Alfred has come to the conclusion that these people are clearly insane.

He had always thought that Gilbert's training and battle plans were a little... unorthodox. But this is on a whole different level. He thought he was dead! He thought they all were. It had felt so real too, just thinking about it makes him shiver.

Their plan —to let the enemy walk right into the heart of their command, and trick him in to telling them everything he knows— hinged soli on Gil and Toni perfectly syncing their magic to both ensnare and misguide Sadık. If they were off by even the slightest bit, if Gil couldn't make a flawless illusion of Toni's fire magic, if Sadık even had the slightest suspicion of something being off, they would have been screwed.

"Still with us kid?"

The question brings Alfred back to the present in time to see Elizabeta one handedly toss Sadık at a pair of guards who both sag under the man's weight.

"Throw this sack of shit in the dungeons. And get a Sealing on him, we can't have him escaping."

Still feeling out of sorts, Al watches as the pair nod and drag away the man he had sort of come to think of as a friend, but just tried to kill him, Antonio cheerily waving and closing the door behind them.

It's almost disconcerting how happy Elizabeta is as she dusts her hands of on her tunic.

"Now that that's sorted, back to business."

"Right." Gil also grins and turns back to the table, as if all of what just happened was completely normal.

He looks to his twin, in the hopes to find some sort of shock to validate that his reaction is the normal, sane one, but he too, has turned away from the door and moved to join Gilbert's side.

When he doesn't move from the spot he's been rooted in for several minutes now, Gil looks up and gives him an expectant look.

"Well?"

'Al? Mind telling me what's going on?'

It takes feeling Arthur's warm breath at his side to finally snap him into moving.

'I think I'm about to find out.'

Wandering over, he stands at the tables end, Liz on one side, Mattie and Gil on the other and Arthur following over to sit behind him.

Once he's finally joined their mini circle Liz gives him a serious look, "From this moment on, you are a member of the War Council of Daská. Everything you see, hear, and do in here is of the upmost secrecy. Understood?"

Al nods, "And don't forget about Arthur." He grins, motioning to the wolf looking over his shoulder.

"Him too." She agrees.

With one sweeping motion, she clears the table of all the set markers and maps, scattering them to the floor. In their place, she rolls out a new one depicting the Known Territories, while Matt sets a wooden box down beside it. From it, Liz pulls out small stone sculptures, "King Momarîs, the power hungry Snake," as she says this, she places a sculpture of a fat coiled snake with a lopsided crown over the Capital of Talmeré. "Saris, the man Pig," she sneers as she slams a pig shaped sculpture with one eye missing down on the south of Talmeré, just above the boarder with Kerineln. "The Frost siblings," next she adds a sculpture of three people back to back with blank faces over the northern half of the Mighty Wilderness. "The Blood Viper," another snake, but this one looks much more threatening, standing ready to strike with large fangs painted red like blood, she sits it over an area just west of Daská, "Sadık the Informant," she adds a sculpture of a very detail version of the man's mask over the southern territory of Daská, knocking it to lie on it's side, "and finally Him. The master of the Noceum Order." The last sculpture she pulls out is of a cracked crown and she sets it over the huge territory of the Empire of Qonia to the west.

"These are our enemies, the leaders of the Noceum Order. There is no telling how many followers they have, but our mission is clear. We must eradicate them. Their sick depravity must end. For the lives they've taken, for their inhumane experiments, for all the pain they've caused, not just us, but countless others." She looks to each of them, silently swearing this vow between them, and Alfred has no intention of backing out now.

Once satisfied, she turns back to the map.

"We've managed to cripple their communications by taking out Sadık, and gain some valuable information in the process."

Gilbert nods, frowning down at the map, "Now we know not just who their leader is, but where he's been hiding all this time."

"He's the ruler of Qonia," Matthew joins in, staring contemplatively down at the cracked crown, "This is a lot more problematic than we thought."

"True," Red eye's shift about the map, "but we should focus on what we can do right now." One pale hand reaches across the table to flick the smaller snake, "we still need to unite the southern territories. And we can't do that until we get rid of this," he flicks the sculpture again, making it wobble, "asshole."

"Yes that's all well and true," Liz sighs, wings twitching slightly as she shifts her weight, "but we're off plan remember? Sadık wasn't meant to betray us, Alfred wasn't meant to be here yet. Who knows what other changes may have occurred."

