CHAPTER IV
"I'm The Man In Black" -- Johnny Cash

"It's him, that's for sure," Wilmer breathed into the communicator. There was a faint crackle of static, and Priss' voice came back over the radio.

"Are you certain he's the source of the trouble?" she asked. "There are a lot of factors, and we don't want to pull the wrong one."

"We must beware; the beast-man draweth near," cautioned Yorick. Wilmer glanced around the corner, and shuddered as the floppy-eared creature sauntered toward them.

"Yousa not need to worry. Meesa gonna helpa you save the Alliance!" the mutant creature babbled emphatically, his huge lips bobbing. A sullen-looking teenager slouched along beside him, looking bored. Wilmer recognized his tunic and the narrow braid of hair, and nudged Yorick with an elbow.

"That one looks like a Jetty," he whispered, pointing.

Yorick shoved Wilmer behind a large wooden crate as the teenager's head swiveled toward them. Wilmer started to protest, but Yorick gestured for silence.

"Wait; I sense spies over there," they heard the young man say. He drew the bizarre light-stick weapon from his belt and ignited it, then moved directly toward their hiding place. Wilmer and Yorick crept along the row of crates and ducked down an aisle of boxes, but soon found themselves trapped in a corner.

The beast-man and the Jetty came closer, and Wilmer let out a string of vile expletives as he and Yorick turned to face them.

- - -

Priss whipped the earphones off, looking stunned. Mireille glanced over at her, one eyebrow raised in question. Priss shook her head. "I don't know where he learned language like that..." she began, but was interrupted by another alarm on the control panel.

"I'm on it," Mireille assured her, already tapping commands on the panel. Her head snapped up suddenly. "We need to pull them out of there," she warned, turning to the engineers beside them. "They've begun to deviate from canon, and it looks like there's going to be a reaction."

Illya rapidly began entering portal coordinates. Priss slipped her headset back on, making quick notes from the operatives' final observations. A moment later, the portal opened, and the deafening roar of an explosion rocked the control room. Wilmer and Yorick dove through the block of light, followed by smoke and bits of rubble.

Wilmer rolled to his knees, still cursing. Blood dripped from a gash in his shoulder, and his tunic was spotted with grime and debris. Yorick, his metal helmet gone, nodded in the direction of the control panel. "Nice timing, lad," he gasped, "and you fair ladies, too." After a moment spent struggling with the metal box he still wore, he regained his feet and reached down to help Wilmer up.

Wilmer snatched his arm away indignantly. "Hey! I'm injured, here!" he growled, glaring up at Yorick.

Yorick eyed him for a moment. "Tell me, boy," he burst out at last, breaking his typical pentametric cadence. "Did you once offend a traveling gypsy?"

Priss coughed suddenly to hide her snicker, and stepped forward to help Yorick out of his costume. "Both of you get cleaned up, and meet in the briefing room in..." She checked her wristwatch, "...twenty minutes. That will give you plenty of time." She poked at Wilmer with one boot. "Come on, down to Medical with you."

- - -

Steed rubbed his palms briefly over his face in an attempt to lift the weight that pulled at his eyelids. He had worked through most of the night, and Priss' call had caught him just as he had stretched out in his quarters for a rest. These past few weeks, fatigue had drained the team of Directors as much as their increasingly chaotic cases.

The same team of operatives, plus Mireille, was assembled in the briefing room. They were now staring at him expectantly. Yorick and Wilmer, fresh out of the clinic, had shared the traumatic experience of this latest mission, and now his subordinates looked to him for direction. He wished he had orders to give them, but his mind was blank.

This was the sixth mission that had gone awry in half as many weeks. Comedies suddenly turned to dramas... misplaced fictional characters... plot twists that no author could have written. There was a pattern forming here, Steed was certain... if only he could see it! Once again, he skimmed the notes he'd taken from Yorick's report, then shuffled through previous incident reports, but nothing seemed to fit together. The only related characteristic of each case was its apparent randomness.

