Deva 04: Endless Waltz

by Daishi Prime

Deva Series 04. Sequel to Academy Blues. Hayate, her family, and their students face new tests, new challenges, and a deadly civil war. AU.

46. 45 Counting the Cost

Endless Waltz

By: Daishi Prime

-45 – Counting the Cost-

Szash stared past the shattered corridor, through the blasted-out armored hatch and into the surreally untouched operations bay, and tried to force her tired brain to function normally. Where they weren't numb, her arms felt like lead, her legs felt like pudding, and there was a peculiar muzziness to the world that told her she had been up and going for far too long. That was not even counting the injuries she had, but for a while she could safely ignore those. The sliver of magically reactive metal lodged in her hip, from that initial volley of missiles, was unpleasant enough, but Hayate had almost taken her foot off with that sword, and had briefly deflated one lung. Szash's implants had those under control, though, numbed and balanced with the associated shock suppressed. The medics outside the retrieval bay had been brutally frank about her injuries, but Galli had been more direct. She was just having trouble, currently, puzzling out why.

The former hatch she was standing outside of had, before she left for New York, been a four centimeter thick plate of solid magic-reinforced armor. When closed, it had completed a circuit powered by a dedicated controller battery that wrapped the whole chamber in a shield against physical and magical assault, carefully calibrated not to interfere with the Guard's data grid. Galli had blown it open personally, from the inside, the only one with high enough access to the generators to create a powerful enough buster spell. There was something significant in that, but the whole situation just would not gel in her mind. All she was sure of was that all her people who had been in the bay when whatever-it-was happened were fine, out safe and uninjured. Nothing else was important enough to have stuck in her mind, yet.

"Look," she grumbled after a moment, "let's all pretend I just came from fighting a force of nature for four or five hours after not getting enough sleep the night before. Why am I worried about this right this moment again?"

Galli, leaning against the wall next to the blown-out door, did not open his eyes while he replied, "Because this wasn't the subtle knife, General. Something inside Al Hanthis seized control of the ops bay. Just the ops bay, thank all that's holy, and only long enough to trigger the lock-down, but still."

His wording stuck in her mind, and after a moment, she turned to frown at him, "Something?"

Galli nodded, "I have reason to believe it was an AI. A full up, self-aware, self-directing artificial intelligence. Created by the girl pulling the subtle knife in Hong Kong, left in our grid to wreak havoc, and slowly getting better and better at invading and disrupting our systems."

Szash blinked at him for a few moments, her exhausted haze fading behind a wave of atavistic terror. Staring at him, she said, "So much for ever getting to sleep again. I could have gone the rest of my life without ever hearing that, Galli, especially not from you."

Galli chuckled and finally opened his eyes, smirking at her, "I understand, General, believe me. But there's no doubt in my mind what that thing was. It sealed the bay just before we set off a mouse-trap on the subtle-knife, but it definitely did not come from the subtle knife. I'm also certain, now, that the attacker was Hayate's student, the Maricopa girl. According to the grid log, the AI also blocked Maricopa's attack by cutting Ushan off from the network completely, severed him so hard and fast I'd be surprised if he even remembers his own name. Between this and what happened to Eri at London… tired as you are, General, you needed to know immediately."

Szash stepped back across the hall and leaned against the wall herself. Galli was right, both technically and literally. They still had little idea what had hit the London strike force at the end, other than 'nasty'. It had not been another nullification burst like Hong Kong, but it had badly scrambled their communications with the field mages and, worse, destabilized the power-feeds. If it had been done by the subtle knife to cover her escape, or to try and cover a previously inserted AI, Szash needed to know about it immediately, needed to start thinking about it and planning around it immediately. Even if it was just another lunatic weapon the primtivists had cooked up, she needed to know if it was related to the AI, or if they were really dealing with an AI.

The individual interference signals that sprang up over London had not, individually speaking, been very bad. The Guard's power feeds and communications networks were specifically hardened against just such interference, able to shift phase and signal in fractions of a second. Each mage in a strike force actually had multiple power feeds assigned to them, of which only one or two was active at a time, but which could be switched between instantly, without destabilizing the Guard's spell-work. Officially, the Guard was well-prepared for such interference attempts. In rational terms they were well prepared, given that any blanket jamming effort would, necessarily, affect all forces in the region equally. No one, in the Guard's experience, could selectively jam the feeds for one side in a battle without jamming their own, as well, leaving individual mages with only their limited personal strength available.

What they had not been prepared for was the sheer scale and variety of the signal-hashing, the sheer number of interference sources, and the blanket nature of the effect. What had to have been every transmitter able to come to bear on London had started throwing individual interference signals at burn-out levels of signal strength. Worse was the ridiculous number of transmitting satellites the primtivists had ringed Homeworld with had joined in. Even over New York, Szash had caught some of the fringe of that broadcast, and her distraction from that report and the loss of communication with Galli had almost cost her a foot.

Eri's status as a Colonel of the Guard, and Major Suwarl's status as Eri's second in command, made the interference personally catastrophic. The two of them each had an entire generator dedicated solely to their use for the London strike, through multiple active feeds per generator and per mage, and all the generators in the city were aging. Multiple feeds to a single mage necessitated a uniform signal, as minor variances could endanger the mage at the far end in a number of ways, and risk instability in the generator. Thus, a disruption attack that inconvenienced lower level troops, with a single active feed each, had triggered a heterodyne reaction for both ranking mages. The generators Eri and Suwarl had been using were now gone, completely destroyed, though fortunately they had not destabilized on the way out. The safeties had engaged as designed and sealed away the generators' cores – along with most of the generators' physical structure – with only minimal damage to the surrounding structures and no casualties.

The communications disruption had been worse still, as none of the mages had been able to call for evacuation, and with the ops bay shut down, the support crews had hesitated just a little too long to pull everyone. Even once they did decide to pull everyone, they had not been able to resolve solid teleport locks through the continuing interference signal. Two-thirds of the London strike force was still missing, including Eri and Suwarl, and Szash was guiltily aware that Eri's loss hurt more than the others. They were all her people, but Eri was, with Galli, her right hand. Eri was not just one of her subordinates, but a friend and confidante.

The thought of an AI running around the city, added to all that, was downright terrifying. The city was more dependent on its grids than most, and a true AI was never ever a good idea. A hostile true AI was only slightly worse, in the way a missing head was slightly worse than a hole between the eyes. "All right," she said after a moment, "there's no way I'm handing Yosho a weapon like this. The official report is that the subtle knife realized she was about to lose contact and dropped something massive, a grid-equivalent to whatever that was over London. That'll give us the cover we need to put together a team of programmers to start digging through everything we have on Maricopa and Konoth, and on this new attacker."

