Pigs Quest

by Throwaway1971

But I prefer Xander!

352. Another Magical Summer Omake

NINTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #1
AIZEN SOUSUKE

At the center of the many and far-reaching Districts of the Soul Society, within the Court of Pure Souls, inside a room at the heart of the Fifth Division, three men wearing the white coats of Shinigami Captains sat around a table.

Such meetings weren't exactly rare in the normal course of daily business within the Thirteen Divisions, but they were proving rather more common than usual in the wake of Soul Society's most recent large-scale deployment.

"So how'd you really make out on our little expedition?" Captain Ichimaru asked. "'Cause I for one find it hard to believe that you walked out with as little as you claimed at the last meeting."

"Your confidence in my abilities is heartening, Gin," Aizen replied. "And yes, I did happen upon a few interesting items that I neglected to bring to general attention." Then, without shame or irony, he added, "That said, Captain Zaraki had the right of things—I should have simply grabbed everything I could find, and sorted it all out later." He shrugged. "I can only say that I've gotten too used to operating within Soul Society's archives."

Where removal is often not an option, he did not need to say aloud. After all, even a man capable of controlling the perceptions of others could not do so without limit.

Of course, the exact limits of Kyoka Suigetsu's power were known only to Aizen and his zanpakuto, but his co-conspirators were aware that they existed: he'd deliberately revealed one to Gin as a test of loyalty, ambition, and ability whose results were still unfolding; Tousen's blindness allowed him to naturally exploit another; and it was implicit that a shikai was not the fullest extent of a Shinigami's power. What the other two captains had extrapolated from those points and their observations of Aizen's use of his zanpakuto over the years, whether or not they'd shared their information, and how they might use their conclusions going forward, remained to be seen.

He was looking forward to the outcome.

"Something for ya to work on, then," the silver-haired prodigy mused cheerfully. "Though even just takin' all that ya could and runnin', I think ya still might not have made out as well as our mortal pals did."

"It would be difficult to keep pace with someone who can steal an entire bookcase in the time it takes to determine if a single book is worth keeping," Aizen acknowledged. "Let alone what else we saw them do."

"Detection spells, shrinking spells, spatially expanded bags, calling up experienced looters to provide their services…" The thin braids hanging from the front of Tousen's head whispered a counterpoint to the frill rising from the back of his orange scarf as the blind man shook his head in a gesture that mingled disapproval and disbelief. "For all the combat utility this 'Sorcerer's Shadow' and 'Wizard' demonstrated, they also left a distinct impression that much of their magic was designed to penetrate an enemy stronghold and plunder it down to the foundations."

"That may well have been the case," Aizen countered. "Beyond the walls of the Court, fortresses have never played a significant role in Soul Society's internal struggles or battles with the Hollows—at least not in the current era," he amended.

"Thinkin' of our Captain-Commander's reminiscences about the good ol' days?"

"He did imply some rather stark differences in Soul Society's prior organization." A time when the noble families fought one another openly, when Shinigami were far fewer in number, and their skills learned through battle and brilliance rather than rote standardization…

"Its organization, perhaps," Tosen noted sourly. "But not its politics."

"Indeed," Aizen agreed, dismissing his private musings. "Which is unlikely to be a coincidence. Still, whatever the case in times past, physical strongholds represent too much investment for too little return in the modern era, when trained Shinigami are comparatively numerous, and capable enough that any seated officer could knock out most walls not made of sekki-seki. The mortal world has progressed in a similar direction over the last few centuries, as the destructive force of their weapons technology outpaced the ability of armor and fortifications to withstand it, while simultaneously increasing production and ease of use. Before that time, however…"

Both men nodded, if a bit reluctantly in Tosen's case; it was Gin who spoke. "Thousands of years of people tryin' to come up with ways to get in an' outta places they couldn't outright crack without an army, or the kind of magic-user that wasn't ever common, and ain't supposed to exist anymore—even if we did just deal with two of 'em and their shiny tin soldiers besides." The fox-faced man allowed himself to exhibit a rare moment of uncertainty, then, frowning as he added, "Are European knights supposed to have thrown around as much magic as that lot did? I didn't see much of it at the time, but some of the after-action reports make for interestin' readin'."

They did indeed.

A musician whose harp-like bow launched "arrows" of sound, and who had been reported playing a martial melody that had given courage to the Shinigami while taking it from the Soldats, perhaps even literally.

A boy with a shield that had stopped cold almost everything that hit it, and even stood up to attacks from the high-ranking Quincy who'd been shooting through everything else in his way, including at least some of the walls of Silbern itself.

Another young knight who seemed to favor the lance over a sword, and had shown the ability to charge through a group of foes even while on foot, skewering those too slow to dodge and smashing aside the rest while the air howled around him.

The diversity and potency of these and other abilities demonstrated by the group were nothing unusual in the experience of Soul Society's warriors, but for them to be in the hands of mortals, even admitted artificial recreations of long-dead ones? For so many spiritually powerless humans to be able to fight on a level comparable to lieutenants and captains, and with that unspoken, unhesitating familiarity with each other's abilities which spoke of many battles fought together, against opponents of sufficient caliber that they could take the Wandenreich's opposition largely in stride? And for another mortal to be able to call up and command such a force? For while the Wizard may or may not have been there in the flesh, as the true Sorcerer had not, his creations were proof that he must exist somewhere.