Despite all this, Gil grins, "Your a strong fighter Liz, and a good leader, but your still inexperienced in battle." She frowns at the albino but he continues on, "Battles change, the fight is fluid. Even with all the foresight in the world, no one can perfectly predict every little outcome of every little event. You have to learn to act on your feet, be responsive to change, hell, expect it! So we can't use the original plan? So what? We'll just make a new one. Again and again if we have too, until we have victory."

Elizabeta leans back, raising an eyebrow at the red eyed man, "So you have a plan then?"

Gilbert's grin widens, "Always."

From the belt of his tunic, Gil pulls a small leather bag off and tosses it onto the table.

Curious, Liz reaches for it, emptying the contents out onto the table.

"HOLY HELL!" Alfred cries upon seeing the fist size crystal tumble out, "That's, that's!" He points, hand shaking in shock.

Ignoring the blonde knight, Liz leans closer to eye the gem better, "Is this?"

"Yup! Behold the glory of the Shard of Talmeré." Gil announces smugly.

"How?" Both Liz and Al ask at the same time, one sounding curiously, the other shocked.

"How else?" Gilbert proudly smacks Matt on the back, "Your forgetting we have one hell of a tactician on our side."

"Mattie?!"

Despite the praise, Matt shrugs the albino's hand off, "You shouldn't be so happy about it, people died remember?"

Despite the protest, Gilbert still remains grinning as he explains, "We had to get the kid out safely without the Bastard finding out about him. But... We'd surely end up blowing our cover doing so, which means we'd have to make the most of what we could do before then. Lucky for us, the kid came back just in time for the Solstice festival, with just so happens to be the only time this is brought up out of the vaults. Some quick prep later, and we left the way for the kid to break out of jail, have him disguised as an actor, and have him and wolfy here cause a distraction while we steal the Shard. And as a bonus," he nudges Matt, making the other sigh, but he reaches into the bag he's been carrying and places an old looking book on the table, "we got this too."

"I'll admit, I'm impressed." Liz smiles, reaching to pick up the Shard.

"Whoa! Be Careful! Don't touch it with your bare hands." Gil quickly warns, grabbing her wrist to stop her.

She frowns, but switches to use the bag to pick it up with and examine it.

"Gil... why do you have the Kingdom's most powerful relic?"

"Eh? I told you, we stole it."

"Yeah, but... why?" Al still can't believe they took it.

The Shard is the greatest defence Talmeré has against the threat of attack, without it, they're vulnerable.

His eyes widen, now realising this. That's why they must have took it, they plan to attack the kingdom in order to kill the King.

There's a moment of silence between them as the three look at each other, before it seems Matthew is the one chosen to explain.

"We took it for you Al."

...He was not expecting that answer.

"Wha?"

"The Shard is an amplifier," his twin begins to explain, fishing around in his bag to pull out another book, by the looks of it, it's another one of their fathers journals, "under normal circumstances that is. But according to Dad, it's true power can only be wielded by someone who shares the same magical properties as it. Before we were born, Dad was forced to take part in one of the King's experiments. He, along with a bunch of others were ordered to touch it. He says here that anyone who's magic didn't sync with it, had their power forcefully magnified instantly into erupting. Some...didn't survive."

"And Dad?"

"He didn't sync with it and his magic erupted. But, from the brief moment of contact, he could tell that it was some kind of Beast magic in it. He theorised that if he was still Bonded at the time, he might have been able to sync with the Shard."

As his twin finishes reading the three turn to look at Al, Liz holding out the stone to him.

"Wait... you want me to touch that thing?! You just said some people didn't survive! What if I die?!"

Hearing the blondes fearful cry of a threat to his life, Arthur drops his ears in threat and growls.

Gil glares back at the wolf before flicking his gaze over to the fretting knight.

"Your not gonna die, don't be such a baby. The people who died were in shit shape, but your good. Peak physical condition, you'll be fine."

"At most you'll pass out for a few days." Liz adds, gesturing the stone more.

"No way!" Al cries, waving his hands in front of himself as he steps back.

"Oh, for Gods sake." Gil huffs, rolling his eyes as he quickly moves his hand across the table and smacks Elizabeta's up, causing the crystal to fly out of her hand and into the air towards Alfred.

