Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
EDIT: Apologies! It looks like this site has managed to eat all my chapter separators - I'll find a way to fix post-haste!
- x -
It was completing an array. It was simply doing all the math without angles to guide the energies. It didn't matter how he physically performed it so long as the math was correct in his head.
And the math was correct in his head.
All that mattered now was getting out of the damn chair.
Franklin huffed in frustration, pulling on metal cuffs he knew he had no hope of prying off the chair. Restlessness coursed through him, his hands were shaking with the need to get up and do something. He'd never had a hard time concentrating or focusing before, but now equations skittered through his head, the numbers darting around mutinously before leaping into each other in nonsense sums.
He still had a good enough handle on them to know that he had computed the angles, intersections, and paths necessary to turn the ground into nothing, a deep chasm that would end in broken and buried soldiers. The soil would close above their heads before they could even get breath to shout an alarm.
In fact, all he was lacking now was a guard. As he'd expected, they were giving him 'time' to consider the 'consequences.' They were just giving him . . . well, a lot of it. It felt like hours, and while he could hear them chatting outside the tent, they never so much as stuck their heads in to make sure he was still there.
Again, he considered calling for help, irritably blowing a strand of hair off his forehead. He hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday morning, so he could always ask for food, and they'd probably give it to him since he was a 'whelp.' If they just let him have one hand free to eat, whatever alchemist they assigned to him wouldn't think anything of it, and -
He sighed again. There were thousands of positive options he could think of for an agreeable outcome, so why hadn't any of them happened yet! He would have drummed his fingers on the armrest if he could, and again, he considered shouting for help.
Of course, he hadn't. He hadn't said anything at all.
And look where it got him, Franklin snapped at himself. Dead. Permanently dead, if not for the fact that he was wrong about the possibility of backward time travel. And Professor Elric was wrong, once he finally got up and did something about his current situation the math would calm down again.
He would prove it. He would. He just - just couldn't focus! If they would shut up and check on him already! He was so tired of their inane babbling, but his ears couldn't stop pricking to it.
"-as soon as the poor clod got off the field, they said it was like the ol' engine started dieseling. Apparently he was shakin' from head to foot. They said he asked for a cig and chainsmoked the pack."
"Pullin' a stunt like that in front of the general herself! He's lucky she didn't gut him."
A dry laugh. "He probably wishes she did, at this point. His commander's so afraid of retaliation from hers he put him on chuck duty for a month."
"Do you blame him?" It was much quieter. "They'll all hang once West falls. She won't forget. You can bet your war wage on that."
Knowing that the soldiers were afraid of their general was helpful, but not unexpected. Most of the alchemists he knew were a little afraid of General Hakuro, and a good portion of them Mustang himself. It was how armies worked, and while he could and would exploit it, the question was how? He wasn't supposed to be brought to her until the battle in West City was done, which would take days if the defenders were actually up to par, and assuming an advance team hadn't sabotaged the rail into West. But surely they had to feed him - or at least let him piss - before then?
For some reason, the having to ask chafed at h is pride. He functioned just like everyone else, after all. It wasn't as if his requests should come as a surprise.
"Speakin' of chuck . . ." There was a pregnant pause, then, much louder, "Sir!"
The tent flap crackled, admitting Nidler and a tin plate containing something Franklin was willing to believe had once been attached to some poor soul named Chuck. The Cretian alchemist looked around a moment, eventually settling on the overturned tub that had been used to torture Full Metal and putting down the plate. Then he approached, the familiar array coming out once more.
"If you'll behave yourself, you'll find the general may give you more freedom," he muttered, slapping the array around the right cuff of the chair. "A bed's better than that chair, restraints or not."
Franklin cast his eyes downward and attempted to appear contrite. It had worked on Sapud, it had worked on the assassins Creta had hired. It would work again.
"Is that legit?"
Franklin's ears perked once again to the skepticism in the voice outside, and the muffled sound of fabric or paper snapping was almost drowned out by the crackle of alchemical energy around his right wrist.
". . . unbelievable."
Nidler ignored them, bringing Franklin's unresisting wrist to his left and using the array once more to encase them.
"I thought you were on chuck duty until the end of the war?"
"Wasn't my idea." The third voice was almost a drawl. "The higher ups think I'll get more outta the kid than Reinken, I guess."