"General…"

Szash shook her head, "No, Galli, we can't tell the Protectors. Not yet. Not after losing Eri. Yosho may have agreed to subordinate his people to mine for the third stage last night, but it was just for the third stage, and he kept personal command of that force himself. We let everyone know how horrifically bad this situation just got, and you and I will be lucky to avoid being busted back down to Apprentice. Who do you think is left in the Guard that could both stand up to Yosho in the Conclave and take on Hayate outside?"

Galli actually considered it for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. "True enough, General. I'll put Farin on it, with Wenar. They've done the most work on Maricopa so far, so I'll leave it to them to go further."

"In that case," Szash said, pushing off the wall, "I'm going to bed despite the nightmares you've laid up for me." She frowned, blinking as the world swayed, "just as soon as I can remember where that is. I don't think I've ever been this tired, Galli. Gods, but that woman is incredible. I think she gets better just by breathing."

"I wouldn't know, General," he said, leading her out of the warren that was the Guard's central command facilities. "I'm just glad she prefers beating on someone who can stand up to her, to going after the regular soldiers. Once she figures out that you're just a distraction, she's going to be hell on the troops."

That woke a protesting feeling Szash could not quite identify, and she grimaced. "No, that's not how she thinks. She won't go for casualties. She wants to cut the head off the snake, that's how she thinks. She's mine, Galli, until I stop playing the game."

00000

Dawn found London cool, wet, and grey, the rain faded to thin mist. No vehicles moved about the city save the military ones, mostly jeeps searching for survivors or Seed left behind, a few ambulances accompanied by the eerie wail of sirens. A few mages still floated about, but all at low altitude, and every one of those had a device in hand, Maunders Lambs on patrol. Even the soldiers, even the Coldstream Guard standing post at Buckingham, seemed tired and subdued.

Allison walked along the street, limping slightly due to her left leg. Putting weight on it hurt, even after getting a Circle mage to do another patch-job on the wound after the Al Hanthis Guard left, but with her now-mutilated cannon barrel as a walking stick, it was easier and less tiring to walk than to fly. 'Not tiring' had once seemed like a weak sort of justification to her, but after the night just past it struck her as the single greatest justification for almost anything. She needed to save what energies she had left for foes worthy of it.

But even with the Guard gone, there was still work to do, still smaller battles to be fought, still clean-up to see to. Like at Hong Kong, there were still Seed in the city, though it seemed this time the Guard's abandoning them was deliberate – there had been no general withdrawal by the Seed, as there had been at Hong Kong. There were also rubble piles, in streets or possibly on people, and other injured not yet recovered by ambulances. So, tired as she was, Allison was walking the streets of London in her quadrant, looking for Seed and wounded.

What little she found was soldiers, most of them 'standing guard' with their eyes closed. The evacuation order had not been lifted, so there were no civilians about save emergency service crews that had volunteered to assist in the defense. Most of those had found someplace to get some rest, though, and beneath the fog the city felt almost abandoned. There were a few damage repair parties about, but most of the troops had settled in to garrison posts, more exhausted and probably more injured than she was.

Shortly after dawn, she found herself approaching another such post, one populated by her Irish Guard, and decided on a whim to see how they were doing, see if there were any walking-wounded who needed evac. They were mostly perched about a pile of rubble, a brick wall had collapsed over the sidewalk, due to a buster spell based on the ruler-straight scorch-line along the still-standing portion of the wall. A low tub or grill of some sort was filled with a pile of burning wood carrying the sharp scent of gasoline and other chemicals, and an armored personnel carrier was parked at the curb.

As the men noticed her approach, Allison grinned and gave a tired but amused huff. "Mornin', Sergeant Boyle. Glad to see you made it through."

Boyle stared at her steadily a moment, then grunted and, without saying a word, waved at an empty spot of bricks. McTavish – sporting a huge square of bandage on the right side of his face – waved as well, "Mor… morning, miss. Have a seat, the Sergeant was just saying, be welcome and all that."

Allison slumped down on the indicated bricks with a sigh, settling the cannon to rest against her shoulder. "You boys come through okay?"

"Mostly," Boyle rumbled. "You're the one pulling boys out through the black, weren't you?"

Allison needed a moment to figure out what he meant, then nodded. "Yeah, that was probably me. That teleport's obvious visually and risky, but it's faster and hard to track or localize. Safer last night, as crazy as that sounds."

"Where'd you dump Luke and Horace?"

She frowned, then shook her head, "I'm afraid I don't know." She held up a hand to forestall a protest from one of the Privates, "I pulled out a lot of wounded last night, boys, from all over my quadrant. Took them to whatever hospital I could localize fastest. Most of them ended up at Portland Hospital, the closer hospitals were getting overwhelmed pretty quickly. So yeah, I probably took them out, but I don't remember where to. I'm sorry, but I grabbed too many wounded last night, and I never did pick up their names."

"That's fine," Boyle rumbled, cutting off his subordinates, "just wanted to be sure it was you, not Atlantis. You got 'em out faster than any ambulance."

"Al Hanthis," Allison corrected absently, "don't know if they all made it, though. I'll have to check with the hospitals, see if anyone remembers, but…" she trailed off with another shrug.

"Still a better chance than the ambulances," McTavish said.

Boyle leaned over towards her, holding something out in one hand, still staring into the fire. Allison took it by reflex, then realized from the warmth and the smell that it was coffee, field coffee – strong, bitter, and something else. She huffed a thanks, then took a swig, and almost coughed it right back up. "Irish coffee," she rasped, chuckling, shaking her head, "Daddy would approve, but Mom's going to have words if she ever meets you, Sergeant Boyle." Despite her comment, she took another sip of the whiskey-laced coffee. It added a smooth edge to the coffee, and a different sort of burn in her stomach.

The whole situation also woke a warm feeling in her gut, a comfortable feeling. It was not like the camaraderie she felt with Juliet and Laura after Hong Kong. Juliet and Laura were becoming sisters to her. But she could feel it in their comfort, in her own – these soldiers were hers, not her comrades but her troops, in a way. She had contrived to arrange that, sort of, but there was more to it than simply shared heritage. She had no idea, even as she recognized the feeling, if it would last beyond a couple days, but she knew that, in this moment, whatever her loyalties or theirs, the men of the Irish Guard had her back just as thoroughly as Laura or Juliet, as much as any of her classmates.

For a few minutes, she let herself sit in silence with the rest of the squad, not so much reveling in that feeling as relaxing in it. She probably should have continued scouting, but it had been a long night, her leg was throbbing, and it felt right. None of them were talking, though a few comments passed back and forth, a couple of the soldiers even falling asleep where they sat. The quiet and calm started to sooth her stress, and she started thinking, as she sipped at her whiskey-laced coffee, that she might need to go find someplace to get some sleep herself.