It all challenged the fundamental assumption of human weakness and Shinigami superiority that underlay the balance between the worlds of the living and the dead. And that had implications that even Sousuke's mind was still considering the full extent of.

"I would have to inquire of Lieutenant Sasakibe to be certain," Aizen said in response to Gin's query, "but on the whole, I would suspect not. More likely we were dealing with recreations of a particularly exceptional group."

And where a lesser man might have frowned in frustration at having to admit the limits of his knowledge, the Captain of the Fifth Division instead smiled. He often did so as part of his guise as the harmlessly amicable superior officer, of course, but for once—and for a wonder—it was an honest display of his feelings. Nothing had ever delighted him so much as the opportunity to learn something new, and in that respect, the attack on the Wandenreich had been a positively joyous occasion.

In addition to the widespread observations of and reports on their strange mortal auxiliaries, information about the Hidden Empire had been taken by almost every member of the Shinigami raiding party, and was still being compiled and processed by the various Divisions. Easily the single greatest portion of that particular intelligence windfall had been accomplished by two of Sui-Feng's men, who'd been "assisted" in their efforts by the Shadow and several teams of his summoned minions. Such success was a bit of a double-edged sword for the men in question, as while their captain was pleased with the results, having to rely on an outsider to obtain them irked her—all the more so considering the price the Shadow had put on his aid, to say nothing of the other items he'd made off with and might or might not hand over.

…there was also some sort of furor about exploding filing cabinets, but the full details had not yet made it out of the Second Division.

Regardless, Aizen knew that most of the acquired data should eventually make its way to him without any special effort on his part. The ability to access and make proper use of such information was, after all, one of the responsibilities and privileges of his rank—one of the few redeeming features of the job—and what few things might end up classified before he could get his hands on them would be easily accessible via other means. This helped to make up for his own relatively modest "take" during the raid, soothing that particular disappointment.

The only intel that might entirely escape his reach in the coming days would be whatever was left in Silbern at the time of its destruction, and what had been smuggled out by the Sorcerer's Shadow, the Wizard, and Captain Kurotsuchi before the Kido Cannon was fired—and even then, some of the latter would end up on his desk eventually.

Nobody who knew the Captain of the Twelfth Division had any doubts that he had gone behind the other captains' backs to build a private access route to Silbern. As the Captain-Commander had not expressly forbidden such a thing, merely overruling Kurotsuchi's attempts to have Silbern preserved for long-term study, Yamamoto would most likely let the unauthorized use of resources slide, as long as his scientific advisor remembered to share with the other captains any tactically or strategically pertinent data he might have acquired in the process, while not flaunting how he'd obtained it.

Aizen had given some consideration to building a portal of his own, but his off-the-books resources weren't well-suited to the task of creating a passage to a previously unknown pocket reality—at least not within the timeframe that had been available. One of the perpetual downsides of operating in the shadows was the limits it imposed on manpower, especially for those projects he could not assign to anyone else, whether from lack of trust on his part or lack of ability on theirs.

He'd dismissed outright the possibility of using Hollow assets to breach the Quincy refuge. Even assuming that they were able to get into the hidden cityscape in the first place—something Aizen considered unlikely, seeing as how the Wandenreich had managed to hide from Hueco Mundo for the last thousand years as well as they had the Soul Society, despite the Hollows' ability to pass back and forth between the three worlds—the chances of their being discovered once there had been too high.

Not that he'd been troubled by the prospect of hiding a few Hollows from members of the Twelfth Division armed with their own senses, Mayuri's latest field sensors, and whatever detection and tracking kido they knew—he'd been doing that for a century and more at this point.

Doing the same while up against a couple of relative unknowns who'd proven themselves able to defeat the combined reiatsu-sense of half the captains at point-blank range, as well as the mysterious eyes of the Quincy King? Who'd kicked the entire invasion plan off by providing a map of the most heavily-defended part of Silbern, assembled from an entirely different plane of existence than the one on which the fortress resided, despite all the defenses that had kept the Shinigami blind to its existence for an entire millennium?

Part of mastery is being able to recognize another master when you meet him, and Aizen was quite certain that he was dealing with some masters in that group, or at least in the hands guiding it.

Which was, frankly, another reason for him to be in such a good mood about the entire affair. Soul Society had never been the most interesting of places, but it had become positive stale since the Visored Incident; with the flight and de facto exile of Urahara, Tsukabishi, the Shinigami-Hollow hybrids, and Yoruichi, there simply weren't any Shinigami left capable of offering him a genuine challenge.

Kurotsuchi might be brilliant in his own field, and admirably driven to pursue knowledge, self-improvement, and progress in general, but he wasn't quite on his predecessor's level of sheer multi-disciplinarian genius, he knew it, and that sense of frustrated inferiority tainted every project the man turned his hand and mind to. He definitely didn't have the knack for genuinely covert action that Urahara had picked up from his time with the Shihouin heiress and her Onmitsukido, and while he wasn't exactly bad at predicting people's actions once he had a certain amount of data on them, he often just didn't care to compile such information in the first place.

Such a disappointment.