Nidler blinked, glancing at the canvas wall even as he extracted the left cuff from the wood of the chair. Despite his distraction he wasn't careless, and Franklin's hands were once more manacled in a way that he couldn't connect his fingertips. He could, probably, manipulate a fork into his mouth, and maybe relieve himself, but that was really about it.
At least, as far as Nidler knew.
"Good luck with that," the first voice muttered through the tent wall, tone indicating exactly how much success he expected the third voice to have. The next part was too muffled to hear, but three voices laughed heartily, and Franklin resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Flood or famine. He could overwhelm Nidler, and quietly, but it would be a hell of a lot easier if there wasn't an audience. As soon as he was done eating, whoever was questioning him would want him back in the damn chair. So he needed to either get them all in the tent, or prevent anyone else from coming in while he borrowed Elric's idea and tunneled to the outskirts. By the time they realized it was an array forming under their feet it would be too late.
"Orders or no, you know we ain't gonna let you in there alone," the second voice said, somewhat hurriedly, and then the tent flap crackled.
"Not like I'd do anything to a kid," the third voice muttered, but Franklin saw that the man entering the tent did not own it. This was the same guard he'd had last night, apparently having relieved the morning shift. His name was unmemorable and Franklin didn't waste another thought on him as another figure bent under the flap.
It was the owner of the third voice. Ice-blue eyes peered out from beneath dirty blond hair, and when he straightened, he was taller than his colleague. He hadn't looked that tall when he'd been standing in front of the general.
It was the disobedient soldier that had shot Edward Eric. The one they'd been talking about. He indeed had a cigarette trapped between his teeth, and his expression was a cross between exasperated and amused.
Nidler straightened hurriedly, leaving him manacled, and Franklin hesitated. He still needed time to lean down and touch his feet, he needed to wait until they were all at least an arm's length away.
"What the hell are you doing in here?"
The dirty blond thrust forth a piece of paper, and Nidler regarded it a moment before striding forward and ripping it out of the soldier's grasp. He unfolded it and Franklin watched his eyes scan it quickly, then go back and read it more thoroughly.
The soldier in question seemed unperturbed, and he cast a bored look around the tent, finally settling on him. Nothing about his face changed, and he didn't even move in his direction, but somehow he seemed threatening. Which was probably the point, since they knew he was off limits to anything except witnessing torture and execution. Scaring him was their only real option for intel and the scariest thing they had was the murderer of a State Alchemist. One who apparently had his sights on killing all of them. By himself.
The head shot hadn't even been clean, though in truth he hadn't had much time for aiming. It was a fair shot at best. He'd have to do better if he thought he could take down some of the more seasoned alchemists.
The guard hadn't missed Nidler's reaction. "It's legit, sir," he repeated unnecessarily, apparently not realizing they'd already heard the conversation once. "Higher-ups want to see if he can get anywhere with the general's guest."
"I can read," the alchemist snarled. "I just find it difficult to believe."
The dirty blond sighed quietly. "Sir, it wasn't my idea, but orders are orders-"
"You have no respect for orders," Nidler growled. "And I doubt I'd suffer any retaliation for taking the iron right out of your blood."
The dirty blond looked taken aback by the ferocity of Nidler's tone, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I guess that'd make me a blue blood, sir," he finally murmured, and it took Franklin a moment to decide if he was an idiot, or he'd just made a joke.
Nidler was not amused either way. "Hold him while I get confirmation on this. Outside," he added, with a glare over his shoulder that he mitigated slightly when he saw Franklin staring at him. "Don't leave the boy alone, and let him eat."
Franklin watched with interest as Nidler turned his back on him and all but herded the other two soldiers towards the tent flap. The guard decided to lead the way, and the dirty blond followed him meekly before he apparently thought of an objection. He turned quite amicably, his right arm slightly raised as if he intended to enumerate on his fingers all the reasons he should be allowed to stay, and Nidler stopped dead in his tracks.
Looking quite unsurprised at this turn of events, the blond turned back to the guard in front of him, and in two strides he'd caught up. He reached for the unsuspecting man's head and snapped his neck in the same motion. The blond soldier caught most of the weight of the body as it fell, and he lowered it to the tent floor quietly. Throughout this, Nidler stayed exactly where he was, bringing a hand up to touch his chest. With his back facing the chair, Franklin couldn't see what had happened.