Some indeterminate time later, a crackling from inside the APC distracted her. A moment later, another soldier called out, "Sarge, got a call from the Colonel. One of those cat-people's at the CP, asked the Colonel to keep an eye out for the Morrigan and send her along if we find her." He stuck his head out a top hatch, and continued, "Thing is, CP didn't say how we're going to get the bloody goddess of bloodshed herself to do what the Colonel wants, but… ummm… I mean… ahh…" he trailed off and went pale as he finally noticed Allison, and she gave him a jaundiced look.

Then she turned that look to Boyle. He actually grinned at the fire. "Soldiers," he huffed, "most stupidly superstitious bunch you'll ever meet, girl. Irish kids from the hills are worse. Some yahoo pegged that name on you last night over the radio, you're probably stuck with it. But the Colonel's looking for you, it seems. Tay, get your but back in there and start her up. You'll give the young lady a ride to the CP."

Allison shifted her suspicious look to an outright glare. I don't need a bloody taxi, she thought, but managed to be more polite verbally, "I'll fly, spare you the trouble."

"CP moved, Seed found 'em," Boyle replied, "and I'd rather you not get shot by one of the boys who're looking after the Colonel for us. Be a might annoying to get the kid put back together again. Take the ride, miss. At the least, it'll do that leg of yours some good."

Allison almost protested that, but then sighed and shrugged. If Lotte or Aria was waiting for her at the command post, then she was probably going to get spoken to about her leg anyhow, and walking in or flying in would just make the talking-to all the more understandingly firm. There are times, she thought to herself, that I really wish our teachers weren't so nice. I'm already feeling guilty, and none of them have talked to me about breaking orders like that yet.

"Fine, fine," she said aloud, then held out the coffee, "here, thanks for the warmth."

"Not a problem," he replied, reaching out to take the mug from her.

Allison blinked, frown returning, as he left something else in her hand in place of the mug. Looking it over, she needed a moment to recognize it. It was a badge, an eight-pointed star of silver with a blue-on-gold ring around a shamrock with three crowns. The blue band had two Latin words, and some Roman numerals, neither of which made sense to her. It took Galloglaigh to remind her where she had seen it before – it was the cap badge of the Irish Guards, the badge of their Regiment. She looked up and stared at Boyle a moment, then nodded slowly. "So be it. I'll see you around, Sergeant." Stepping into the APC, she set the badge against her left shoulder, and felt it incorporate into her Leathers.

Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out of the side hatch in the APC, and blinked at the sound that greeted her. There were a lot more soldiers around the CP, and more activity, but still the majority were basically waiting, having breakfast wherever they could find a spot. A couple spotted her, and she blushed at hearing them calling out what was, apparently, her new title. "The Morrigan!" "It's the Morrigan, lads!" "On your feet!" The worst was in Gaelic, which she only sort of understood, "The Goddess of Blood and her Crows!"

"Don't mind them, Miss," Corporal Taylor, her driver, said as he stepped out next to her. "They're just high on surviving. Colonel's through that door, just ask the Leftenant standing there."

Allison nodded, then settled her cannon on her shoulder. "Thank you, Corporal, for the lift and the advice. Stay out of trouble. I don't want to have to haul you out of it anytime soon." Then she started walking forward, trying to ignore the rumble of comments from the Regiment.

The building had been offices of some sort, before the Army took it over. The first floor was half office space and half a cafeteria or deli, and the Army had ignored the office space as too closed in. There were plenty of signs that even here there had been fighting, most of the windows around the cafeteria space were shot out, literally as the glass was almost all outside the building. Tables had been upended across most of those windows, but the majority of the flat surfaces were occupied by maps, radios, and more of both.

Lotte was standing roughly in the center of the space with the Colonel of the Guard, looking over a map of London when Allison walked up. Allison tried to keep her walk steady and even, but Lotte frowned at her – at her leg, specifically.

"Allison," she said Japanese, sounding relieved and annoyed, "I haven't been able to find or reach you all morning! Allina's little surprise is still hashing telepathic signals and magical communications. How badly injured are you? I know how desperately we needed all of you last night, but if you all keep getting injured like this and not letting us know, Hayate-sama may decide to keep you out of things however much we need you."

Allison grimaced, and shook her head, "I'm fine, sensei. One of the Circle mages took care of it shortly after I got it. I didn't let her fix it all the way, thought she should save her energies for critical injuries and stuff. I'll keep a couple days, until Shamal-sensei gets around to minor stuff."

Lotte sniffed, "Yussef's probably going to say the same thing, as are the rest of his boys. So has Laura, so has Luke. At least Juliet was smart enough to get herself healed up completely before she went back out. You kids!" She huffed, then turned back to the Colonel, while snaking an arm out to pull Allison into a one-armed hug. Despite the familiarity of the gesture, it felt rather less threatening than usual to Allison. Switching back to English she said, "I'm sorry, sir. I just realized she was injured when she walked up. But, to return to the subject," she gestured at the map, "the Seed appear to be congregating northwards."

Allison, uncomfortable in Lotte's embrace but knowing the familiar well enough to understand the futility of trying to escape it, turned her attention to the map. It was several square maps covering what looked like individual square miles of London, along the Thames. It only took her a moment to recognize the Irish Guards' area of responsibility, though it took her longer than it should have to reconcile the map with her memories.

Lotte was continuing, "I'm afraid it will be a few hours yet until our device mages are recovered enough to resume scouting, but the Circles are putting up new wolf-packs. At present our sweeps have shown the Seed are moving north and clustering together."

The Colonel nodded, "So we have seen. They are avoiding contact again, though, not going for general destruction. Any information as to why?"

Lotte shook her head, "Unfortunately no, sir. In Hong Kong the Seed that remained behind appeared to be… addled, for lack of a better term. They had little to no coordination, and there were only a few of them to begin with. There are a lot more Seed remaining here, and they shifted roles far too quickly to be confused."

"Mariachi isn't here," Allison said. "He was doing something in Hong Kong to mess with the Seeds' communication, sort of like what Allina pulled off last night against the Guard. Or the big Seed, the 'Alphas', Halley called them. None of those stayed behind in Hong Kong, but none of the Seed have left, right? If the Alphas are still around, they're still controlling the other Seed."

"Not 'none of the Seed'," Lotte said, "but most of them are remaining, the ones uninjured or least injured. If your contact is right about the larger Seed being command and control units that would account for the clustering we're seeing."

The Colonel hummed a moment, nodding. "The command units call in the subordinate units to coordinate, and they are all moving north to get to water where they are probably more comfortable."

"Or to clear your main combat line," Allison said. "Seed aren't dumb animals."