Unohana held a knowledge of the workings of the body and the spirit that even Aizen had to respect, but her skills in the medical field were the result of centuries of practice and experience rather than any personal brilliance. Her particular genius lay in a field that, while certainly worth pursuing excellence in, could never give Aizen what he sought—for no matter how great the weapon or how skilled the hand that wielded it, one could not remake the world at the point of a blade.

Not unless the goal were to make the world even more of a slaughterhouse than it already is. And in fairness to our dear Unohana, she clearly realized the pointlessness of THAT, and sought a different path. A shame that she chose to support this flawed system instead of cutting down the weakness and rot that afflicts it…

The rest of the captains, whatever their talents in other fields, were sadly lacking in skill or interest for scientific endeavor, the arts of subterfuge, or grand strategy, to say nothing of simple ambition. The Captain-Commander and his two prized pupils were too hobbled by the demons of their personal histories and their assorted frailties, having allowed themselves to fall into the comfortable rut of routine rather than to continue to grow as individuals. The younger generations, in contrast, had largely been unready to shoulder the responsibilities that had been thrust upon them so suddenly all those years ago. There'd been a clear decline in the performance of the affected Divisions, one that in some cases still hadn't completely returned to their original levels, and Aizen could almost regret his own part in the events that had brought that about.

Almost.

If not for Gin, Tousen, and Kyoka Suigetsu, Aizen thought he might well have gone mad for simple lack of honest companionship and intelligent conversation. Even then, he'd played no small part in his co-conspirators' rise through the ranks, and continued to hold the superior position within their little triumvirate to this day. It didn't precisely disqualify them as peers, but at the end of the day, they all knew that if Aizen pushed on a point, the other two would fall into line beside him—or slightly behind, as the case might be.

His zanpakuto, meanwhile, was just that: his, though he was surely Kyoka Suigetsu's Shinigami in turn. As much as they had tested one another over the years, they were ultimately two halves of a whole, united in purpose.

For an honest opponent, Aizen could only look to Urahara and his ragged little band of outcasts, and their ongoing interplanar feud had reached a state akin to the human world's Cold War decades ago, as it became clear that the eccentric exile had hidden his Hyogoku and the Visored too well for Aizen to track, while those gifts, taunts, and outright challenges which could be sent his way without giving away the game to the Soul Society's inept but ever-present observers were not sufficient to budge the man from his position in Karakura.

Things had gotten to the point where Aizen had taken up intermittent observation of Shiba Isshin's children, in the idle hope that the hybridization of Shinigami-trained noble, pure-blooded mortal Quincy, and Hollow vector might give rise to something worth his time. It was difficult to be certain, given their ages and the distance at which observations must be performed—Isshin might have lost his powers, but Urahara, Tsukabishi, and Shihouin had involved themselves with the family, and the mother was both respectably competent and not hesitant about shooting perceived threats to her brood—but the first-born had been displaying behavior in keeping with heightened spiritual awareness before all this.

It was too soon to say how recent events might have impacted the boy's development, but Aizen could afford to wait for him to grow a little more before making any judgments—provided, of course, that he still had that time to spare. He might well not.

The Wandenreich had existed in hiding for a millennium, but they had not spent that time in complete isolation. The initial information the Sorcerer had passed on through Takamagahara's messenger had indicated the existence of a worldwide network of concealed bases, connected to and supplying Silbern with manpower and materials via the same Gates that the Sorcerer's Shadow and the Wizard had co-opted to insert the strike force.

Considering how easily the two mortal spellcasters had been able to use those portals to travel between Soul Society and Silbern, even when hijacking them, Aizen did not doubt that the Quincy could have done the reverse—or that they would have, had the events of the day played out differently, and their King's prophesied rebirth and return to power proven true. With that in mind, it was a foregone conclusion that the Wandenreich must have had some way of monitoring the Soul Society and the activities of the Thirteen Divisions, just as the Shinigami themselves monitored the Living World to direct the Senkaimon, watch for Hollow incursions, and record all manner of spiritual phenomenon.

This led to a series of critical questions. How accurate were the Wandenreich's methods of observation? How much of the three worlds had they been able to watch at a time, and how often? What had they seen, and what did they keep records of? And of those records, what had made its way into the hands of their enemies during the raid, or in its aftermath?

And for once, Aizen didn't know the answers.

For the first time in a century, he was no longer in control of the board. New pieces and perhaps new players had revealed themselves, as had old ones he'd not realized were still in the game, making moves of their own since long before he himself came to the table, while other long-time participants he'd thought to have fully accounted for showed themselves to still be capable of moving in unexpected ways. Territory considered known and secure or uninteresting and unimportant was shown to be anything but, while ideas he'd not wholly subscribed to but had still accepted as part of his worldview were proven to be lacking at best, if not outright wrong.

And in the midst of all this confusion, the false identity he'd spent whole human lifetimes crafting might now be under threat, endangering everything that he'd hidden behind it. Resources and research, contacts and assets, all of it could be at risk of exposure because of some piece of paper or computer file ripped from the Wandenreich's stronghold.

And he found that… acceptable.

More than that, he found it agreeable.

I have held almost all the advantages for the last hundred years,

Aizen mused, and yet my plans in recent decades have all been mere variations on the same set of moves, while my primary opponent has changed his strategy not at all. I have had a century's worth of a Captain's access to the archives of the Thirteen Divisions, the Kido Corps, and half the noble houses besides, and yet I have learned more in the last month than I did in the past twenty-five years. And for all that I have prided myself on reaching the limits of the Shinigami arts, it has been conclusively shown that there are other areas in which my abilities could stand improvement.