Then it occurred to him to be less concerned about how the man had done it and more concerned with the fact that it had been done at all. Apparently the 'whelp' armor was not as thick as he'd originally calculated. And he wasn't going to have to worry about staying a step ahead of Mustang if he never made it out of the camp.
This man was here to kill him.
The blond turned on his heels as soon as the guard was down, and Nidler finally responded. He took a stumbling step forward with the sound of compressed air being released, the leather patch in his outstretched hand. The blond sidestepped him with ease, again moving so fluidly it almost appeared slow. He angled in, twisting the wrist holding the array until it fell, and Nidler flinched hard as the soldier went for his chest again. Franklin still couldn't see what was in the blonde's hand until he withdrew it.
A small knife, only maybe four inches long, and coated to the hilt - and the soldier's hand - with dark blood.
The soldier swung the knife into Nidler's back as a quilter would replace a needle in a pincushion, almost more for convenience's sake than to inflict additional damage, and this body, too, he had to reach out and catch. Falling bodies would make too much noise outside the tent.
It also put the soldier's back to him.
Franklin launched himself at the man, manacles outstretched, rather than risk transmuting. Hitting him in the back of the head with the metal would be more than enough to incapacitate him, and make noise besides. Not enough noise for anyone passing by the tent to notice, but enough for the last sentry. Once that guard came in to check, he'd open his chasm and bury all of them. Then it would look like they'd either smuggled him out or taken him elsewhere to 'question' him, and both would waste time and centralize soldiers.
Somewhere in midair his plan fell apart.
Franklin meant to encounter the back of the soldier's head, but the blond hunkered forward and the movement arched the soldier's back. This in turn acted to propel him over the man entirely, and almost before he'd completely landed - flat on his face, just on the other side of Nidler's body - he felt pressure on the small of his back.
Sorn landed hard enough to knock the wind right out of him, so his shout was more like a noisy gasp. Almost like Full Metal when they'd been pumping him full of adrenaline. Not loud enough to scare a mouse, let alone get him help. Despite the rough landing, he tried to squirm beneath the canvas of the tent, but the soldier had the advantage of weight and leverage, and quite suddenly there was suffocating pressure on him and a blood-slicked hand wrapped around his chin and mouth. Franklin's head was twisted effortlessly to the side, far enough to creak but no further.
He tried to hold his breath, though he wasn't sure why, and when he had blinked twice, he was still quite aware of his surroundings. Gasping was harder than before, and small white spots danced across the seam of the tent canvas. So close. If his hands weren't bound together he could have shoved one under the tent flap, could have gotten attention. He gasped again, tasting the blood on the man's fingers, and wondered why he was getting more of a chance than either the guard or Nidler had been allowed.
Maybe the armor was thick enough. Just.
"Want their help, huh?" the blond whispered, just behind his ear, and then he increased the angle on his chin, just a little. Just enough to be uncomfortable.
Franklin found the suffocating feeling was increasing exponentially, and he tried to get a deeper breath. With the man's weight on him, he couldn't, couldn't even push up with his pinned hands. Obviously the soldier felt the muscles in his back shifting, though, because the weight increased.
"Go ahead," the soldier breathed, almost coaxing. "Give me a reason."
Mouth covered as it was, he could still get some muffled noise out if he wanted to. Not that it should be necessary; his body hitting the ground should have been enough, should have been but wasn't because no one was in the tent with them. Just him and the murderer.
The soldier that had killed Edward Elric.
Panic flooded through him, gave him just enough strength to start curling his legs. His chin was angled more sharply in warning, his upper spine grinding against itself, and Sorn sucked in a good enough breath to shout. It was weak, far more muffled than he'd expected, and it came out his nose.
It had always seemed like hands over people's mouths were useless, but this one, as slick as it was, was effective in the extreme. He shook his head, trying to free his chin, but he was unable to budge that hand. It wasn't even trembling, it wasn't even effort to hold him.
It would be easy for this man to kill him. As easily as he could do it with alchemy.
A different voice, welcome as it was, was still outside the tent. "You want me in there, sir?"
The blond didn't twitch a muscle, nor did he answer, and Franklin tried to cry out again. Yet more weight was applied, silencing him as he literally could not control his exhale.
He couldn't inhale. He couldn't breathe.
