[Chapter 2: Redeployment]

"Stop squirming, will you? Believe it or not, I'm trying to help." Magilou said with a frustrated sigh as she casted her magic over the various bruises and lacerations covering Velvet's body. "I don't have to do this, you know. I can just leave you with all of these bruises to deal with, actually I don't know why I'm not, I should considering you just wrecked my house, so what do you say to the nice witch that's making sure you aren't going to be feeling this tomorrow?" Velvet leaned her head back and sighed. "...Thank you." "Is that all? You'd better get it right this time or I'm going to just leave you like this." Magilou snapped back. Velvet sighed again "Thank you Magilou, my best best friend..." "Much better, now for the last time, hold still."

After a short while, Magilou had finished healing the last of Velvet's cuts and bruises. "There you go, good as new." Magilou said as she finished up. "Now...What the hell are you doing here?! How are you still alive?! Where have you been all this time?! Why can't you use the front door like a normal person?! What am I going to do the next time it rains?! Where am I going to sleep now?!" Magilou pelted Velvet with rapid-fire questions that she was in no mood or state to answer, even Magilou would have trouble believing what she just went through, but one part of Magilou's questions caught Velvet's attention. "All this time?...Magi, how long has it been exactly?" Velvet asked, sitting up from the couch she had been laying on. "Since you vanished? A little over four years...Are you telling me that you literally just fell from the sky right now and disappearing with Innominat is the last thing you remember?" Magilou asked, not sure whether to believe her or not. "Not exactly..." Velvet muttered quietly. "Well then tell me! Don't leave me in suspense! Don't you dare go passing out on me until you told me everything! I'm not letting you go until you do! Clearly you've been busy, I've never seen you with this thing before." Magilou held up an advanced looking crossbow with a distinct gray-white-black pattern on its body, the same one Velvet had used in the Arena. "You had this with you, so I know you didn't just fall from the sky."

Velvet threw her head back into the wall behind her and let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. "Where do I even begin..." Velvet decided to spare no detail in recounting what had happened to her, it made no sense, she couldn't make it make sense, so she just spouted off everything she remembered, the strange masked men, the foreign looking prison, the Arena, that xXx_W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69_xXx guy that gained superhuman combat prowess from 60 years of involuntary celibacy, everything. "Velvet...How hard did you hit your head on the way down? Do you feel nauseous at all? Sensitive to light? Double vision?" Magilou asked half-joking, Velvet's story did explain where the crossbow came from, and she was never the type to make things up, her mind probably wasn't even capable of making up something this strange and vivid, but even for Magilou this was outlandish. "I'm being serious, damn it! I know what I saw! I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to!" Velvet snapped. "Look, that crossbow is right there, does that look like anything they make here?" "Right, and you shot that Woman Slayer guy with it and he...exploded. And then some weird portal opened underneath you, and next thing you knew, you were on a collision course with my poor roof." "Yes, damn it!" Velvet grumbled, knowing full well how stupid all of this sounded. "And somehow, before all of this happened, you were turned back into a human." Magilou recounted. "Yes, I don't know how or why, but I'm human again, see?" Velvet said, holding up her left arm. "Well then, I'm sure you're plenty eager to taste some of Magilou's world famous cooking then, well you're in luck, because I'm starving!" Velvet was midway through thinking up some kind of snide remark when she felt her stomach growl, she couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten, and the last several hours had definitely taken their toll. "I-...Yeah, sure, I'm starving too."

"Hey, Dmitri! There's still some left of this one!" The Janitor called out to his partner. W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69 had been all but reduced to what resembled chunks of overcooked beef stew, only a single part of him had remained intact: His head, his helmet, GPNVGs, and edgy looking bandana still fastened to it as if surgically attached. "Man, I hate having to clean this crap up, why are we the only shift Boris?" "Because we are only ones who will do it, Dmitri, everybody else don't want to mop up blood and guts all day, no? Even with the bonus pay this job sucks." The exchange between the two workers was interrupted by the intercom clicking on. "Dmitri, Boris, bring the head of the subject down to the test labs immediately." The intercom clicked as the two workers turned to face each other. "Well, you heard the boss man, let's head on up." "Ugh, Dmitri your sense of humor is trash like American vodka." The two men grabbed the fallen warrior's head and callously dropped it in their bucket, then began making their way up to the lab. "What do you think Ilya is up to this time, Boris?" "Probably something crazy, like always."