In short,

Kyoka Suigetsu summarized, it would seem that despite your efforts to the contrary, you may have fallen into the same trap of complacency and stagnation as Yamamoto-Genryusai and the rest.

At the very least, I was well on my way to doing so,

Aizen agreed. It appears that I owe the Sorcerer and the Wizard a greater debt of gratitude than expected. Once I have seen whether or not their actions have led to my being unmasked in Soul Society's eyes, I will have to give serious thought to how I might best thank them for kicking me out of my personal rut.

It would not do to let such a debt go unpaid,

his zanpakuto concurred. That said, finding them to extend proper thanks may prove to be a challenge.

Fortunately, I have an idea of where to start. First, I'll need to find a human magic-user…

OOC: Can I just say that trying to write for Aizen is a pain in the ass? Because it is. There's evil masterminds, there's evil illusionists, and there's evil mad scientists, and THEN there's this son of a bitch.

---

NINTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #2
ALTRIA DRAKE

Something was going on in the Manor House of Drake, and the youngest scion of the family did not know what it was.

Of course, there was usually something going on that Altria wasn't aware of. The Manor might not have the size of, let us say, certain vampire princesses' castles, but it was still a goodly-sized structure all on its own, with several adjacent outbuildings and a network of sub-levels and tunnels beneath—to say nothing of the greater grounds. Any building needed regular care and cleaning to remain in good order, larger structures naturally required more, and when you considered how many of the people actually doing that work also had rooms of their own in the Manor… well.

Altria had once counted up all the servants, all the guards, and all the additional members of the household staff that weren't either of those things. It had turned out to be a surprisingly large number—into the triple digits, in fact—though a good portion of that was down to the security teams, which she'd been told were over twice as large as a compound of this size generally needed for its own safety.

Then again, only about two-fifths of those folks could accurately be called guards. To be sure, the others were no less involved in protecting the Estate, the Manor, and the Family, but their method of doing so involved less waiting around for Bad Things to come and happen here, and more going out with Father, Uncle, and their friends to find said Things and blow them up where they lived, lurked, or merely crossed paths.

The point was, there was a small army of people living on the grounds, and they all had their own lives that Altria was oftentimes only vaguely involved with or aware of. And that was fine; she was used to that, had grown up with it and considered it a normal part of her everyday life.

What was going on now was another matter entirely.

It had started a few days ago, when Ambrose showed up as if to begin one of his more impromptu lessons, only to instead declare that "Classes are cancelled for the foreseeable future" and turn around and walk off, ignoring her calls for him to explain. Which had been his usual rudeness, and not helped by how, when she'd followed him back to his quarters, she'd not quite gotten the door closed in her face, but had heard Ambrose very deliberately locking it despite her knocking.

Anna had reported a similar encounter, and at least equal annoyance.

In short, Ambrose.

From then on, the wizard had remained in seclusion, only showing himself for meals, while deflecting or ignoring any questions Altria or her sister put to him about what he was up to. Asking their parents hadn't helped: Mother was equally in the dark as to what was going on; and Father had been, until he joined the wizard in his chambers for a few hours earlier today, at one point having the staff deliver his armor to him. When he emerged later—fully outfitted, but neither scuffed enough, tired enough, nor perspiring enough to have been fighting—Lord Drake was annoyingly close-mouthed about what had transpired, only speaking to his wife and the heads of the staff, before marching up to his study to call his brother, gently chasing his daughters out.

As one aspiring to become a knight, it was of course beneath Altria's dignity to eavesdrop at a door, no matter how curious she might be about events occurring on the other side.

How fortunate, then, that her older sister had no such ambitions or compunctions, was magically trained besides, and fully shared her curiosity as to what was going on.

Alas, by the time Anna had her spell going, Father and Uncle were talking the language of Finance—something to do with assessors, percentages, and schedules that told the sisters only that something would be going up for evaluation, most likely a lot of somethings, but not exactly what they were or where they had come from.

Still, even learning that much had stirred… a feeling that Altria could not quite recall ever having experienced before, and found she had trouble putting into words. It was a brief thing, a flicker of interest and something more than that, but which quickly faded as Lord Drake carried on approximately half of a conversation that was mostly numbers, names that didn't really mean anything to his daughters, and arguing with his brother.

Then Faye had come along, and Anna had had to cancel the eavesdropping spell to prevent their being caught out by her maid.

After inadvertently foiling their intelligence-gathering, Faye immediately redeemed herself by providing the sisters a new avenue of investigation, for she'd come to inform her young mistress that there had been something of a muster of the staff, with a good third of the household—those not occupied by other essential duties, or taking their downtime—being directed to join in moving things from the wizard's quarters to temporary storage. Faye was not charged to join in on that business, but rather with keeping Miss Anna occupied elsewhere for the duration, as it seemed that not only was there quite a quantity of objects in need of moving, but some of them apparently had the senior staff and the security chief concerned about safety.

Anna had inquired what had been meant by that. Objects big enough to pose a danger if they were dropped or tipped over? Fragile things that might break if handled too roughly, and their sharp-edged fragments pose a hazard? Or perhaps some weapons, perfectly dangerous as-is?

