CHAPTER TWELVE

I didn't know how things usually went around here before my team and the Chaldeans came in, but during the days afterwards? The village turned into an anthill of activity. Cortana had made good on her word to take the soldiers to task and managed to create an entourage of like-minded fellows to help her. A bunch of stuck-up pricks to a man, who rolled around inspecting everything and making disapproving noises at the slightest provocation.

Cursed Arm seemed to be of a mind with me and had made himself scarce around those.

I liked only two of Cortana's little street gang: Sanzang, who decided she'd be the public face of them and constantly made speeches to inflame the people, and Mash, who kept following her like a duckling and, by that point, looked fit to establish a shrine in her bedroom to Saint Cortana, Generalíssimo por Vida

Da Vinci was also in rare form, establishing a connection with the Chaldeans and being in constant contact with Caster. Between the two of them, they had created Bounded Fields around most of the village (and I'd know. Most of the Mana she was using for it came from me) and the things they managed to cook up to enhance the soldier's weapons were genuinely terrifying.

That was all well and good, but I?

I got bored.

I had absolutely nothing to do until the Company finally wired the requested loan to me, and all the heavy-lifting to make paliçades and trenches was already done. My job after that was to sit being pretty somewhere out of the way and be Da Vinci's Mana battery, like a hot Energizer Bunny. Even training the soldiers bore no fruit — how do you amuse yourself by fighting someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a dead husk living in constant fear from Cortana's gaze?

One of them wept like a kid as I broke his leg by accident, but as I went to tell him I was sorry, he just said he was crying with happiness as he got out of training until they healed his compound fracture.

Using my often-neglected common sense, I decided that shit was fucked, and I should find my own fun wherever possible. That's why I grabbed Arash and Gabrielle and said we would inspect the outposts. That was the official reason, mind, for, in truth, we were in one little station nestled on one of the mountain's highest peaks, enjoying the good ol' pastime of throwing things at unsuspecting people.

Gabrielle giggled as Arash screamed I was a cheating cheater who cheats cheatingly.

I crossed my arms, raising an eyebrow at him and doing my damnedest to not laugh. "Look, it wasn't my fault the terms of this thing were to hit closer to the target. I hit it, see?" I pointed to the horizon. "Bloody hell Arash, I hit it like a redheaded stepchild! It's still smoldering!"

Arash threw his hands up. "You hit it with your eyes! That doesn't count!"

"Why not? Everyone knows that a true hero can kill with a stare."

"Nobody knows that! It's blatant cheating, that's what it is!" Arash rounded on Gabrielle. "You were supposed to be the impartial judge, what do you say about this ridiculousness?"

Gabrielle shrugged. "Dunno, I can't even see what you two are hitting. I'm just the judge 'cause the devil made me do it," she said and rubbed her chin. "Oh, wow; now I get why people keep saying that. Actually Satan's a hell of a go-getter, tee-hee~"

Arash seemed fit to explode as Gabrielle disregarded him and started humming Sympathy for the Devil.

I grabbed his shoulder, offering the moral support he badly needed. "C'mon buddy, I know it's unfair, but it ain't my fault you can't use Stella without literally fucking exploding and therefore can't be awesome as I am." I gave him a beatific smile. "Them the rocks."

He stared at me in silence, his face as if made of stone — a muscle in his jaw twitching as he apparently tried to disprove that a true hero kills with his stare by trying it on me. It didn't work, but boy did he try. My own expression was stoic as you please, kept this way through supreme effort.

Then the corner of his mouth twitched. I raised an eyebrow.

He burst into laughter.

"Bastard —" He began and laughed again.

"Right back at you," I said, snickering.

He stood up straight, still shaking with mirth.

"Next round, then," Arash declared, going to the mouth of the cliff and his eyes narrowing as he looked eastward. "Look, the Sun King just appeared there on the leftmost balcony. Ten points to whoever manages to hit his head?"

I nodded, and he prepared his bow as I looked straight where he said to — my vision zooming. Ozymandias was indeed at his pyramid and many kilometers away from us. He was flanked by his retainers and sipping from a goblet, witnessing his whole kingdom. "Actually, make it twenty if we manage to hit Nitocris' bunny ears; I wanna see if they come off."

However, we got interrupted before the round could begin.