Franklin struggled for all he was worth - and got nowhere. Dimly he heard a new voice, too muffled to understand, and the far-off crackle of the tent flap.
"What's the holdu-"
Sorn unthinkingly tried to twitch his head in the direction of the tent flap, but as before, his attacker didn't give an inch. There was the sound of a strike, and more crackling, then a thick silence. All he could manage were restricted little wheezes as footsteps approached.
Still, the soldier pinning him did nothing. Did he intend to use him as a hostage?
The white spots were starting to take over.
"Took a swipe at you, did he?"
It was definitely an Amestrian accent. Even the voice itself sounded familiar, though he couldn't place it. The soldier pinning him didn't shift, didn't release him.
". . . Jean . . ?"
"Just squeezing some of the fight out of him," came the easy drawl, much further away, and his mind sluggishly caught up.
This was not help. This was an accomplice.
An Amestrian accomplice?
"Think you've squeezed enough," the second voice noted, no criticism in the tone. "We gotta go."
Franklin blinked heavy eyelids, finding that if he didn't fight so much, he could pull in tiny breaths. It was all a matter of using the air in his chest to - . . . to-
I am passing out, he realized belatedly, watching the spots even when his eyes were closed.
"Jean."
". . . I'd do anything to spare him this." To his tinny ears, the drawl seemed gone, and the man who was crushing him was Amestrian as well, suddenly. "The shit didn't even flinch, he just fucking sat there-"
"It's not our call. . . . come on. I can't leave that jeep idling forever."
There were more words that made no sense, and then suddenly he felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds. He could breathe again, but despite need he found his chest was only rising and falling when it wanted to, and it was being pulled back and forth. There was sharp, sharp pain in his arms, they were tearing off and he couldn't do anything about it but whimper until, mercifully, the pain vanished.
Odd, loud sounds teased him, they didn't come into focus until he noted how much they sounded like wood creaking in a wind-blown house.
Not wood.
Gunshots.
Taking a deep breath and actually feeling like it for the first time in a long time, Franklin pried open his eyes to find himself staring at something flat, beige, and quite near his face. A few moments and orientation followed. He was on his side.
So he sat up.
At least he tried. Someone cuffed him so hard on the right ear he was sure it was bleeding, and he cried out from the suddenness and the pain.
"Stay down," a voice growled around the gunfire, and he was nearly jostled out of the seat by a bump. Only then did he realize they were moving.
They were moving very fast indeed.
He squinted when he could, blinking tears of pain out of his eyes to see a squat, unhealthy looking man with reddish-brown hair ducking between the two front seats, holding himself up with the headrest of the driver's seat and juggling two grenades in his free hand. He seemed very familiar, particularly when the passenger seat headrest popped a bit of insulation out and he cast an irritated look behind them.
He was the guy from the hospital that sat in the critical care wing and tried to get everyone to play chess with him. From back when he'd gotten almost flattened by Craege Irving.
He was a major in the Amestrian army. In a Cretian uniform.
The Amestrians had already infiltrated the enemy camp?
He must have noticed the confused look, because the major frowned at him, then stuffed a grenade into his mouth and pulled the pin, releasing the handle. "Fire in the hole," he called over his shoulder, but he didn't bother to toss the explosive. "You probably don't remember me," the man continued to him above another rattle of gunfire. Some of it sounded like it was coming from the front seat, but if so, who was firing . . . ? The driver?
"Major Heymans Breda, State military. Ignore the costume."
Franklin was jostled almost onto his back at another hideous bump, and once resettled, he eyed the pair of grenades in the man's hand. Remarkably Breda hadn't dropped them. Nor had he tossed the one he'd armed.
The uniform was undoubtedly Cretian, down to some kind of insignia identifying rank, and despite his deflated appearance and odd proportions, it fit him like it was made for him. Even the sleeves were the correct length, Franklin noted, with some relief as the live grenade was tossed. It had barely left Franklin's line of sight before he heard it explode, and then there was a grinding of dirt and tires but somehow they were still going straight.
A pursuing vehicle. Or what was left of one.
Breda nodded to himself, and most of the gunfire stopped. "We're clear," he shouted to the driver, tossing the unarmed grenade down somewhere in the front seat. Then he bent into the back seat again.
"Neither of us are alchemists, so you're gonna stay trussed up till we get where we're going." It was still loud, now speaking over the wind as the jeep found a flat place and sped up. "I'm no expert, so I see anything I don't like outta you and I'm gonna put a bullet in the limb that's doing it. Get me?"
