to grab my prepared bag and rush out the door to meet her. "Why-" I start to speak as she rolls down the window to wave at me excitedly. "-do you have a car? Where did you get it from?"

"I asked a nice gentleman if I could borrow it for a while, and he said yes!" She grins at me, looking entirely too pleased with herself. "I thought it would be a fantastic way to get around the city incognito." She pulls down a pair of sunglasses in time with the word 'incognito', as if that was all that was needed to complete her secret disguise.

It was hard to argue the advantages, and it would give me something to hide in if I started glowing again. "You can't just go around mastering people to give you things – that's going to draw attention." Speaking of drawing attention, it looks like she at least had the common sense to change into a more standard city-girl outfit. A slightly too-tight shirt that rode up her midriff and a pair of jeans went a long way towards forming a decent outfit that didn't look horrifically out of place in Brockton Bay.

She looks puzzled for a moment. "Mastering people?" She tilts her head. "That's a superhero thing, right?" She purses her lips and frowns at me. "I assure you that only my natural charms were required for something as simple as this."

"There's nothing natural about someone just letting you borrow his car. You need to limit yourself to what a regular person would do and what would happen to them." I wave a hand in the air as I let myself into the car. "I don't want the PRT getting reports of someone with your description running around tricking people out of their possessions with their powers."

"I don't think that would be a problem. One of the few skills that I do have makes most dangerous people tend to think of me as 'on their team' if they don't think about it too hard, and another that makes me seem effectively harmless as well. Unless he gets tipped off about me, he won't think of this as any more than a drunken, poorly-conceived plan to get into my pants. I'll return the car later if I can, of course, just to be polite." I open my mouth to interject as she continues on. "Besides, to raise the issue in the first place, they would have to admit that this car belongs to them – and that would raise some awkward questions when the police look inside."

She points to a plastic bag next to my feet. I pick it up, then immediately drop it back down as I note the suspicious-looking powder stored neatly into small packets. I make a face. "Drugs? You stole a drug dealers car?"

She blows a rogue strand of hair out of her face. "I didn't steal anything. I told you, he gave it to me." She shakes her head. "You just don't understand what life is like for the richest parts of the criminal world. This car means nothing to him. You can ask him yourself in a bit if you would like."

"Hmph. Let's just-" I double-take as my mind catches up with her words. "Wait. What?"

She tilts her head at me, face marred with the tiniest of frowns. "Well. You were looking for the Merchants, didn't you?" She pats the steering wheel in front of her with a pleased grin. "Look! Found a whole bunch of them! I can take you there right now." She maintains her satisfied expression as if she was expecting praise.

The expression morphs into a pout as I let the silence drag on in wordless disapproval. "Do you even know how to drive this? You didn't say anything about a riding skill when we were talking about it earlier…"

"No personal skills at all to speak of, I'm afraid." She smiles apologetically. "But I'm a fast learner, I haven't been pulled over by the police for a full hour!" The car lurches forward as she sets off to her destination, apparently no longer concerned about seeking my explicit approval for the mission.

"Does that mean that you have been- Watch out!" The Assassin forcefully swerves the car back into its own lane where it had been straddling the dividing line between the two sides of the road, narrowly avoiding a beaten-down transport van by the thinnest of margins. I duck in muted shame as the driver lays into his horn to express his disapproval.

"I don't know what he's complaining about." Mata Hari gazes out of the window carelessly as she rounds the corner of the road. "It's safer for me to be in the centre because I'm further away from the edge of the road. I pulled back over in plenty of time, but everyone seems to have a problem with it."

"That's not how driving works! Stay in your lane!" Cars like this must be entirely new to her. Even if they were around in some rudimentary form in her time, she might never have the chance to drive one. Her reaction time, perception and instincts were far better than could be expected of a regular human – but apparently, the knowledge from being summoned didn't do anything for common sense.

Somehow, we made it to our destination in one piece – and without attracting any further ire from the commuters of the Bay. To my surprise, Mata Hari hadn't taken me to a forgotten car park in a rundown suburb that I would expect drug dealers to operate out of. Instead, she takes me to a brightly lit nightclub positively swarming with partygoers. She brushes past the bouncer, tugging me along with a snooty "She's with me."

I shrink into my hood a little more as we head further in. This wasn't my kind of place. Too many people. Too much bling. Too many drinks. Too many drugs. "Margaret!" I glance up as my Servant is bundled into a cheery hug by a grinning, well-dressed man that I would hesitantly describe as Mexican. "This club hasn't been the same since you left! I missed you!"

The Assassin's lips quirk upwards at the sides. "We only saw each other a few hours ago, Carlos. You can't have missed me that badly."

"Bah! You cannot understand the sense of loss that I feel! A woman so beautiful as you enters my club, it is good for my reputation! Good for my business! Good for my eyes!" I tense as he reaches into his pocket, then relax as he pulls out a heavy golden chain and drapes it around my companion's neck. "Here. To magnify your beauty even more!"

"You really shouldn't have." She makes a show of inspecting her new accessory before letting it fall to rest against her chest. "I'm actually here to show my friend around-" She pats my shoulder warmly. "-she's pretty interested in expanding her horizons. I don't suppose you would mind letting us out the back?"

"Any friend of Margaret's is a friend of mine." He seizes my hand and shakes it firmly. "Your lovely friend has taken you to the right man. I am Carlos, if you need anything – anything – I can get it for you. I know everyone there is to know in this part of town."

I smile nervously. "Uh. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." He seems satisfied with that answer and gestures for us to follow him deeper into the building.

"Oh, Carlos!" The man pauses mid-step at the sound of his name being called. "My friend is quite anxious about getting recognised – super-strict, religious parents, you know how it is. Could you possibly-"

"Not to worry, young miss!" He resumes walking. "We get all sorts looking to hide their faces in here. Not everyone wants their private activities being discovered by their friends and colleagues – just grab a mask from the pile on the left as you walk in." Two bouncers step aside to let us pass, then step back in behind us to resume blocking the door. I grab the first mask I can see from the top of the pile, a richly decorated mask for my upper face that could only be described as 'gaudy' or 'tacky'.

"I'll pay you back later, I just need a hit so bad-" I sidestep around a desperate-looking partygoer and his companion. Another pair of men pass by in the midst of a heated discussion. "-something with a bit more firepower. The japs are fucking loaded with firepower, and what do we get? A piddly little pistol. That's the best the Merchants can do? I could probably melt it down, sell it and buy something better I swear-" Both conversations were loud, even with the blaring music in the background. Yet not a single person so much as batted an eye at the apparent sale of drugs or the blatant admission of being a gang member.

I glance around the club in a new light, the swarm of partygoers – this back room was huge. The number of people out front building was in the hundreds, but this room was even larger – with enough facilities in each corner of the brightly-lit room to be a full-fledged nightclub on its own. "Hey." I prod her through the mental link. "Don't tell me everyone here is-"

"A Merchant? No." She purses her lips. "Or at least, not how you would consider it. There are Merchants around here, of course, but most people are just customers of some description. I found out some interesting tidbits about your power while I've been walking around the city. The most obvious one is that the information I got from being summoned isn't entirely reliable."

I frown. "No? It seemed to work fine for my previous Servants." My first Servant had navigated to the hospital easily enough, even while I was basically insensate. Simo seemed to have a serviceable map of the city and what areas could be vaguely defined as Empire territory. Mata didn't have any strange gaps in her knowledge when using modern technology, she knew what a mobile was – how to take public transport, how to pay for it, how to use a mobile phone and an uncountable number of other tidbits of knowledge that should have posed a challenge in the modern-day lifestyle.

"It's based on your own knowledge." Her smooth, soft mental voice explains. "To the best of your knowledge, the Merchants are a small, disparate band of druggies held together by the leadership of a few capes."

"I'm guessing you're going to tell me that's wrong?" I watch as Mata Hari lightly bats away the hand of an attempted groper, the amused expression she sends him somehow managing to express the feeling of 'You'll have to try harder than that.'.

"Not entirely, but it's probably more accurate to say that the Merchants are a group of drug dealers who accidentally stumbled onto a semblance of real power in the form of their capes, and then the gang you are familiar with grew out of that. The dealers were there first, the capes were a happy accident." She brushes her hair back. "That distinction is only important when you consider what you actually want to do about the Merchants."

"I just want to get them out of the Bay." I tell her, still refraining from speaking out loud. "The capes are the reason the authorities haven't managed to clean them up yet-"

"That's wrong." I fall silent as she interrupts me bluntly. "I just told you. The Merchants predate the capes. The name has changed a few times, but the organisation is so much larger than Skidmark, Squealer and Mush." Mush? That must be the rumoured third cape of theirs. "The capes are like guns. An expression of force. If you take the Merchants guns away, you might not see them fighting in the street anymore – but they'll still be peddling drugs. Still running the prostitution rings. Still recruiting people into their gang by getting them hooked on drugs they can't afford."

She walks up to the bar at the centre of the room, patting one of the seats to tell me to sit. "Can we have… two of these please." She taps a picture on the menu dismissively, depositing a few notes onto the counter and turning to face me. "You'll love this one." She tells me out loud.

"You'll hate it." Her dry voice echoes in my head.

I shake my head. "The capes are the leadership." I insist. "If we take them out, the rest of the organisation will disband and fragment into something the police can handle."

"That might be true for the ABB, or the Empire." She counters. "But you aren't listening to what I'm saying. The organisation underneath is the problem. The network of rich dealers with a wide clientele of desperate customers is what needs to be fixed. A system like that naturally generates capes that will rise to the top. You want to leave Brockton Bay behind at some point, right? Whether it takes a few months or a few years – there'll be a new set of Merchants to deal with if you call it a day after handling the capes you see now."

A glass of something purple and murky is pushed towards me. "They aren't bad people. They're just stuck in unfortunate circumstances and they'll probably be killed if they try and get out of it. I don't want to just start killing people who might cause me trouble later."

"The ones being taken advantage of aren't in the main gang. They're just customers. The ones in the Merchants are the ones taking advantage of people. You're being naïve because you live in a safe neighbourhood and most of the violence at school happens between gangs you don't have anything to do with." She reaches across the counter and snatches my drink away. I make a half-hearted attempt to stop her before realising that I didn't even want it in the first place. "Good people wouldn't have spiked your drink before you had even sat down for a full minute." I snatch my hand back, face pale as she raises the glass to her lips. "How about you go and hide in the toilets, and see what your 'good people' try to do to a spoiled little rich girl wandering into their bar."

I move to stand up, trying not to glance behind me to try and find the culprit. "I-" My mouth is dry. We haven't been saying much out loud. Time to fix that. "I'm going to the ladies. I'll be right back."

It's clearly signposted, and I've gotten a bit better at handling the double vision of watching through both my eyes and my Servant's. It's still disorientating though, so once I manage to lock myself into the stall of the toilets – I lean forward on the seat and close my eyes to watch Mata Hari chug down the rest of my drink in a single go. The connection between us dims significantly as she does so – a drop in the energy I need to send her to keep her around. Food works. Some types of drinks ease the pressure, though not very economically. Apparently, drugs have a noticeable effect as well.

Perhaps my solution lay in taking over all of the gangs and feeding my army of superheroes on a steady diet of cocaine, cheeseburgers and energy drinks. I stifle a snort of amusement at the mental image. Be serious, Taylor.

It doesn't take long for Mata to start acting woozy. 'Acting' was undoubtedly the correct word to use, I couldn't feel or see anything wrong with her through the connection, and she seems amused more than anything else as a balding man with glasses and his friend comes over to 'check on her'. I would guess that it would take something a bit more notable than a basic drug to handle a Servant.

"Hm?" She murmurs softly as the two pick her up, supporting her by each shoulder.

"You look like you've had a bit too much to drink already." One man says. "We'll take you somewhere a little quieter, call you a cab if you like."

I watch through my Servant's half-lidded eyes as the other patrons of the bar pointedly look in the other direction. Over the next minute of walking, they must have passed at least a hundred people – and not one person offers so much as a challenge to the clearly-shifty men.

"Fucking rich brats. What did you do to get crap like this, huh?" They practically drop her after exiting the building out of a side door – some back-alley exit far from the main street. He pulls at the golden necklace roughly, breaking it away without bothering with the latch.

"H-huh?" She asks groggily. "Th-these? Oh. Daddy gave them to me. He says that I'm his little princess."

"Yeah. Of fucking course. Never worked a day in your life, have you?" The man practically spits.

"Easy, Carl. Look at the bigger picture here. She's pretty out of it, but still awake. Look at her. She's got money." The other man leans in. "Hey, listen. Nobody comes here unless they're looking for a bit of an adventure, right?" My viewpoint bobs as she nods, still acting woozy. "Then why don't you try these? I promise – they'll be an experience you'll never forget."

