Epilogue

The tall curly-haired constable buried a groan as he crept into the locker room. Talk about an utterly horrid night. Full of nightmares about fighting for his life. With a sword, in chainmail, against creatures right out of myth and legend. "That does it," he mumbled to himself, "No more Dragon Age marathons on the weekend."

Sighing, he opened up his locker, carefully ignoring the dark circles under his eyes. Instead, he focused on his uniform and the numerous tasks on his plate as the team leader for Team Four. Jeans were traded for pants, one hand briefly pausing where he could've sworn there should have been a scar, but the skin was smooth. Unmarked. Shaking his head and burying a yawn, he swapped sneakers for boots, lacing them tight and doing his best to stifle the part of himself that insisted the boots should've been leather. That was just the nightmares talking.

The constable straightened as the door behind him swung open. Couldn't he have had a little more time to himself? "Morning," he offered tonelessly without turning.

"Morning," the other constable replied, just as toneless.

Blue sharpened, but still didn't budge from the locker. Much as he didn't want to tackle even more problems, he asked, "Bad night?"

"Just some bad dreams."

Ah. Crisis averted. "I know the feeling," the team leader agreed, shrugging into his uniform shirt and buttoning it up. He paused, feeling as if getting his uniform on should've taken longer. As if he was missing something… Blinking, he surveyed himself. No, everything on and in place, at least as far as the locker room was concerned.

"See you out there?" the other officer inquired.

"Yeah, sure thing." The constable shut his locker, forcing a bit more pep into his voice than he felt. Just another part of the job. Turning, he started for the door, then froze. His head snapped around, literally at the same time as his fellow constable whirled.

"Leon?"

"Percival?"

Even as the two men gawped at each other, the locker room door swung open. Leon's jaw clicked shut, though blue nearly bulged. Gwaine. Elyan. Lancelot. And coming in right behind them was Team Four's new bomb tech, Mordred, followed by their Sergeant, Troy Vio.

Leon glanced back at Percival, both knights wondering the same thing: Where the heck is Arthur?

The blond man walking down the road shuffled a bit further to the side when he heard noise from behind him. Glancing back, he spied another one of the metal carriages coming and scrambled to hide in the forest next to the road. Keen blue studied the odd, self-propelled craft. Magic, it had to be. And yet, not a single one of those inside looked like sorcerers. Rather, they reminded him of Camelot's people. Men and women going about their days, with common, ordinary concerns.

The thought was bewildering, almost more so than the fact that he had yet to encounter a single patrol. Surely such a well maintained road required frequent patrols to deal with the bandits; how else would travelers avoid losing all they possessed? Unless the metal carriages could fend off bandits by themselves.

The metal carriage disappeared down the road, though the sound of its passage remained, an unusual puttering sound mixed with a curious rumble. Almost like a larger version of some of Gaius' experiments. Arthur stepped out from the trees, one hand resting on Excalibur's hilt.

Seek the guardsmen, the Lady of the Lake had said. The ones who guard both magic and mundane. There you will find all that you have lost. Before he'd been able to ask anything, she'd smiled sadly and faded away, right before his eyes.

But where was he supposed to find guardsmen idiotic enough to guard magic? Didn't they know what magic was? How it twisted and corrupted even the best of men? And how was he supposed to find anything in this crazy, mixed up world of metal beasts and roads so smooth that they must have been built with magic?

"Greetings, young king."

He whirled, but though he pulled on Excalibur's hilt, the sword never left its sheath. The woman behind him tilted her chin down, a secretive smile pulling at ruby lips. Silver eyes caught his and a whisper of magical words brought him down, collapsing forward into her hold. A slim, perfect hand stroked his hair, the touch more soothing than alluring. He strained to free himself from her spell, but mind and body relaxed, a sigh of contentment escaping.

Light blue magic surrounded him, coming from the woman's very skin. Then they were gone.

In the woods nearby, a large black jaguar with bat-like wings watched the pair disappear, a hint of a smile around her muzzle. So it begins once more.

Less than a minute after the woman and her prize vanished, another woman appeared, shrieking fury and outrage. Green eyes blazed with hate and her raven curls were piled on top of her head and matted, arranged with hardly a passing semblance to the noblewoman she'd once been.

"Merlin…" she hissed.

We meet again, at the turn of the tide.
A great storm is coming, but the tide has turned.
~Gandalf the White, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

~ Fin

Author note: *cue Merlin...oops, I mean Flashpoint ending music* I hope everyone enjoyed the latest story - the background is beginning to heat up and all roads will (eventually) lead to one heck of a showdown between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. But, as I said, that's quite a ways away from us and we've got a lot of ground to cover between now and then.

As always, I adore reviews and I treasure each and every one I receive, so please, read and review.

Moving on, we'll be heading straight into a much smaller (relatively speaking) showdown as we cruise into the final leg of Season 4. So please join us as we start "However Improbable" this Friday, September 4th 2020 back over in the main Flashpoint archive.

On a RL note, it took until yesterday at 4 PM, but I finally did manage to speak to the recruiter that I was supposed to talk with on Friday. I'm hoping my persistence wins me some points and for what it's worth, after I sent him my resume, he sent me a message on LinkedIn that it looked great.

From what I understand, the position he's looking to fill is a permanent position, so I'd be an employee, not a contractor. Since contractors don't get benefits, I'm definitely looking for an employee position like the one I have now. It's also a development job rather than platform support, so I'm trying not to hold my breath, but I'm hoping and praying that this might be my new job.

See You on the Battlefield!