Sorn regarded him a moment. His mind was utterly blank, and he glanced up at the driver's headrest, where wind-raked, dirty blonde hair was just visible.
"But he killed Edward Elric," he heard his mouth state, rejecting the entire scenario. They couldn't possibly be Amestrian. This had to be some sort of trap or joke.
Breda's expression darkened considerably, and after a moment, he replied.
"You're under arrest for high treason, by the way."
- x -
She forestalled the sergeant by raising an elegant, gloved hand, and was only distantly aware of surprise when it shut him up.
Gods above. They could be taught.
"A moment," she murmured, watching the goings-on with sharp eyes. Not only was one of the fools starting to walk directly across the middle of the plaza, she was holding half of a bathroom mirror with the reflective face towards the west.
A beacon of light for the enemy, these troops were. They were worse than useless, they were actually sabotaging themselves. She brought two fingertips to her head in the vain attempt to fend off an oncoming headache, from the heat of the sun as well as the enormity of her task, and that was all the cue her brother, admittedly quite a distance from her, needed.
He intercepted the idiot before she could march across the HQ parade grounds, bent almost in half to speak with her, back visibly dripping with sweat. Disgusting. Then again, her father was far worse, and his back was quite a bit hairier, she honestly wasn't sure how Mother had put up with it all these years.
The enlisted bowed low and retreated, and she watched her brother with eagle eyes as he circled the parade grounds the long way. He stepped around the fruits of his current labors, which wererather useful-looking sheets of reflective material constructed from stone and sand. The enlisted shattering them into more manageable pieces acknowledged his passing, and once again he greeted them like equals. It pained her not to shake her head, and when he finally made it to her side he did remember to salute her. She let him remain that way as an example of how he should treat inferior officers, and the sergeant that had originally approached her cleared his throat.
"Sir-"
She raised her hand again. "Silence. Brigadier General?"
He remained at attention, another surprise. "Another cache of mirrors was located in an unused locker room."
" . . . and?"
The brigadier general hesitated, and Olivier Mill Armstrong felt the rising urge to draw her sword. "The next soldier that refuses to break a mirror on the basis of superstition will die by its edge. Do I make myself clear?"
"Do be reasonable, dear sister," Alex pleaded. "It's a well-known-"
She silenced him with a look alone, and turned back to the sergeant. "Report."
He looked incredibly relieved. "Central HQ is calling for an update, major general. We've secured a line in the offices behind you, sir."
She turned after sweeping the empty parade grounds with bright blue eyes. Truly, the headquarters did look abandoned, and that was exactly what she was counting on. If these morons didn't blunder out for battle too early, it might even go as planned.
"There was enough northern gear on the last train to outfit the twelfth and thirteenth battalions," Alex murmured, once the sergeant was dismissed. "A peat packing plant in the city has yielded a fine tar that will work for our purposes."
She snorted as they headed toward the main HQ building, under the protection of the covered walkway. Flimsy thing wouldn't last ten minutes in the north. Not that this was the north, and she needed to remind herself of it. Nearly twenty years in Briggs had made her too accustomed to fighting the terrain more than the enemy.
Had she had Buccaneer and Miles with her, she was fairly certain the four of them alone could hold this plot of soil longer than the two thousand Hakuro had given her.
Two thousand men. And the city's static station of another three and a half. Five and a half thousand against what appeared to their binoculars, for all intents and purposes, as a giant cloud of dust.
There would be no more reinforcements. Shipping them in civilian clothes, with their northern gear in the baggage trains, was a painfully inefficient process. To his credit, the general had gotten her what she'd quite explicitly asked for, but it wasn't much.
Then again, she was used to dealing with not much.
They pushed through the double doors, entering the cool, crisp environment that was West City's HQ, and the open office door was clearly the one the sergeant had intended. She turned in the jamb, refusing to tilt her chin up, preferring to stare through her eyebrows at her brother.
"Distance?"
His expression was grim. "An hour or less."
The enemy was making excellent time. "Keep those idiots out of the parade grounds if you have to kill them," she growled. "And for god's sake, put your uniform back on."
He saluted sharply but she ignored it, striding across the West HQ colonel's office and plucking the receiver up off the smooth mahogany desk. "Major General Olivier Armstrong speaking."