Sure enough, Velvet could taste again, though this wasn't as much of a surprise to her, not only did she figure it after realizing her arm was human again and the freezing cold outside the prison was affecting her, but she had gotten a facefull of dirt from diving to avoid her opponents shots in the Arena. Velvet didn't want to admit it out loud, but Magilou was actually a very good cook, maybe even one of the best, her old companions definitely weren't kidding when they said that she was a master. With that thought, Velvet's attention shifted to the one question that had remained unanswered, part of her was almost afraid to ask. "Not even a word of compliment, huh? After all the love and care I put into my best friend's first proper meal in what, 7 years? Sheesh, I can see the ice queen hasn't thawed out at all, huh?" Magilou sarcastically grumbled. "Alright, alright, it's good." Velvet admitted reluctantly. "Good? Is that all you have to say? I slaved over that meal for you, Velvet! Even after you wrecked my roof and my bed! I have been nothing but hospitable to you this whole time, I healed your wounds, listened to your deranged ramblings, and even made you dinner, and all you have to say to me is 'Good'?! You owe me, Velvet! You owe me big time! And you still haven't even given me my 100 Bajillion Gald!" Magilou angrily snapped. "Fine...it's excellent Magilou, you're pretty good, not as good as I used to be, but you'll get there one day." Velvet said smugly. "I guess that's as good as I'm going to get from you, huh? Alright, I'll take it, but you still need to pay up that 100 bajillion gald now that you're back among the living." Magilou replied, shifting from her angry rant to her usual calm blasé attitude in an instant.

Velvet's thoughts shifted back to her old team, without a doubt they had gone their separate ways, they all more or less had their own reasons for wanting Innominat and Artorius gone, with them gone there wasn't much reason to stay together. Even still, they had helped her, she wouldn't have succeeded without them, as much as she didn't like admitting it, it wasn't something that was up to interpretation. "So, Magilou, how's the old Menagerie these days?" Velvet asked, trying her best to act callous, but inside her heart was racing to learn what happened while she was gone. "Yours truly's just been making ends meet however she can, you just made life harder for me now that I have to fix my roof and buy a new bed, but apart from that: It's going." "Yeah, I figured that much out." Velvet interjected, of course she started with herself. Magilou continued "Rokurou's off hunting Daemons, looking for the biggest meanest ones he can find. I haven't heard much since we parted ways, I'll hear people talking of someone like him slaying a big nasty Daemon every now and again, but he doesn't seem to be sticking in one place for particularly long. He could be anywhere right now for all I know." "That definitely sounds like him, still hung up on needing to be better than his brother." "Eleanor's off in Loegres right now, still trying to hold the Abbey together. There aren't many exorcists these days, of course, not many Daemons either." "Wait, did something happen?" Velvet interjected again, but Magilou appeared to ignore her. "Eizen's still aboard the Van Eltia, but with most humans having lost their resonance, he's back to pretending to be a ghost cursing the ship." "Magilou!" Velvet interjected again. "Phi, what happened to him?" Magilou had been putting this part off for as long as she could, she could guess how Velvet was going to react to it.

Seeing Magilou break eye contact with her, Velvet sprung off the sofa and burst forward to the chair Magilou had pulled up, seizing her by the shoulders. "WHAT HAPPENED MAGILOU?!" Velvet cried out, her voice more desperate than angry. Magilou, fearing for her life at this point, quickly fired off her answer at a mile-a-minute. "SoyouseerightafteryoudisappearedInnominatsabsencewasgoingtocausesomekindofcataclysmcausedbythefourempyreansclashingandtheyneededkindofmalakwithgreatstrengthandwilltopreventthefourfromclashingandPhivolunteeredtobecomethefifthempyreanbecausehethoughtyouweregoneforeverandyouhadtoldhimwithyourlastwordstomaketheworldabetterplaceandundothedamageyouhaddonetoit." "What are you talking about?...Laphicet...An Empyrean...I-I don't understand..." Velvet's voice trembled as her heart raced out of control and she broke out into a cold sweat, she began feeling light headed and dizzy as her hands tensed into a death-grip on Mailgou's shoulders. "He unleashed some kind of silver flame, most people who became Daemons were turned back, including all the Therions, I think that might be why you've been turned back to normal too! Then he took on a new form as an Empyrean, a dragon of light I think Eleanor called it! You'll have to ask her! She still visits him at the Throne sometimes, she knows more about this than I do!" "D-Dragon?..." Was all could Velvet stutter out, she began hyperventilating, stars and spots filled her vision, her knees felt weak and wobbly as she let go of Magilou and stumbled backwards, her arms and legs trembled uncontrollably. "Velvet?..." Magilou called after her, noticing her balance starting to fail. Velvet's head swirled, her knees gave out from under her as her vision lost its focus, the stars and spots engulfed it shortly after. "Velvet!" She heard Magilou call out from what sounded like a mile away as she slipped out of consciousness.