"It's good to see that you're spending your free time productively, James dearest," Cortana's voice was dry as the desert as she sauntered in, hands on her waist and a gaggle of soldiers behind her. Arash and Gabrielle, showing incredible common sense, hastened to hide behind me. "Don't you have anything better to do than making more people hate us? Da Vinci-chan could need help, you know."

I winced, remembering exactly how my last encounter with Da Vinci inside the house she designated as her lab happened. "No way, she gets damn scary while working with the other Da Vinci. Last time I went to see what the devil — stop giggling, Gabi — she was doing, what about sucking all of my Mana with it, she had me strapped up and kept trying to drain my blood. Even if she knew I can't get less invulnerable at will."

"What for?" Cortana said, tilting her head to the side.

"No clue. I legged it after she brought up the chainsaw and I'm no Sherlock to deduce more," I shrugged and, after pausing for a moment to be sure of it, pointed over my shoulder. "Incidentally, he's some kilometers that way, still lurking around the Atlas Institute and talking to himself."

"Yeah, we even hit his pocket-watch earlier —" Arash shut up after I gave him a look.

"Twenty points, it was," Gabrielle added helpfully.

Cortana just stared at us and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I'm not even going to ask why you are trying to hit the valuables of random people," Cortana said, and I grabbed Gabrielle's arm before she could add that sometimes, we were hitting the people themselves. "Anyway, we'll need to go tell him we already know what he's waiting to tell Gabrielle, the poor guy."

"Sure." I nodded. "I just wanna see if he gets an aneurysm first."

Arash promptly suffered a sudden and suspicious fit of coughs.

Cortana did her best to keep serious, but I knew her well enough to see she was barely hiding a smile — it seemed like I was corrupting her, alright. "That aside, I need to conduct some analysis here; I want to place Da Vinci's alert system here, maybe with a turret or two for good measure flanking it." She said and made a shooing gesture. "So off you go; also, try to not make more enemies while you're at it? Pretty please?"

Cortana looked pretty much desperate by the end, and I resisted my urge to pinch her cheeks.

"As you wish." I smiled at her. "Arash, Gabi, you go ahead. I need a word with her."

They didn't need more of an invitation and promptly power-walked away, leaving Cortana and me alone, the soldiers being a fair bit distant from us. "I kept an eye on Camelot and Ozymandias as you asked, and while Camelot raised their defenses — I tested it. Apparently, the field can block Heat Vision, arrows, and camel shit — they're really massing an army as you predicted," I told Cortana in hushed tones. "Our friend Lancelot also started drumming up a force in the sly."

"That's a relief," Cortana said, sighing and leaning on the paliçade. "When he gets in the range of our runner's communicators, we'll be able to coordinate for him to hit the army from the back."

I ran my hand through my hair. Doing nothing disagreed with me.

"I still think I should be the one going there."

"You know you can't; your link with Da Vinci mustn't waver if we want to follow the plan. It's a risk we can't bear," Cortana said, and I closed my eyes as she put a hand on my cheek. "Being honest, I think it's all too risky. We should think of another way — I was talking with Da Vinci…"

I shook my head, gently grabbing her wrist. "Too late for it now, Cortana dear."

She held my gaze for a moment but conceded. "Yes. Yes, it is. But I still worry."

"About me? Ha!" I laughed freely, puffing my chest out and breaking the somber mood. Honestly, she was such a worrywart, in a heartwarming way. I pointed my chin at the soldiers who were still waiting for her. "Anyway, I should go; they're getting antsy back there."

"Antsy, are they now?" Cortana said, turning to the soldiers — some of them sitting down, and one had even left his sword leaning on a rock. If her expression was any clue, there would be a reckoning. "I'll give them something to be antsy about if they are going to act like undisciplined rabble; you can bet on it," she promised and gave me a peck on the lips. "See you later, dear."

Poor bastards. I winced as Cortana started bellowing at them and flew after Arash and Gabrielle, finding them talking fervently at the town's square while Gabrielle waved a strange device around. It looked like a collar with blue, neon lines running through it and a Saint Quartz crystal in miniature as a pendant.

"Come on, Arash-kun! It'll be fun!" Gabrielle pleaded, unleashing her best puppy-eyed stare. However, Arash had enough willpower to resist such overwhelming cuteness (cute in a cheerfully psycho way, as it was Gabrielle) and kept shaking his head.

