Sorry for the time away. My new job has kept me occupied and I have been busy as hell. At least I have a computer now so I can write this without much of a problem. Chartic Enterprises™ will be back to our regular posting speed shortly. Also I say this every update but I am actually working on Doll this time. Shout out to Sahara for being my beta for this chapter.

-

They had done it. They had actually fucking done it. I had my sanctuary for two goddamn days and someone had just come along and blown it up.

Why? Just why? I stared at the crumbling western walls, the beams barely keeping the place standing through some combination of luck and sheer force of will. It could have been worse. Oh, it could have been much worse. The building was still standing, my books were warded against these sorts of things; I could rebuild, I could repair.

Those thoughts didn't abate my anger in the slightest.

From the moment we had teleported back (Myrddin had been very understanding about the whole situation), I had stood in one spot ramrod straight as my eyes traveled the room, making a slow, thorough inspection of the damage done to the library. My library. There was an extensive amount to catalog and it was becoming difficult to continue with all the distractions. My teeth were bothering me as they ground together and my eye wouldn't stop violently twitching, making it difficult to see. I might have been shaking, and wasn't quite able to keep my hands from clenching together, looking for something to grab, to throttle.

But this was fine. I was fine.

I was calm.

Perfectly calm.

A brick came tumbling down from one of the more damaged areas. I shot it out of the air with a primal scream. I was taking some deep breaths, hyperventilating really, but fuck it. This was my library, my domain. I hadn't even gotten to properly break it in, enjoy it. And someone had come along and fucking ruined it.

"Koa, we are going to find who did this! And we, are going, to destroy them. I'll tear them into little bits and feed them to you. I'll-"

The calming hand on my shoulder cut my tirade. "Miss Taylor…maybe you should calm down."

I swung myself around to face her. Koa had wisely chosen to keep out of my line of sight for the past few minutes, as I wanted to rip someone apart both metaphorically and literally. It didn't matter who, any target was suitable at this point. My dad was known for his horrible temper, something he had inherited from his father before him. Danny the demon they called him down at the docks. I never thought I had inherited the Hebert temper. If I had managed to put up with the trio for a year and a half without blowing up, what could possibly manage to test my patience more than that?

Well, I had found it.

"And why the hell would I do that? Do you see what they did? Do you see what happened to my library?" I wasn't shouting, which was surprising, but the frigid way I spoke was a lot more threatening than any hysterical screams. Koa kept her cool surprisingly well despite that. I guess she was used to seeing people at their most emotional.

"Yes I do Miss Taylor, but you don't have a good track record of reacting to attacks on yourself. The last time you went after someone for revenge, you wound up regretting it."

My retort died on my lips. The cult. That little incident I had been dancing around for the last couple of days. I'd been throwing myself into things to avoid thinking about it. It hadn't been hard to keep that up. Alexandria's offer and our interdimensional trip had created a whole lot of things that I needed to get done. Plenty of events to add to my schedule, plenty of areas to study and test, plenty of excuses why I couldn't talk to Koa about my feelings on the matter. I could always force her to drop the subject; she had to follow my orders after all. But…that just didn't seem right. She was trying to help, I couldn't begrudge her that. And I needed to work through these feelings at some point.

Just not now. I would talk with her about it when I was ready. I was fine for now.

Perfectly fine.

If that guilt trip had been intended to calm me down, it worked. The rage that had made everything else seem irrelevant faded away, replaced by guilt and shame. I took a few calming breaths and focused my attention back on Koa.

"Thank you, you're right. We can fix all of this. But I'm not going to just let this go."

"Well of course not, but we should make sure the punishment is appropriate for the crime. This time, we need to make sure it's drawn out, something more public. Set an example for everyone to see. Make a name for yourself."

I nodded along with her absently, hearing her words but not registering them. It was pretty simple to guess Koa's attitude towards things like this after all. I had more important things to think about. With my reason regained I was focusing on the damage to the library, analyzing how horrifically it had been hurt. Or to put it better, how well it had survived the attack. It was bad but all the damage was mostly superficial. All the support structures had managed to stay safe. In fact, I could probably repair most of this myself, assuming I was sufficiently healthy when the day of wood came around again. All the crucial parts of the library were intact and all of my books were safe. Whoever had planted these bombs hadn't intended for them to bring the place down. And from the looks of things, it was up in the air whether they had intended for them to kill me either. Obviously, I would be in the center, the one place best protected from the blasts. This entire thing was horribly amateurish. Nothing was taken, no sign of entry.