"No, they are not, we saw plenty of evidence of that last night," he agreed, giving her a lopsided smile, "but soldiers always go where they feel safest. Scotts always take to highlands, Brits always go to level ground, and my boys head for the nearest bog or wood. Seed are aquatic, it's obvious in their tactics and appearance. They will head for the river and operate from there." He nodded once, more sharply, "Tobias, write it up for the other Regiments and the Staff. Ladies," he turned back to Lotte and Allison, "thank you very much for the assistance last night, and for your information here. But I think the men would prefer it if you took yourselves off and got some rest. The sooner you do that," he grinned, "the sooner you can come back and track these little fellows down for us."

"We'll be back as soon as we get the kids some rest," Lotte told him, then pulled Allison away from the table.

Before they could do more than turn away, though, the Colonel cleared his throat. Glancing at Allison's shoulder, he said, "There's a certain responsibility to that badge, miss. I don't know who gave it to you, but do the lad a favor…"

"I'll find him again and return it in a day or so," Allison said.

The Colonel shook his head, "Not what I meant, miss. Just don't ever tell anyone who gave it to you." He gave her a quirked grin, "I would have to take official notice if you did, and that would be a shame. For now…" He stood up straight and stiff, then his right hand snapped up to his brow, the palm of his hand towards her.

Allison blinked, mentally stumbling. She was willing to accept that the regular troops respected and honored her for what she had done the night before, but the Irish Guards were commanded by a member of the British nobility, she thought he was even part of the royal family. That pretty much automatically made them bitter enemies, except…

After a moment, she straightened as well, slipping out from under Lotte's arm. She pressed her right fist into her left palm and bowed in response. "Understood, Colonel, and thank you. Good hunting."

00000

The grey light of pre-dawn found Yussef perched facing south-east, sitting cross-legged several hundred feet in the air. The chromed-steel eagle-head of the Chrysler Building was not the most comfortable or safest of perches, but it was pleasantly remote. Few people would look for him there, and most that would think to would instead leave him alone.

Early as it was, he bowed his head and recited in his mind the morning prayers. The ancient words and rhythms were repeated more from rote than from any particular attention, but still brought him a measure of peace and relief. The fact that he had the time for them meant they had won, however bruised and battered he felt.

Zulfiqar was still active, but adhered to his back instead of in his hand. His right hand was cradled in his lap, Zulfiqar maintaining a delicate structure of shields to hold it together until one of the Circle healers had the energy to spare to look at it again or, if he could not contrive a way to avoid her, Shamal-sensei discovered he was injured. He was not looking forward to that last possibility, and fully expected to get a number of lectures on the subject of obeying orders and not hazarding himself. At the time, it had made sense to remain in New York, and he was fairly certain that, in similar circumstances, he would make the same decision, but he was quite well aware of the probable consequences. The throbbing pain of his wrist and the fact that he could only vaguely feel or control his fingers made an excellent reminder.

Finishing his prayers, he considered his wrist briefly. The patch-job the Circle healer had done right after Yussef was injured had not held long, and a second patch-job had been required before the Guard retreated. Even that second healing had been stressed since, and his hand and forearm made a gruesome sight, covered in dried blood. The Circle healers had done what they could to replace the blood he had lost, but it was still disturbing to look at.

It also reminded him of an oddity he had not considered before. What is it with mages and injuries to arms and hands? You'd figure torso injuries would be more common, given how big an area of effect most of our spells have, and the whole center-of-mass training I'm putting the guys through. The Guard must do something similar, but still… Noriko, me, that guy Hayate-sensei picked up at Cairo, a lot of the Volunteers have scars on their arms and hands, there's a lot more such injuries than there should be. I wonder if it's because our devices are hand-held, or if we all subconsciously keep using our arms to guide and control our defenses? Or something else? Or maybe I'm just imagining it, since it's my wrist that's hurting right now.

A shuffling step behind him distracted Yussef, and he let his eyes fall closed again, grinning. "Good morning, Marcel, peace be upon you."

Marcel huffed a laugh at that, then sat on the base of the eagle-head, legs dangling over the south side. "And upon you, peace," Marcel replied. "Kind of ironic, after last night."

"All the more reason for the blessing," Yussef said, more sharply than he intended, then grimaced and apologized. "Sorry, long night."

"Long night all around. How's your arm?"

"It will keep."

"Shamal-ba-chan's going to be unhappy with you," Marcel said. "Signum-sensei's already unhappy with me over it. Apparently, part of being your keeper involves hitting you upside the head and sending you home when you get a boo-boo."

"This is hardly a 'boo-boo'," Yussef said, then shook his head, "I'll submit to the lectures when it's time, but for the moment…" he shrugged, and was rather pleased that he did not have to explain any further. They sat in silence for a few more minutes, until Yussef heard other feet landing on the stone façade of the building behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he grinned again and nodded to the others. All but two of his Myrmidons were spread out behind him, waiting. Luke and Noah were, so far as he knew, still in London helping with the clean-up.

They all looked as ragged and tired as he felt. Of all of them, only Marcel still looked ready to go, and he was sporting an impressive collection of small cuts and large bruises on his face, from the Guard spell Ichigo had named 'the Sandblaster'. Ichigo himself was back in civilian clothes, with a make-shift cast of bandages and splints around his lower left leg. Toushiro was still in his Armor, but it was rather tattered and there was an impressive set of gouges from right shoulder to left hip across his torso, and like Yussef he was favoring his right arm. Toushiro's arm was fully bandaged, unlike Yussef's, and was also immobile, held in a sling generated by Daikyu. Mariachi did not appear to have taken such serious wounds, but he had a fair collection of cuts and bruises visible, and a moderately impressive burn on the right side of his neck and jaw.

Yussef rolled about in place, turning to face them, and asked, "How you guys holding together?"

"Well enough," Mariachi answered, then grimaced. "Kind of annoyed with the Rangers, though. One of their missiles cost me my guitar. Stupid of them, lighting off Javelins in a subway tunnel."

"Hey, missiles are about the best Seed-killer they've got," Ichigo protested. "Besides, you should be glad it wasn't Marines down there. Marines would've just demoed the whole tunnel."

"Which the People's Army proved at Hong Kong won't do more than slow Seed down, so 'go Rangers'," Toshirou said, then turned back to Yussef, "We're fine, boss. Just tired, mostly, need a little rest."

"We'll need Shamal-sensei to look at those injuries, too," Yussef commented.

All the boys looked uncomfortable at that, then Toushiro said, "Yeah, um, we're all for suicidal bravery boss, but… we'll be right behind you, all the way man. We're happy to follow, but that sort of requires that you lead, right? So… yeah… after you, boss."

They all laughed at that, and Marcel shook his head. "You're all cowards."

"So you go first," Mariachi offered.