"Whoa, is Mash going to have to choke a bitch?" I asked, landing near them.

"Satan! See, we were talking about doing something fun —"

"Fun to you, maybe," Arash grumbled.

Gabrielle completely ignored him and waved the techno-leash at me this time. "— and I remembered that Da Vinci-chan gave me this!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Plan Fifty Shades of Chaldea is a go, then?"

Gabrielle shook her head, looking like the picture of sadness itself. "Not yet, but let me explain: after I pestered her for something to have fun with, Da Vinci gave me this thing. She called it something with too many complicated words, but it's basically a tool that makes animals able to talk: the Anivoice. I thought it would be fun to see what Fou-kun has to say about… well, everything! What do you think?"

That was a terrible idea, and something lurched in my stomach at the glint in her eyes because she wouldn't back down from it. Even if Fou's a bro and saved Mash's life in the canon's timeline, Gabrielle didn't know she was planning to basically give a talk-show to bloody Primate Murder and —

What the hell, that actually sounded awesome.

Arash whined as I leaned closer to Gabrielle, studying the collar.

"Let's do it, Gabi, but first we need to test the device in something more normal before hooking it up into a magical squirrel-thing of doom, okay?" I said, gently picking the Anivoice and thinking about what we could use it safely on — when I remembered I actually had a perfect test subject. "That's it! We could test it with my cock. It'll fit perfectly!"

Gabrielle and Arash stopped dead, looking from me to the Anivoice a few times before staring at my crotch. Arash looked a bit green, while Gabrielle's cheeks went red, and she started humming in deep thought.

After which, I finally noticed what I had said.

"No! Bloody hell, I meant Mr. Mother Clucker!" I told them, rolling my eyes. "Get your head off from the gutter you two, this thing is wide enough to fit around my arm." I opened my arms. "How would I even walk if I had one of that girth?!"

Arash scratched his chin pensively. "Very carefully, I'd guess."

"Oh, now I remember I've seen it," Gabrielle punched her palm. "Hehe~"

Arash did a double-take.

"Now everything makes sense," He said slowly, his expression turning into one of contemplation. "So that's why you never offered me to sleep in your place, isn't it? I'm just not womanly enough?"

I rolled my eyes and gave him the middle finger. "Go explode. Seriously."

On that happy note, he laughed, and we were off to find Mr. Mother Clucker.

In the end, that's how Gabrielle, Arash, and I, ended up crouched in a circle around the poor chicken. The passersby gave us pointed looks, as we undoubtedly looked like a shifty bunch. I couldn't fault them, with Arash smoking his pipe and Gabrielle holding the Anivoice poised to put around the chicken's neck.

"In three," I said, holding three fingers. "One, two…"

Mr. Mother Clucker looked indignant in a chickenly way.

"Three!"

With a click, Gabrielle clasped the Anivoice on the chicken and stepped back.

"What y'all think you're doing, catching poor fellows an' putting things in 'em?!" A slurred voice with a heavy cockney accent instantly came from the device. I watched, wide-eyed with surprise, as Mr. Mother Clucker looked at each one of us, his wattle swinging wildly. "Standing 'round meself like a bunch of loonies, by god!"

"What the fuck," Gabrielle said, taken aback.

"Mr. Mother Clucker?" I asked, not quite believing my eyes.

The chicken kicked a pebble.

"Oi, look yonder if innit the amazing flying wanker 'imself," Mr. Mother Clucker said, snapping his beak. "Mr. Mother Cucker, more likely! Ha! Ain't no other cock bad enough to throw spurs with meself 'round 'here! An' let me tell you me lad, you better be giving me some grub soonish or we gonna have a scrap," the chicken then turned to Gabrielle, and somehow, his voice got smoother. "Not you, love, you just sit tight lookin' mighty fine, like that Cortana bird —"

I took the Anivoice from Mr. Mother Clucker with superspeed before he could finish because there were things that couldn't be unseen. There was silence for a second as I kept staring at the chicken. It answered by defecating near my feet.

That was it for Arash and Gabriell as they started howling with laughter.

"Your face —" Arash said, leaning on a house for support as he cracked up. "That's golden!"

"Oh, shut it," I grumbled, feeling my face get hot.