Faye had replied, "From what was said, all of that, and magic. Some of the things are magic in and of themselves, but most of those are either staying in Mister Ambrose's rooms or being taken straight to the hazard rooms until they get sorted out. The issue is that quite a lot of stuff appears to have been shrunken, and there's a bit of a rush to get as many of those put somewhere they won't cause issues when the magic runs out."

And there came that feeling again. Interest. Attention. A want for… something Altria still couldn't put into words, but which had her giving serious thought to the Manor's floorplan and what the shortest route to the storage areas was.

Anna was a good enough sister to catch her intention, advise a different route that would be slower but less-travelled–

Faye gave a diffident little cough of domestic interruption at that, and when the sisters paused to regard her, she informed her lady that the corridor in question was actually in use, as several of the adjoining storerooms had been opened up to find space for the items.

"…really?" Anna wondered. "There's that much?"

"It seems that way, young miss."

"What did the old fool do, rob a museum?"

"Oh, I would hope he had better sense than that, Miss Anna. Lady Drake would thrash him at least three times over."

Again, the sisters paused, this time picturing their mother's likely response to such a feat as was being suggested.

Once for despoiling a repository of art and culture, Altria silently counted off. Once for making the Family accessory to grand theft—is there a category beyond that? I should remember to check—once more for not letting her know ahead of time to prepare for and/or take part in the adventure, and once more again just on general principle.

Shaking her head, Anna then suggested a second route that should still be secure. And because she really was a good sister, she sent Altria off under a Spell of Invisibility, before allowing Faye to see her back to her room—because she was also a good lady and a good friend, and this way, as Anna put it, Faye would not only be following the orders given to her by the head maid, but could also say that she had not seen Altria.

For indeed, once the elder sister's magic took effect, the maid saw neither hide nor hair of the younger.

As she made her way through the halls of her ancestral home, Altria turned that bit of Exact Phrasing over in her mind and wondered if Anna might not have been spending too much time with Ambrose or the fairies.

Or perhaps it was just a Teenager Thing?

Setting those worries aside for the time being, Altria focused on speed and silence. A turn here, a dash there—house-shoes removed so that her socked feet made minimal noise—duck through the gallery and down the stairs the staff used when rotating pieces in and out of the more secure vaults, and go from there. A couple of unseen dodges, a long moment pressed up against a wall to avoid David, Westley, and the large chest they were carrying between them–

The feeling returned, something neither hunger or thirst, nor appreciation for the touch of fine clothes or a plush bed, nor the pleasant burn of activity and exertion and the satisfaction of a task done well, yet not entirely dissimilar to the lot.

–and then, ever so quietly and cautiously, following after the two men, to wait not-too-close to the door they passed through to drop off their cargo.

And then the men were leaving, and the way was clear, and she was in–

The girl stopped and looked around.

At twenty feet long by twenty across, and eight high, the storeroom was neither tiny nor huge. Its not quite vault-like door opened outward, providing a bit more space for the shelving units of stainless steel that lined the walls. Each of these was four rows high—the lowest starting from the base, just an inch off the floor—and each row was about as deep as it was tall, lacking either a front or a back. Two additional rows of shelving filled the left-hand side of the room, laid out perpendicular to the front wall, while the right side was occupied by a table and a few chairs.

Perhaps a third of the available space was currently occupied, and by all manner of objects. There were chests like the one just dropped off, boxes ranging from simple shipping crates to finely carved works of art in their own right, pieces of statuary, rows or piles of books, bags of assorted description, and quite a lot of shiny things.

Many of these pieces were very small, as Faye had said, and placed such that if and when they suddenly grew tenfold in size, they shouldn't spill over the the sides of their respective shelves or contest with one another for space.

That said, the shrunken items also looked to be made of felt, which was…

Well, the feeling that had been welling up again, accompanied by the vaguest certainty that everything would have looked so much better spread out in a pile on the floor, took in the almost plush nature of things, and kind of sputtered indignantly.

Meanwhile, a higher part of Altria's consciousness thought of a certain adorable lion that might or might not be occupying a place of highest honor in her room, and formed a dim suspicion that Alex might somehow be mixed up in this.

Of course, simply leaping to conclusions and making accusations without so much as listening to his side of things would be the act of a lesser friend. Altria would ask Alex if he knew what was going on, she would hear him out, and only then would she make a decision as to how she felt about it and ought to react.

It was entirely possible that Alex was not actually involved in whatever act of forcible acquisition had been undertaken this day, or that if he had been, it was for a good and worthy cause. But if that should turn out not to be the case…

"If he has been looting things without me," she muttered to herself, "I believe I shall be cross."

"Might want to worry about yourself first, Princess," an unfamiliar man's voice exclaimed from just behind her, echoing slightly in that particular manner that indicated the presence of a helmet.

Altria gave a start of surprise and whirled in place, ready to defend herself or flee—and then, for just an instant, she froze.

It wasn't unusual to see someone in full armor around the Estate. Family members and friends were often attired as such for training purposes or in preparation for various exhibitions, and more rarely on occasions where serious battle was expected close to home or within range of the wizard's teleportation. Then there were the suits kept on display, the heirlooms of generations past, representing trusted ally, honored enemy, and fallen kin alike.