She opens her mouth and dutifully swallows the proffered pills. The other man grins, having finally grabbed the last of the jewellery she had on her. "And don't forget, if you ever want more – just come to the bar and ask around for Carl or Lucas. We'll set you up with as much as-" Mata Hari starts spasming, collapsing backwards onto the floor – limbs flailing out backwards as she screams loudly. "Ah, fucking hell Carl! I knew that was a shitty batch. Now look what you've done!"

"Fuck off. It's not my fault she can't handle it." He shakes his head. "Whatever. I'm heading back inside – maybe Mason will listen to me now when I tell him his stock is crap."

"Hmph." Lucas watches him leave, Mata Hari stays stock still – eyes wide and unfocused as he roams his eyes over her. "Well. It's not like anyone ever comes this way. You're still breathing, right?" He pokes Mata Hari sharply. "Yeah, but completely out of it. Guess you don't mind if I-" He reaches out to pull up her shirt, other hand already working at his belt. A moment later, his arm is at a right-angle – in the wrong direction. The point of a high-heeled shoe drives into his crotch immediately afterwards, and then he is physically thrown into the wall – unconscious on arrival as he slumps down into a pile of discarded trash bags.

I don't bother to admonish Mata Hari. I don't say anything at all.

"I didn't set any of that up, if you were wondering. That's just the calibre of people that you can expect to find in a Merchant-heavy area like this." Her voice drifts into my mind as she brushes herself off, leaving the unconscious, battered man behind as she re-enters the building. "Skidmark and Squealer had nothing to do with their decisions. Everything they did was because they saw an opportunity and took it."

I unlock the stall, making a show of washing my hands before leaving. "Fine." I reply shortly. "I get the point. Are you happy now?"

"Master." I don't know why she was the one who sounded upset. "I'm not trying to win an argument. I'm trying to repay you for summoning me. Other people might have a wish or a desire to fulfil, but I'm grateful just to be here. I'm going to help you deal a blow to this gang that they won't soon forget, but I can't consider my debt paid if all of our efforts culminate in something temporary and ultimately pointless in relation to your goal. I don't have a fix-all solution for you, but I don't want to give you false-hope either."

"I know." I rub my temples with my hands. "Thank you. I just… didn't want to be wrong about this." Because now I was faced with an entirely different problem. Handling an entire gang of people rather than one or two capes and getting out of dodge. Arrest them? I didn't have the level of power or the numbers that would allow something so neat and easy to happen. Kill them all? More reasonable from a technical standpoint, but morally it was probably the worst outcome possible. Ignore them entirely? That left me back at square one.

But Mata Hari was right. I needed to leave the Bay behind at some point. Even if more capes didn't surface among the system I left behind, another gang from another city or a few small-time criminals could sweep in and take over the operation where the others had left off. And I can't fail. Everyone dies if I fail. Binary outcomes. Pass. Fail. Everyone lives. Everyone dies.

"Can- Can you get us into a real Merchant gathering? Not just their supporters, but the real gang members?" I prod Mata Hari, spotting her across the room as we meet up once again.

"Of course." She almost sounds offended. "Follow me, I know a guy you should meet." She says out loud.

"Sure." I follow, still keeping my head low despite my mask keeping me at least semi-hidden from onlookers.

She meanders towards the back of the room, into a casino-style area littered with ways for the common man to waste his money away. "Sean! Are you here?" She calls out, clearly slurring her words slightly as if drunk.

"You called?" A ginger man, only slightly taller than me, pushes away from a table and approaches us.

"I was told that this was supposed to be a real party, but all of this stuff is cheap junk." She flashes some wrapped up pills and powder tucked into her side pocket, dropping some on the floor to highlight how little she cared for it. "I was told that you might have somewhere in mind where a pretty girl might actually be able to enjoy a party?"

"Suppose we might do." She hands him a crisp set of bills out of her pocket, which he swiftly pockets without either of them breaking their stride. "Merchants have a serious party two, three times a week. Some premium product there, good music, more attractions than you can get through in a night and all the good dealers are there that can hook you up with the real good stuff. They're a bit more selective about who gets in to try and keep the quality up, but looking at you – you'll be fine." He makes a blatant show of checking her out, then glances at me. "Your friend might not though." Ass. You didn't have to spell it out. "Anyway, it'll cost you to get in, but take it from me – it's worth it."

She places a hand on her hip. "Cost isn't an issue. I just need to know when and where to show up."

I turn my gaze inwards. A gathering of some of the most influential members of the gang. I needed a hero who was both possible for me to summon right now, and also willing to get their hands dirty. I could almost physically feel a large chunk of the lawful, heroic side of the Throne shying away as my intentions become known. That was the trouble, I needed someone who wanted to come – even without the promise of a wish. None of them shared my concern about the world ending – because from their perspective, it was my world or another. They existed outside of Earth-Bet and knew that saving my timeline would likely destroy another.

"I wouldn't mind lending a hand." I pause as the voice echoes through the door in my head. I usually didn't hear their voices when I had an active Servant out. I follow the voice back, and consider its owner. "Brings back memories of the good times."

I shut out the connection.

"Well, the next one is actually tomorrow – the closest meeting point is behind the pawn-shop opposite the entrance to this building starting at six. If they like the look of you, they'll drive you to the real location." He explains. "Got to have some semblance of secrecy, you know?"

"Is there one on Tuesday?" I blurt out. Mata Hari gives me a quizzical look.

He glances at me. "Valentine's day? Yeah, actually. Don't know where the meeting point is yet, but I'll get told soon enough." He shakes his head. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up that high, missy. You need the people selecting to take a liking to you in order to get in. If you were a bit more gifted like your friend, you would be fine – and there's a fair few that wouldn't mind if you were a bit younger." Bile creeps up my throat at the implication, but I force it down. "Well, you might get lucky. Just don't get too hopeful."

"Thanks." I whisper. "We'll go to that one."

"I guess I'll come back and find you in a day or two to find out the details." The Assassin waves at the man as we turn away. We walk in silence for a moment, making for the exit without exchanging a word. "You have a plan?"

"I do." I shake my head. "I'm going to need to save up my strength for the next few days. I can keep you summoned without exhausting myself, so I'll keep you around through the night if I can. No experimenting with any other Servants until we get to that party."

She tilts her head at me. "Alright. I'll leave it to you."

Dad wasn't home when I got back. Not unusual, these days. I head over to the computer, leaving Mata Hari to patrol the streets and do whatever she did when I wasn't actively monitoring her.

I had always considered myself as someone who knew my city pretty well. But apparently 'pretty well' wasn't good enough. The Merchants were bigger than I had anticipated and possibly more serious of a threat than my school experience had led me to believe. I load up PHO, navigating to the Brockton Bay section of the boards and slowly typing 'Merchants' into the search box.

And then, I settle in to read.

 

[Tamzar]

On the night of my scheduled attack on the Merchants, I was fully prepared for Mata Hari to showcase her skills – leading me around the city to discover the party's secret location in something straight out of a spy thriller or detective movie.

"Pleaaaaasee~" I refrain from sighing through the link as I watch the Merchant, the third we had run into today, waver under the insistent pressure of the woman. She unpins a button on her shirt, drawing his eyes downwards whilst she prods his chest with a finger, pouting like a spoiled child wanting to buy ice cream from the store. "You don't mind telling me, right? I've always wanted to go, they're supposed to be so fun! We could even go together, you'd like that – wouldn't you? Bragging to your friends with me on your arm?"

His willpower crumbles. "South side of the industrial estate next to the Trainyard. Unmarked warehouse just inside Lung's territory. You can't miss it, the boys will be patrolling everywhere." I shake my head. I couldn't really blame the man, even my attention tended to slip when Mata Hari started talking – and I was as straight as they come. She was exceedingly polite and understanding about it, idly mentioning it as a passive ability that she can't fully turn off – but it was somewhat embarrassing to be caught staring after a lifetime of never having the slightest interest. "I'll meet you outs-" His voice cuts off suddenly as I shake my head.

Thanks to Mata Hari's personality and general affability, it was a relatively harmless quirk – but it did highlight an issue for me in that I was not immune to my Servant's skills at all. I needed to be a bit careful about who I summoned, the last thing I needed was to curse myself by looking at someone's face or something and accidentally becoming a victim of my own power – nothing more than a mana battery for a bored Servant as they wait out the end of the world.

"See, Master?" The Servant's voice echoes through the link of energy that I was providing her. "No trouble at all!"

"Hmph." I wasn't going to say anything. Now that the information-gathering phase was over, there was little enough left for me to be jovial about. "Let's just head over there before they pack up and go home." Given how easy that was for her it's plainly obvious that our previous trip out was entirely for my benefit. Not that I was complaining – I already knew I didn't have all the facts or all of the answers. It was inevitable that I would summon Servants smarter than me, with different values and approaches to me. I had to be at least a little bit flexible, I knew that.

"I'll drive again." She bounds past me, I glance back at the Merchant to find him slumped up against the wall in defeat. I hadn't even heard a struggle. "I expect nothing but compliments about my improvement this time, right Master?"

"I'm not going to argue that you haven't improved." I break into a light job to keep up with her as she rushes towards our ride. "You just started out at such a level that I'm still living in constant fear for my life every time we go around a corner." I slide into the passenger seat, only to find her pouting at me – tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. "Crocodile tears won't work on me." I warn, holding my nerve for no more than a second before being forced to concede the lie. Cute. I look away. "Though I will admit that you are doing very well considering how little experience you had at the start."

"That's better." She chirps. "Keep up the positivity!"

I grip tightly onto a handle on the car's ceiling, closing my eyes as the Assassin starts the car with a burst of wheelspin before heading off. I didn't want to see. It was a bit like going to a rollercoaster on the theme park, except at least with that you had the assurance that no matter what it looked like, it was never really going to crash.

It's not long before the car starts to slow down, the lack of other people on the road at this time of night doubtless speeding up our route. "I'll leave our ride here." My Servant finally announces as she draws up the car to the sidewalk, allowing me to get out. "You'll be better off in the car than exposed on the streets if I start disappearing half-way back, so we shouldn't risk an out-of-cash Merchant trying his luck with an abandoned vehicle he runs across." I grimace. That's the first time she's mentioned disappearing. I don't know for sure, of course, but summoning two servants at once is likely to deplete me entirely and knock me out again after a while. Without any ranks in Independent Action or another energy supply to keep her around, she would surely disappear in short order.

I kick the veritable mountain of drugs at my feet. Not that being caught alone in this car would spell anything good for my future either. I would be thrown into some jail or another as if I was some legendary drug lord, and wouldn't Emma have a laugh about that?

I nod mutely, drawing my coat closer around myself as I step out into the darkening streets of the Bay. It was already pitch-black, well past midnight already. Not usually the kind of time for a young girl to be out on the streets, but I had little reason to be worried about my own safety – what was more important was getting to this Merchant meeting.

Or at least, getting in the vicinity. Having Mata Hari to act as my eyes on the inside, I just needed to get close enough to summon my Servant and let him loose on the gathering of dealers, druggies and hopefully a cape or two. I just needed to be somewhere safe, where I was unlikely to be accosted while I was alone and vulnerable. Away from any cameras likely to catch sight of me and far enough that the inevitable conflict didn't explode around me.

If it was left up to me, that would have meant hiding in some alleyway or in an abandoned house or something. Mata Hari seemed to prefer the idea of me getting off the street level entirely. "Up we go!" She hoists me up into the air, her relentless cheer and enthusiasm drowning out my token protests as she scrambles up the side of a building, carrying me on her shoulders the entire way. The action seemed at odds with her regular comments on her physical weakness, but I suppose everything is relative to the monsters elsewhere in the Throne. I hadn't really seen them in action personally, while coherent at least, but there were plenty of spirits willing to talk about themselves or past battles with each other.

From the awkward angle that I was being held at, I don't even see the first sentry before he falls, eyes bulging as he claws at his neck as the Assassin slams his windpipe with one hand as she passes by – not slowing down for a second before moving on past the falling man. She skips across another pair of connected buildings, then sets me down on the roof, leaving me to gather myself while she peeks over the edge towards the source of the thrumming music pervading the air – not even looking at the thrown hairpin taking down a second lookout as he leans over a fire escape with a view overlooking our target. "Looks like this is it."

The building in question was fenced off from most angles, a few armed guards lazing around the perimeter as people mill around the entrance to throw up before moving back inside. Some kind of meeting hall, or at least, not a warehouse like I was expecting. A relatively well-maintained building that had been temporarily commandeered by the Merchants, right under the ABB's noses.

I suppose that was the flaw in thinking about the city like a clean map with clear borders and territories. It might be broadly correct, but it wasn't like every gang was omniscient. There was no reason why the Merchants couldn't operate anywhere from the Boardwalk to Medhall if they kept their heads down or bribed the right people.

I pick myself up from where I had been placed on the roof, peering at the two fallen bodies in front and behind us. Out of reach for me to check myself. "Are they…"

"Dead? Not yet." She peers over the edge of the building, observing the flashing lights from our target below. "Although, the second one will be if he doesn't get to the hospital in a few hours. When the cops come running, they should find him easily." The Servant swings her legs over the side, beckoning me closer. "Assuming you don't intend to finish them off now."