Arashi pointed a trembling finger at me. "Buddy, your own cock hates you! Ha!"

"Amazing flyin' wankah!" Gabrielle screeched between guffaws, her hands firmly clasped around her belly. "I love it! That's the best chicken ever!"

Retribution would be sweet, so I smiled and turned to her. "Oh yeah? Best chicken, you say? Love it, don't you? Let's see how you like it then!" I blurred in movement, finding Fou and bringing him to where we were before he could even react. Gabrielle's laughter cut abruptly as she went wide-eyed. I cackled and, before taking my time to stop and think about how bad of an idea it was, clasped the Anivoice around Fou's neck. "There!"

"Unhand me at once, you uncouth brute!" Fou jumped to the ground. His voice was a rich, deep basso, sounding rather sophisticated and surprising me as much as the chicken did. Who knew he was a posh one? "What shade of unholy madness is going around here? Are you three — oh, I see. You're trying to have fun at my expense. Riveting."

Fou paused, taking stock of the situation, and sniffed haughtily.

"Such a boorish behavior, inasmuch as I am still able to be surprised by your humans," he said, tilting his chin up. "Surely you must've some alternative to this form of entertainment? Perhaps I could direct you to try beating some rocks together? I do remember it was quite the cosmopolitan pastime before you primates learned how to vocalize with even the barest semblance of expertise."

"Fou-kun?" Gabrielle said, white as paper. The people milling around the square were watching us, whispering between themselves as, apparently, a little squirrel thing lecturing three grown-ass persons wasn't something they'd be able to ignore.

Fou rounded on Gabrielle. "And you! Must you follow those miscreants into this kind of thing?! Indeed, as my pet's pet, you should have better ways to spend your time, or would you rather try to cause a ruckus?" Fou asked Gabrielle, who nodded nervously. "Well then! There's anything you have to say for yourselves?!"

Arash, Gabrielle, and I exchanged a look. No words were needed.

"Grab him!" I yelled and burst into motion, jumping on the creature as Gabrielle and Arash did the same. Fou squirmed and bounced around like the devil, spitting with a stream of profanities as we tried to catch him. "Someone, please take this unholy thing outta him!"

"We're trying!" Gabrielle made a valiant attempt and got kicked for her troubles. "That's not good civilization, Fou-kun!"

The battle raged through the village, all of us screaming at each other. Fou acquitted himself well, being the closest thing to a hurricane of paws and bites as we tried to grab him. The fight lasted until we hit a dead-end, and, between us three, we finally managed to somehow cut his escape just as I caught him.

"Hands off my cape, you poxed ape!" Fou snarled. "Rip and tear! Rip and tear until —"

"Arash, be useful without dying for once and do it! The little shit is clawing me!" I yelled, still trying to keep my hold around the little ball of white-furred rage that apparently decided that being Primate Murder wasn't enough for him and went apeshit. "Do it!"

"Just a second!" Arash screamed back, fiddling with the device. "And done!"

With a click, the Anivoice came out of Fou as Arash held it high, the spoils of victory. He and Gabrielle were breathing heavily, and I fell to the ground, propping myself on my elbows. Arash had a blackened eye, and Gabrielle had a gash on her clothes that exposed a fair bit of the pale skin of her — incredibly enough, braless — breasts. You know what? Worth it.

I whispered to Fou, "Nice one, little fella."

He stopped trying to gnash my thumb a bit. I took it as him accepting the compliment.

"That was terrifying," Arash agreed, touching his bruised face gingerly and grimacing. "This thing packs a punch, let me tell you."

"I need to have a talk with Mashmallow about him," Gabrielle added with a thousand-yard stare. "I mean, he sleeps in our bed."

Holy shit. I always thought they made Fou less Primate Murder-y with the goodness of their hearts and all that rot, but now it looked like they accidentally managed it through naked tits and lesbomancy.

Amazing.

"And what," Mash's arrival interrupted us, "do you think you're doing to poor Fou-kun?"

"Fou!" The damned thing squeaked and jumped off my grip, promptly going up to Mash's shoulder — who, by the way, was standing here, hands on her hips in a scarily accurate impression of Cortana, looking at us with the flames of wrath barely hidden behind her eyes.