The doors to the lab slid open before Boris and Dmitri, W0m4n_Sl4y3r_69's head rolled around in the bucket as they promptly stepped inside. "Ilya! How's it going bratan?!" Dmitri called out to a man dressed in a lab coat, but wearing the same three-hole balaclava every other member of staff was wearing. "Dmitri! Boris! Good to see you my friends! I got some good Vodka delivered just now, I know we not supposed to drink on job, but I say screw the rules! You two only people who will clean up that crap in the Arena, and I am the smart super scientist here! They can't fire us! We share some in a bit, yeah? First, let's see the specimen." Ilya declared and gestured to the bucket Boris was carrying. "I got him right here, bro." Boris set down the mop bucket on the counter. "Perfect!" Ilya picked up the head from inside the bucket and examined it. "Looks like helmet keep brain perfectly intact, yes yes this will work out just fine! Excellent work my friends! We shall drink to celebrate!" Ilya promptly pulled out three glasses along with a bottle of his favorite vodka. "This is the good stuff my friends, none of that cheap crap!" Ilya excitedly declared as he finished filling the glasses and slid them to his close friends.

"So Ilya, what are you doing with this poor guy anyways? You not going to let him rest in peace?" Dmitri asked. "Nah bro, we are going to make him use his head for once in his life." Boris rolled his eyes as Ilya and Dmitri burst out into hearty laughter. "Come on guys, this is going to get old really fast." Boris sighed out. "You right, I think Ilya and I are getting too ahead of ourselves!" Boris chugged down his glass of vodka before slamming his face onto the lab table as Dmitri and Ilya again erupted into laughter. "Okay okay." Ilya said noticing Boris' reaction to the pun. "Boris is about to lose his head, and I think we should learn from this guy and quit while we're a-head." Ilya gestured to the severed head resting on the counter. Boris slammed back another glass of vodka as Ilya and Dmitri burst into uncontrollable laughter and high-fived each other. "This is going to be a long day..." Boris silently muttered to himself.

After the laughter had subsided and the three friends had enjoyed a couple glasses of vodka, Ilya finally spoke "No but seriously, you need not worry about this guy. This guy going to live out every kid's dream! Here, I show you, follow!" Ilya gestured his friends to follow him as he lead them onto the elevator, and pressed the button for the hangar floor. "Hangar? What does this have to do with some virgin's brain?" Boris asked curiously. "Patience, bratan, you will see in a moment." Ilya replied as the elevator began to slow. The elevator doors parted and the three men stepped out into the hangar, which, normally empty, was populated by a single advanced looking fighter jet. "That's...That's an F-35 Lightning, an American plane, how did this get here?" Boris uttered out in shock. "I'm afraid that is need to know only, even for me. They know I am not exactly tight lipped so they do not tell me. All we need to know is that this is going to be our friend's new home. Should make a great party trick for the Arena, no?" Ilya replied confidently. "We're going to be putting that dude's brain into that? What are we going to put his brain in a jar, attach some arms and legs onto it and put it in the pilot seat?" Dmitri asked, half curious, half joking. "No my friend, we will be uploading the remains of his consciousness into the computer systems, the Americans built these things to practically fly themselves, and now we have the technology to convert the human soul to 0s and 1s. This will be the first experiment of its kind, you two will be witnessing history in the making." Ilya replied excitedly. "Whatever you say my friend, I have a bad feeling about this..." Boris replied, not feeling Ilya's confidence one bit. A sinister premonition began to wash over him...