Marcel quirked an eyebrow at him. "I said you're cowards, I didn't say you're wrong." That got another round of chuckles, and then Marcel continued, "I've heard from Luke and Noah. Nanoha-sensei's releasing them to return here for the day, as planned. They should be here in an hour or so, once Hayate-sensei clears them to teleport in. Luke ran into the Sandblaster a couple times, and caught something like Takashi's Sunspike. It didn't burn as hot, but it got through his Armor. Nasty burn up his side and across his chest, but not enough to slow him down."

In a tone of dread, Ichigo asked, "And Noah?" Marcel just quirked an eyebrow at him, which caused Ichigo to throw up his hands. "What does it take to get through that punk's shields? A nuke?"

"Probably," Marcel shrugged, "for which I'm rather glad. He was good before, Corregidor makes him almost untouchable, and from what Luke said, he's the only reason Luke's just burned and not barbecued."

"Not worried about that, it's just," Ichigo grimaced at nothing, "damn it, here I am battered and bloody despite my best efforts, and Noah's going to show up fresh as a daisy! It's not fair."

"Look at it this way, Ichigo," Yussef said, "the rest of us can prove we spent the night fighting for our people and our planet. Based on the evidence, Noah was sitting back and letting us do all the work last night." He shook his head, "Don't give him too much grief over it, but still." He focused on Marcel, "the girls? And the teachers?"

Marcel shrugged, "No details on the girls, other than that they all made it through fine. Juliet said something that has me fearing for Allina's safety, but I don't think she's really that pissed over whatever Na-chan pulled off. The teachers are mostly fine, a few minor injuries but Shamal-ba-chan and Yuuno-sensei were up there with them. Hayate-sensei is the worst off, something Szash did cracked Reinforce, and Hayate-sensei herself had some injuries of her own that Signum-sensei won't tell me about. Shamal-sensei knocked her out and had Noriko pull her home to sleep."

"Which is something you boys should all be doing," Signum commented as she floated up next to Yussef.

Yussef shifted again, though he tried to be subtle about it, putting his injured hand behind his body and out of her line of sight. Her next comment dispelled his illusion of success, though. "I'll have Shamal check each of you first, especially you, Yussef, but you boys need to get some sleep. Come on, if you have enough energy to try and debrief now, you can fly yourselves off to the new hotel. The old one was damaged last night, but I already told Marcel where to find the new one."

Yussef rolled off the eagle and into flight, "Come on, guys. We'll sleep on it, then start figuring out how to handle the Guards' new tricks. Think on the Americans, as well, how much use their hardware was, and what we could have done to make better use of it."

"Not a bad idea," Signum agreed as the other boys took to the air, "especially since we're going to be working with them again in the near future." Yussef gave her a questioning look, and she replied with a slight smile, "Hughes has asked that you return to Fort Knox to brief… certain officers… on that operational plan of yours. It seems your idea is a popular one."

00000

Finding Rafiq proved to be rather more difficult than Cidela expected. She could sense his presence, feel the connection between them, but it was much fainter than the tugging of Hippocrates. It was also steadier, but that very steadiness made it harder to follow, as it tended to fade into the background of her awareness if she did not focuse on it closely.

Eventually, though, that sense of Rafiq and one of the pinpoints of light coincided, and with more hope than she should have had, Cidela pushed through, hoping to find, at the least, one of her teachers who could finish bringing her back.

Instead, she found herself in a strange stone chamber. The walls were covered in carvings, Al Hazred runes that glowed in shifting multi-colored patterns, which themselves mimicked but did not match the runes. She was standing atop a shallow basin, a centimeter or two deep but several meters across and perfectly circular. A walkway surrounded the basin, and it was matched by a mirror in the ceiling, a mirror which did not show her reflection. All of that combined left her hope draining away, and sorrowful acceptance grew to replace it. "Not home yet," she murmured in Japanese, turning about to inspect the chamber.

In the corner behind her stood a young woman. She was older than Cidela, but wearing modern clothes which gave Cidela a bit more hope. If she was close to the right time, a message could be sent. She smiled and, based on the girl's western clothes and appearance, said in English, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but you could you tell me what year this is?"

The woman stared at her a moment with a look of dawning awe. That confused Cidela greatly, and her confusion was compounded when the woman clasped her hands together at her chest and bowed of all things. "Y-you honor us greatly, Cenash Iral." The last two words set the world to shivering, and made Cidela stagger backwards slightly. "Allow me to fetch the Lord of this Fortress to receive your wisdom."

Before Cidela could do more than raise a hand and open her mouth to object, the woman turned and bolted through the wall, the very fabric of reality rippling and flowing oddly about her. Cidela had a brief glimpse into a stone passageway lit by bare lamps with exposed cabling and pipes along the ceiling, then the wall settled back to normal.

"Cenash Iral," she murmured, and felt that weird shiver again, as if the world around her was reacting to the words, and she felt goose-bumps all over as the words seemed to shiver through her. "That sounds like that language Natalia mutters to herself in. I wonder what it means?"

She was partly tempted to simply leave. The chamber made her uncomfortable, and after her discussions with Sarah, she was wary of strange places. It felt thin and unsteady, like the one airplane flight she had been on, but worse. But the woman had spoken English with an accent Cidela almost recognized, one similar to Laura's, and she had worn modern western clothes, which meant Cidela had to be close to the right time and place. So she paced about the basin, studying the runes on the wall, trying to make sense of them and why the colors were shifting in hue and intensity. It took her a while to realize the shifting appeared to be related to, or influenced by, her own motions, even her mere breathing.

Sometime later, it was rather difficult to tell as the pattern of shifting light was in no way constant, another woman stepped through the wall. This time there was no ripple, just a figure striding through solid stone. She was an older woman, grey-haired and weathered, and her appearance reminded Cidela of nothing so much as old boot leather – worn but tough and no more flexible than necessary. For some reason, she reminded Cidela greatly of Allison. She stood on the walkway about the basin, arms crossed on her chest, and glared at Cidela for a while.

"By rights," she said eventually, in a voice like gravel, "just you and me being in the same room ought to have destroyed me already. What I am now can't stand the imminent presence of the Void any longer, I can barely survive being in this chamber. But then, you divine types don't play by normal rules, do you?"

Cidela blinked, "I… I'm sorry?"

The woman grimaced, and waved Cidela's question away. "You're looking more like the first time I saw you, girl. But not quite. You've got some more doing to get done before you get home. Thank you for finally turning the light-show down, and it's good to see those runes of yours, but you aren't… determined enough to be going home just yet."

"You… you know how to get me home, don't you?" Cidela did not know how, but she knew this woman, whoever she was, had that information. The way she talked about it, about Cidela, she had to know, and as Cidela considered what the woman had said, something else clicked, something about 'the light show'… "Kessenra. The woman I first encountered, the one who was alive sometime around the Al Hanthis Cataclysm that destroyed the original Circles. But… how? The woman here before, she was from my time, or close to it."