"What? No." I shake my head. "We aren't here for the grunts. If they don't get in the way, I don't see the need to go out of our way to kill them."

"I suppose now is the last opportunity to have this conversation." She sighs, before turning to me. "Why not?" The blunt question from the usually happy-go-lucky Servant is a bit of a shock, but it's not an aggressive challenge. There's something about the patient way she looks at me, genuinely waiting for my response. "Are you not here to deal the Merchant's a devastating blow to cripple them for the foreseeable future? Using a brutal criminal, who will be certain not to share your moral code and likely kill anyone in his way? They may be grunts now, but with the leadership dead – a promotion is likely in order for those who survived. What separates them from those inside the building? Luck?"

I don't have a good answer to that. "I'm not killing an unconscious man."

"But killing a conscious man is fine?" She presses me again. "If merely being a member of a gang is enough to justify killing someone, then why not apply that train of thought equally? These sentries share the same values as those inside, are still part of the same vicious organisation, taking advantage of the poor and needy for their own gain. Rapists, drug-dealers, murderers and whatever else they are on the side. If you see them again, having not changed their ways – is the result different then? Will you offer the same chance to every man fortunate enough to be knocked out as you approach?"

"I don't know!" I snap at her. "What do you even want from me? I know it needs to be done! I know I'm not being perfectly logical, like some unfeeling machine optimised for murder. They don't deserve to die, but I can't afford to go slowly. Can't afford to have any progress undone by a prison break. Picking them apart slowly and throwing them into a temporary jail isn't fast enough and can easily be undone in an instant – with money and lawyers if not by sheer force."

Mata Hari just listens, as patient and understanding as ever.

I tap my head. "I can feel them, you know. Constantly. When I don't have a Servant out its even worse, but only a tiny fraction of them were real saints. Some of them… a war hero to some, a crazed butcher to others. The reason they got to the Throne is because they did what they had to do, not because they clung to the moral high ground the entire way. They won. That's what I need to do. If I win, it was all justified because of the sheer numbers involved – and if I lose? It doesn't matter, it quite literally never happened." I level eyes with her. "Good people, heroes who devote their lives to others, are going to get in my way. They won't understand, they'll just look at me like I'm crazy – like the Faerie Queen or something. I'll save my morals and tears for them, not the criminals trying to destroy the city in spite of them."

Because that's what it came down to. People making the world worse. People making the world better. Binary. Positive influence or negative. There wasn't room for nuance or shades of grey in the equation, either they would help the world survive come judgement day or lead it further towards pruning.

I rub my hands against my temples. "I'll accept that my logic isn't flawless but I have to take action. If nothing else, doing something is better than doing nothing – and I don't have any better ideas than this for the moment. I'm close to being able to reach a Caster, but I can't just stop moving and hope the situation improves on its own." Treading water with a Caster wasn't quite doing nothing, if they could find a way to mitigate the power requirements for stronger Servants then that would boost my progress immensely even if I wasn't actively working to take down a gang. That was next on my to-do list.

She barely reacts to my outburst. "I just want you to be sure that this is what you want. To wake up tomorrow with no regrets. I'm not a Caster, or even that knowledgeable about the nature of alternate worlds – it's not like I get summoned all that often. But from what I do understand and what I've seen of your world, the kind of change that would need to take place to save it will be… near impossible. You could live a relatively happy life for the next five years-"

"Only five years." I interrupt bluntly. "And then everyone will die."

She makes a face. "It's conceivable that the timeline will naturally fall back into a satisfactory state and not be pruned. But yes, your timeline is likely to disappear – which is a perfectly natural phenomenon. From a wider viewpoint, other versions of you are likely to exist – and will continue to do so in a timeline that does get selected. The last pruning happened only a few months before my own death in this timeline. How many hundreds and thousands of different versions of me were snuffed out in an instant to make way for the version you are familiar with? Might I have lived, in those other timelines? Fell in love? Had a family?" She wasn't complaining. That wasn't her tone at all. She was building up to a point.

"What's your point?" I ask, gaze still lingering on the fallen sentry slumped against the railings of the stairwell.

The dancer stands up, brushing at her skirt before continuing. "I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that at the time, this was one of the timelines most likely to allow humanity to prosper. If this timeline is pruned, then it will be because a better world is out there. In a hundred years, not a single remaining timeline will speak about a nuclear holocaust destroying civilisation – or of humanity finally being ground down by the Endbringers in the twenty-first century. Because any timeline containing that would not have been selected. Look at Earth… Aleph? Peaceful. Prosperous. A vibrant population booming with technology and innovation, certain to continue to stretch out into the stars for centuries to come. That's the type of success you are competing with, save for the fact that now their fates are stuck with yours."

I already had one Earth on my shoulders, what was one more? "I guess I just can't see it that way. Maybe that's the difference between being alive, and being a heroic spirit – living outside of time. It isn't personal for you anymore. It's easy to be objective, because it's all just statistics to you." I lean forward. "Here's my perspective: Fuck the other timelines. I live here. My dad lives here. I'm going to do everything I can to save this world, whether it likes it or not." I turn my gaze to the fallen sentry, barely in my line of sight – then down to the thrum of music stemming from the nondescript building below us. "I don't want you to kill the sentries, I might have to cross that line someday – but not today. I know the other Servant won't be so kind, but that changes nothing. I want you to go down there, into the party. There are bound to be people in there who don't want to be. Get them out of there before the fighting starts, once you're done – carry me back to safety before I drop."

A sad smile settles on her face. "That's a better look on your face, Master." I give her a confused look. "It's likely that we won't see each other again after today, so seeing you take charge of yourself is… good to see. The confidence, self-assurance – something like that."

Right. She was probably going to run out of mana and disappear when this knocked me out. I wouldn't be overstressing my limits quite to the extent that I had in the locker, but I couldn't handle two servants for long – even if one of them barely required any upkeep at all. We both knew that I was unlikely to resummon her – if that was even possible for me. I hadn't been able to stir my previous Servants on the Throne, so either that was entirely impossible or the act of sending them back gave them a temporary time-out from being resummoned by my amateur reaching.

She moves apart from me, forgoing regular speech in place of speaking through our link. "For what it's worth, Master – I don't want you to think that I'm trying to discourage you. It's a noble goal you've set for yourself – but it's a lonely one as well. I'm sure many heroes on the Throne would be enthralled with the idea."

"But not you?" I prod mentally, even as I lose direct line of sight on her.

She remains silent for a moment. "Given the virtue of hindsight, I think most heroes on the Throne would be eager to repeat the bulk of their efforts in life. They know that their cause is worthy, and that they are capable of doing it – and that is enough for them. Even if they knew that death awaited them, many would march on regardless – concerned only for the fate of others. Or perhaps merely enthralled with the idea of doing it better."

Through my mind's eye, I watch her hop down to the street level and approach the back entrance.

She continues. "I'm not like them. I died full of regret for a life unlived. My efforts nigh irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. You spoke earlier of 'only' having five years left? That's wrong. You have five full years left! Five entire years to savour to the full, living every day like it's your last. If I was born again, given another chance? If I was smart, I would enjoy my second lease on life. Run away from it all, like I should have when I first had the chance."

"But you didn't, in the end." I flop backwards onto the roof, inspecting the not-so-starry sky above the city. "I'm sure, that at the time, you felt a bit like I do now. That your efforts might come to mean something huge to more people than you could ever hope to count. You might have regrets, but that still isn't who you are. You couldn't stay away, however smart it would have been."

"I don't even remember who I was spying for." A bitter laugh comes down the link, shockingly out-of-place for the bubbly Servant. "I'm just a composite of all the Mata Hari's who went down my path in life and became known for it. Was it patriotism? Money? Love? Was I a real spy? A double-agent? The answer is yes, in some world or another. If my legend here was consistent, I might have been summoned into a form that would know for sure – but even that is out of my reach now."

I say nothing. It's hard to say how much of that confusion is because of the mysteries surrounding her motivations even in the modern day, and how much of that is confusion from multiple unpruned timelines all feeding into the Throne of Heroes – ironically, she might be a bit better off in a few years when a few different versions of herself are retroactively deleted. Was that how it worked? I was stuck with a lot of guesswork for exactly how things worked in the Throne, not receiving quite the same intimate level of knowledge that my power had provided to me on the approaching apocalypse – if apocalypse was even the right word to describe us all being popped into soap bubbles of energy and consumed by a more dominant timeline.

"But among all that confusion, one thing is consistent among every version of myself. That little stretch of time before my death. When I knew it was all over, that there was no longer anything left to do but wait for the end." I see her pause at the entrance, fist closing into the air in front of her. "I can't describe that despair, the sense of loss over what might have been if I had just chosen to live a normal life instead of pursuing a hopeless cause. That realisation of inevitability, the certain defeat slowly drawing closer. I don't want you to experience that. I don't expect you to change your mind, I know I would have ignored it if someone had told me the same when I was alive – but I do want you to realise what you're going in to."

I shift uncomfortably. That was something that I was painfully aware of. That my progress could be so explicitly measured, and that my failure likely wouldn't come at the hands of some superpowered cosmic battle – but at the inexorable hands of time ticking away as I slowly realise that I had run out of time to change things. That I hadn't been fast enough. Hadn't been good enough. Nothing left to do but wait for the end of days to come and go without even a whisper of warning before our reality is destroyed. There wouldn't be any way to fight it, that was just as crazy as the idea that the TV could fight someone pulling the power out by the socket.

I shake my head. "I'm not going to pretend to know that feeling. And I hope I'm never really able to understand either." I watch her drift between a listless dancer and a particularly handsy merchant, neatly separating the two with a crass joke and walking away with the girl without attracting anyone's ire. "I know what I'm getting into. I can't say I'm comfortable with it, but I can at least be satisfied that on a cold, mathematical level I am doing the right thing." My mouth quirks upwards. "And as your Master, I'm going to have to insist that you stop being so down on yourself. You're a good person. Kind. Helpful. I would probably have found out the rules to my power in a much harsher way if you weren't around. I'm glad I summoned you, instead of having to rely on some criminal thug deeper in the Throne." A throaty laughter echoes through the doorway in my mind. "Shut it." I mentally point the thought inwards at the watcher. "Wait your turn."

"Master…" She sounds almost embarrassed. "You shouldn't get the wrong idea about me so easily. I'm here to repay my debt to you for summoning me here and letting me out and about. You can't let yourself get fooled by every boy or girl with a pretty face and a sad story to tell, especially not from shady Assassin-class servants like myself. Everyone has their own motivations, just because they might line up with yours for a time – doesn't mean they are your friend."

"I'm aware." Even going a few hundred years back would open me up to heroes who thought that slavery was a pretty cool idea, even without the stream of charismatic murderers that whispered into my ear whenever I didn't have a Servant out. I sigh, then tap the side of my head meaningfully – not that she could see it. "Especially in the case of our friend here. I'm going to start summoning, so let me know when you've got everyone that you can out of there."

I quickly glance through her eyes again. A dozen girls in various states of disarray huddled around the side of the building, a few scared-looking cleaning staff who seemed to have been manhandled by the guards for coming in at the wrong time and place. With the only conventional pedestrian exits being through the fenced bottlenecks at the front and back of the entrance, they would be stuck there for now. At least, until the attack started or Mata Hari picked up the last of them and punched a hole in the fence or something.

"Hey." I say out loud, not even bothering to direct the thought inwards.

"Oh? Is it that time already?" The voice fills my head, as if he hadn't been eagerly watching this entire time.

"It is." I reach out and pull, wobbling slightly as my body protests the action immediately – the nearby roof is softly illuminated by the red glow on the skin left uncovered by my hoodie. I turn to the darkened silhouette as he takes form, the outline of an overcoat and a stocky-but-not-fat build is all that I can really make out for now. "I assume you still intend to stick with our agreement?"

"But of course." The man drawls, this time speaking out loud rather than from the Throne. "I'm a man of my word. I'm almost hurt that you don't trust me."

"I trust you about as far as I could throw you." I inspect my hand, I was back up to three seals – that third seal regenerating over the course of the last week or two, though the process had seemed to slightly accelerate recently. It's possible that it's tied to my own proficiency or output, but that should become clearer later. "If you were intending to abide by it anyway, then you won't mind me using a command seal – will you?"

He makes an exasperated gesture, stepping into the light to reveal his features fully. Longer hair than I expected, a vicious series of scars along the side of his face and neck and a business-like outfit hidden under a long overcoat that was sure to conceal some form of weapon or another. "Seems like a bit of a waste to me when we already have a perfectly good understanding. I shoot up your friends down there, and in return I get to stretch my legs a bit before returning to the Throne."

