I was going through Tv Tropes' 'Crowning Moments of Awesome' and in the process stumbled upon this fic 'Things Shinigami Are Not Allowed to Do' by Gnosismaster. Rule number 68, with added sub-clauses:

68) Chicago, Illinois in North America is added to the list of Restricted Access areas.

68a) Yes, this includes Captains too.

68b) Zaraki, no. You may not go there to fight the Reanimated T-Rex for fun. Its already dead...again.

68c) Again Zaraki, no. You may not go and threaten Mr. Dresden there to bring back the dinosaur for you to fight. This includes anyone or anything else.

This is so epic, I am going to allude to it in this chapter.


I looked at the injured kid, half-hoping that perhaps the insanely powerful injured kid in the circle had hit his head, or maybe all the power in the circle had addled his brains. Form the patient, long-suffering look he gave me, both possibilities were hardly likely.

"Why me?" I finally decided. "After all, I'm hardly comparable to one of you. You could call for back-up from your place, right?"

"Chicago is a restricted-access zone," he coughed, looking weak. "Ever since a blasted dinosaur ate the last shinigami stationed here, we've had to scale back to avoid losing more personnel. How the blasted thing ever got here is officially still a mystery..."

It was my turn to cough uncomfortably. On a Halloween a few years back, I had used necromancy- on a technicality of the Laws of Magic, of course-to revive the local most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, Sue, to go up against a family-sized cadre of necromancers. Granted, it had been technically against the Laws of Magic, but then it had been a necessary technicality, and I never expected Sue to stick around once the spell was dispelled.

"We had to forcibly restrain one of our berserker Captains from going after the dinosaur-summoner and forcing him to re-animate it..." Hitsugaya continued.

You know what I did in reaction to the news that some lunatic wanted to fight a dinosaur? I blinked.

"...but you already knew that, didn't you?" I saw Hitsugaya give me a Significant Look with a straight face, so Significant that it deserved the capital letter.

"Er...I..."

"Congratulations, Mister Dresden. Not only does the rules at home mention your name, particularly rule sixty-eight with all added sub-clauses, but travel insurance to Chicago run by our side now places you under 'categories not covered', right beside Acts of God and the Devil." Hitsugaya continued. "A Mr John Marcone has also placed you as the number-one 'must-see' attraction when any supernatural being visits Chicago."

Holy stars and freaking stones shit bells.

I had a category of insurance non-coverage all to myself. And Gentleman Johnny, the local Mafia don, was marketing me as a tourist attraction to the supernatural side.

"We will of course, forgive any and all transgressions should the local Warden of the White Council render his assistance," Hitsugaya added.

Any doubt that before me was someone who dealt with power plays on a daily basis immediately vanished. The utter bastard.

I was however interrupted from voicing my opinion as another scream of an amalgamation of tortured souls swept through once more. Compared to previous experiences, this scream was far louder, far worse, and far more powerful, such that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and every single bit of my self-preservation leapt up and screamed run, run, run. The song of fear rushed through my blood, and already my skin was crawling.

"Shit, Menos," Hitsugaya swore, wincing as the additional effort cost him some pain. Those wounds must hurt.

"Menos?"

"Menos Grande," he replied, wincing. "What happens when several Hollows combine themselves together to form a whole new being. Like the demon Legion."

I nodded. Then something clicked. "Hold it...?"

He grimaced in my direction. "Dresden, despite my being ten times older than what I look like, I am still a teenager. I still do what normal teenagers do, or as much as it is possible for me. If you force me to quote Ghost Rider at you, I swear it will..." a final wince prevented him from completing that threat.

I didn't hear the rest after the Ghost Rider bit, seeing as another scream from the monsters the shinigami called Hollows scraped through my head again, sending pain rushing through my eardrums. After that, a wave of power, not unlike a wizard's magic, rushed through, my mystic senses-don't look at me like that, I didn't invent the bloody term- standing on end even further. Or more accurately, prancing around screaming in a high soprano like in the King Kong movies.

"Hai. He's here," Hitsugaya grunted through the alliterative words. "I can sense him, but all the good it does. Mr Dresden, your help would be most appreciated here."

I could only stare at him. "You know," I said, "I didn't sign up to deal with errant shinigami here."

"Dinosaur," Hitsugaya reminded me. "And Chicago. And the fact that a rogue is here..."

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Why me?


It was like this that I found myself evading a lightning bolt thrown by said shinigami at me.

"Eat this!" I roared. Now I was pissed. "Fuego!"

He easily evaded the roar of flame from my blasting rod, instead jumping to the sky as if the air itself was a stepping stone -dammit, that was so damn cool- and drawing his sword. The fat lot it'd do at this distance...

He screamed a couple of words in Japanese which I was sure the English language had no consonants for, and the blade transformed itself in a flash of light like a magnesium flare into...a huge fan.

As I was struck dumb by the sheer stupidity of the situation, Hai grabbed the fan and waved it into my direction, kicking up a mini-tornado in my direction.

Okay, maybe not so stupid.

It was no time to fight with wind magic, which to me was pretty much a straightforward gale that would have done jack against the freaking tornado, so I dived out of the way, the asphalt of the road digging into my palms as I prepared one of the most suicidally powerful combat magics I knew.

Thankfully, Matsumoto distracted him with the virtue of a sharp sword and mean magic skill at that, the two warriors like flashes of light dancing in the sky while I muttered a litany of faux Latin under my breath. The whole thing took fifteen seconds, shortened by the adrenaline rush and fear. Whatever the Menos was, I was sure glad it ain't here. Yet, anyway. I hope Kurosaki managed to deal with the thing.