". . . please hold for the Prime Minister."
She closed her eyes in acquiescence, watching the pile of muscles that was her younger brother pulling his uniform undershirt out of the back of his pants, where it had gone only after she'd threatened to have him shot if he ripped through one more of them. West was permeated by lazy, slovenly, but oddly thin men and there were few uniforms in his size.
It was also incredibly embarrassing. It was as if he was still a major, instead of being on the cusp of a major general. Today would have been the ceremony, if not for this little distraction.
"The Prime Minister." There was the brief pop that always accompanied transferring a secured line, then a smooth voice she was growing quite weary of hearing.
"Good afternoon, major general."
"Good afternoon, sir," she responded icily. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
A tired-sounding chuckle. "I'm afraid I'm only interested in your report, major general."
"The stationed men are lazy and inept, and I doubt the physical reports I have seen here in records so I ordered an audit, sir."
"Are you sure that was a wise assignment of personnel?"
A shadow crossed the window, and Olivier walked to it, staring out across the parade grounds. One of the fools was still in plain sight, opening the main ground gates, and admittedly, she could understand some of their recalcitrance at her orders. In Briggs she demanded and received instant compliance from her men because she had earned it. Here, she had usurped their commanding officer, ordered them into northern uniform head gear, smeared tar all over their faces, and covered them in every bit of reflective material that could be gotten from both base and civilian estates. The end result was a soldier that looked more like a fashion reject than anything else.
"They'll hold." They didn't have a choice, fit or not. "The enemy should be here within the hour." Which meant it was already past late afternoon in Central, so Mustang knew well what it meant.
"Numbers?"
She was used to judging shadows on white, not dust on a grassy ridge. "No more than eighteen thousand."
A brief pause. "Any news from the advance team?"
"No, sir." Nor did she expect any at this juncture. They would probably steer wide of West and find a border town.
Mustang apparently came to the same conclusion, and Olivier sharpened her attention as the soldier at the gate admitted what appeared to be a civilian leading a horse-drawn cart. "Perhaps I've spoken too soon."
"A moment, major general."
He was obviously relaying the step up in time tables to the room at large, and Major General Armstrong opened the casement window, trying to overhear the conversation across the grounds. A horse-drawn cart could be laden with explosives, what incompetent officer had actually allowed it on the base grounds -
The horse was led in a wide circle, back toward the gate, and then she had her answer. The cart was mostly empty save a figure dangling from the end. There was a flash of silver in a mess of gold hair, and what looked like a couple spare bits of brightly polished metal deeper in the cart bed. The figure shifted bonelessly as the cart came to an eventual halt, and even at her distance, their shouts carried clearly.
Her brother was there instantly, and with the window open his soft cry was unmistakable. His broad back blocked her view for a moment, and then he'd gathered the pathetic figure into his arms as one might a broken child.
"I apologize for that, Major General. You were saying?"
She didn't mince words. "We've just received the Cretian declaration of war."
A long pause. "A civilian?"
"A State Alchemist." It was confirmed as her brother immediately hurried off with the body, and the flash of silver slipped from the figure's lolling head to the ground unnoticed. "They removed the armor. I'll take care of silencing the personnel here." No need to dishonor him with widespread public knowledge that the automail was false.
Mustang seemed to be at a loss. "Did you-"
"Two of my men are automail users." Edward Elric's automail had been far too warm and light to have been real. Shaking his hand in the Academy had told her that much. And clearly it was no surprise to Mustang. Not that she'd expected it.
"You're certain?"
Armstrong eyed the darkly stained wood, plainly visible as the horse was unharnessed. Head wounds bled considerably, and it wasn't likely the enemy had made a mistake. Then again, as soft as he was, it wasn't like her brother to cuddle the dead. Not since Ishbal, at any rate. "I'll have confirmation at next communication."
- x -
Author's Notes: I really am sorry this update took so long. Real life again. Such a pain. Standard typo disclaimer applies. Thank you all very much! I have reviews in the triple digits! This is a first, at least on this site.
So! All we have left to do is wrap up a badly outmatched battle. All assassins found, all plots revealed. Took me long enough to get here, huh? ; ) But I anticipate there's still another ten chapters or so left . . . and no remaining plot reveals per se, but the careful reader should already know where this is going . . .