Taako sets off a Pyrotechnics spell the second his Rope Trick runs out. Red and gold fireworks shoot out from his wand, ricocheting off Lucretia's bedroom walls and bouncing around the already torn up room. He ducks his head low as one burst of sparks crashes into her mirror; the glass shatters with a loud crack and a sheet of it comes tumbling to the floor. Shards splinter apart and rain down around them. Lucretia instinctively tucks her face into his shoulder and Taako's fingers unconsciously grip just that bit tighter around her.

The tiefling, singed and bloodied, screams a war-cry at them and charges. Taako twists away, squeezing his eyes shut- and then Lucretia's Sanctuary spell kicks in. The woman is throws back three steps and howls before raising her wand.

Taako Magic Missiles her before dodging out of the way of a halfling rogue that appears out of the corner of his eye, going for his knees with a wicked looking dagger.

Lucretia snorts a little; huddled against his chest as she is, Taako can feel it vibrate through him. Despite the blood leaking between her fingers, despite the fight for their lives, despite his rage at her for months on end, Taako feels his lips twitching.

"Magic Missile, really?"

"Hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it." He slams his shoulder against her bedroom door, buffeting back whoever had taken up an offensive position behind it as he does. He keeps his head down, spinning to face a goblin with a short sword who stumbles, before the halfling appears through the doorway too and helps his companion regain his balance. For a second Taako thinks maybe they'll be able to get out of this relatively unscathed.

There were four of them, weren't there?

Taako inhales sharply just as Lucretia gives a wordless cry of warning where she is peeking up over his shoulder. He ducks, twisting away from whatever whistles past, a hair's breadth from his ear. His jostling of her makes Lucretia groan but Taako doesn't have the time to apologize.

The elf on the far side of the room readies her crossbow again and Taako snarls.

"Give us Lucretia of Faerun," The elf replies, almost blandly, "and no one has to get hurt."

"Uh, you literally just tried to shoot me in the head," Taako points out. The elf shrugs, and aims at Lucretia.

"What the fuck is your problem? " Taako asks, more rhetorically than anything else, and tries out a Barklike spell on Lucretia. For a second, he can feel her skin harden, turn rough and coarse. Her face looks strange, flaky and lined and distinctly inhuman.

Then the spell fails and she smiles a tremulous, defeated, desperately kind smile at him.

"What the fuck Lucretia, come on, you know it's gotta be a willing subject." Taako snaps. She shrugs.

"Sorry."

She doesn't sound very sorry.

Taako dances away from the goblin's stabbing, but takes a cut to the back of his shin from the halfing for his efforts. Lucretia struggles briefly, looking like she'll try to convince him to leave her again at any second and Taako is honestly so fucking done with this entire situation.

"We really need to work on your priorities," he tells her before Thorn Whipping the crossbow from the elf's hands. She howls, taken aback, and lunges. With one of his last spellslots, Taako casts Expeditious Retreat on himself and Dashes for the door.

He swerves at the last second though, when the door burst open, rebounding off the wall behind it and vibrating on its hinges. Faster than Taako's eye can see, a blur of brassy, copper metal flies through the air only to reform itself into a spear lodged firmly in the elf's chest.

She looks down at it, hands coming up to clutch at the shaft as if in disbelief. Her eyes are wide. She gurgles, looks up, finds Lucretia. The elf tries to reach out toward her, fingers becoming claws, takes a step, and falls.

"Taako, Madam Director," Avi says, voice clipped and professional. As he steps into the room, the halfling and the goblin spread out. They move warily, as if Avi is more of a threat an Taako and Lucretia combined. Granted, Taako's down to two spellslots and Lucretia is pretty much dead weight- literally- at this point, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sting a little. They're two of the most powerful wizards in the plane here, hello! "Would you like some help?"

"Avi, I love you." He darts past the guard and hefts Lucretia up. Somewhere in all the twisting and dodging and running, Lucretia has gone quiet. When he checks on her, her eyes are half lidded and her hands are limp where she's clutching her abdomen. He shakes her as much as he dares and she jolts, hissing, eyes wide open.

" Stay awake ," Taako tells her, and then to Avi, "kill the bastards, would you? Where are Killian and Carey?"