"Tche, someone had to keep an eye on the children," Kessenra huffed, "and since I was the only one who saw you, I figured that should be me. As for how," she shrugged and grimaced, "Lassals was as insane as they come, but most geniuses are. His 'soul engine' isn't what he claimed it was, but it's close enough for my purposes. And to think, all it cost me was the ability to use the powers and skills which made me valuable in the first place. I gave up being a Forecaster thousands of years ago, girl, all so I could stand here today. Or, no, not today," she smiled, a predatory expression aimed off into the distance, "but soon, so very soon, when I can finally see my big brother again and repay him for stabbing me in the back."

Cidela stared at her, shocked not so much by the hatred in Kessenra's last statement as by the claim of such age. The thought of living so long, seeing so much, being responsible for such continuity and possessing such wisdom was terrifying. "You must be so lonely," she whispered.

"Hah, if only that were true," Kessenra said, settling cross-legged at the edge of the basin. "There's another like me, the arrogant old bastard. Didn't set up his engine the way I did, so he's stuck in one spot, but he's still around and I go piss him off every couple of centuries. But there are always kids to teach, and I've found I rather enjoy that. For all that I complain about the little brats, there's greater magic in watching their minds awaken than in any spell I've ever cast. And I've still got so much to learn myself that, I'm happy to say, I've never had to worry about stopping.

"Take you and your teacher, for instance. I knew her predecessor's mother, you know. Taught the silly girl myself for about a year, when she came here to Yellowstone for an exchange prior to taking her Master rank exam. Tabitha Harthwaite, a vapor-brained English girl with a lot of potential. Fell for some mundane named Nelson, then panicked when their daughter tested Master Adept potential at birth. Haven't seen a newborn test like that since before my father and I helped blow up the Al Hazred colony."

It took Cidela a few moments to determine who Kessenra meant. She had many teachers, and they all had to have 'predecessors' of some sort. But it was not that difficult, after her meeting with Sara, to realize Kessenra meant Hayate-sensei, and Sara herself. "You trained Sara-san's mother?"

"Is that what they named the kid? Hmm. Yes, I had her in hand for a year. She was a silly girl, twenty-something and acted like a ditzy teen, but then all you kids are at some point. Funny thing though, none of the kids I've trained to be Forecasters has ever seen her… the kid, I mean. They saw your teacher well enough, until a few years ago, and they can't see you or your classmate, the royal girl, any longer either. They can still trace you, but only indirectly, places they can't look, times they can't see around, events changing without obvious cause." She chuckled, grinning broadly enough to show her teeth, "you're giving my students quite a few fits, for which I'm sadistically grateful. They always tend to get a little full of themselves, start thinking they're better than I was before I offed myself to live forever. You've helped cut them down to size quite handily."

Cidela needed a few seconds to process those claims, those statements. That Kessenra could see the future had been clear enough to her, after her encounter with Sara. As the Void lay between all realities, it was not such a stretch to believe it lay between all times as well, and Al Hanthis had already proven they could reach through the Void with frightening ease. She herself was doing just that, apparently. But for someone to be invisible to such a view, it almost sounded as if she did not exist anymore, as if no Deva mage really existed, which was worrisome.

She began to say something about that, "I did not realize…"

Kessenra cut her off, "Immaterial. It's a useful byproduct of your existence which is only tangentially related to your current predicament. The fact that I find it amusing as well as useful is, as the younglings say, icing on the cake. But you, girl… I've been studying you ever since I started seeing you in the broadcasts about your school last year. That teacher of yours, and her Knights and creatures, and your classmates, you're all very familiar to me by now, and I must say, I've been looking forward to seeing you in existence for quite some time."

Last year. Those two words rang through Cidela like a bell. Last year. Last Year! That means… "I'm home!"

"Not yet you're not," Kessenra said, "and you're not leaving this chamber except back through the Void you entered by."

"But… but I'm home! How can you…"

"Cenash Iral," Kessenra interrupted, and this time there was no mistaking it given the power Kessenra infused those two words with. The runes in the chamber, the water Cidela stood on, even her linker core, all reacted to those two words, shimmering uncomfortably as power concentrated in them and through them. The glow of the runes brightened for a moment, losing all trace of color.

When Cidela's vision cleared, Kessenra was still sitting there, but the look on her face was harder than iron. "I have participated in some of the greatest acts of mass murder the human race has ever experienced, worse than any now living can conceive. I knew about, and assisted, the destruction of the Al Hazred colony. I arranged for that destruction to occur in such a way as to shatter the very fabric of reality, deliberately. I arranged for my own brother to use me as a scapegoat in his own crimes, arranged for my city, my family to declare me a traitor and sentence me to death. I fought on the side of ignorant fanatics in a genocidal religious war that was deliberately planned and executed to destroy the very society that created me! I even had a hand in arranging for Al Hanthis' banishment to the Void.

"I have done all this, been a party to such atrocities that you would keel over dead from the merest thought of them, all to create you. All to create the circumstances that will surround your awakening, the circumstances which will achieve the continuation of not just my people, not just humanity, but of Creation itself. If you think for one moment that I will hesitate to sacrifice you upon the altar of my mission, you are gravely mistaken. I have upon my conscience the weight of trillions of lives, I have hazarded Creation itself to such an extent that even I cannot truly fathom it, and you will never comprehend. One child more or less would not add a noticeable amount to the guilt I carry, regardless of that child's identity or suffering, so long as it furthers my plan."

For all Kessenra's emphasis and emotion, there was little heat or coldness in her voice. What there was, though, was a grinding will, pressing down on Cidela with all the implacable strength of a machine, of a glacier. The woman before her, whoever or whatever she was, became utterly terrifying in that moment. There was no fanatical gleam or psychotic grimace, just purpose, irresistible purpose, of the sort human minds were not supposed to possess. It was almost enough to make Cidela run, and she could feel herself quivering with the need to do just that, feel herself sweating in fear at how tiny she felt in the presence of such a person.

But a question, inherent to Kessenra's claims, kept Cidela from fleeing. Eventually, she managed to ask, in a small voice, "Why?"

Kessenra quirked an eyebrow at her. "Why? Hah, such a simple question, and so impossible to truly answer." She shook her head, closing her eyes briefly, and then staring down into the basin. "Something like Al Hazred was unavoidable. Conclave policies, the rivalries between the colonies competing for Homeworld's attentions, and between the factions here on Homeworld, were too intense. We were leaving behind a period of stability and slow exploration, making discoveries in magic, in the world around us, in the very nature of Creation, which were going to have profound ramifications for our society. Think how much the internet has changed your own societies in so brief a time, and realize that we were creating far more fundamental changes. Oh, not that 'singularity' those idiot futurists like to go on about, as if the human race would ever suffer being sublimated in our own creations like that.