"Gravitas!" I roared, sending my magic deep into the earth.

Gravity off-lined itself around the surrounding areas. A trash-can floated a few inches off the ground before diving back to earth. A parking meter cracked and twisted itself, and several cars levitated an inch off.

Earth is a sort of binding agent. A useful one at that. It keeps thresholds steady, it keeps dead bodies in, and, symbolically, ghosts. Spirits are only one type of ghosts. And shinigami, from what I could infer, were only a sub-type of ghosts. This meant that the had to obey the rules all spirits had to conform to, which meant that to hem, gravity would still weigh them down. Oh yes, they could use magic to offset it, but in the end...what goes up must soon come down.

Akira Hai screamed in shock as he was pulled down to earth at twenty times the normal acceleration of gravity to meet asphalt with a splat. Before he could get up, Matsumoto, much like the warrior she was, dived down and, with a mighty swing of her sword, severed his head from his neck.

Before we could do anything else, what felt like a mini-eclipse happened and a large shadow fell across the battlefield. Matsumoto looked up, her luscious mouth falling open in shock, before running in my direction in the funny teleporting way I had seen her use before. That was before I looked up.

You know Godzilla? Yeah, the freaking skyscraper-huge lizard that rises out of Tokyo Bay and stomps all over Tokyo. The monster in front of me could have given it a run for its money. It looked a lot like a scarecrow, shrouded in black, with a white face and a long Pinnochio-standard nose, albeit one that could have been the height of the Sears Tower or Taipei 101 all by itself.

"Menos Grande," I heard Matsumoto exclaim. Yeah, Grande alright.

The big, scary scarecrow thing tilted the head the size of a barn down at us, tiny, beady eyes looking down. The bone-white mask with the huge nose then opened its mouth, and a small ball of red light began to form.

Crap. Crappity crappity crap. I was so screwed.

The ball was growing larger and larger before Matsumoto sidled up to me, somehow managing to change into the black uniform I had seen Kurosaki in once before. How on earth she found the time to change I had no idea, and wasn't keen to know. "Can you protect the surroundings from the Cero?" she asked. "The ball of light," she corrected upon seeing my face.

I solemnly shook my head.

She nodded grimly. "Could you attack its legs?"

I frowned. "Yeah, why...?"

"Do so, please," before she took to the skies, leaping humanly impossible heights with the air as her stepping stone, sword shimmering in her hand from what little light there was at night. As she prepared to stab the thing in the...face?

I decided to follow in the interest of not being killed by the thing. "Fuego! Pyrofuego! Burn, dammit!"

Flames leapt around the huge Menos Grande, who let out an absolute scream of pain that scraped at my mind on a visceral level, but I didn't care, I poured all of the will of a wizard into the flames.

Fire burns even in the spirit world. And I had just set it on fire.

Matsumoto must have dealt a death blow up there, as the monster screamed, a high, keening wail as it swayed and began to fall.

"Timber," I wheezed, my legs turning to jelly from the lethargy brought on by slinging that much magic about. I felt myself landing on my ass, and found that I just didn't have the heart to care that the skyscraper-tall monster was falling in my direction, before I keeled over into unconsciousness.


In a stunning decision brought on by confused shinigami, my unconsciousness and that I was barely breathing, combined with Murphy's dilemma of my situation, I woke up in the morgue for the second time in my life.

This, if you don't know, is enough to ruin your entire day.

"I'm not dead!" I screamed, definitely in a manly way. "I'm not!"

"And welcome back to the land of the living, Mr Dresden," Hitsugaya replied dryly, to my right.

I blinked from the harsh glare of the lights and sat up, shaking my head. To my right sat Hitsugaya and Matsumoto-I still had difficulty winding my head around the fact that a kid was her superior, despite prior experience with Kincaid and the Archive-, who were looking at me, one with concern, the other with a scowl. The latter one was bandaged across the abdomen, stitched up in the arm and short. I'll leave you to guess which is which.

I groaned as a flash of pain rushed through my head. "How long was I out?"

"Two days. Your police friend brought you here. Kurosaki and Ishida have gone back to their normal school affairs and are flying back to Japan tomorrow. They send you their regards and hope you visit if possible soon." Hitsugaya detailed monotonously. "The rest of my team, with the exception of myself and Matsumoto, have gone back to the Seireitei to deliver the remains of Akira Hai and report on our current dilemma. The Winter Court, the Winter Lady in particular, has decided that I am responsible, due to the absence of proof upon the murder of her vassal and is seeking trial by combat. As I am under a non-Accorded entity who nevertheless has the respect of the Accords, I am obliged to remain in Chicago until further notice with Matsumoto, and to conclude our contract."

I blinked. "Oh."

"Yes, Mr Dresden. Added to that I have to have contact with an Accorded entity, and then my presence before you is further explained." Hitsugaya added. "Also, during my trial, you along with two other local Accorded entities aside from the Winter Court and two respected neutral parties from the East would have to be present..."

I held up a hand. "Wait, wait. You're saying that after all this, I have to watch you fight as well?"

Hitsugaya raised one eyebrow. Perfectly. I felt so jealous. "Yes, Mr Dresden. And if I should lose...well, it has been nice meeting you. I would have to pay reparations to the Winter Court to compensate."

And the Winter Court were more focused on favours and power than in cash. Hell, any faerie liked power more than money. I suppose when they have seen many different kinds of currency in their lifetime, money seemed kind of stupid, but that wasn't the point. Handing that much power to the Winter Court would disrupt the balance, which would mean a crisis on the level of the next ice-age kind.

Ye gods above, why?


This chapter is a bit short by normal standards, but I'll compensate the next chapter.

Please read and review!