"Right here," Carey says from behind him. Taako slips out of her way, smooth as silk; Killian has already darted past him into Lucretia's apartments and Taako expects the screaming to start any moment. "Avi, Taako, get her to the healers. We've got this."

Avi looks like he might protest, hand on the pommel of a sword strapped to his hip- is that new? Taako hasn't seen that ornate scabbard before, boy's got some new bling- but eventually he relents and steps back begrudgingly.

Avi shuts the door, motioning to the guard Taako hasn't even realized was there with a hand signal he knows for a fact means to bring backup. The guard hustles off, spear clanking as he goes. Avi turns back, placing a careful hand on Lucretia's arm, the only spot he can reach that's not covered in blood.

"You alright, Lucretia?" His voice is soft, breaking in the middle. This is probably the worst he's ever seen her. Hell, this is probably the worst Taako 's ever seen her, and he's got a hundred years on the kid.

"Just peachy," Lucretia replies dryly. Avi's shoulders relax a fraction- not even close to all the way- and Taako can't blame him; you usually only really have to worry about Lucretia when she straight up admits what's wrong.

Yeah, 'cause that's worked out so well for both of you.

"Bullshit," Taako says. "Avi, I don't know how much blood this idiot has lost. We gotta go."

Avi nods. "I'm right behind you."

It's awful in its familiarity, hustling a semi-conscious Lucretia to the clerics. They're different from the night Taako brought her in with a head wound. Lucretia had mentioned they were overhauling the staff but it makes it all the harder to hand her off to the elf who offers to take her from him.

Just like last time, Taako is left standing with Lucretia's blood on his hands and clothes and staring after her as they rush Lucretia away.

He really has been doing this too much lately.

Not after this, Taako promises himself, promises Lucretia. Not anymore.

Avi puts a hand on his shoulder. When Taako turns, he holds up his stone of farspeech and in a quiet voice informs Taako that Davenport, Merle, Magnus and Kravitz have arrived. "Lup and Barry called to say they'll be here as soon as they wrap up a reaping," Avi murmurs. "It'll only be a half hour at most."

Taako says nothing. His skin burns and prickles where her blood is drying. His back is stiff. He's not sure what he's feeling right now- angry, definitely, at the audacity of these people to come into his- into Lucretia's home and try to violate her like this, or helplessness, probably, that he can't do anything more, and maybe, just possibly, he misses Lucretia just a little bit. She's not even gone and he misses her.

Or has she been slipping away from you this whole time and you just never noticed?

"You wanna go talk to everybody?"

Taako balks at the idea of all those eyes, those friends' faces staring at him, judging his actions- why didn't you do more? How could you not have seen?

They didn't see her either.

"Let's check on Killian and Carey first," Taako suggests, trying not to make it sound like an excuse. "Then- then I'll tell you what I know. I don't want to have to go through it more than I have to."

The thought of rehashing all of it makes his legs feel like jelly.

Turns out, Killian and Carey are just fine. Killian smirks, blood spattered across her neck and forearms, and says nothing when Avi asks her if it's done.

"Yes," Carey says, and that's that.

Taako must be more tired than he thought, because it seems like seconds later he's standing in one of the Bureau's many conference rooms. Around the table, much like fantasy King Arthur's knights, are Davenport, Magnus, Killian, Carey, Merle, Kravitz and Avi. And they're all looking at him.

Well, never let it be said that Taako didn't milk the spotlight.

"Things are fucked, ladies and gentlemen," Taako throws himself into one of the chairs, kicks a leg up over the armrest and tries to tilt his head jauntily at them. Magnus sinks into a chair across from him. His eyes never leave the blood soaking the front of Taako's shirt. Merle is wringing his hands, a worried crease in his brow and Killian and Avi both look like they want to throttle an explanation out of him.

Taako doesn't feel right in his own skin.

"Lucretia's been getting death threats?" Davenport prompts. He's standing still, but his posture is tight and he's hiding his hands. Kravitz shifts on his feet but says nothing.

"That's not what I told you and you know it, Cap'n. Dear Lucy's been hiding the fact that she has a whole damn murder cult following her."

There's silence for a second before the uproar.

Avi, Killian and Carey are all screaming for blood- Taako's or someone else's, he can't be certain- Kravitz is wondering why Taako would keep this from them, Merle is asking about how Taako found out but over all the din, Magnus's voice rises.