"That's the part that has me concerned. A lack of real consequences to stop you from going after the good guys." He snorts at that. I raise my hand, leaving the marking facing towards him. "Servant Assassin. Al Capone. With the power of this command seal, I command you: You will not kill, injure or maim anyone that is not a member of the Merchants, and you will return to the Throne of Heroes before dawn." Red lightning flashes across his frame as I feel a seal vanish my hand – leaving what looks like scar tissue behind. A shame to use them, but they didn't seem to stack past three – and as long as I had at least one then I shouldn't be in too much trouble from rowdy servants until they regenerated.

Mata Hari had said that command seals tended to get weaker the more complex and vague the order – but my newest Assassin didn't have a drop of magic resistance in him, so I wasn't too concerned about the chance of him resisting it successfully – even if I had split the command into two. It could be considered that it was only a single order to stick to the terms we had previously established, but I wasn't an expert in command-seal lawyer speak. Was the wording of the command key? Or was the intent behind it the driving factor? Whatever the case, this was a learning experience for me too.

He sighs loudly, but doesn't opt to say anything before shoving his hands into his pockets and strolling over to the edge of the roof. He watches the street in silence for a full-minute, before I finally lose patience.

"Are you going to do anything? We don't have all night, you know." I cross my arms. "Even if the Merchants don't decide to pack up early, we weren't exactly subtle on the way in. Eventually someone is going to wake up and raise the alarm if I don't run out of mana first."

He turns his head towards me, then past me. "Who said I wasn't doing anything?"

I turn to follow his gaze, heart briefly stopping in my chest as I find a bland, generic man in a suit pointing an old-school tommy gun directly at me. After a moment, he turns at a right angle and marches to the side of the building – joining a pair of similarly unremarkable figures. The shadows where he once stood pool together once more, and now that I'm watching for it – I can feel the pull of mana as he demands more energy from my link with him with each additional goon.

I spin back around, catching a glimpse of a smirk on his face as he mirrors the action to observe the building once more. He had no real reason to kill me, he just wanted to unsubtly point out that he could have if he wanted to. Dick.

I look inwards for a moment. Still fine on my reserves for now. Sticking with only Mata Hari's minute drain for a few days had left me plenty to work with, but the American mobster was far more expensive to maintain than Mata Hari – even before he started conjuring up his personal gang to drain my energy even more. Still, I should probably last long enough to render running out of juice a non-issue – of more concern was the impact that this was going to have on my body. I was already a bit woozy, and he hadn't even fully employed his Noble Phantasm yet.

"Three conditions." He murmurs aloud, clearly intending me to listen in. "The target must be unaware. The target must be deep inside their own territory. The target must be surrounded. Three for three, on American soil, against an entrenched gang and on Valentine's Day to boot. The stars really have aligned, haven't they?"

"Your Noble Phantasm?" He gives a distant grunt of affirmation, leaving me to glance around at the shadowy figures clambering up the sides of buildings – not at the sheer level of physicality that a Servant had, but I had yet to meet a regular human who could clamber up windows and drainage pipes like that. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen shadows – racing across rooftops and setting up positions around the hall that was thrumming with music. Almost like any other nightclub.

Except, looking through Mata Hari's eyes – this was anything but a normal night club. A few dozen men and women almost entirely insensate on the floor, their drugs scattered around them without care. Another two dozen women huddling terrified outside the edge of the building, some comforting each other and trying to call the police. My initial Servant was quietly directing those who didn't want to be there on where to go once the fighting started. Two of them had tried to raise the alarm to the other Merchants once they realised what was happening, but had promptly been knocked out for it and handed off to the others.

No capes. Not that she could see. A bit disappointing, but I wasn't here just for them. I was here to break the system behind the Merchants. Break all the cogs and wheels in their smoothly running machine, not just smash the face of their organisation. In a way, Squealer and Skidmark were the easy targets for me once they moved somewhere where I could find them. No big organisation to fall back on, just a few thugs that any assassin-class Servant could handle when I had time to spare. Open combat was actually where they were most dangerous in that respect, but they still paled in comparison to the rest of the Bay.

Even without the capes, the hall was packed with thugs of all shapes and sizes. The wealth disparity between the elite at the back of the room and the thugs mingling at the centre was clear – the gaudy jewellery and wads of cash stuffed down pockets made it obvious enough, even if you couldn't see that everyone was trying to network with someone in that area and getting shot down hard in the process.

A lot of people. I'm sure many of them have hopes for the future that didn't involve the Merchants. If they were given a chance, they might leave and never return.

If.

The cool breeze washes over me, but I don't shiver. "How many?"

Mata Hari makes a clicking noise with her tongue that somehow travels down the link and hums for a moment. "Eight guards patrolling the outside in pairs. Three lookouts that I can see from here excluding the ones we've already handled. I don't see any of your Capes, but they might be incognito for all we know. A few dozen more thugs inside, all lightly armed – along with a set that looks like they'll be replacing the patrols outside. The partygoers are too scattered for a reliable count" She glances out of the window, watching something that I can't focus on in time before she turns away. "Make that two lookouts. Nobody knows anything in here, but I think I'm done already. Everyone else looks to be here willingly and loving the direction that things are going. The group at the back are probably your main targets here. They've been talking shop all night, about as sober as anyone in this building is."

I relay the information on to the other Assassin in my employ, who has decided to forgo subtlety and light up his cigar right on the edge of the rooftop. Well. It was his problem if he got caught now.

I close my eyes. "Alright then." Time to go. "We're ready whenever you are." I poke Mata Hari. "Get everyone out of there, then come and pick me up before I drop. He's just about to attack."

"Finally." He steps off of the building. I do a double-take for a moment before realising that he is, of course, completely fine and didn't just commit suicide in front of me. Still getting used to it.

I switch between my two Servant's viewpoints quickly, it's a bit disorientating but it's manageable if I keep my eyes closed to block out my own vision. Mata Hari has knocked a part of the fence down, while doing her best to direct her charges attention away from the faceless man with the large gun waiting by the window – utterly silent.

Al Capone, meanwhile, is slowly pacing his way down to the front door – holding a crowbar of all things instead of pulling out his gun. No alarm sounds, so I can only assume that the lookouts are already dealt with. Permanently, I would guess – not that I truly wanted to know at this point.

I blink. There was a bouncer. There wasn't one anymore. I didn't even see when he disappeared, or who took him out.

A perfect ambush. Minions by every window. On every rooftop overlooking an exit. It was exhausting for me, but I could at least appreciate the preparation and its likely effectiveness.

Speaking of exhaustion- Mata Hari catches me as I stumble, having quietly knocked down the fence to guide her group clear and then scrambled up the rooftops to return to my side. "We should go, Master."

I nod, allowing myself to be flung onto the Servant's back and carried from the scene. I maintain my vision on my other Assassin, watching curiously as he raps his crowbar against the door.

The unlucky man to pull open the door barely has time to scowl before he finds himself folded in half by an ungentlemanly strike from the crowbar. Another blow smashes against the back of his exposed skull, with a heavy boot nudging the body to the side before it falls. Further inside the building, faces turn towards the Servant, outrage and accusations from those who are still lucid – raucous cheers from those who aren't. The cries last only long enough for him to pull out his own gun.

I feel the surge of mana, as each of his minions takes aim along with him. I glance at Mata Hari's concerned expression, as my vision turns dark for a moment. "Gotta get home, can't get caught up in this." I slur the words out. I had hoped that I could keep going for longer, but two Servant's is far harder than I had expected – even if it was likely to level out once Al Capone started to lose his minions and was done with his initial attack. "Mata Hari!" I clutch my hand out into the air, glowing an ominous red. "By the power of this command seal, deliver me safely to my home!"

A dark laugh emerges from the villainous Servant interrupting the party, his voice carrying across the link as if I was there in person. "Knock, knock. It's the police." He smiles widely, a hint of ugliness creeping into his tone despite his beatific expression. "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre!"

And then all hell broke loose.

---

"Saint Valentine's Day Massacre!"

In any sudden ambush like this, Al Capone knows, it's always the first barrage that's the deadliest. The initial spray of bullets that claims the lives of the greenest rookie and the experienced veteran alike. Before any honed reactions can kick in, before a leader takes charge of the situation, before cover can be found and fashioned from debris.

Before any of that, there is only a room full of open, unaware targets. Each as vulnerable to a stray bullet as the next.

To stack things even further in his favour – the majority of the 'Merchants' as they were supposedly called were, in plain terms, as high as kites. When every window of the building is shattered simultaneously by his artificial subordinates, the reaction time of the soon-to-be victims is predictably abysmal. The weapons used by his faceless minions weren't truly intended for accuracy or penetrative power – indeed, by Servant standards, they would be good for nothing more than suppressive fire or trying to take out an enemy Master with a lucky shot.

But this wasn't a Servant battle. None of the men inside possessed the durability or sheer reflexes to avoid death at the hands of any one of the hundreds of bullets pouring in from every window in the building. This was a slaughter. A true massacre, brought on by fulfilling every condition of his Noble Phantasm. Deep in enemy territory, an unaware and unprepared enemy, successfully surrounded without an alarm being raised. Even minor conditions that would usually escape consideration in a grail war, such as the enemy being a rival gang that was 'Evil', the territory being in America and even the date matching the Noble Phantasm's namesake.

The first wave of bullets pours out of the crude Tommy guns for almost a full minute without pause. When every minion pauses at the exact same time, reloading with exactly the same motion - that is the only time that the result of the attack can be properly judged by the man.

He strolls among the carnage, dismissive of the broken and bleeding corpses-to-be around him. Bodies are strewn across the floor in every direction, blood trickles across the room - following a slight slope that was unnoticeable to the building's occupants. A few of the gangsters remain alive. Ones who were both smart and lucky, ones who had slipped into another room that lacked a window or that had opted to inject their narcotics in the dingy toilet areas instead - thereby leaving them well away from the line of fire that the gunmen at the windows had on the rest of their companions.

The survivors visibly split at the sight of him. The brave ones take the brief reprieve in the spray of bullets as an opportunity to take their own guns and go on the offensive – either at the stranger in their midst or the gunmen at the window. The smart ones run, taking their chances at trying to escape through one of the many exits of the building while they can. The Servant simply ducks behind a pillar to avoid the hail of bullets, idly executing the first man to try and circle around with a controlled burst of fire.

And then, simultaneously, every one of his creations finishes their reload – and the attack begins again, not as indiscriminate and blind as the first. This time, it was aimed at those who had dared to move or shoot back – or at the walls and doorways that they had hidden behind to try and escape. A few of the attackers had been taken down by lucky shots and in one instance a well-placed grenade from a particularly paranoid Merchant – but not enough to open up a realistic escape path.

Al Capone sighs, mentally directing his men to enter the building properly to sweep out any last pockets of resistance – a visible expression of disappointment on his face. "Fucking boring." He turns away. "Now then. Where's the nearest-" He pauses, tilting his head at a distant noise.

He heads outside, watching as the noise resolves itself into a veritable monster truck bursting out of a nearby building – bristling with guns and a tank-style cannon out the front, not taking the slightest bit of damage from the falling debris as the rest of the building collapses around it.

"Think you can attack the motherfucking Merchants, cocksucker?" The angry female voice washes over the street, the volume high enough to be physically felt through the Servant's feet.

"You're fucking dead!" A nasally male voice yells over the intercom, interrupting the other voice. "Cum-guzzling, bitch-ass whore! Who the fuck do you think you are!"

"Well now." He takes his hat off and deposits it on the ground, leaving wavy locks to roam free. "That is a bit different."

And then he sprints behind the cover of the fence, his previous position being utterly annihilated by a tank round a moment later. The vehicle doesn't seem to care for cover, simply roaming forward and crushing the fence under its ridiculously oversized wheels and the practical battering ram attached to the front.

A few scattered gun rounds plink off of the plating. Thick armour, probably better described as a tank first and a monster-truck second, despite initial appearances. In immediate response, several machine gun turrets rise out of the vehicle and begin firing – apparently automatically responding to attacks against the vehicle rather than being manually directed against anything that moved.

Al Capone dashes through the streets, pursuers not far behind. "Master." He calls out mentally. A single command seal to pull him away would end the chase. No response. "Well. If she isn't here to complain about my methods…" He considers the limited knowledge that his summoning gives him, then issues a mental command to his subordinates to stop attempting to attack the vehicle – the automated turrets had already taken out enough of them that it was apparent that the effort was going to be entirely fruitless at this stage.

And, if he was to be entirely truthful, he just didn't care. He wasn't in it for the thrill of battle like many other Servants would be. Sure, the action of swiftly and mercilessly crushing another gang was satisfying but without the ability to stick around and enjoy the fruits of his labour, it wasn't something that he wanted to spend all of his remaining time on Earth doing.

No. Wine and women, as the corpses of his enemies began to rot behind him. That was the proper way to enjoy the last few hours of his temporary return.

He dodges another missile. Which all meant getting away from this dysfunctional machine and its coked-up drivers.

"Go, go, go!" A glance behind shows the machine increasing in speed again, the male of the pair laying down coloured strips from inside the cockpit – seeming to accelerate the vehicle even more, even if it did nothing for their cornering ability.

