Gusion reached for his dagger. "How long before we're getting out?"

"I'd say now, but we don't know who or what is out there," Helcurt replied. ""Who knows that you visit this place?"

"Just Lesley, though Lancelot might think to check."

"Neither of whom I want to confront right now, but I don't like the idea of being a sitting duck."

"Fair point," Gusion conceded. "Check if anyone's up there, then we'll try to see if we can get back in the house."

"There's definitely going to be someone guarding it."

"Then you go."

Helcurt grumbled but complied, disappearing in a burst of shadows. Seconds later, Gusion saw a pair of eyes gleam in the darkness.

"Let's go," Helcurt rasped, and Gusion fiddled with his dagger as he tiptoed after Helcurt, trying not to make any noise.

They pushed the door open without any creaking noises and silently walked towards Gusion's house.


Dyrroth swung open the doors to the private chambers of the Abyssal Palace. "You called, mom?"

Inside the room, the shrieking stopped as the sound of a body dropping to the floor came.

The demoness whose back was facing him turned around. "Dyrroth."

"Mom," Dyrroth acknowledged, looking at the body on the floor. "Is he dead yet?"

"Not just yet," Alice replied. "Soon, though."

"So why did you call me?"

"I heard you made a new enemy."

Dyrroth arched an eyebrow. His mother usually didn't care for his grudges, as long as it didn't affect him on the battlefield. "You're right."

"Tread carefully," Alice cryptically said. "Too many of your enemies shouldn't be left standing."

"I've got this," Dyrroth reassured her. "Anything else?"

"Yes," the Blood Queen replied, her eyes glowing crimson. "Open the horse."


Lesley's head churned with the consequences of what she had done.

The announcement had rang about five minutes ago, about how Gusion Paxley and his Shadowbringer accomplice were to be apprehended.

Her anger had dulled as guilt flooded her veins. She'd gotten her best friend branded as a criminal.

Gusion's angered face swam to the front of her mind as she swallowed.

He must hate her now.


Lancelot still didn't understand where it had gone wrong.

Why did Gusion join up with the enemy?

What had happened?

He knew Gusion ever since Lancelot was 12 and Gusion was 5. He still fondly recalled the somewhat clumsy toddler in a family of graceful mages, always playing with sharp objects even after several reminders.

He still remembered being 19 and nearly killing Gusion after the kid had apparently followed his lead and ran off to the Land of Dawn.

What had happened to turn him over to the dark side?

He even had a Shadowbringer with him, which Lancelot couldn't understand.

Who would have the answers?

Lancelot sighed. Of course. Lesley Vance was the only person closer to Gusion than he was(though evidently he hadn't known the traitor as well as he thought he did), and she had been the one to call them about the Shadowbringer.

"Time to visit Lesley," he said to no one in particular, and his own voice echoed back to him in the empty room as he grabbed his sword to meet the girl.


A telephone rang loudly in a black house., and a long-fingered hand picked it up. "Hello."

"The order has been given."

"Who do we strike?"

"Go for the head."

The voice remained silent. "Risky."

"Do it."

"Another target."

"Your queen commands you."

"It will require a few days."

"No more than a week."

The receiver hung up.


Gusion silently crept past the neighbouring house. The light in the bedroom was still switched on, which meant that Lesley was still up.

For a second, he thought that maybe she hadn't meant it, and just maybe everything was fine, before the hot sting of betrayal rushed through him again.

"Enough of staring into your girlfriend's room already," Helcurt prodded him in the leg.

"I've said it already and I'll say it again-she is not my girlfriend."

"Could've fooled me." Helcurt stalked past him and towards his house, absolutely apathetic about the grass loudly squelching beneath his feet.

"Must've rained," Gusion muttered to himself before hiking up his pants and silently tiptoeing over to the Shadowbringer. "Shhh!"

"Silence be damned, we'll just teleport if someone comes," Helcurt retorted, continuing on noisily.

Gusion sighed before another pair of footsteps reached his ears.

"Hide!" he hissed, just as Helcurt flattened himself against the floor, blending in as the footsteps grew louder.

Gusion ducked behind a bush, praying fervently to every god he knew that no one had noticed him.

A bat flitted in front of his face as the footsteps came closer and Gusion spied the glint of moonlight reflected off a metal sword through the bushes.

"It's your friend," Helcurt whispered.

"Quiet."

They watched as Lancelot raised his fist and rapped on the door thrice.

The door swung open, and Lesley stepped out. Gusion's heart started doing gymnastics again.

"This is getting ridiculous," Helcurt sardonically muttered from next to him.

"Can I come in?" Lancelot asked, and Lesley closed the door behind him as he stepped in.

"Great, let's move." Helcurt began creeping through the hole in the fence separating Gusion's and Lesley's houses.