"Look, Mashmallow, it's," Gabrielle started to say but paused abruptly, knowing that Mash wouldn't believe her without proof. She turned to us. "Maybe if we —"

"No way!" Arash and I said at the same time. I stood up, slapping the dirt off my clothes. "We're not using it on him again, no way, it's damn scary. Also, Mr. Mother Clucker fucked off at some point, so that option's gone too."

"Maybe if we find a camel?" Gabrielle asked as Mash's expression turned from severe into a bewildered one.

"Are you crazy? Camels already like to spit on people without talking!" Arash exclaimed, pointing a finger at her. "If they do it without the Anivoice, who knows what we'll find in their devious, salivating minds?"

"That they're a right bunch of assholes, if you ask me", the haunting, familiar voice which had come from Fou beforehand said behind me, too low for anyone else to hear. I turned to him, but I only saw his big, purple eyes as he snuggled into Mash's grip. "Fooou!"

I checked. The Anivoice was still in Arash's hand.

"Jesus wept," I said and refused to elaborate as they turned to me. "You know what? I'm gonna see Da Vinci. That chainsaw business doesn't sound too bad anymore."

It turned out that Da Vinci indeed needed some help, and after giving it to her, I longed to feel bored again. She had me powering things, moving things, doing both at once, and staring angrily at things on one memorable occasion until she checked if a stern gaze had any effect on their normal functions.

The last one was a poor sod who happened to be around. The experiment succeeded.

Honestly, she'd probably been humoring me with that.

The bottom line was that she worked me to the bone during the last two days. Cortana had decreed it to be bonding time between us two and gave her the go-ahead. However, there was only so much technomagic babble someone could take before he started tasting the number seven (a significant number in numerology, which provides a stable basis to a scrambling device if one puts it into direct contact with an opposite number!).

Even worse, seeing how the King Liontiddies McGee back in Camelot still hadn't seen fit to have the base decency of deploying her army? That after the intern subbing from Doc McNinja during his vacation taking his sweet time to wire the damn credits to me? I felt useless.

I also thought that Da Vinci was just doing things to get some amusement.

"Just stand here for a bit, Master~" Da Vinci teased as she put on her eyeglasses and looked at me intently. Meanwhile, I was standing here, my torso bared — I still didn't think that part was strictly necessary, but Da Vinci said it was of great importance, so oh well.

A poor soldier who had been practically kidnapped to help us with this experiment stood before me. He had one of those enchanted scimitars Da Vinci made, a runic array glowing through the entire length of the blade. He looked at Da Vinci and back to me, fidgeting.

"But what if I hurt him?" He asked, palming the scimitar.

I laughed. "C'mon man, just hit me. This shiny thing wouldn't probably make a dent."

He still looked cautious for a second, so I decided to give him some extra motivation.

"I'll get you out from Cortana's training if you —"

A human shouldn't be able to move that fast. He swung the scimitar, and the blade screeched against my skin, my natural invulnerability and Magic Resistance working against it. In the end, you could call the result a slight reddening of my skin if we were being generous.

The man was poleaxed, and I laughed again, patting him on the back. "You did well."

"Amazing," Da Vinci said, taking off her glasses. "The interaction between the blade itself and the magic against your skin was astounding, Master! While the physical part of the blade, even infused by Mana, couldn't hope to penetrate the epidermis, the magical part actually got rebuffed by an entirely different manner of protection. Those Kryptonians, they were vulnerable to magic, weren't they?"

"They were, yes, and you can run along now," I said to the man, who was still rooted on the spot and looking at his sword as if it had personally betrayed him. He finally noticed he was still there and promptly scurried away, and I turned to Da Vinci. "Anything else, Da Vinci-chan?"

Da Vinci giggled. "Oh, you can bet on it~"

"I can see him many colors and hues shifting around him and — actually, I don't think I have words for them, Da Vinci-chan. I'll send the picture to you through our telepathic link," I said to her the next day while looking intently at the same, poor harassed soldier, who I still couldn't remember the name of.

"Sure thing!" Da Vinci said and closed her eyes. "Oh, now I see!"

Da Vinci rounded on me. "Master, do you know how amazing it is? I think you're seeing his life force itself in this specific spectrum, and if you can see that, you also can probably see Mana and much more," she said, looking beside herself. "Which means that if you watch a mage casting something, with sufficient knowledge, you'd be able to watch as the Mystery gets actualized into reality. You'd see how the building blocks of everything shifts to accommodate the new actions made truth and impressed upon it, maybe even how it happens in real-time from a magecraft viewpoint."