Why had someone decided to blow my library up like this?

"I'll have you leave a message with Alexandria," Koa perked up at that which immediately had me worrying, "by phone, and hopefully she can send some people here to refurbish the place. We'll just…put up some tarps or something till then. The only question is why would someone attack us? As far as they know, we're just a neutral party that showed up a few days ago."

And that was true, no matter what PHO's opinion of us was. Geeze, didn't they know what the term rogue meant? Glory Girl had left dozens of angry posts after I responded to her, and hadn't even set up a date for Panacea and me. I shook my head at the stupidity of forum users, which drew my gaze to something that had somehow escape my earlier scrutiny.

"And what the hell is this!" I yelled, pointing towards a section of my library that was encompassed in a grey bubble. It was currently occupying around a dozen feet in a relatively unused section. It was a half sphere, or at least I extrapolated as much. I could tell that the majority of where its area laid was outside my walls.

Koa walked around the thing several times, poking here and prodding there, some attempts forceful, others not. She sent a small burst of power that impacted harmlessly against the bubble then turned back to me and shrugged. "No idea."

I rubbed my hands across my face, feeling like I wanted to just rip it off. What the hell was this? I stepped up and began to form my own diagnosis. It didn't appear to be anything malevolent in nature, in fact this bubble seemed far too inert to be a trap.

A few attempts on my part to spring said trap helped determine such.

Judging by our failed attempts to pierce it, someone had set up a powerful bubble shield around a portion of my library. Or at least the parahuman equivalent of such. For what purpose, again, I had absolutely no idea. Were these two events even connected? Did I just have really shitty luck?

Well, they had managed to trap a few books in there and I really didn't want to wait for however long it would take to get rid of this thing. The day of water only came once a week, and it would be the best time to work out spells to cleanse the area. Ugh, this was looking to be a huge time sink.

"Koa, teleport inside and grab everything. I am going to need a full inventory to make sure nothing was damaged or taken. I don't want to lose a thing and we need to figure out who did this and why. The faster we ensure everything is still here, the quicker we can get to that."

Koa teleported into the bubble and…nothing. She was frozen mid pose, the fire that accompanied her teleports was motionless around her. I stared at her, waiting for her to move. For the fire to dissipate. For anything to happen.

'Koa, what's going on? Are you alright?'

No response back. I stared at my familiar, stuck in the same pose she had made as she teleported into the bubble. I didn't want to rise to one of her pranks but time dragged on. I couldn't sense any emotions from her. I wasn't getting a response back. Nothing.

Surprisingly, this might not be a joke.

"Koa?"

I stood in the silence of my library, as a realization came that the bubble may have been a little bit more than a defensive measure to irk me.

"Shit."

-

I decided to head back home to do the summoning. I wasn't sure whether there was enough ambient magic to facilitate the initial transfer of consciousness and, more importantly, didn't want to bother with moving all my summoning supplies to the library. Not without someone else to do the physical labor.

The lines were drawn but an offering was needed. It was incredibly difficult to get pig's blood and Dad had placed a hard veto on bringing it into the house so that was out, and I didn't have anything or anyone to sacrifice. Koa was a succubus so other, less than savory items could make due till then. However, I wasn't going to buy any pornography just to bring Koa back. I would never hear the end of that teasing. There was even less of a chance of something more provocative being acquired. In the end, a Victoria's Secret catalog made due. I began chanting and in a flash, my demon was back.

A sour look crossed her face as she studied her offering. "Really Miss Taylor? I should deny the summoning just for this. I expect a certain level of respect you know."

"Look, it's short notice. Just…can we not do this now. I'll get you a proper offering within the week. Something more to your liking."

That was an offer that may come back to bite me later but I didn't want her to try and weasel a loophole out of this mess. Besides, we needed to shake down some people and figure out who blew up my library. Koa could have her fun then.

"As mentioned in section twelve of our contact, a repeat summoning will be dictated by the same rules and regulations afforded and expected of you under our initial contract. This statement is in accordance with a relative perspective, in relation to this plane's sense of entropy. Are these terms acceptable for you?"

"You got it Miss Taylor." She said with a crisp salute.

"So, what happened there?"

Koa put on a thoughtful look as she stepped out of the summoning circle. "Well, according to you, I teleported myself into a bubble of frozen time. As soon as I ported in I wasn't able to talk, or move, or think. Just frozen. But, because I'm not really all here," she gave a wave at the general area, "I was kind of aware that time was passing around me, that things were happening in the background. Just not able to do anything about it."