With more information, perhaps he could draw more ties between the incidents, but he was hesitant to send his operatives into the unknown again. Today, Yorick and Wilmer had been lucky enough to escape with minor injuries, but Alfred's death was still fresh in all their minds. Steed could not risk anyone else simply for the sake of gathering data.

He hated to call the other Directors in from their much-deserved rest, but he knew that he could not solve this mystery on his own. "Priss," he said, sighing heavily, "call an emergency meeting. I want Amon and Noin here by noon."

- - -

Enishi stifled a yawn. He was sprawled on his usual couch in their lounge -- still silver and black, but freshly redecorated by Sephiroth after their latest excursion into the Authors' World; apparently he'd been inspired by the reclusive luxury of the ranch they'd visited -- and he was loathing his current assignment, which was more or less to babysit their prisoner and make sure he didn't wander off.

Said prisoner, to whom Sephiroth referred as "Joker," was sitting in a chair, staring blankly at whatever object happened to be moving at any given moment. Enishi had given up wondering why the man was important to their cause, and instead had begun wondering if he was fundamentally capable of doing anything other than sitting in a chair.

The only other occupant of the room was Celina, who was about as interesting to watch as Joker. She was standing, instead of sitting, at the far end of the lounge. She had adopted her typical expression, a sort of open-mouthed, happy astonishment, and was gazing adoringly at the recessed lights in the ceiling.

It was at times like these that Enishi really wished that Sephiroth believed in magazine subscriptions. He'd seen some really fascinating ones in some of the other worlds they'd visited, but so far their leader hadn't seen any reason to stock the lounge with Swordcraft Today or Modern Combat.

Enishi looked lazily from Celina to Joker and back, gradually realizing that both of them were staring intently at the can lights. He followed their gaze and saw a tiny white moth flitting near the bulb. Apparently the motion of its wings was enough to arrest both Celina and Joker's limited spans of attention. The moth circled the lamp a few more times, and then dropped lower to try its luck at another light source.

With a graceful, lightning-quick sweep of her hands, Celina trapped the unfortunate moth between her palms. She slowly opened her fingers, careful to grasp the insect's wings so that it couldn't escape, and examined it reverently.

Joker was leaning forward in his chair, staring at the moth with rapt attention. He reached one hand toward the imprisoned insect, though he was still several feet away, and made a gentle clutching motion with his fingers as he had seen Celina do.

Celina lifted the little moth close to her face, gazing at it sweetly. After a moment, she very lovingly put it in her mouth and swallowed it. Joker's face clouded with confusion, and his hand dropped back to his lap, once again limp.

Enishi sighed and let his head fall back onto the couch cushions. He trusted his leader as far as he'd ever trusted anyone, but there were also times -- like this one -- when he would have given quite a lot to understand what in the world Sephiroth was thinking.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the door whispered open and Sephiroth himself entered, trailed closely by Vicious, Vanduri and Ignacio. Enishi bolted upright, self-conscious under his leader's scrutiny. Sephiroth wore a triumphant expression, and he carried a sleek silver device that Enishi recognized as some variety of electronic storage unit. Enishi hadn't quite caught up on the wonders of otherworldly technology, but he could guess what Sephiroth was holding, and why his leader was so delighted. With this, they would be taking action very soon.

Sephiroth ordered Ignacio to take Joker back to his cell -- Enishi felt a rush of relief -- then brandished the electronic object and called his lieutenants to him. "Gentlemen," he announced, "here is our Keystone." He paused and glanced around, frowning slightly. "Wasn't Dilandau with you?" he asked Enishi.

Enishi shrugged helplessly and pointed beyond Sephiroth's shoulder, where Celina hovered just out of sight behind the silver armor plates. As he turned, she reached out and brushed the fingers of one hand through his trailing silver hair, blushing furiously. Sephiroth's mouth quirked in annoyance.

"Vanduri," he growled, "would you kindly fix this?"

Vanduri drew the girl to the other end of the lounge as Sephiroth and the others moved to the glossy black conference table. A moment later, there was a guttural scream and a flash of light from the far end of the room, and presently Vanduri and a slightly disoriented Dilandau joined Vicious and Enishi at the table.