He checks in with his subordinates again, then redirects himself down another alleyway surrounded by broken-down, boarded-up businesses. Police sirens blare in the distance, but the Merchants seem undeterred by either the prospect of police interference or the idea of widening the alleyway by smashing through the poorly constructed buildings on either side.

It isn't long before the road in front of him runs out, large walls and barriers on each side penning the Servant in.

"End of the line, shitstain!" One voice jeers over the intercom as the tank barrel takes aim.

Al Capone runs his hand over his face. "Should have just knocked her out at the start and enjoyed the night, this mess isn't like me at all." Distant gunfire draws closer. "Too many movies about the honourable American gangsters will do that to a spirit origin, I can only guess."

"Hit the damn button, Squeals! Blow that fucker sky-high!" The voice whoops.

No need to dodge yet. Not quite the level of instinct found elsewhere in the Throne, but the enlarged gun was close enough in concept to the ballistics of his time that he had a certain sixth-sense with regards to incoming attacks from it.

"I certainly had the opportunity to slip away, I am an assassin after all. This is a bit of a strange urge. A man of my word, is that what I am now?" A dark laugh emerges from his throat. "Fine. But I never said I'd do it all myself." The tank barrel erupts, the Servant swaying just enough for it to annihilate the wall behind him – the explosion still sufficient to send him flying from the blast.

He watches, remaining face-down on the ground, as the tank starts to re-align at him again. He watches as the automated turrets on top respond instantly to the gunfire of his own minions, swinging and blasting at the new hole in the wall.

And then he watches the tank spin into reverse, as an enraged, ten-foot-tall draconic man – if it could still be called a man – slams into the front of the vehicle, skin wreathed in fire and claws gouging deep into the reinforced metal.

That would be Lung, if the girl's knowledge was to be believed. He watches the two gang leaders as they struggle against each other, the dragon-man growing with each passing second while the Merchant's desperately try to point their main-cannon at the bulk of his body.

"None of my business anymore." He decides.

Time to go and find that drink.

---

Velocity was in a bad mood. Getting woken up in the middle of the night to assist with a scrap between Lung and the Merchant's, who for some godforsaken reason had spent the night pursuing an unknown parahuman in a goddamn super-tank – that was probably the cause of it.

Or perhaps it was just annoyance that said parahuman-on-the-run was living it up in a nearby high-class nightclub – glass of wine in one hand, drunken woman in the other, standing at the balcony looking extremely bemused at the raging flames and gunfire visible across the city. As if he had nothing to do with the carnage outside. He wasn't difficult to track down at all, seeming either unaware or uncaring about all the cameras and eyewitnesses he walked past even at this late hour in the night.

"Unknown Parahuman, you are under arrest." He grinds out, taking in his surroundings cautiously. Nobody else that appeared to be in his employ, no real sign of what his abilities are other than a minor Brute and Mover rating.

He glances backwards over the shoulder towards the hero, then very deliberately rolls his eyes. "Half the city is on fire, and the heroes spend their time coming after me instead. This is where your tax dollars go, can you believe that? And they dare call me the criminal." He sighs loudly. "Really, would waiting another hour or two really have killed you? Clubs that go on entirely through the night are a real experience for me, everyone here probably has more drugs than blood in their systems right now – couldn't you just leave me to enjoy it while you handle the little dragon problem?"

"The 'little dragon problem'?" Velocity queries in disbelief. "That you started, if you remember. Dozens of people are dead because of the situation you caused-"

"Dozens?" The man complains. "Nonsense. You must not have found the little party that the Merchant's had going on, I should definitely be over two-hundred by now."

Velocity ignores the squawking of the console operator in his ear as the information gets relayed along. "And you're proud of that? Of being a murderer? Innocent people are dying because of you!"

"Innocent people die all the time." He gently shoves away the drunken woman cooing into his side. "Like the innocent people that might die if you try to arrest me now, instead of going and rescuing cats out of trees and old ladies out of burning buildings."

"We can't-" Velocity begins.

He pauses, then holds up a finger. "I'll apologise, that could be misinterpreted as asking you to go and prioritise dealing with that other incident – I know you can't do that, it's a rather peculiar trait of mine to appear as more immediate of a problem than I actually am, but it is what it is." He breathes in. "No. I meant that as a threat." The man makes an expansive gesture at the drunken patrons of the club, as a chill runs down the hero's spine at the implication. "Let's not be hasty now, we can talk about this like gentlemen."

"Console, I need this building evacuated." The hero whispers under his breath. "Why? What are you getting out of all this? A ransom? Reputation?"

"Good question. I would say that the answer is something like integrity, but the very idea of that being my answer disgusts me." He looks out over the balcony. "No, it was just completing my side of the bargain. Almost too easy to renege upon, such that doing so seemed beneath me. I enjoyed it, and I enjoy knowing that my partner-in-crime will be crying herself to sleep over what she's done here – all while telling herself that she did the just, morally correct thing."

Behind the mask, Velocity's expression flattens. "You're a monster." He shifts, glancing around as uniformed officers start to enter the room to clear the partygoers out. "Who is your partner?"

"No need for name-calling, we were having such a lovely conversation as you pumped me for information." He spreads his arms wide. "Come up here, why don't we watch the finale together? I'm not sure who I am more impressed by, the strength of that dragon or how that tank is still so mobile with half of it's wheels torn off." He clicks his tongue. "Not so effective with only one left though, shame."

Velocity spares a glance over the man's shoulder, spotting the exact scene he is talking about in a nearby park easily viewed from this angle. Lung, scaled up to tower over the near-dismantled, molten tank – reaching a clawed hand inside the cockpit. One figure is ejected out backwards, soaring over the rooftops into the distance before a parachute deploys to lower the unconscious figure down towards Empire territory. The other figure isn't so lucky. Skidmark struggles in Lung's grip as the dragon laughs. A few Protectorate heroes have arrived on the scene, circling the pair and warily shouting out orders that are ignored entirely.

Velocity winces as the dragon's hand alights, held far over his head to the sky as he utterly engulfs the black parahuman in a pillar of flame reaching up to the skyline. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen. When he stops and unfurls his hand, there is nothing left to even see but ash.

Lung steps away from the heroes, who make no move to follow as the ABB leader starts to slowly shrink. Both sides seeking an immediate end to the conflict, already aware of how badly an extended battle could go.

"Brutal." The man at his side states dispassionately, a ghost of a smile on his face. "That's how you make a statement to those beneath you, a man after my own heart."

"They'll send you to the Birdcage for this." Voices continue to talk into his ear as more heroes take positions in and around the building, the main distraction long gone.

"I don't think so." The man rolls his shoulders deliberately, red sparks running along his arm as Velocity notes him trying to draw his gun. "I'm not the type to grass out my Master, but she really only has her own idealism for her game being discovered this early. Even if you are somewhat fast, I'm quite sure I am capable of disabling you non-lethally if I had the option. I can't say that she was wrong to be concerned about me either, but I would have liked the chance to slip away for a few more hours and enjoy the night."

Velocity zips backwards as golden lights start to sparkle across his form, like fireflies vanishing into the air. The man doesn't even make an effort to dodge the grenade quietly dropped at his feet, capturing his entire lower-half and rapidly expanding and congealing containment foam. "Unknown parahuman, cease all usage of your power or we will-"

"Al Capone." The man calls out, turning slightly transparent. "That's my name. Public Enemy Number One." He tilts his head to the side, regarding the creep of foam up his body with interest. "I don't look the part, and I don't feel it either – but it was worth coming." His voice turns to a mocking tone. "Best of luck next time, hero." He disperses entirely into golden sparks, which in turn disappear into thin-air within moments – leaving a man-shaped hole within the foam he left behind.

Fuck. Velocity stares at the missing man. "Console, target has disappeared into thin-air." He wets his lips for a moment, considering the conversation in his head. "Suspected projection, I'm moving to search the nearby area for a Master."

And then he was gone.

---

When I wake, I feel for the connection with my Servants. Nothing. Both of them are gone. Not unexpected. I flex my arms experimentally. Tired, pained – like I've bruised my entire arm without leaving a mark, but not the worst state I've ever been in.

The voices seem to note my sudden wakefulness. "Hey, I wouldn't mind causing some havoc if you need-"

I mute the voice. Didn't need that right now.

Another pipes up. "Murder should never be the first resort, Taylor. Look to God, and he will show you the way-"

"Didn't see you volunteering to do anything. You think I took the criminal because I liked the idea? Or because all of you are too sanctimonious to help me when I asked?" I bite back at the voice, regretting it a moment later as the feeling of saintly disapproval washes over me. I shouldn't be burning bridges here, they would likely deign to help in a different situation – the defence of innocents, rather than the purging of criminals.

"We will serve, when you are capable of sustaining us." An echoing multitude of voices drifts through the mental doorway. Sure. Plenty of Servants happy to kill people because I asked nicely, but getting people with that lack of…ego or earthly desires tended to be further back in history. Besides, I didn't really know if I could trust someone who had no real reason to follow me other than duty – at least with the greedy Servants I had something to trade for mutual benefit.

"Show us your-" Mute. I've had Mata Hari summoned for so long that I had almost forgotten how numerous and persistent the voices can get when I have mana to spare and no Servants out. It's like they can smell the potential for them to be summoned. I didn't need the peanut gallery commenting on my every action right now.

Tough luck for them. I wanted to be more efficient with my mana, and that meant a Caster. I actually felt like I had a decent amount of energy stored, and a glance at the clock tells me that I've been out of it for the entirety of the morning and part of the afternoon – my sleep schedule suffering due to recent events. I reach out to my target and pull, even if I was going to be useless for most of the day after this summoning – it wasn't like I was planning on going anywhere.

I collapse backwards onto my bed as I feel the mana leave me. Ouch. Should I have waited another day to recover? No, it looks like it worked.

"Servant Caster, answering the call of the Mahatmas!" A bouncy, pink-haired young girl strikes a pose at me.

"Helena Blavatsky?" I ask. She nods. There's a lot of questions I don't ask. 'What are you wearing?' 'Why is your hair like that?' 'Why are you so short?' 'Who are the Mahatmas again?' 'Why is that floating toy soldier winking at me?' I don't ask any of those. "I'm glad to finally meet you, I hope we can work well together."

She beams at me brightly. "Of course, this world is too fascinating to pass up! These 'parahumans' must be related to the Hierarchy, or perhaps it's all because of aliens! I can't wait to investigate-"

"I'm sure we can work out a deal." I ignore the shaking of my arms. The drain is manageable at this level, I've had to taper down on the connection a bit already, but as long as she stays out of combat I should be able to sustain her while still recovering slowly myself. "If you can make me some mana batteries, or something that can generate mana over time – I'm happy for you to take some time to go and… search for the Mahatmas and anything else that strikes your fancy." A five-minute internet search had given me everything I knew about the strange ideas she kept throwing out, and I was hoping that would be enough to keep her happy.

She reaches over and pats my head endearingly. "I don't feel Mahatma from your words, Master!" What does that mean? Weren't Mahatmas just like Saints or something? "Let's work together! You read my book, and I'll start setting up a proper temple to work from!" She shoves a brown book at me.

"I should check PHO-" I complain weakly, only for the book to be pressed towards me even more insistently. I meet her eyes for a moment then look away, breaking contact first. Humour the strange Servant for now. "But I suppose I could spend some time reading first." At least this way I didn't have to strain myself trying to get out of bed.

And I wasn't sure that I really wanted to see PHO anyway. Ignorance is bliss, even if I could make some likely assumptions about what happened last night.

I settle down to read, briefly checking in on my Servant as she draws small spikes of my mana – each one creating another of her miniature dolls as she takes complete ownership of our basement. I'll have to ask her to do some magic to keep Dad out and away once he gets back, something that I have no doubt would be trivial for the famous occultist.

I blink as movement by my bedside catches my eye. A spinning disc the size of my fist bumps against my lamp, then floats through the air and lands on my face. I grab it out of the air, frowning at it as it makes a warbling noise. One of her familiars? It wasn't like the soldier-dolls she kept with her. "No floating around the house." I tell it. It spins out of my hand and starts to bob away into the air with a defiant aura around it. I snatch at it again and push it into my clothes drawer, buried between one hoodie and the next. It warbles briefly but stays sealed inside once I lean my school bag against it.

I'd ask Helena about it later. Surely, she would have a reasonable explanation for me?

AN: This has been sitting on my hard drive for months. Finally got off my ass to push the rest of it out there. I'm hoping to get the next update done in more reasonable time.

As someone else in the thread noticed, this might tend to lag behind the main thread on Spacebattles / SV - mostly because I've seen a few (mostly justified) instances of people getting their content nuked, so I would just like to use this as a backup - on top of the fact that this is my "main" site anyway.