"You can run along now," I told the poor guy, who obeyed with rare efficiency. I gave Da Vinci a bewildered look, trying to make sense of whatever she was just saying. "I'm sorry, Da Vinci-chan, I didn't understand that — I'd be able to see magecraft stage-by-stage, yeah, but isn't that a bit useless?"

Da Vinci's smile got a bit tight around the edges. "It wouldn't be. Anyway, for the next experiment…"

The same soldier grunted as I let out a low-powered beam of Heat Vision against the leather armor he had, being careful to not fry the poor sod. At the same time, I shifted my vision to watch as the heat got transferred to the stones ranging from his belt.

"See, Master! That was my genius against attacks of a non-physical nature, especially by using heat and similar means! While your attack would no doubt cause the poor fellow to burn alive," She said, and the lad looked real fucking alarmed as I interrupted the Heat Vision, more for his peace of mind than anything else. "By using basic thaumaturgy and alchemy, I was able to enact the numerological principle of even-and-odds, which I have already explained, as a catalyst. So it can transfer the damage upon a certain threshold to the grounding stones I gave them instead of letting it flow through the leather itself. My peerless intellect also expanded upon using it in the same manner as Mana storage. Still, instead of being a mage constantly feeding his own Mana, it'd use the Mana from attacks!"

"You know the drill," I told the lad, who went away looking a bit put upon as I took what Da Vinci said in. "I don't understand much of that from a technical viewpoint, Da Vinci-chan, but you basically made it be able to deflect shit to the stones he has hanging from his belt?"

Da Vinci slouched; this time, she was silent for a bit as I caught a shadow of wistfulness in her expression. That went away as she turned back to me, adopting her usual manner again and boasting proudly, "Indeed."

"Anything else for today, then?" I asked, feeling the hope her answer would be no.

"No, not really," Da Vinci said, picking some papers from her desk. "You're excused, Master, but tomorrow we'll do more!"

Seeing her bright smile, I had to give her one of my own.

"See you then, Da Vinci-chan!" I said, waving at her.

On my way out, when I heard her whispering maybe tomorrow, I'll finally manage it to herself through my enhanced hearing, my smile got wider. That was my Da Vinci-chan, always trying and trying until she finally found what she was trying to find. Maybe she'll use it to do a death ray or something.

Now, I just had to find some way to escape this boredom.

Da Vinci was fantastic, and talking with her was always an incredible experience, seeing how smart she was. However, all that magecraft and science talk… wasn't for me, even if I tried my best to look interested. I knew that I had to find a way to get off the hook without making Da Vinci sad.

As the saying went, desperate times begat desperate measures.

I pleaded, trying to look miserable under the light of the torches, "You sure there isn't anyone who you need killed? Say, someone I could go and murder right now, who I'd then take a few days to kill just to be sure he ain't one of those resurrecting chaps?"

Cursed Arm gave me a nonplussed stare. "You do know I am an assassin, James Sahib? I have this weird habit of going and doing it myself when I need someone killed; almost, mind you, as if it's my actual job."

I sighed. "Look, do me a solid, would you? Arash is scouting with Bedivere, Gabrielle decided it was time to recharge her Mash batteries, Sanzang is busy inciting bloody murder in the town square, and Cortana is terrorizing your population into obeisance. You're my only hope!"

"I'm sorry, James Sahib, but —"

"How dare you!" Da Vinci exclaimed, walking to me with her gauntleted fist clenched.

"Look, Da Vinci-chan…" I started, but she poked me in the chest as Cursed Arm had the presence of mind to just up and disappear, promptly turning the entire situation into something that wasn't his problem. Smart of him.

"Don't you Da Vinci-chan me, mister!" Da Vinci said and poked me in the chest again. "It's of utmost disrespect from you to leave such a peerless maiden without her dearest assistant. My poor heart, being rejected so brazenly! The shame!"

I flushed red, gesticulating wildly as guilt started creeping on me. "I tried to pay attention, but it's kinda boring; and I tried, I swear, please don't take it personally and —"

Da Vinci interrupted me with a laugh, stopping me in my tracks.