Sephiroth glanced around at his ring of loyal followers, and a smooth, cool smile crept across his lips. "And now," he began, his voice flowing silk, "here is our plan..."

- - -

Noin fought the urge to yawn the moment she stepped into SPCFC headquarters. The exhausting weight of the facility bore down on her. Even though it had been over a week since she'd had to Direct, she hardly felt rested.

We all need vacations, she thought, but knew it was futile to hope. She had been a soldier most of her life, and she knew better than anyone else on staff that you couldn't take leave during a war. She stretched her arms over her head, attempting to alleviate the tension she could already feel setting in across her shoulders, and turned toward the office quad.

She was immediately flagged by a blonde brandishing a sheaf of folders. "Mireille!" Noin said brightly. "When did you get back?"

Mireille glanced up at a clock on the wall. "About... an hour and forty-seven minutes ago. They called me in for emergency backup."

Noin sighed. "Is it that bad? I knew things must be hectic for Steed to call us in, but I didn't realize we were so short-staffed."

Mireille nodded. "Things haven't exactly been going according to plan this week," she said, handing the Second Director a stack of folders. "Here are the reports for yesterday and today. You'll hear all about it in the meeting. I need to go relieve Priss so she can attend; Steed told her to be there."

Noin nodded and glanced through the files. "Thanks. I'm sorry you had to cut your vacation short."

Mireille shook her head as she started down the hallway. "It's not much of a problem for me," she called back, "but the sentiment goes double for you."

Noin took that as an ill portent of things to come at the meeting, and tried to relax her shoulders again. She continued on to her office, where she met Amon coming from his own quarters. She greeted him with a wave, and he gave a curt nod in return. Noin noted that he looked a little more haggard and scruffy than usual. Either he was really that exhausted from his week as Director, or he didn't spend much time on personal appearance on his days off. Probably a little of both, she decided.

"Steed wants to get started as soon as he's done handing out the rest of the day's assignments," he told her, his voice a little gravelly. "We're to meet in the conference room."

Noin paused in the doorway to her office and waved Mireille's folders. "Is there anything else I should do to prepare?"

Amon thought for a moment. "Since I'm sure this meeting is about the recent operations failures, I suppose he'll want copies of those case reports from the past few weeks. And bring anything else that you think might be relevant. I have a feeling we'll be doing a lot of cross-referencing."

"All right. I'll collect the files, and meet you there in five minutes."

Amon nodded and started down the hallway. "I'll see you there. Oh, one more thing," he added, glancing over his shoulder. "Black is back."

Noin blinked once in surprise, and then she smiled. "Make that ten minutes."

- - -

She found Black alone in the lounge, which was strangely empty considering that it was nearing lunchtime. Black always seemed to appear in deserted places. Noin wasn't sure if this was due to some knack he had for finding unpopulated areas, or if it was his ability to empty a room with his dark, brooding presence. She suspected the latter; most of the SPCFC's staff seemed intimidated, if not outright terrified, by the Arcane Specialist. Noin could see why Black's silent, mysterious manner disturbed them, but it had never affected her the same way. In contrast, she had always found an inexplicable comfort in his quiet presence. Perhaps it was simply that his tacit nature reminded her of someone else she'd known.

Black barely turned his head at the sound of the door, but the shadowed grey eyes swept toward her. Recognition illuminated his thin face, and the taut muscles under his pale skin relaxed into an expression Noin had learned to interpret as a smile. Today he was dressed in some sort of dark robes, his black hair hanging loose to the middle of his back. The clothing hung nearly to the floor, making his tall frame even more imposing. A small, rough-looking package was tucked under one arm.

"Welcome back," Noin greeted him brightly. "We were hoping you'd return soon. I'm afraid we've piled up a lot of work for you." She was curious to know what he had been doing for the past few weeks, but she knew better than to ask. Black never answered questions, and it wasn't wise to press him. He had volunteered to assist the SPCFC as an operative, functioning under the command of the Directors, but the working relationship was most definitely on his own terms.