 

[Tamzar]

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■

♦ Topic: Canberra Quarantine Fully Established
In: Boards ► Places ► Canberra
EBResponseOfficial (Original Poster) (Verified Spokesperson)
Posted On Feb 26th 2011:
The Joint International Task Force for Endbringer Response has confirmed that the quarantine around Canberra has been fully established. Know that nobody is happy with this tragic result, including the heroes and staff responsible for creating and enforcing this quarantine. Let it be clear that attacking heroes online or in-person for their part in attending Endbringer fights is a crime, and local law enforcement will not hesitate to prosecute you should you choose to do so.

A memorial service for the fallen will be announced over the coming days. Please check this post for details about finding and reuniting successful refugees and consider donating to charitable efforts relating to this crisis here.

As we expect a large amount of activity on these boards over the coming days and weeks, the mods have enforced a zero-tolerance policy for any rule-breaking posts - read the rules here before you post.

(Showing page 1 of 1)

►Automoderator (Moderator)
Replied On Feb 26th 2011:
Beep. Boop. I'm a bot.

This post has been automatically locked by the author. No replies will be accepted at this time.

End of Page. 1

■

♦ Topic: ABB Rampage
In: Boards ► Places ► Brockton Bay
BubblesTheGoat (Original Poster)
Posted On Feb 25th 2011:
Apparently, getting a good night of sleep is too much to ask for in Brockton Bay these days. Got woken up in the middle of the night by some jokers in an actual tank of some sort chasing some new Cape. (PIC)

Anyone know who these assholes are?

Edit: So this blew up a bit, and people keep nagging me to update the OP so I'm just going to copy/paste Bagrat's post from earlier:

"Hey Guys, That's the local gang of drug-dealers, the Archer's Bridge Merchants - and their two Capes Squealer (Vehicle Tinker) and Skidmark (some kind of acceleration-field Shaker, but nobody really knows for sure). I'm not familiar with the new Cape, but the PRT has sent out a request for information here stating that the man and his accomplices are currently wanted for questioning. No more details on that front quite yet.

From what I can tell from the after-action reports, this Cape (possibly part of a rival gang) attacked a Merchants gathering and absolutely slaughtered everyone inside. Dozens, if not hundreds, dead. The two Capes were hanging around inside a nearby workshop and objected to that, chasing the Cape halfway across the city in their monster-tank - where he led them right into the path of an extremely angry Lung, who was likely annoyed at the fact that they had taken up residence in his territory.

Cue another chase across the city as the Merchants scrap with Lung, which goes as poorly as you might expect despite their mobility. Skidmark is dead, caught on video here (NSFL, can't actually make out the details once the hand closes and the fire starts, but it isn't pleasant viewing nevertheless). Squealer ejected into Empire territory, and while they haven't announced that they have a Tinker yet - they almost certainly have a Tinker now.

The Cape that they were originally chasing was found and accosted by Protectorate forces, although the exact outcome of that meeting is a mystery - no arrest records, no new arrivals inside the Protectorate HQ, no obvious sign of a Cape fight and no details posted regarding a new Villain/Vigilante. Whatever it is, they're keeping their cards close to their chest for the moment."

(Showing page 9 of 12)

►Antigone
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
Fuck the Merchants, glad they're gone. Parasites. Maybe Lung can swing around and do the same to the Empire too.

►TheseusIsBack
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
Sure, fuck the Merchants - but also fuck the new guys who came in to replace them. Look at that death count for the first day, fucking psychopaths.

►OneManArmy
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
Protectorate looking useless again. Literally just standing around watching while someone gets torched in front of them. Why did they even bother coming out if they're just going to let Lung do whatever he likes?

And all of you assholes cheering now that the Merchants are gone, at least they looked out for the black man in this city. You think the ABB and Empire are going to try cozying up to you now that they're gone? Time to move.

►DeltaSignal
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
Law enforcement just put out a bulletin on the new Cape – apparently they suspect that this is a new gang trying to gain some clout. They think they multiple Capes, with one that can create gun-wielding minions of varying intelligence - apparently the extras that attacked the Merchants with the original "Cape" literally had no face, couldn't respond to speech, failed to perform basic tasks outside of combat and eventually disappeared into thin-air.

Word is that they think that this Cape or a supporting Cape interacting with their power made a more advanced, thinking version (that titled itself "Al Capone" of all things), and suspect that there may be some relation to the gunman that attacked the Empire a while back - killing Victor and the other guy that visits every now and then when the Empire does its shows of force.

That's mostly based on the fact that both of them (apparently) disappeared into thin-air in similar fashion. If true, that means that the new Master is working with a Cape capable of changing the weather on a fairly wide-scale - likely a new gang hitting out at their most immediate rivals.

►PurifyAmerica
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
@ DeltaSignal Nice, because the Bay needed nothing more than a bunch of suicidal gunmen running around shooting everyone they don't like.

Can't wait for the Protectorate to come out and do something about this. What's that? Silence. And they wonder why everyone with a brain sides with the Empire in these fights.

►ArchpriestFrancis
Replied On Feb 29th 2011:
@ DeltaSignal So... Crusader, but with guns?

►MercyIsForMePls
Replied On Feb 30th 2011:
@ ArchpriestFrancis Not quite as limited in range, or perhaps they can simply delegate command to their more advanced minions.

At the very least, there seems to be some kind of limit to it - the fact that they seem to vanish after a certain time-frame is probably letting the PRT sleep a little easier at night. Nobody wants another Nilbog running around.

►Charred
Replied On Feb 30th 2011:
Well, without trying to earn myself a threadban from the mods after the bloodbath on page seven... they haven't hit any heroes yet. If they want to take a swing at the gangs and can keep it at that level, I'm not going to shed any tears over them.

►PurifyAmerica
Replied On Feb 30th 2011:
@ Charred Literally dozens, if not hundreds of people are dead. The Empire loses two of its best taking down an actual terrorist and you're going to give the terrorists a pat on the back?

You make me sick.

►Charred
Replied On Feb 31st 2011:
@ PurifyAmerica Suuuure buddy, looking at your username and post history - I somehow doubt that you really care about all the local drug-dealers getting offed. Sad about your Nazi friends? I'm not. If we can handle the cost of WW2 to beat the Nazis out of Germany, I think we can handle losing some of the worst society has to offer to get them off of our home soil.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

---

"Taylor!" The sound of clicking fingers and a stamping foot draws me from the screen. "You aren't listening to me again!" Helena crosses her arms and pouts at me.

"I thought you were talking to your dolls." I confess, only slightly apologetic. "You were saying?"

She smiles, instantly forgiving me. "I was saying that I've finished up with building my temple. It's a lot smaller than I would like, but I realise there isn't too much to be done about it right now."

Right. My basement is only so big. "And?"

"I was hoping to use it to solve our mana issues. It's mostly an issue with the supply we get at once, so I tried to find a local ley-line that I could just… pull our way. Redirect a little bit." She takes over my chair. "-which completely failed."

"Nothing is ever easy." I nod. "Do you know why? I don't think I'm up to summoning another Servant, but I've been expecting to have to move at some point for a while now." Dad would… be fine.

She shakes her head. "It wasn't even a matter of it being too locked down, I just couldn't find one. Combining that with the general lack of ambient mana in the environment, it opens the way to several potential theories." Where did she get the whiteboard? "This is my primary one: Magic isn't real."

I pause. I didn't entirely disagree, but- "I'm surprised to hear you say that." I tell her diplomatically.

She pulls a face at me. "This world is lacking in mystery, and more specifically lacking the sufficient flow of mana, to allow magical phenomena to truly exist. There's something there, of course – or the world itself would be visibly dying – just not enough to allow anything other than the Age of Man to exist or thrive." She nudges the chair into a slow spin. "There is no magus association, and perhaps in modern times, there never was."

I close my eyes. "I don't know what half of that means." I flop onto my bed.

She purses her lips for a moment. "Consider the creation of the world. How did we get here? How did mankind first arrive on this world?" She makes a hand gesture towards me, encouraging me to speak.

"We evolved over time? From little blobs of cells in the sea?" I shrug at her.

"Yes, but at the same time – no." Helena clearly expected that answer. "Or rather, that is the undeniably correct answer for the Age of Man. Just as modern science can approximately estimate the age of the Earth, find fossils of our evolutionary ancestors and trace the origins of all life back to the Big Bang. We can conclusively say things like, true dragons do not exist. Ragnarok never happened. The gods are not real. Vampires are a mere myth. These things have always been true, but at the same time weren't always true a few hundred or thousands of year ago, because we lack the perspective of that era. Those things are no longer normal, the textures of reality that supported them are gone and the planet itself represses their existence as their influence fades."

"That makes no sense at all." I state bluntly.

Caster ignores me. "The Age of Man finds answers suitable for the Age of Man. Physics, as we now understand them, simply did not exist in the same form thousands of years ago as they do today." A book spins around her head and emits a circle of flame around itself. She gestures at it. "As a Caster from the Age of Man- and also as a Servant – the lack of mystery in this world is of little consequence to me save for limiting a few options and cutting down on the general sustainability of things I make. But even doing a spell as simple as this would be impossible for you, regardless of the energy flooding through your body. No Mystery to work with to accomplish something that complicated."

"I've had a few Casters try to talk to me in my sleep about that stuff." I admit. "I've never really understood it well. It's not like gravity just started working between one day and the next, just because we didn't understand something – doesn't mean it wasn't there."

She tilts her head in acknowledgement. "An understandable position, but you're thinking about it from the wrong direction. I'll explain it as best I can. Looking at it from a distance, yes, the effects of gravity and motion may still have existed – but only because that was the will of Gaia or the local gods, or perhaps an even more fundamental law of the universe. A science experiment to try and measure the acceleration of gravity simply wouldn't get consistent results in different places back then – things fell down because the planet or the local deities wanted them to. They, quite literally, didn't have to explain anything – science from the human perspective was unimportant and unable to make an impression on the nature of the world. No hard numbers or science needed to be involved to make those forces work – things just happened. Humanity's observations and understanding of the world around it had no more influence than any over animal you might compare them to."

I idly stretch out my legs as I wait for her to continue.

"I could talk a lot about layers, textures and how usual magecraft works with regards to self-suggestion and unusual perceptions of reality – something I'm quite familiar with personally – but it ultimately isn't relevant here." She taps the whiteboard again. "What is relevant is how the different layers of reality has different rules and how Mystery makes things work inside them, I suppose it might be better to think of it as an equation." Helena raises her eyes to the still-burning book over her head. "If you want to make a fire in the modern day, you need fuel, heat and oxygen – right? It's basic maths, if you have enough of those three you get a fire."

"I suppose." I could at least follow this part of the conversation, considering most talk about magic went over my head when heroic spirits started arguing in my head.

She makes a spinning gesture with her hand. "Think of Mystery as a big question mark in that equation. When I was alive, I tried to unite science, magic and religion – making a number of new forms of magecraft along the way. One of those was an almost ritualistic, reliable approach to magecraft with low-level but consistent results. If you draw a circle in the correct way and add enough power to it, fire comes out the other end – something like that."

The Caster regards me for a moment before continuing. "We could, perhaps, consider that oxygen is still necessary for the end result and that the fuel is simply the generated mana of the caster – but it's clear to see that the standard reactions of something burning isn't happening to the 'fuel' we are using and the heat appears to come out of nowhere. Those unknowns defy common reasoning, with Mystery acting as both a potential source of power that defies physics and as something that embodies the weight and history of a given story or spell – although that last part only tends to matter when fighting against other Servants or the influence of Gaia."

The lecture continues. "As people dig into Mystery to understand its fundamentals and methodology, it starts to lose its power – that unobserved space to move around in. Unless the spell is something so brimming in power that the local laws don't apply to it, the simple spell of making and manipulating fire might be increasingly constrained by a common understanding of chemical reactions, the transference of heat and eventually the process by which the atoms themselves are influenced. As I said, a big question mark in the clean equations of science – that's Mystery, as the general understanding of Science grows, Mystery shrinks. If you can truly explain every last detail to the common man, it isn't Mystery any more – simply an extension of Humanity's understanding and influence on the world."

I lean backwards and stare at the ceiling for a moment. "I feel like you're using a lot of big words just to say: 'It works because nobody can prove it shouldn't.'"

Caster beams at me. "That's actually a great way to sum it up, but the important thing is that Mystery does have its limits. The question mark can only be so big at a certain time, if that makes sense. I lived in the Age of Man, and while we can use magic to fudge details about the fuel source, reactions or the heat involved – modern magecraft can't just bend everything to our will like that because Mystery isn't as omnipresent as it once was. The more rules of the world that we understand and perceive through the lens of science, the more Mystery required to overrule it. Even if the nature of mana is still firmly within the realms of Mystery, we still understand it as the fuel source and recognise that it must be finite."

"But in a time with less Mystery, that isn't the case? Or it is the case, but there's so much of it that it doesn't matter?" I toss in my speculation. "If the process of something burning and the chemical reactions involved isn't known, then a bush burning for a week straight would seem to fit right in."