Knowing the value of the Shard, and not wanting to risk it breaking, Al automatically reaches to catch it, only realising as second too late what that meant.

Left hand reaching, the gem lands in the palm of his hand, and Al snaps his eyes shut in fear.

...

After a few moments he peeks an eye open to look.

The room remains the same, the others all looking confused down at the gem.

Gil is the first to voice everyone's thoughts on the matter with a poignant, "Huh."

"Nothing happened." Liz huffs, sounding unimpressed.

"Al, do you... feel anything from it?"

"Nope," the blonde knight sighs in relief, turning the crystal over in his hands to examine it, "just feels like a regular old rock to me. What do you think Artie?"

Turning, Al holds the Shard up to the wolf. Leaning down, Arthur gives it a sniff, eyeing it suspiciously.

'What is it? I can sense a strong power coming from that rock, but it feels...' He trails off.

"What?"

'I don't know. Something about it feels unnervingly familiar. I don't trust it.'

"Al?"

"Nothin, Sorry." He shrugs, turning back to the group.

Not one to be brought down by something not working out like he planned, Gilbert slams his hand down on the old book, effectively drawing everyone's attention back to him.

"Alright, so the Shards supposed secret power thingy is a bust, buuut, we still have this." He pats his hand on the book, grinning, "This grimoire has some of the strongest and oldest spells in all of Talmeré written in it. Without this or the Shard the Bastard will be feeling vulnerable. We're far from beat here, we can still take him down."

"True," Liz sighs, "but the fact remains that we still don't have the man power to take on an assault against Talmeré. And that aside," she shakes her head, looking to Al, "our newest recruit here is far from being ready."

"I am ready!"

"Even if you were, we still can't make a move on King Momarîs yet." They all look to Matthew to explain himself, so he continues, "Just look. With Saris north of us and the Blood Viper to the west, we're boxed in against the eastern desert and the Unknown territories to the south." He explains, pointing out the strip of desert between them and the sea, and the large blank section of map south of them.

"With Sadık captured, and Momarîs suspicious of us, it would be unwise to make any hasty moves against him now."

"So what do you suggest?"

There's a calculating look in Matthew's eyes as he leans over the map that Alfred has never seen before, a strength to his twin that up until now, he's never been aware of.

"As it stands, Saris is unlikely to move from his position. From what we know of him, he's far to fearful to act on his own, preferring to stay in the shadows and let others do his dirty work. The Viper on the other hand," he pauses, staring at the statue for a moment before continuing, "he's far more dangerous. It's one thing for us to destabilise Momarîs, but another entirely to take out Sadık."

"You think he's going to act."

"Yes," Matt takes a breath, before raising his eyes to look at them all seriously, "they know you Liz, they know us, they know we have Daská. They're going to attack us for this, and soon."

She nods, understanding the blondes train of thought, "And the Viper will be the one to do it."

"Heh," grinning Gil flicks the Vipers sculpture, "then let's make sure we're the ones to strike first."

The three of them nod, already formulating plans in their minds.

"Then it's agreed," Elizabeta decrees, straightening, "we strike the Vipers nest first. Williams," she addresses Matt, becoming commanding, "I want a battle strategy, tactics, routes, diversions, all of it."

"Yes ma'am." He nods.

"Beilschmidt! I want Jones and the wolf trained and ready for battle. You have a week."

Alfred blinks, looking back and forth between the pair, "What?"

Frowning, Gil huffs, "Come on Liz, who do you think I am?" before his face slips into a sly smirk, "I'll do it in three."

"What?!" Alfred cries aghast at the idea.

If there's one thing he didn't miss in exile, it was the albino's rigorous training regimen. He can barely stand outside in this heat for more than five minutes without feeling like he's about to collapse from heatstroke, and Arthur's even worse.

The very idea of any kind of training in this climate is terrifying.

"Good, then meeting dismissed."

"Come on then kid, we've got work to do."

The next three days are going to be a living hell, he just knows it.

Authors notes: And now we're back to moving forward with the plot.

Will Alfred survive? Will Arthur?

But yes, I think I made it pretty obvious who one of the enemies is, but they'll show up some time later, when exactly, is anyone's guess.

Also, if anyone's interested, I've posted a rough version of the map mentioned here on my tumblr, so check that out if you'd like.

R & R people.

Until next time, stay awesome!