Seeing someone in armor with his helmet on was a somewhat rarer occurrence, however, and seeing someone walking around outside of training with helm on and the visor down essentially did not happen, for obvious reasons of security, decorum, and personal comfort. The one exception in Altria's memory was last year's eclipse, when Father, Uncle, and Sir Roderick had gone about in full panoply for some time even before leaving the estate—to say nothing of what had happened after their return.

Hence, seeing a man so attired should have been concerning for Altria on multiple levels. And yet, the sight and sound of him did not strike Altria as dangerous. Indeed, though she would have sworn on her own aspirations for knighthood that she'd never laid eyes on the particular set of armor standing before her now, nor had she heard the voice of the man wearing it, his presence shook lose another peculiar feeling, one quite unconnected to the sensation that had been stirred up by the presence of the hoard treasure around her, and far less confusing.

It was dim and distant, like trying to recall a forgotten dream, yet despite the validity of any oath to the contrary, Altria was sure that she knew this stranger—and that being caught off-guard by him was somehow more embarrassing than it was threatening, a bit like having Anna walk into the room after being held at Mother's tender "fashionable" mercies.

"How did you sneak up on me?" the girl demanded, before she fully realized what she was doing. Very quickly, she added, "And who are you?"

"The 'how' is having a good-quality set of armor, and a great deal of experience at moving about in it," the not-a-stranger said easily. "There's a trick to walking in this stuff without sounding like a one-man invasion, it has to do with the length of your stride and how you bring your feet down."

Altria blinked, slightly surprised at the forthcoming response, but nodded, making a mental note to ask her tutor or her father about that later. "And the 'who'?"

"Someone who, unless I miss my guess, is the only one currently in this room with actual permission to be here," came the dry response, in company with a knowing look that even the closed visor did little to hide.

Altria tried not to wince or fidget. She thought she'd managed–

"That's what I figured."

–blast! How did he read her so well? Strangers usually couldn't do that!

Evidence in support of that strange sense of familiarity, then, even if she couldn't match the voice, figure, or general attitude to anyone.

"I'll tell you what, though, Princess–"

"Don't call me that," Altria muttered.

"–if you'll give me your word as a squire not to sneak around down here until after the staff have put everything safely away, and the wizard's given the all-clear about the magical parts, I'll give you my word as a knight not to say a word about finding you down here. This time."

That was a rather good deal for her. Naturally, Altria was immediately suspicious. "And what do you get out of that agreement?"

"Rude," the knight retorted, snorting. "If that's how you feel, I can always let your father know–"

"Oi," another unfamiliar voice said from the hallway. "What are you doing, standing around in the door like a– huh."

The newcomer was another armored figure, markedly shorter than the first man but in some ways more intimidating—chiefly because of the fearsome style of their armor, especially the helmet, but also because of another shock of inexplicable recognition, this one colored by something… unpleasant. Not fear or anger–

The red-armored knight looked Altria over, top to bottom, and then turned to the first warrior. "You picking on the brat?"

–make that, not initially anger.

"I am not–" Altria began.

"Nah," the first knight interrupted her, "I just caught her about to roll around in the loot."

"I was not–" Altria denied, even as she realized with a start that, yes, that was exactly what that weird feeling had been leading up to.

"Say what?"

"Saw it a few times when we were kids. He'd scrounge shiny metal bits or other pretty things, pile them together by the sleeping mat or in some hidden corner, and jump on the first person who tried to clean it up. Always looked confused whenever someone asked why, like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world." There was a snicker. "It was actually pretty cute."

"'Cute'," the red knight repeated flatly.

"As long as you weren't the one that got jumped on, anyway. He used to bite."

Even with that all-concealing helmet in the way, Altria could feel the red knight's disbelieving stare.

"True story," the taller man said defensively.

"…right, whatever." With that, the red knight seemed to put the sideline out of their head, turning to Altria. "Get out of here, shorty. We've got way too much stuff to move to have you underfoot."

"You are not that much taller than me," Altria replied in annoyance.

"Tall enough, kid. You can leave under your own power, or I can carry you out. So what's it going to be?"

…they were both smirking at her. Somehow, Altria was sure of it.

Grumbling, she gathered what dignity she could and exited the room.

"Like dealing with both Anna and Kenneth at once," the girl muttered to herself. So unfair!

Behind her, the red knight turned to their companion. "Who?"

"Not sure about the boy, but the other one's her sister."

Altria's pace carried her far enough that she couldn't clearly catch the follow-up to that. It sounded angry, though.

---

OOC: I will say up front that I do not feel this is one of my better Specials, certainly not on par with its "companion" look through Aizen's dork glasses, but it's months late, attempts to come up with alternative takes have gone exactly nowhere, and I am thoroughly fed up with it. So, apologies in advance, and I hope there's enough here to make up for the wait and the almost 4000-word count.

NINTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #3
JUGRAM HASCHWALTH

In his earliest memories, Jugram had nothing. His parents had passed before he could truly remember them, and his only other living relative was his uncle, whose familial feelings were… scant. He'd had few acquaintances and no actual friends until meeting Bazz, no little treasures or secret places that he'd been able to call his own, and his uncle made it clear that even the clothes he wore, the mat where he slept, and the tools he used to make his simple bow and arrows and clean the game he brought home each day were only loaned on sufferance.