A flash of approval. "That's right. In the Age of the Gods, there were more unknowns to the world – a bigger question mark, if we continue the metaphor. The local textures, that is to say – the physics and mythology imposed on that area by the local gods – were out of our control. We didn't understand why fire worked the way it does, why the tide comes in or even our place in the solar system – and that lack of knowledge could almost be considered part of the magical system itself, from our perspective at least. There were rules, of course, but we lived in a world that bent itself to the perspectives and realities of the gods – it might have shared similarities to our world, because our successor reality was at least somewhat based on theirs – but what happened in those days is utterly inexplainable to us now. When a god waves their hand and parts the seas, or sets the desert aflame, or decides that the sun won't rise for three days and nights – it just works. Even if to us, the entire equation is just a bunch of Mystery equalling the result, that's all it used to take."

"Fine, I get that much." In a way. Anyone would call me insane trying to explain this. "But what I don't understand is how there is no Mystery around today when we have Alexandria flying rings around aircraft, giant rage-dragons burning holes in the city and violent Nazi thugs that can turn into a metal blender at will. We might have a better grasp on science than we did back then, but I don't think anyone really knows how powers work. Shouldn't that mean that there should be a lot of the stuff floating around? Or that somebody's power would stop working once someone starts poking them with needles and measuring equipment?"

"That is something I would love to research." Helena lightly skips across the room to collect a cup of tea from a doll being used as a maid. "At first, I guessed that it was a resurgence of the Mahatmas, sending their gifts out into the world once again. Then a reversal of that, people retracing their path to reach the original truth and gaining phenomenal powers from it – not unlike the typical path that a Magus would try to walk in life. But that wouldn't explain your body or your connection to the Throne."

I blink, suddenly self-conscious. "My body?"

"There's nothing special about it, and that's the problem." Caster frowns. "No, that's not quite the way I wanted to say that. Rather, it's a very standard human body that is having special things pushed onto it. I mentioned that the lack of Mystery in this world included humans – and that includes you. The magical circuits that seem to be racing across your body when you exert yourself aren't real, or at least – they aren't capable of generating anything. It's like someone was given a template of what a Magus should look like and is near-perfectly controlling mana to go down the same paths in a normal body to mimic the effects. It isn't healthy, but you seem to be adapting better than I would have expected – though I'll keep my speculation on why to myself for now."

"I think I would prefer to know, in case I happen to drop dead after a few months." I sigh. "And if I could solve the issue holding me back from stronger Servants then that would accelerate me years ahead of schedule."

"I suspect that the former won't happen, although Dr Blavatsky will be happy to keep checking up on you every day!" She stands on one leg and flashes a peace sign over one eye, like a ditzy schoolgirl character out of one of Greg's weird cartoons. "I'll get back to the important part though - if you aren't generating it – then the spontaneous appearance of new mana inside your body for you to process needs to be explained. I can't feel any conceptual weight or Mystery behind it, so it has to come from somewhere or something else that we can't see – using a process or spell that has been perfectly explained using an understanding that is still alien to us."

"Powers can be pretty weird. There's plenty of Capes that do things to their bodies that should kill them, like – their brain just turns into water along with the rest of them or their entire body suddenly becomes intangible, yet they're always fine in the end." I grimace. "In fact, I was looking online and I think I'm one of the worst-off aside from Case 53's when it comes to my powers hurting me through use – if anything I would say that my power is worse at not-harming me than most."

She makes a humming sound, musing out loud to herself. "If the mana here wasn't so passive, I would have guessed that Gaia was dominant here and was behind it somehow – but instead we are left with an interesting puzzle just like the parahuman abilities elsewhere in the world. Where is this energy coming from? Why is it so well-integrated with your body, when the process is not dissimilar to keeping the plumbing of this house working without the pipes or the walls in place? Something remote-controlling the process should fail the moment you do something as simple as moving your arm, yet here you stand – alive and well."

"If you want to speculate on the origins of parahumans, use the internet – I don't have any good ideas on that part myself." I stretch my arms above my head in a yawn. "Getting plugged into the Throne of Heroes might be a lucky break for us, but-"

"No." Caster denies quietly, tinkering with a slightly ragged doll floating in front of her ignoring its attempts to squirm out of her grip.

"Hm?" I regard her out of the corner of my eye.

"For that part at least, luck had nothing to do with it. It couldn't have anything to do with it. The Throne is explicitly under the purview of the Human Order, having the slightest, most insignificant connection with it would be entirely deliberate and calculated. Even the simple act of summoning Servants is impossible in worlds not supplied or supported by Alaya – even a Holy Grail couldn't fully overcome that fact." She lets out a huff of air. "The counter-force is involved in this somehow, you were meant to have this power – however unexplainable the exact methodology is to me right now."

I purse my lips. "Seems like a waste to give me a power capable of doing this, when this world is about to be deleted in a few years. You would think it would cut its losses and save its energy."

"You would." I pause, not expecting her to agree on that part without dropping some new tidbit of knowledge onto me. "More interesting is the fact that you have a sense of the pruning process. It implies a connection of some sort exists, but as a non-Magus there aren't any unusual origins, mystic eyes or strange ancestry in you that would explain something like that."

"Well, I don't have any insight on that one either." I blow hair out of my eyes with a huff. "But I think I'm unique with regards to that. Plenty of pre-cogs and fake pre-cogs have predicted the end of the world, but nobody has seen anything similar to me." I turn onto my back, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes. "Which probably shows that nobody is ever going to truly believe me. Some madwoman predicting the end of the world and probably killing thousands to stop it. For all I know, I might just be crazy. What if I just… reach the end of the countdown and life just keeps going on? How am I supposed to justify that to everyone?"

"Why do you need to justify yourself to anyone?" She places her hands on her hips as she peers at me. "I never once got anyone from the Clock Tower – that's the local magus association for you – to admit that I was right about pretty much everything. Yet who invented all of those schools of magic that their descendants so desperately cling to even in the modern era? When all of them felt that the rapid advance of science would utterly crush all mysticism from the world, who was it that showed them the way forward? Me. I didn't need the validation from them, my results did the speaking for me."

"Mm." I sigh. "Except my results should be essentially undetectable to anyone else. Just one day like any other, assuming I even make it to that point without getting-" A kill order. "-stopped."

Helena hums at me. "I suppose that's true, but perhaps you should consider that even if most people may not recognise the end goal, the journey itself may be a worthy cause on its own merits. Even if your end goal is to make sufficient positive change to the world's viability to avoid the pruning phenomenon, that in itself would necessitate a reversal of society's fortunes – the defeat of the Endbringers at the very least being among them. I only have a vague sense of the details from my summoning, but the impression that I have of them is that even the capability to drive one off would make you near indispensable and save countless lives regardless of your history."

"I would need to do more than that, but it would be a start." I shuffle to the side as one of the Olcott dolls floats into the room holding a new pillowcase, immediately followed by another pair hidden under a bundle of white fabric – apparently not seeing my occupation of the bed as any reason to not change the sheets right now. "I don't know if your summoning told you, but the Simurgh attacked a week or two ago. Australia." She falls silent as I go on. "I didn't even consider going for a moment, glanced at the news and just moved on. I didn't know a modern Servant that would do anything of note to her, not to mention the fact that I didn't really want to reveal myself to the PRT regardless of the rules of any truce. And those are valid reasons." I dab my lips. "But mostly? I'm just scared of her. Plenty of people have set out to make the world a better place. Uplift society and all of that, and she's the one who always brings those people back down to earth as her pet monsters."

I can't fail. I can't.

"Is that such a bad thing? You can hardly be blamed for an abundance of caution given the circumstances." She shrugs. "It's easy for me to just follow the voice of the Mahatmas when I don't know what to do, but you just have your instincts to rely on. And of course, you hadn't summoned me at that point." She preens for a moment before returning to her usual posture.

"That's the problem though. Even if I had you, I wouldn't have gone. What Servant could I take, even if they were inaccessible to me now, that I would feel both safe placing myself close to the Simurgh while also being sure that they wouldn't be overly affected by her scream?" I find myself ushered off of the bed by an Olcott headbutting me in the leg repeatedly. "I couldn't find an answer, and I need one. It's easy for me to hide in the shadows and hit a gang while they don't even understand the nature of their enemy or how to find me – but against a superior opponent like that, forcing me to fight on their terms with no time to prepare the battlefield? I don't know what the correct answer is, but I have to find it to be able to stop her."

"One that you don't need right now." She answers for me promptly. "You might know that you possess the capability to one day make a difference in those fights, but you should also know your limits as you are now. Until you reach the level of those top-tier Capes that can make a difference in those fights, you know that you are just risking everything for the sake of feeling like you tried." She smiles kindly. "Let me help you push what you can do now, and put aside your worries about a seemingly unachievable goal in the future. Small steps, Master."

"But in order for me to do something now, I need a Servant willing to take action against the gangs for me." I lock eyes with her. "And that isn't you." Not a combatant, for all her apparent skill. No, that wasn't the right word – not someone with an ego to work with. No bloodlust, no grand ambition to destroy their enemies, just a desire to learn and explore the mysteries of the world. I had no card to play here to entice her into battle, nothing to offer her except my continuous stream of mana – but did she care that much about it that she would compromise her ethics for me? And if she did, how long until the Caster built a workaround that didn't involve me at all?

She looks at me with a steady gaze. "I'm still your Servant, and I have respect for the nature of that relationship itself. I fully intend to help you in my own way, but if you want someone to go on a bloody murder-spree across the city – then yes, you need somebody else." She looks towards the window. "I think a few others in the Throne would agree with me here: This world is for the living. The dead have no place deciding its fate."

"I don't need you to do any fate-deciding or anything of the sort. Is helping me make the city crime-free really that much to ask?" I already knew the answer. I was just bitter about it. "The ABB forces a new batch of women into brothels every other week, the Empire is full of literal Nazi's in all-but-open warfare against anyone with the wrong skin colour in their territory. You're just going to let it happen? Taking away all of the rhetoric and philosophy, that's your answer?" Perhaps I was being a bit antagonistic, but it wasn't purely aimed at her – if a few of those holier-than-thou heroic spirits eavesdropping from the safety of my head took my words to heart, then so much the better.

She doesn't flinch at the question. "That train of thought doesn't end, Master. There will always be another crisis, another victim to be saved, more criminals to be stopped. I'm not a hero, not in that sense. I never have been. The kind of selflessness required to slave away at that kind of task for years on end? That isn't me. I'm an explorer. A researcher. A philosopher. And of course, a magus." She paces backwards for a moment. "It is true that I could probably do more, but that's true of most heroic spirits you are capable of summoning. No shortage of people looking for a fun battle against a worthy opponent, but not quite as many that would be satisfied at being a mindless killer in the service of a master – with no ideals or dreams of their own to pursue. I don't doubt that there would be a few, of course – but without a Holy Grail to fight over…"

"You don't have to be a mindless killer to realise that Hookwolf has murdered dozens in broad daylight and is right on the brink of getting a kill order anyway. I'm not asking for civilians to be gunned down in the street or anything that abhorrent." I push myself back up to an upright position. "If you have the power to do something when you see something that is wrong, why wouldn't you do something about it?"

She tilts her head with a glint in her eye. Suddenly, I can't help but shake the feeling that she's arguing purely to hear my real thoughts out loud. "Isn't that just human nature? At the end of the day, the superheroes and supervillains hang up their capes and go home for the day or return to their daily lives – despite knowing that there is always more work to do. Even in this city, politicians hand themselves lavish bonuses, approve frivolous expenses and fund the refurbishment of their friend's properties despite knowing full-well that the decline of the city could be somewhat rectified by fixing the boat graveyard and properly funding police and education. Regular citizens and millionaires alike hoard their money when they can, spending it on holidays and leisure when people across the world are starving and destitute." Helena crosses her arms. "Is that evil of them? Would it be hypocritical of them to be moved to action when they discover that a close friend of theirs was robbed or going to become homeless?"

"We can't let ourselves be swayed by what other people are or aren't doing. We'd just end up contributing to the mess our world has ended up in. We need to be better. Do better. The stakes are too high to just hope that someone else will fix it if I ignore it. I-" I clear my throat as my voice breaks briefly. "I know that I can't expect anyone else to jump into action if they don't have that threat of imminent death hanging over their heads, nobody else would believe it. But I know the truth, and as my Servants, you all know the truth as well. Even if you don't have a personal stake in my world, there isn't anyone else other than us that people here can be saved by."

"And why do you want to save them?" Caster stops me bluntly. "I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but you don't seem to care overly much about your own life coming to an end. You sometimes mention your father, but you hardly even talk to each other – I expected to have to do some work to keep him away or hypnotise away any unfortunate slips in a conversation but you genuinely haven't exchanged more than a few, almost ritualistic greetings and farewells ever since I first arrived. How long has it been since you've had a real conversation with someone that isn't a Servant? Weeks."