I grimaced at that. "Wow, that sounds…awful."

"Don't worry, I had something to focus on to keep myself entertained. Besides, it's not like I could go crazy waiting. It was just so boring~." She drew out the word. Good, an advanced warning that she was going to find new ways to "entertain herself" to blow off steam. Most likely to my annoyance.

Perhaps I should just let her loose on Brockton Bay for a little bit. How much damage could she possibly cause?

Suddenly something that Koa had just said caught up to me. "Wait, according to me?"

Koa nodded. "Yep, I couldn't get myself out of the bubble so I waited until a few weeks later when you figured out a way to dissipate it. Then you unsummoned me and then you called me back and here I am."

Ugh, I was hoping that a summoning would just pull her out of the bubble. That meant that there was a version of Koa still frozen inside of there. Every time someone entered my library I was going to have to explain what the hell was going on in that bubble. Great.

"Well did you at least manage to get anything useful from future-me?"

Koa looked thoughtful for a second. "Well, I got the books. And…nope, nothing other than that."

I gave her a blank look. "I really didn't tell you anything? Not any future events, not any important secrets or discoveries I made? Not even who bombed the library?"

"Well I thought it was gonna go that way, but for some reason you sent me off pretty quickly after I started talking to myself."

Oh. Dealing with two Koas. No, that made sense then. I couldn't fault future-me for making that call. I would have done the same thing in my shoes. I guess I will in a few weeks time.

"Fine, you know what. It doesn't matter. We have something more important to focus on. It's going to be a busy week Koa. Especially for you."

We used the portal back to Earth Bet and a surge of heat flowed through my veins at the reminder of what had happened but I pushed it down as best I could. I was calm, I was fine. I needed to remained focused. Yep there was Koa. Frozen in time, same as before. God this was going to look ridiculous for anyone who comes to visit. My library wasn't big enough where something like this could go unnoticed. Maybe I could throw a sheet over it…

I was getting off track. I needed to focus.

"Koa, I'm going to let you off your leash a little bit."

I winced at my wording. There was a zero percent chance I wouldn't be hearing something about that later.

"I need you to get your ear to the street, see if you can figure out who would be stupid enough to do this. Where I can find them. If there is anyone else affected, and if they would like a team up to take out this problem. I expect a certain level of decorum, but as long as souls remain unmolested and people are left...mostly intact. I will leave your better judgement to decide on your course of action. Don't dissapoint me."

I adjusted my glasses to have them gleam in the low light of my library. The effect was somewhat lost without someone here to intimidate but it put me in the right mood for what I was about to say.

"Koa. We are going to find who did this, and we are going to make them rue the day they decided to touch a single one of my books."

-

For some reason Koa decided that I needed to get out of the library. Get some fresh air to help clear my head. Probably a good idea, every time I saw that annoying little blob of greyed out air, the destruction wrought upon my home, I felt this horrible fury rise up in me and I got the urge to set things on fire. If I wanted to avoid any difficult questions from the fire department, I needed to get out and get my mind off of things.

So we had decided to go shopping.

I wasn't sure why, I had other things to think about, and gotten dragged off without any real dissention. I mean, Earth Bet was just the same as my world just with a few more destructive monsters and some flashier powered people running around. There wasn't any special reason to go out shopping. We had already gone on a trip once this month and I wasn't excited at the prospect of repeating that experience. Koa may not have been very touchy during the whole thing, but damn if she couldn't drag it out and give plenty of comments that were both horribly inappropriate and completely innocent.

At least leaving my library gave me a clue why someone had decided to bomb the place. It appears that I had not been the sole victim of an attack. Possibly not even a target and just caught in the crossfire, which pissed me off to no end. A gang called the Asian Bad Boyz were attempting a jailbreak and had gone all out, bombing a wide series of targets to distract the law enforcement enough to brave an escape for their leader. Ballsy move, both earning the wrath of an entire city, performing a terrorist attack that will surely get the federal government and possibly military involved, and worst of all, letting me know whose face I needed to kick in.

Bakuda, your time would come.

Also, for a city in the middle of a terrorist attack, people were taking everything surprisingly well. I would expect more running around and screaming, but everyone were just walking around as if this were a typical day, aside from a couple more emergency vehicles on the road. Hell, the boardwalk was absolutely packed with shoppers. Well, I guess this was the boardwalk. The majority of the explosions had ended a while ago. It was distanced from the more important areas. This area was pretty well protected, and seemed to be safe from even the super villain gangs from messing around in the city. This might just be the safest place to be considering recent events..