Nothing was his, for he was nothing. A Quincy unable to form a Spirit Weapon, a powerless failure, practically a parasite, that had only survived his earliest childhood by the efforts and the lives of his parents, and then by the limited charity of his uncle, who was half-outcast from the village himself.

At first, it appeared as though the fire hadn't truly changed anything. Oh, it took the last of Jugram's family and every other living soul he'd ever known, save for Bazz, but it had left him alive, still powerless, still forced to hunt to survive, and still owning nothing that was truly his. After all, Bazz's father had been the local lord, and in the aftermath and ruination of the King's conquest, it fell to the Lord Black's heir to decide how the domain's remaining wealth should be used to provide for its surviving people, even if said "people" amounted to a grand total of two souls.

To his credit, Bazz had done well managing their limited funds, proving neither stingy nor spendthrift, and catching out more than one greedy soul that thought nothing of trying to cheat a pair of young vagabonds. Whenever a need arose which their own efforts couldn't satisfy but money could provide for, the older boy had spent the coin necessary to see it done; he'd worked just as hard as Jugram to earn more, even when it meant taking on jobs that should have been beneath his dignity; and he'd been scrupulously fair in dividing up the proceeds and making purchases, never cheating Jugram out of a single coin's worth or spending any less on his friend than he did on himself.

Granted, that meant Jugram had been dragged into an inexperienced, grief-driven drinking spree that ate up—or drank down—a good quarter of their money and left them both suffering the hangover from Hell, without so much as a "by your leave," but he hadn't held that against his friend. At least, not after they'd sobered up and finished the string of odd jobs that Bazz had convinced the headman of that village to take them on for, earning room and board for a couple of days, and a paltry half-handful of copper coins for their troubles.

When Bazz took three of the six coins and put them in Jugram's hand, it had been the first time Jugram was ever paid for his labors, and more money than he'd ever had to his name in his life.

Never in all the years since had he owned so little as that meager clump of rough-edged, cut-down coins, though he'd come close during the downfall of the Lichtreich. He'd lost King and comrades, the country that he'd come to think of as his homeland, the woman who he'd meant to make a new family with, the first that he would have truly known and been able to call family—he'd lost much in the fires of the war and the hellfire of the Demon Yamamoto, but he'd not lost everything.

Once more, he'd lived. Bazz had lived as well, and many of their comrades and the kin of those with them. Their King had fallen, but his body was not lost to them, and they'd had hope for his revival and return, reflected in the all-seeing eyes that had passed to Jugram and remained with him ever since, and the Balance that had shifted to His Majesty and stayed strong thereafter. The Lichtreich was lost, but the Wandenreich was born of its ashes, and it had been Jugram's task to lead them through the centuries, awaiting the distant day when the prophecy Yhwach himself had set down was realized and their King returned to them.

And then, on the very day His Majesty had been due to awaken and reclaim his power, it had all fallen apart.

Yet again, Jugram had not lost everything, but he was experiencing… difficulty… in coming to terms with the losses that had occurred. Far more so than it had been on the previous occasions when his life as he knew it had been destroyed.

When his parents died, he was too young to remember them or their time together, and so did not have any preconceptions about the world or his place in it. The absence of memory had been a blessing, in its way, for it kept him from realizing just how much he'd truly lacked in life, how empty his existence had been and what should have filled it.

When his uncle and the village died, it had been simplicity itself to adapt, for he'd merely gone from having nothing to having a different nothing; the world remained as it was, his hands and life empty until that day Bazz had tipped the scales, and Jugram finally began to learn of the many things that he'd been missing.

When Mathilde had died, Jugram had yet been young. Even in the midst of that grief and the horrors of the war, it had been… not easy, never that, but not difficult to reach back a few years to the memory of the powerless, possessionless boy, and to don his calm acceptance and indifference once more. Even if he now understood what it was to have, he had not forgotten what it was to have not, and so the crippling loss became a bearable pain.

The world gave, and the world took away. Today's fortune and love were the seeds of tomorrow's loss and despair, and in turn of the triumph and joy yet to come. All things would pass in their time, as Fate and Fortune decreed; his lot was to accept them as they came, to cherish them while they remained, and to not cling to them as they departed.

But now? Now, Jugram was a thousand years old. He'd been the Grandmaster of the Knights of the Order of the Star, Lord-Regent of the Hidden Empire, and Acting Supreme Commander of All Quincy for almost fifty times the mere handful of years that long-ago nothing-boy had lived. He'd been second only to Yhwach himself in the eyes of their people, and he'd been the only leader that the generations born after the fall of the Lichtreich had ever known.

To many, Jugram knew, he was the King of the Quincy. That thought was never expressed to his face—and certainly never in the hearing of those who believed otherwise, or at least not without swift and harsh penalties—and not once had he claimed the title even in the privacy of his own thoughts, but Jugram did not need the Almighty to see the faith that so many of those who'd never known Yhwach's presence or power had placed in him, the fervor with which they heeded his orders.

It was to be expected. For all that his actions had been in accordance with his King's last commands and the guiding vision encoded within the Almighty, it was still Jugram who'd led the Wandenreich through every step on their thousand-year journey, presiding over the rebirth of the Quincy, the development of their spiritual arts and sciences to the highest levels, and the expansion of their holdings upon the Mortal Plane. A millennium of growth and plenty and even victory, in the hunts of Hollows, demons, and other abominable things that plagued the living and the dead, a millennium in which the Soul Society and its rabid dogs remained blind to the existence of the Hidden Empire and its growing power.