I jerk back defensively at the unexpected attack on my familial bonds. "He's been busy! And I can hardly talk about what I'm doing, it's just a lack of shared interests – it doesn't mean anything." I grimace. "But, no, we aren't as close as we used to be."

"I wasn't trying to offend you, merely sharing my observations." I can't help but shake the feeling that the name of the expression she was giving me was pity. "Observations that point out that you have almost nothing connecting you to your old life that might hold your actions back. The interesting fact that out of all the mentalities someone in your position could arrive at, you arrive at one that perfectly intersects with the likely goals of the Counter Force. Do you think that you felt this way, this deeply, before you got your powers? That your ethics and morality are unchanged since that time?"

"I-" I shake my head. "Obviously. I mean, I didn't know the world was ending then – but thinking that things would be better off with more heroes and less villains is hardly an extremist position. I'm not being mind-controlled to want to save the world, if that's what you were implying. I would have noticed."

"Perhaps not in that way, no." She holds a finger out, not sounding convinced despite her words. "But that isn't to say that we can't be guided without knowing it. I couldn't always hear the voice of the Mahatmas when I was alive, but I'm certain that I was guided down the correct path regardless. The guidance doesn't have to be obvious, especially if the Counter Force can select someone who starts with the right mindset."

"I could say much the same about the Simurgh, but somehow most people manage to get on with their lives without being worried about whether or not they've been mastered or not." I grumble.

"That's true." Madame Blavatsky's eyes practically glow, seemingly anticipating my dismissal. "It is just a guess, based on how the Counter Force usually prefers the simple, energy-efficient solutions. A hypothesis, if you will – that would be supported by an investigation into changes to your usual activities. When was the last time you did something that you enjoyed? Completely unrelated to your current mission?"

Something that I enjoyed? I glance over at my bookshelf, grimacing at the thin line of dust there. "It has been a while." I concede. "But I've had a lot on my plate since the winter break. I have a countdown to the end of the world in my head, I think I can be forgiven for not wanting to take a break."

"That's also true." Caster doesn't offer a rebuttal this time, merely accepting the point with an aura about her that somehow ticks me off a little. Like she had just wanted to raise the possibility and having achieved that mission, was happy to back off. She throws her hands up in the air with a suddenly carefree expression. "But it's all just speculation, and doesn't really change anything does it? I should apologise for drilling you so much on this, locking myself up in the basement for the last few days has clearly made me a bit too hungry for some insightful conversation on philosophy, ethics and free will. It's a shame that summoning a second Servant full-time is likely going to be out of reach for quite a while, it would be nice to work with Tesla or Edison again. We make an excellent team."

I blink at the sudden change in topic. "Ah, I don't think I've noticed them popping into my… headspace or whatever I should call it. I didn't go looking for them either." I wave a hand around vaguely. "I thought that it would probably be better to go for someone with actual magic, if you see what I mean."

Helena pauses. "Well. They certainly aren't magic users in most senses of the word, but they are still Servants. You didn't think that just because they were relatively modern, all they would be capable of would be fixing the sockets at your house – did you?"

Not in so many words. "I-" I cough. "Well. I don't exactly get a big page of everybody's abilities to look through, I have to actively inspect the one I'm thinking about through the Throne. If I want a certain power, I have to either search the Throne for ideas myself, ask someone in the Throne if they have any ideas or find someone through the internet and then find that person in the Throne. It's time-consuming!" I defend myself from her wide grin. Seeing no signs of success, I make a defeated noise with my lips and turn my head away. "Hmph."

I yelp as my cheek gets pinched, turning to face the amused Servant floating in front of me. "I'm just teasing you Taylor. To be honest, although they are both quite competent – they aren't what anyone could call subtle. A strong force multiplier for you once you have an established base or a strong connection to the electrical grid, but probably going to attract more attention than you want before that point."

I try to regain some semblance of control over the conversation. "Getting back to…" What were we even talking about before this little detour of a conversation. "…you helping, as a Servant." I make an encompassing gesture at the city. "I know that you don't want to go attacking the gangs like my more recent Servants did, but I was hoping that you could do… something. I don't know, I'm not a wizard – but some of the spirits I was talking to in my head kind of made it sound like Casters were Tinkers and I could really use some magic solution to some of my issues." I send her a large pulse of magic, letting the red glow race across my arms briefly before fading as I pull back on the flow again. "Did you make any progress on that while you were working on your… thing in the basement?"

My arm now felt like I had left it out in the sun for a little too long, not enough to be a real burn but still a sensation of heat and discomfort that didn't fade when I stood in the shade.

"I'm glad you asked, Taylor." She seems to be using my name more and more, but I don't care to pull her up on it out of costume. Not that I had a real costume but still. "Meet the solution to all of your problems, Olcott Prime!" She hefts one of her dolls into the air, complete with a blue coat with red highlights. It seems content in her grip despite being effectively grasped around the face and swung around.

"I don't really need a maid." I deadpan. "I mean, they're good at cleaning and hiding from Dad – but I don't know if that's the extent of my problems."

She stamps her foot on the ground. "No! Taylor, you're deliberately mocking me! And Olcott! You'll apologise by the end of this, when I reveal how amazing he is! Hold him!" I comply, taking it from her grasp with both hands. "Now, flare-up that energy flow again – don't direct it at me, just let it circulate." I could do that? The room gains a reddish tinge as my body lights up. I could. Interesting. Perhaps-

The room spins. "Urk." I sit down heavily, realising my fatigue a few seconds after my body had already dropped. I didn't even feel the pull of energy happen, but my body was intimately familiar by now with the feeling of exhaustion that accompanied large magical expenditures like summoning. "What- What was that?"

Caster simply points to a green-striped Olcott across the room. A fuzzy hat atop his head changes colour as I watch, blue rising to the top like a loading bar. "Meet the first success of COMBINES. Colonel Olcott's Mana Battery and Interconnected Network for Energy Storage!" I refrain from commenting on the poor acronym. "The little fellow you have in your hand there has two modes, the first mode is what you just witnessed: sucking up any excess mana you don't happen to be using in a big burst – then sending it through the Olcott network to an empty battery Olcott to be stored. The second, naturally, is to reverse that flow – sending all of that gathered energy right back at you for you to use."

My eyebrows raise as I consider the happily spinning green Olcott. "That thing has all of that mana in it?" It didn't entirely solve my issues with sustained mana output, as the stronger Servants would chew through a large amount of those reserves in short order – but for getting over the peak energy requirements for summoning and certain Noble Phantasms? Useful.

"That thing?" Helena seems dead-set on fully destroying the grim mood of our previous conversation by petulantly feigning outrage in defence of her dolls. Somehow, it was working. "Ol-cott! Or Colonel, if you like." She sighs dramatically. "But yes, a fairly effective mana battery. The materials I had to use aren't the most high-quality, so I'll have to keep up with the maintenance for now and the storage efficiency isn't as high as I would have liked – but quantity gives better returns for our effort than quality in this case. That valve on the back controls the modes."

"I see." I shake the doll absently. "It isn't going to explode on me it tries to do too much, is it?"

Helena looks a little offended. "Of course not! What do you take me for?" She pats the now-empty battery-Olcott for a moment. "But that isn't to say that you won't explode." She waves off my suddenly-severe expression before it is even fully-formed. "Not a major concern, just make sure you are already channelling energy somewhere before you open the floodgates – the only time it might be a problem is when the energy has nowhere to go and just floats around inside you. If you can only take so much, you might just pop at the seams – we can't really know for sure given that we haven't seen you using that level of mana yet."

"Thank you for that delightful image." I drawl.

She ignores my sarcasm. "I don't think you really need to worry about it that much. The network that I am planning to make will need to be a lot bigger than it is now to cause that kind of damage, and obviously, you'll need to be filling it up at least a few times a day if we ever want to reach capabity." She turns to her miniature whiteboard again. "I've drawn up a map of where I want to drop the first ones, the positioning is a bit precise so I'll probably have to fly around and find the right spots."

I frown, trying to decipher the scribbled drawing that was supposed to be a map. "You want to put these out in the city?"

"That's right. There is a bit of a range limit on Olcott Prime, so by placing points of the network around the city we can allow them all to interlink with each other and eventually be able to access all of them via relay from anywhere within the city limits." She starts drawing wide, overlapping circles on the map to illustrate her point.

"It might be a bad idea for us to be seen out in the streets, the PRT and the gangs are bound to be on edge given recent events." I wet my lips. "And knowing my luck, some homeless guy will run around picking them up to sell to a pawn shop or something."

"I won't let them be that easy to find, deflecting attention from a casual observer is simplicity itself for yours truly." She assures me. "And trust me when I say that I'm a bit more worldly and subtle than most of the Servants you're ever likely to meet. I'll be moving incognito." She winks.

"I really want to believe that, but somehow I have a bad feeling about your idea of blending in already." I grouch, already giving her a suspicious look.

Helena pouts at me. "I'll be making myself invisible as I leave and enter the house, so even if someone was to notice me it wouldn't be a problem." She tilts her head. "You won't need to come for the ones that are close to here, once the network gets bigger I'll need you to come with me to keep my connection up – I don't have any Independent Action to work with so getting cut off from your supply will basically be it for me right now." I note the phrasing. "On a completely unrelated note, I've made enough batteries to last you until the end of the week if my estimates are accurate. With my workshop temple being so unexpectedly lacklustre, I'm going to have to do my research in person rather than remotely. I've decided that I'm going to take Thursday off."

"Off?" The confusion must have showed on my face. "What do you mean?"

She mirrors my expression. "Was my wording strange? The conversational skills from my summoning were almost perfect up to now. I mean, I am taking my annual leave." She points finger-guns at me. "I will not be showing up to work. I will be taking my holiday and following my personal pursuits. I will-"

"I get it." I rub my hands against my forehead. "I don't think Servants get holiday." I half-heartedly complain. "What would you even do with it?"

Not that I could stop her. I could unsummon her, I suppose. But I didn't have any other great candidates off the top of my head that would be able to help me. This was the downside of summoning a Servant for something more than a single task, without having some advantage over them to encourage them to cooperate. She had no simple motives that I could provide for to ensure her continued service, the only reason she was here at all was out of respect for the system that I was borrowing from.

"I'm not sure yet." Caster frowns. "I want to find out more about the world I've found myself in, but I can't go as far afield as I might have liked considering my ties to you. I'll think about it on the road, but you don't need to worry – I'll be back before you run out of Olcotts. I'll definitely stick to my end of the deal, I'm a mysterious woman of my word after all."

"Alright." It was frustrating, knowing that these Servants didn't have the same drive as I did to save the world. Especially the ones that actually seemed like nice people, I wouldn't mind having to shove around a battle-junkie or two into the right place – but the ones who seemed like they had genuine empathy and would have agreed with my plight if this was the only world they were connected to? Their inaction was almost painful. "Please try not to draw too much attention to yourself or your connection to me, especially where the PRT or the gangs are concerned."

"I'm sure that you'll be watching me closely wherever I am." She replies knowingly. "Unless you are going to have anything better to do?" She slides her eyes down to my desk.

I reach over to grab the slip of paper she was hinting at, scrunching it up and tossing it at the bin in a well-practised throw. "No." I tell her shortly. My suspension at Winslow may be essentially over, but I couldn't go back. "W-will you hypnotise my Dad again?" The words are ash in my mouth, feeling like a betrayal all over again. "Not just to avoid the basement and the Olcotts, but to delay any requests from Winslow for me to come back?"

She gives me an inscrutable look. "Taylor…" I look away. "I won't lecture you, but he's going to discover the truth one day. I can't judge you, as I've had Masters do worse for worse reasons – but at this rate he's going to find out by you being plastered over the TV as a mass murderer. You need to decide if he deserves better than that from you."

"I know." I let out a heavy sigh. "But if I do it now, he'll go to the PRT. I can't let myself get captured or birdcaged, so it will be a bloodbath of me running away while summoning every suicidal Assassin that I can to cover my tracks. Nobody wants that, and that kind of indiscriminate attack without a clear reason will get me a kill order. He'll be safer, not knowing until I've already left."

Helena's expressionless face meets my gaze. "I'll do it on my way out when I leave."

"Thank you." I push myself back towards my chair as she closes the door behind her. Back to the PHO boards. Depressing reading, but it was an important reminder for me. There were always people with different opinions and sides in a conflict. People cheering for a gang being destroyed, people grieving for missing friends and family, Cape-watchers, law-enforcement – and probably innocent people caught in the crossfire at some point along the way.

I was too weak to summon a heroic spirit capable of a 'perfect' defeat of the gang. If I had unlimited time to work with, I could have just waited and set a Caster or Assassin to the task – but if I wanted to save the entire world within my time-limit, I didn't have the luxury of going slowly and picking the perfect hero.

But next time… I grab Olcott Prime and drag it into my lap, a momentary flare of energy summoned and drained in the space of a second. One. Next time would be better. I would make sure of it. Another pulse of energy. Two.

Just a few times a day, Helena? You'll be back before I deplete your store of Olcotts? I'll be holding you to that.