"So no, not that ridiculous concept, but other alterations. Magic alone gives every human being incredible power, compared to what Terrans today know. The discoveries we were on the verge of would have increased that individual power as much beyond where we were, as where we were is beyond modern Terrans. And believe me, child, this current imitation of Al Hanthis is nothing like the grand, glorious, beautiful city I betrayed. It does not have a tenth the power, skill, and knowledge of the city I was born and raised in.

"Human beings fear that which is more powerful than they, justifiably. That is, in the end, what all societies attempt to do – limit the powerful in protection of the less powerful. When my fellows and I looked into the future, we saw the Al Hazred cataclysm, but it was not on some distant colony world. It was here, on Homeworld. A military city, fearing a science city's discoveries and developing power, attempted to seize the city in defiance of Conclave orders. The resulting cataclysm would not have shattered reality, little girl. It would have unmade Creation.

"So some of my fellows and I entered into a grand conspiracy. We would bring about the very event we feared, but somewhere else, somewhere it would not so utterly destroy everything. We conspired with our fellow Forecasters, against our cities, our entire civilization, our own families, and we succeeded. We succeeded brilliantly. We arranged for the primitivists to ratchet up their pressure and rhetoric, arranged for their more fanatical members to collect into an action group, arranged for the Protectors to miss them or ignore them, arranged for that group to obtain the access necessary to the power generators in a science city terraforming a colony world… and we arranged to disable the safeties which should have limited their 'demonstration' to one generator. Every generator in Al Hazred collapsed in a self-amplifying cascade, just as we had planned, and six million people ceased to exist in the blink of an eye.

"It accomplished exactly what we set out to do. Before Al Hazred, we could never see beyond the Cataclysm – time and space and dimensions, they all ceased to exist in that moment. Just as we cannot see back beyond the beginning of Creation, we could not see beyond the Cataclysm. After Al Hazred, though… oh, we could see again. It just made no sense, no longer had a structure. We could not see our own past clearly, anymore, either, it was discordant, chaotic, different. We damaged not only space, not only dimensions, but the passage of time itself. Before Al Hazred, there was the past, the present, and the future. After Al Hazred, those concepts were no longer singular. There was no 'past', there were a multitude of 'pasts' all leading to the present moment a particular individual occupied. No single present, just the various presents that branch off from a particular moment in the past. No single future, just the myriad possible outcomes of the interacting pasts and presents. Utter madness, and it was our actions that caused it. It was success.

"Oh, we made mistakes. The Al Hazred disaster was far larger and more terrible than we ever intended, even in the merely physical effects we expected. We had no idea the primitivists would become so powerful, strong enough and numerous enough to bring down the Masters of Vision despite our plans. We had no expectation of the loss of all our mages after Al Hanthis was banished to the Void, and few of my fellows saw any sign of hope. Even I did not see hope, until you came to visit me again. So yes, child. I have my reasons why, and even now they come back to you."

Listening to that litany of betrayal, delivered in the same remorseless tone as Kessenra's previous admissions, was less shocking. It actually answered some questions Cidela had always had about the Al Hazred disaster. She still could not conceive of how events on a single planet could bring down what sounded like a galaxy-spanning civilization, but Kessenra's 'Forecasters' explained how a limited group such as the 'primitivists' could have accomplished such a sabotage. It backed up Al Hanthis' claims, which themselves had made more sense to her than the more lurid tales from Bureau space of simple hubris destroying everything.

Kessenra waited to speak again until Cidela asked, "What do your reasons have to do with me?"

"Cenash Iral," Kessanra repeated, making the room pulse once more. "Don't tell the kids, but that term, indeed all the language I teach them when I accept them for lessons in Forecasting, are my native tongue, preserved over all these centuries by yours truly. Do you speak it? I understand some of Hayate's children do, but I'm not sure if you're one of them."

"I do not," Cidela said, "but Natalia and Ichigo do. What does it mean?"

"Hmm, among other things, it means that, like your teacher, her dragon, and our new empress, Forecasters cannot see you through the Void, not directly. Oh, they can see the effects of your actions, see how you change things around you, but they cannot see you, cannot hear your words. I have studied the effect, to an extent, and it appears to be psychological – something visible in you forces the human mind to block it out, to refuse to see it. The smart ones among my students will learn to work around that quickly enough, but most Forecasters are still people. They won't think to adapt, and will therefore be rather greatly surprised. Of all the Forecasters I believe to still be active, only my father, I think, will truly understand how to compensate for you strange ones."

"Deva magic," Cidela said, thinking of who Kessenra had listed, though she was curious who this 'empress' was, to have convinced Hayate-sensei to transition them. "The Deva core, the way our magic manipulates reality directly instead of replicating natural laws… we disturb the dimensional boundaries, what you look through to see the past and future, don't we? That's what Hayate-sensei meant when she said her footsteps make the world shake."

Kessenra laughed at that, "That's a remarkably good description of the effect, yes, and I'm willing to bet that 'shaking' is why your presence across the Void here hasn't already torn me to shreds. I have no idea why you and your teacher have not already imploded like good little dimensional instabilities, but I don't much care, either. You will, by the time you return to yourself, have the power and knowledge necessary to end not only this war, but the one which terrified us to the point of destroying our own civilization to prevent it."

Cidela shook her head, "I am not so powerful as that. I am a healer, Kessenra, not a Forecaster or a warrior. I… I don't think I could… I know how to cast a buster spell, but I do not think I could use one against an actual person."

Kessenra burst into laughter at that, not the dark chuckles or sarcastic huffs she had given before, but outright laughter, a sound just as harsh as her voice but louder and more relaxed, and she doubled over slapping the stone floor by her knee. After a minute, she collected herself to say, "Ah, child, you are quite right. You're no soldier, no, and I'm fairly certain that given a choice between killing and dying, you'll give up the ghost every time. But that's what makes you prefect for this, girl. I have no intention of creating another Warlord, however desperate the circumstances. There's another kid at Hayate's school that would do, though he's less stable than you are. But you're what I've got, you're the one I've known most clearly as Creation has recovered from my crimes, so you're the tool I'm using. And don't worry about being just one person. Aristotle may have been an arrogant lout and a plagiarist, but he really did come up with that line about 'a lever long enough'. You're not the lever, girl, Al Hanthis is that. You're the tiny little weight way out at the long end of it, the pebble that starts the avalanche. You're perfect for the role I plan for you, and to be honest, I don't even feel guilty about using you, not in the slightest. After all," that superior smirk of her returned, "you're a responsible child, it's about time you cleaned up the mess you helped create."

Cidela flinched from that, "I helped create?"