"When." Taako has seldom heard his friend this serious. He's biting out words so harshly they're not even questions. It makes his ears perk instinctively and Taako sits up straight, placing his feet on the ground. The bravado isn't coming naturally, anyway. "When did you know."

"Few days ago," Taako admits, and holds up a hand when several mouths drop open. "I wasn't going to hide it- I called Davenport, didn't I? But I didn't really know what was happening, just that Lucy was acting weird and got hurt a bunch. I stopped one of them from jumping her in her office a couple days ago and sent word to Killian and Carey. The healers know about it too."

"We never got a message." Carey looks at Killian for confirmation, who nods, troubled.

Taako nods too. "Yeah. Lucretia has a theory that some of these people- they call themselves the Ragged Harmony- are probably the new hires. She said they probably have been helping their friends with transport here and blocking important messages and stuff."

"That all doesn't explain why Lucretia didn't say anything," Kravitz points out. When Taako looks up from where he's been admiring his fingernails- there's Lucretia's blood under them, oh god, her blood is everywhere- his eyes are gentle.

"She…"

"Taako?"

He hesitates for a minute more but their faces are worried and lined and he's so overwhelmed. "She's in a bad way, guys. Like- like a maybe she doesn't care if she's alive, bad way."

"No," Merle denies purely on reflex. When Taako meets his eyes, though, he wavers. "She'd- she'd tell us, wouldn't she?"

"You tell me, Merle. You and Magnus are the ones who sent me to get her to talk to you in the first place."

Magnus's face twists a little and he drops his head into his hands. "How could we not have known?"

"Listen, this entire thing is fucked, but it's gonna be okay now." Taako says, splaying his hands on the conference room table. "I left Lucretia with the clerics, she's gonna be just fine- is she? - and we'll find these fuckers and deal with them. It'll be fine."

It has to be fine.

"Taako," Merle says slowly. His face is grey. "Lucretia isn't in the clerics' wing. I checked there myself while you were getting Killian and Carey."

A pit forms in Taako's chest. It's as if all the oxygen in the room suddenly vanished.

Avi straightens his spine, shifting his feet agitatedly. "What do you mean? We saw them off together. One of the new clerics was carrying her-"

Taako's running for the transport room before Avi even finishes his sentence.

He skids into the room but knows before he even sees that it's too late. The place is quiet, empty. It's never been empty before. There are no guards. The transport is already disappearing on the horizon. A scream bubbles up in Taako's throat, the rage threatening to flood his lungs, all-encompassing, seeking to overwhelm him.

It's then that he hears the tinny feedback somewhere near his boots. He looks down and his brain can't seem to comprehend what it's seeing for a moment. Then the swirl of colors resolves itself, some oxygen gets to his brain through a windpipe that feels about as wide as a straw, and Taako is staring at a stone of farspeech.

It doesn't look like the model the Bureau provides for all its employees.

Whoever they were talking to is still on the line.

He grips the stone so tightly he thinks for a moment he could simply crush it into dust.

"Where are you taking her?" Taako asks very, very quietly, cutting off whatever order the person was trying to give. There's a strange beat of silence.

"You needn't worry about Lucretia anymore," the rough voice tells him. Their smug tone makes Taako want to claw someone's eyes out. "She will bring about the balance she so long promised the world. There is a cost Lucretia of Faerun must pay and we are those brave enough to collect. After all, didn't you want to kill her after you learned what she'd done? You should be thanking us."

That is just fuckin' it .

"You better listen closely, 'cuz I'm only gonna say this once, asshole." Taako grits his teeth. His voice is gravelly, low, angrier than he's been in a long time. Heat is flooding his veins, spreading from his heart to his fingers to the tips of his ears. He feels like crying. He feels like he could rend metal in two. He feels scared . "If you hurt her I will not rest, I will not stop, I will not die until I tear your still beating heart from your chest with my bare hands and eat it ."

There's a pause. Taako breaths harshly and wonders when the world ran red.

Then the voice chuckles softly. "I'd like to see you try."

The stone goes silent moments before Taako hurls it at a wall. It makes a dent but he doesn't feel any better.

"Fuck," Taako says, because what else is there to say? " Fuck. "