Black nodded minutely in answer to her greeting. "Hello, Lucrezia. You've been busy, I see."

Noin returned the nod with a warm smile. Black always called her by her given name, though she didn't know why. Since childhood, she had been simply "Noin" -- faster to say, easier to pronounce, and a far less feminine form of address for a soldier. In her memory, only her parents had actually called her Lucrezia. And Treize, early on, but she'd quickly put a stop to that. For some reason, though, she didn't mind Black using her first name.

Of course, even if she'd objected, she wasn't sure she dared confront him about it. They had learned early on that Black did exactly as he wished. At times the arrangement made operations a bit inconvenient for the Directors, but Black had more than earned the special considerations. He was invaluable to the SPCFC, despite his odd habit of disappearing for days or weeks at a time.

"A lot has happened since you left. We're still trying to catch up, but since most of the staff has been busy cleaning up after the fire, we're a little behind schedule. And there have been other complications." Giving in to curiosity, Noin paused to nod at the shabbily-wrapped package. "What do you have there?"

Black glanced down and fingered the paper absently, as if he'd forgotten about the parcel. "A mirror," he said after a pause. "It's a gift for... someone."

Noin took the ambiguous answer as a cue to move back to business matters, and began to place the files she carried on the table. She pointed to each one as she gave Black his instructions.

"These are the arcane incident reports from the past few weeks. Most of them aren't high priority, so just give us your comments whenever you have time. There are also a couple of relocations we'd like your opinion on. They're reviewed briefly in this report. If you need the full case details, Wendy can pull them for you."

She touched the last file, and hesitated. "This is what we'd really like you to examine," she said after a moment. "You remember the incident just before the fire, when that FC escaped with help from the outside?"

"Of course. A boy... name of Dilandau, as I recall."

Noin nodded. "Five weeks ago, a retrieval was sabotaged by an outside force -- apparently the same group that aided Dilandau. Amon intervened and managed to extract the FC, but one of our operatives was killed." Noin could feel Black's gaze sharpen on her, but she kept her expression carefully neutral. "Since then, there have been at least five confirmed excursions into the Authors' World by these same interlopers, including one last week that involved several of our agents. Their objective is unknown, but we have proof that they have altered the canon for several worlds. We've nearly exhausted our resources trying to clean up after them."

Black was frowning. "Are these confirmed fictional characters?"

"At first we weren't sure if they were rogue characters or some sort of misplaced author insertion, but we've confirmed ID for several of them. They all originated in different worlds, though, which is confusing."

Black picked up the folder and flipped it open. "Who are they?"

Noin reached over his arm and turned a few pages in the file. "We don't have pictures of all of them, but this is as much information as we could compile on their personnel." She tapped the first image in the folder. "This one is from CBa2.5c; his name, we were told by Mireille, is Vicious. He does seem consistent with the character of the same name from CB1a. Apparently he was a a major character in the CBa canon, but for some reason he wasn't purged after his death there. We're still researching that fallacy. There's also Dilandau, the boy who escaped and burned part of this building. He's originally from VoE1a, as we already knew. At least two others have been sighted, but we don't have positive ID for them. We do have the name of the leader, though. According to Amon's description he's very tall, with long white or silver hair. His subordinates call him Sephiroth."

At the mention of the rogue leader's name, something in Black's manner changed subtly. Noin couldn't identify what was different, but for a split second Noin felt, more than saw, Black's reaction. She had a faint impression of shock, and perhaps something more...

The impatient beep of her communicator snapped her out of her own surprise, and she glanced at the clock. She was two minutes late. "Steed has called an emergency Directors' meeting," she explained apologetically. "I have to go. Let me know if you have any questions."

At the door, Noin half-turned to glance back at Black. His face was once again blank, and Noin sighed regretfully. Black was the only person in the organization who was more stoic than Amon. And the moment he starts to develop an expression, I have to leave... She shook her head and left for her meeting.