"You're going now, now that you've got enough of the whole story to figure out the rest. But the next time you see me, the first time I see you… tell me not to bother looking into your future. I won't like what I see there, however much better it will be than 'nothing'. Oh, and when you do finally get back to your mother… speak your name, and the world will fall into your hand."

And then, just as she had in the tent the first time Cidela saw her, Kessenra cast a spell, a simple gesture, and power swatted her aside and back into the Void.

00000

Harlan Grosclaude looked up as the wall of the Reflecting Room glowed briefly, and Master Adept Esien stepped out of it. Part of him was curious what had just happened in there, if young Heather's awe-struck claim was true. Part of him was simply curious what the inside of that particular chamber looked like, as he had never been allowed inside. He had never actually been this close to the Reflecting Room, either, and was this close now only because Esien had ordered him to be waiting for her. But he was not a Precognitive, not part of that most secret order buried within Containment's already secretive depths.

He was not even, technically speaking, Containment.

"Master Adept," he said rising to his feet.

"Harlan, good," she said. "Walk with me."

He did not reply, but fell into step at her shoulder. Even now, after a decade as her second here at Yellowstone, he was not entirely comfortable with that, with her. He was one of maybe three people in the entire universe who had some idea what she really was, and he suspected what she had been in the past. But whatever she had been, and whatever she was, she was as dedicated to preventing a repetition of the Cataclysm as he was, as dedicated to Containment's purpose as any Circle mage he had ever heard of. So, uncomfortable as she made him, he fell into step without a qualm.

"Pass the word to Apprentice Newscome, she did exactly the right thing in coming to get me."

"Yes ma'am," Harlan replied, understanding that Heather's half-prayerful statement had been accurate – the Goddess of Light had manifested, in the heart of Yellowstone's strongest protections. Being the pragmatic man he was, he then asked, "Are there any other steps to be taken with regards to Miss Newscome?"

"Make sure she understands she is not to mention the Goddess' appearance to anyone else, make sure Johnny and Liselle understand they are not to repeat it either, and arrange to have Heather test out for first rank. If she held together in the face of that creature's arrival, she should be ready to advance. The usual test, if she's ready to go all the way to Journeyman then there's no reason to hold her back."

Harlan was surprised by that, but only mildly. The girl was already hidden away in a meditation chamber on Esien's orders. He had half expected Esien to order the girl disposed of, to keep the secret of the Goddess' imminent awakening. She had ordered enough other mages eliminated, over the years, when they discovered things about Yellowstone they should not have. Surprised or not, he nodded, "Understood, ma'am."

"Once she's squared away, start putting your teams on alert."

That made Harlan blink. There were several possible interpretations of that statement, some of them contradictory. "Ma'am? Which teams?"

"All of them, Harlan," Esien said, shooting him a grin over her shoulder, "all of your little Ghost friends that you poached from Ops without bothering to inform their superiors. All those Ops teams that think they're working for Hughes and protecting the world, or that they're Revenants waiting for the time to strike. All of them except the ones tasked to seize Yellowstone from me." He twitched, and she laughed, "Oh yes, Harlan, I'm quite well aware you have such contingency plans in place. Why do you think I've kept you on hand for so long? Not many of your predecessors lasted a whole decade here, mostly because they weren't practical enough to keep me in check. Get your non-Yellowstone teams ready. She's about to pop, and when she does, we have to make absolutely certain that the major players go down. Every team, Harlan. I don't care what methods they use – poison, bullets, 'accidents', bombs of any size, or even nuclear warheads. So long as magic was provably involved, I don't care. Get them ready."

Having his long-standing suspicions confirmed, that she was aware of his plans to destroy her, sent an icy shiver down his spine, followed by a second, more awestruck, shiver as he realized the scale of her orders, the scope of her plan. He had made contingency plans along such lines since long before he was seconded to Containment at Yellowstone, and even executed some of them. Those plans had grown in scope and reach since he came to Yellowstone, with Esien's encouragement and assistance. But to execute all of them, simultaneously… if even a handful of the missions resolved satisfactorily, the sheer scale of it left him as awestruck as the superstitious apprentice. "Whe… when will they go?"

"When our new Empress goes to Al Hanthis," Esien replied, then chuckled darkly, "I almost want to be there myself, just to see the look on Yosho's face. Hah. The 'Day of Wrath' indeed."

00000

Luen stepped into the shattered warehouse, ignoring the shivering feeling of combat magic mixing with improperly cleared ritual energies. This was the second warehouse she was visiting that night, and the first had been a hateful disappointment. The would-be murderers at the first had been just that, dupes enacting mass murder because they thought it was somehow part of a war effort.

As her eyes scanned the prisoners gathered under Falgen's watchful squad, she thought for a moment that this would be an equally disappointing find. None of the prisoners matched the appearance of the murdering scum who had deceived her at Cairo months ago. New faces all around, even if the apprentices and journeymen were too terrified to do more than stare at their captors.

But then the Protector identification protocols in her implants reported the magical signatures of the individuals, the personal identifiers that were as much style and training as inherent. The younger ones, the subordinates, were immaterial. But the two being held separate from the rest, the two Masters who had lead this ritual, their signatures were very, very familiar.

Luen did not even need to talk to them. She smiled, and her smile grew at the look of dawning fear on the face of the bound woman. "Bres," she said, turning her head slightly, "send a message to the General. We have the traitors in hand. Ask her to get in touch with the Japanese about that… prisoner exchange."

00000

Author's Notes

The cap badge Allison received is that of the Irish Guards. It's officially to be worn on their headgear, but as Allison's not really in the Irish Guards, and her hood isn't really appropriate for metallic decorations, the shoulder is where she wears it. The 'couple words of Latin' are: Quis Separabit, meaning 'Who shall separate us?', the Irish Guards' motto.

Regarding the story's status: I am still working on it, and have been in a desultory fashion since I posted the last chapter back in 01/2013. This hasn't been a good year for writing, either this story or any of my other projects. Between work's upheavals (end-of-contract resulting in bouncing from assignment to assignment, then giving my notice), moving southwards, starting yet another new job (that so far has a horrific commute, and thus takes up more hours of the day than it's really worth), and competing demands on my time, I'm afraid I have not been writing as much as I used to. Hopefully things will settle out this year and I'll have more time to write, but the new new job is still new, so yeah.

That being said, I do have several chapters worth of material for both Endless Waltz and bits and pieces of a couple Side Stories. That material is spread across a long stretch of time, and I'm going to have to sort it out into chapters, then put in the bridging material (such as how, precisely, one counter-attacks against an impregnable floating fortress city that's holding a city of millions hostage). Some of what I've got is also things set so far in the future they belong in the occasional end-of-chapter 'future quotes', except they're too long.

Barring accident or foul play, I should have the next chapter up in a couple weeks. Meantime, head on over to the Side Stories, there's a new one of those up.