"Oh Taylor, you wouldn't believe how happy I am to see you."

No. No way. My luck cannot be this bad. No way I managed to swap universes and I still am being harassed by those bitches. I turn around and, yep there is Emma, Sophia backing her up. Wow if this scene wasn't familiar. What were they even doing out here? Hadn't someone just tried to blow up the city? Why would Emma and Sophia be going shopping right after a bombing run?

Some deity had to be lining this up. No way was anyone's luck this bad.

"And who is this?" Emma said turning to Koa. "A friend? Who would want to be friends with you?"

Even I could tell that those sentences were layered with meaning; someone with better social perception than I could probably have pierced it together right there. Maybe when I was in a better state of mind I could analyze it. Or just get Koa to tell me what she meant.

No, the current situation left me too focused on my once tormentors. Unfortunately for the two of them, I was not in any mood to put up with their shit. I was not calm and the way Bakuda had fucked me over left me feeling particularly vindictive. Normally I would have just walked away, been the voice of reason in our duo. Instead I turned to look at Koa. She was already looking at me. Her eyes darted over to Sophia and then turned back to me. Waiting.

I was usually better than this. The last time Koa had attacked someone I had not been in a spot where I could tell her to act otherwise. Normally I would put a stop to this nonsense right away. Thus arose a problem; I wasn't feeling particularly inclined towards restraint.

I nodded.

Koa smiled and sauntered up to the two of them. Sophia was grabbed by her collar and let out a curse of acknowledgment of Koa manhandling her. At least I assumed it was a curse; Koa worked too fast for her to get the full word out. Their foreheads got to enjoy a beautiful reunion and Sophia was on the ground. Apparently this version of the bitch was tougher than mine because she was still alert enough to roll around and curse. Koa tilted her head, confused that it took more than just that to deal with her. Then she turned her eyes on Emma and then looked back at me.

I smiled and nodded.

Koa gave a long and thoughtful look over to the ocean. It took a second but I got her meaning. I nodded.

Emma's lack of a survival instinct seemed to be consistent between dimensions; as Koa advanced on her she did her best impression of a fish at Sophia's takedown. Halfway there Koa reared back a foot and didn't even pause mid-walk to have it collide Sophia's head. The bitch was out cold after that. Emma did finally get her bearings straight, and let out a squawk as she was picked up the by the back of her shirt and thrown over Koa's shoulder. Then she really started putting up a fight. Yelling and thrashing and a lot of scratching at whatever she could grab. Good attempt Emma, but you aren't getting out of those arms.

Also I wasn't aware she knew quite so many curse words. I guess her time around Sophia had really taught her a thing or two. I wonder what Alan would think about all this.

The anticipation only built the closer and closer Koa got to the railing. Emma seemed to realize what was going on when they were ten feet away, and boy I thought she had been fighting before. I followed behind at a short distance watching the whole thing, looking around to see if any of the enforcers or tourists were paying attention to this apparent kidnapping.

Nope, we were all good. Disguise field was up and running.

"Do you think she'll die if I drop her from this height?"

Emma froze up at that thought. I took a look down. Well, the Boardwalk wasn't that high up. I mean, sure she might get a little bruised, and a belly flop might leave her a bit sore after she hit the water. But Emma was tough, she was strong. She kept telling me so. I'm sure she would be just fine.

"Just throw her a good distance away. We don't want her hitting any of the wood holding this place up."

How considerate of me, thinking of her well being. It's the least I could do. For a friend.

Koa nodded, reared back, and heaved. Emma gave a shriek that was music to my ears, and I felt as the barrier shattered and suddenly everyone started to pay attention to the redheads flight off into the distance. At least until gravity took hold.

We stayed around just long enough to see her cannonball into the frigid ocean waters before walking away, inconspicuous in the crowd that had formed on the railing.

I felt a lot better, and stepped on Sophia's face as one final fuck you, while she was down. Watching Emma take a bath was exactly what I needed to improve my mood after how shitty this day had been. Dealing with her bullshit was more than I was willing to put up with.

And best of all, I was in another dimension. No repercussions for doing something like this.

When we were far enough away where I could do absolutely nothing to try and resolve the situation, Koa turned to me and asked, "Miss Taylor, if we are in a different dimension, how did those two recognize you?"

It took a moment for my brain to process that.

Fuck.