"Now you decide to be stealthy," Gusion muttered mutinously, before scaling the fence as silently as possible and landing onto the other side, landing ankle-deep in the mud. "Aw, my shirt's dirty."

Helcurt was slightly ahead, his head up as he sniffed the air, before teleporting straight onto Gusion's doorstep.

"The window, you idiot!" Gusion hissed, but Helcurt could not be bothered, instead standing there, still as a shadow.

Gusion crept to the side window and prised it open with his knife. "Helcurt!" he hissed, but the Shadowbringer did not react.

"Go to hell," Gusion muttered and vaulted into the house, closing the window behind him, swatting a bat away from his face.

A hissing sound came from right behind him.


Tigreal was incredibly unnerved when the noises came.

He was staying awake in the wee hours of the night, trying to anticipate Alice's next moves and change their entire attack plans for the next few days. Gusion's unexpected defection had thrown a spanner in their works and Tigreal had to pay the price.

He was in the middle of another plan at around eight o'clock when a raspy, unsettling sound, like beetles crawling through the undergrowth, came from outside the little wooden hut he was in. He felt closer to nature here, and the place helped him focus.

Tigreal drew his sword and ventured outside, and the noise changed-the creature, whatever it was, had sensed his arrival, and was skittering amongst the dead leaves.

He tightly gripped the weapon, a cold comfort surging through him in the knowledge that he was armed, and walked into the centre of the clearing.

The noise had stopped, and Tigreal looked around.

"Deep breaths," he told himself, which did nothing to calm his nerves, especially when raindrops began to fall.

He wiped one off his cheek and realised that raindrops normally weren't crimson red.


Natalia was digging through the ground.

"Bloody Tigreal," she snarled. He'd sent her on a mission to retrieve an ancient artefact that might help them to strengthen the wards around the Moniyan Empire in a bizarrely complicated ritual that also had a possibility of blowing up part of the land.

For a military general, Tigreal had his moments of idiocy.

Natalia dug with her claws, trying very hard not to break down. She was an assassin, not a damn archaeologist.

She finally took a deep breath, and raised her claws to strike the floor when something shifted behind her.

She whirled around, slicing through only air. Natalia stepped back, stumbling as her foot went too low into the hole.

She took a cursory glance backwards to steady herself and that was all it took.


Gusion growled, struggling to calm his racing heart. "Helcurt, you bastard!"

The Shadowbringer darkly chuckled. "One of these days I'm going to get that photo machine you tell me about-"

"It's called a camera-"

"-and I'm going to take photos of your reactions."

Gusion frowned. "Something's different."

"Very specific."

"Do you feel it?"

A brief silence ensued which Helcurt shattered. "Yes. Darkness." And then, "Why are there so many bats?"

And it clicked. Gusion groaned. "Amazing."

"What?"

"Tigreal assigned ol' Batman to guard the house."

Helcurt snickered. "Who now?"

"We call him Batman," Gusion sighed. "We might want to get out as fast as-"

"No," a silent voice resonated.

Gusion and Helcurt turned around as the darkness was dispelled and a circle of bats split to reveal Cecilion, hovering slightly above the ground, his staff in hand.


Tigreal looked up and was greeted by three corpses brutally mutilated and suspended from the branches, as blood dripped from the one directly above him. Tigreal recognised the star pendant on the left guard's neck with a sense of cold horror.

Those were three of the four forest guards. Someone had left them here, knowing that Tigreal was here.

A skittering sound came from his left and Tigreal turned slowly, grasping his sword tightly, and the sound came again, accompanied by a hissing noise.

"Who goes there?" he asked, and mentally slapped himself. As if whoever it was would go, "Yeah, it's me, I'm here to kill you!"

The creature-whatever it was-made more skittering noises from behind the bush, and Tigreal stalked towards the bushes.

A bead of sweat dropped down his cheek as he readied his sword to bisect anything that came jumping at him.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the bush.

A gagged and bound guard was thrashing about to the best of his ability.

Tigreal froze for a second, and that second cost him.

A thin magic spell hit him in the shoulder and he pivoted, slashing at a small creature that looked vaguely familiar.

Tigreal's vision suddenly blurred at the edges. Mind magic, a fogged-up part of his brain told him.

Natalia, he faintly recalled. She knew about mind magic, being a part of the Light Assassins.

He charged through the forest, trying to make his way back to the palace as his head swirled.

He pushed into the clearing, and soldiers looked at him in surprise.

"Natalia," he panted. "Get Natalia."

Following which, the ground hit him, and the lights went out.


A phone buzzed on the floor, seventy miles away, and the caller ID showed Moniyan Palace.

Natalia lay on the floor, struggling to move as blood gushed out from her abdomen, from where she had been stabbed.

She reached out with a bloodstained hand and pressed 'Decline'.

The phone went silent, just as one of the deadliest assassins in the world breathed heavily, and went limp, while Hanzo walked away, her blood on his sword.