She gave me a fond smile and shook her head. "I was just joking, you know, it was obvious to anyone with eyes you were chomping at the bit," Da Vinci said. "Being completely honest, sometimes, I found things for us to do so you wouldn't feel…"

"Useless," I completed, slouching against the wall of a house, hands in my pockets.

"Nothing of that," Da Vinci said in a no-nonsense tone. She spent a second studying me and continued in a more subdued voice. "Can I be frank with you?"

The seriousness in her voice made me straighten up. "Of course you can."

Da Vinci leaned on the wall by my side. "I kept finding things for us to do because... you'll think I'm silly," She said. I answered by grabbing her hand and interlacing our fingers, my hotter than average body temperature contrasting with her normal one as she kept talking. "I wanted for you to enjoy what I enjoy, James. Obviously, it's easier with Cortana, but Cortana, for all her qualities, isn't my Master; you are." She shrugged. "If just for a second, I wanted to show you the joy I feel creating my inventions, for you to understand why I do what I do and… oh, I'm rambling. My apologies."

I take my time to really look at her. Da Vinci always looked flawless, greater than life, even now with the light of the torches bringing the maroon accents of her clothes and hair. However, there was a tightness around her smile, and she refused to meet my eyes, a vulnerability she hadn't felt comfortable sharing with me beforehand.

I'd never have thought she felt that way in a thousand years.

She wasn't trying to amuse herself — or myself, being fair. Da Vinci was just trying to feel appreciated, to find something in common with me, and the fool I was, I never had even considered this possibility. All those superpowers and I still keep committing the same old errors every time. Stupid fuck.

I could laugh at my dumbassery, but making it right took precedence.

"Wait here for a bit," I said, clenching my jaw and releasing her hand. Doing what I needed to do in superspeed was a piece of cake as I blurred through the village, and, barely a second after leaving, I returned to Da Vinci with a jug of wine and a blanket in tow. She raised her eyebrows, and I grinned at her, raising the things I'd brought. "I promised to take you flying, didn't I?"

Da Vinci studied my face for a second, and her lips blossomed in a smile that touched her eyes. "Yes. Yes, you did!"

"Hold it for me for a second," I said and gave her the ceramic jug, after which I wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and picked her up in a princess carry. Da Vinci let out a noise of surprise but interlaced her arms around my neck. "Alright, up we go!"

I soared up with her, slower than I usually did — letting her take her time to appreciate it, the cold wind whistling against my skin. The village under us became smaller, with points of flickering light from the torches standing in stark relief against the mountains and the desert, almost disappearing after we passed the clouds.

And above us, the universe beckoned.

I saw it when Da Vinci looked upwards, her eyes shining with wonderment. "It's incredible, isn't it?"

"It's one experience being up with a vehicle, but just… being there?" Da Vinci said, her words seemingly failing her for once. "It's something else entirely."

"Say, can you get one hand free and hold the jug before my face for a moment. Thanks!" She did as I told, her arms unwinding from around my neck, and I took a long drink of the wine — which wouldn't do anything to me, but I liked the taste. Da Vinci rolled her eyes and wiped a trail of it that escaped from the corner of my mouth, after which she took a hearty gulp herself.

I waited until she finished and asked, "You know, I'm a bit familiar with your works from the past, and something that struck me as constant was that you always dreamed of flying. Could you tell me why?"

If Da Vinci was taken aback by my non-sequitur, she didn't show it. He hummed for a moment, no doubt measuring her answer, but finally spoke, "I'm not very good with people, you understand. It was harder when I was alive — you heard of my trial due to my sexual practices, yes?"

"That's kinda hard to miss," I conceded.

Da Vini laughed. "Yes, so you know it was an added difficulty for me; then there were my peers, as few as they were. Brilliant they could be, but to one they still felt too grounded. Constrained. I, however…" Her expression turned wistful. "I dreamed. I thought that through the power of human intellect, nothing is impossible! And what other way to show how true it was that flying? Letting science give me wings?"

I let her trail off. Da Vinci looked around us, the velvety black of the cosmos peppered with pinpoints of light from stars far away and everything looking so small under us as if we were in our own little world. She laughed again, a crystalline laugh that sounded almost childlike with joy.

Our eyes met, and I couldn't help but smile. "The reason I asked, Da Vinci-chan, is that you don't need to work so hard to find something in common between us. You don't. Because I also dreamed of flying during my entire life."

"You did?" Da Vinci stiffened, searching my face for the barest indication of it being a joke. She didn't find it, obviously, and relaxed again in my arms — naked curiosity now in her expression. "Would you please tell me more?"

I took a deep breath. "Okay."

Da Vinci gave me another drink of wine, waiting patiently as I dredged up old memories.

"You know I don't talk much about what I did before getting here, but enough to say, I had only my mum for a while and she was more than enough. She was smart, one of these people that were just... kind," I told Da Vinci, holding her closer to my chest as stars twinkled around us and the blanket flapped on the wind. I let out a rueful chuckle. "She didn't even hate whoever was my father, mind, saying that for all his faults he gave her the greatest gift of her life. Me."

Da Vinci didn't answer with words, but she snuggled further within my hold and her ever-present smile, for a second, touched her eyes with wistfulness.

I never told that to Cortana. I knew she'd understand, but Cortana was still learning what it was to live and be herself, to be more than the ghost in the machine. Cortana had been made to help warriors give fight to the beasts among the stars and did precisely that her entire life. Telling her that? It'd be putting an extra burden on her shoulders, and for all my faults, I'm not a cruel man.

I wouldn't do that to her.

Da Vinci had lived an entire life before being a Servant, though. She'd understand.

"Things weren't that horrible, but it was hard. Money was tight, and mum worked like the devil to give me everything I needed and more." I shook my head, and in all fairness, I couldn't say if I was talking to Da Vinci or to myself anymore. "I? I was a little shit, full of spite at the world, which did mum such a bad turn, you know how the song and dance go. I wanted to rage, to punch her problems away. And I did it, fight after fight because that was all I found myself good for: looking for trouble and finding it. But every time things got hairy, mum was there for me."

I laughed, remembering those bittersweet moments.

"She didn't need to raise her voice, just her disappointed face was enough for me to feel like the worst creature on the Earth. After I was downright repentant and had decided to be a choirboy for life — or at least next time someone looked at me sideways — she had this little ritual. She cleaned me, gave me a mug of hot chocolate, and sat with me." I smiled wistfully. "See, mum had this collection of comics she loved, which were the only luxury she permitted herself, and every time, she picked one up and cracked it open. Her favorite hero was Superman."

"I remember Cortana talking about him; he's the one which you got your powers from —" Da Vinci said, and I didn't need X-Ray Vision to see the cogwheels of her remarkable mind at work as she connected the dots. "Oh."

"Yeah. Superman, Clark Kent. The alien who came from the stars but ended up raised by humans, and just like that, went to become the best of us," I shook my head, reminiscing — remembering the first time I read about Superman, how astonished I was, how incredible it all looked. "She'd be in fine form then and had the voice to go with it as she read the comic to me. She would say, see James? That's why he's Superman! His greatest power isn't his fists but his heart, as he didn't come here to hurt people. He came here to make us believe we could fly."

I blinked, feeling something trailing down my face. It must've been the beginning of the rain there.

"After that, she'd give me a smile, boop my nose and tell me, and you, young man, is mommy's Superman! Why? Because I believe you could fly, too. Higher than any of us," I paused for a second, taking a deep breath and looking upwards at the sky that seemed so close now. "Then I'd go to bed dreaming of flying, of taking her with me. Up, up and away."

I laughed out loud and turned to Da Vinci, who was looking at me with shiny eyes as I gave her my best smile. It was funny how I still dreamed of being Superman even in the army after mum died. "Do you see, Da Vinci-chan? You don't need to find things in common with me because we already have them. We two, you and I, have dreamed of flying and… now look at us! Isn't it wonderful? Look at where we are."

"We're here," Da Vinci said, her gaze locked on me as she caressed my face. "We… Master, James, I'm here."

It couldn't be more perfect if we planned for it.

Da Vinci brought her face forward, slowly, tentatively, and I did the same until our lips met — the soft texture contrasted with the aftertaste of wine as we kissed, her arms pulling me tighter on her embrace as my world narrowed to her and her alone. Here, up in the air, there were only us.

Together under a tapestry of stars and finally finding each other.

Two fools who didn't really fit anywhere else, but who believed a man could fly.

And you know what? For me, that was pretty much enough.