It was very human for the people to direct their gratitude and loyalty to the leader they could see and hear and touch, rather than the absent occupant of the empty throne behind him.

And it was also very human for the leader to grow used to that feeling, to enjoying it, and even—in all honesty—to considering it his due. He might not be the King of his people, but he had led them, and well, for far longer than even Yhwach. Surely, the honor and tribute paid to him by the Wandenreich had been earned? A recompense for how empty so much of his life had been for so very long?

He'd thought so.

It seemed that he'd been wrong, for once again, the pendulum had swung, and the scales had tipped to despair.

The path laid out in the Song of the Emperor's Praise was interrupted at the most critical hour, and the Shinigami stormed the halls of Silbern itself, spilling the blood of his people yet again. His King and counterpart was murdered in cold blood, despite the desperate and valiant efforts of the Imperial Guard, the Knights, and the very best of the Soldats to prevent it. His people, cast out into the world by the fickle will of the Soul King's own Heart, acting at the behest of some creature, seemingly mortal and yet invisible to the King's Eyes, as no being outside of the ranks of the true gods of the world, not even the Demon of Fire or Crowned Death himself, had ever been.

Generations of hard work and success, overturned in an afternoon of chaos.

A millennium's good fortune and preparation, weighted perfectly against a single moment of utter failure.

And to top it all off, Jugram mused as he struggled to get comfortable in the borrowed seat behind an unfamiliar desk, in a home office belonging to another soul, the bastard took my chair.

It wasn't anger which filled that thought; Jugram had far better things to be angry at the Shinigami's strange ally for than the loss of a chair, however fine and comfortable and well-loved it had been.

There were the stolen memorials to seethe over. Trophies of victorious battles and reminders of grim defeats; mementoes of long-lost allies and plunder seized from fallen foes; great works received as payment or tribute or rescued from impending disaster; the odd knick-knack that served no apparent purpose anyone could discern; the list went on and on. Some of that great collection had been claimed by his own hand—and much of that was pulled from the ashes of the Empire of Light, a desperate attempt to preserve some fragment of his people's accomplishments and culture in the face of seeming annihilation—but most had been the work of the Quincy under his command, from the proudest Sternritter to the common Soldat to the occasional humble servant who'd achieved a moment of unexpected greatness. Even the rare Earthborn Quincy had some achievement memorialized, a testimony to the tenacity, the simple existence of those who survived invasion and exile, diaspora and genocide alike.

He could rage over his lost library. There were volumes in there whose contents dated back to before the Lichtreich, copies of things collected by Yhwach in his centuries of life and by Quincy scholars for many generations before that, their meaning and value debated over by some of the great minds of the Lichtreich, its neighbors, and lands further afield. Books obtained in more recent centuries ranged from the collected knowledge and histories of far-flung peoples to folktales and myths, as many of them disproven as not, as well as works of purest fiction meant for pure enjoyment, some of them famous in the modern world, others lost and forgotten to the ages.

He had screamed at the despoilment of his hidden shrine. The last image of his beloved, her scorched jewelry, and the ring he'd never found the right moment or the damn courage to offer her; and with those mementoes, the portraits and tokens of the other Balancers found over the ages, and then lost—his greatest failure in all those years.

Long ago, Yhwach had explained how, as the son of the Soul King, his soul inherited not only his godly sire's divine nature, but also echoes of the blasphemous maiming that had been inflicted upon the One Who Became the Fulcrum. Where one anomalous spiritual nature might have been tolerable, two ensured that His Majesty's spiritual essence simply did not fit his mortal shell, and that by itself, it could not properly animate that form; only when supplemented by the spiritual essence of compatible and healthy humans was the King's soul able to perform those functions so taken for granted by the humblest of mortals.

To see.

To move.

To think.

And even then, only for a time, for energies drawn from even the strongest of purely mortal spirits could not indefinitely endure the pressure of a god's soul.

Had another Quincy with the power to Give been alive then, the history of the world might have been very different, for they, too, carried portions of the Soul King's essence, albeit fragments smaller by far than that which Yhwach bore. Where the King was a divine spirit clothed in mortal flesh, the Balancers remained mortal almost in their entirety, but for that single mote of godly might at their core, and how it interacted with their powers.

All Quincy fought by gathering power from their surroundings, and the act of moving it marked it with traces of their souls' native energies. For most, this meant little beyond the ability to distinguish one's weapons from those of one's allies, but for a fully-realized Balancer, it could be used to add that hint of divinity to every exercise of spiritual power they performed. Such power matched the King's own far more closely than that of other Quincy, even those whose powers originated from his blessing, and could last longer and endure greater strain before breaking down far enough to require replenishment.

In short, a Balancer's power provided a means by which Yhwach might sustain himself without needing to prey upon his people… at least in theory.

In practice, Jugram had been too young to provide for his King's needs alone, even with the influx of Quincy souls from the Lichtreich's conquests and natural deaths to make up a portion of the difference. Had he and the Empire been given more time to grow, or had other Givers been born to aid him in supporting their King, a point of equilibrium might have been reached—and perhaps Silbern might have taken form as the Imperial Palace it had originally been conceived to be, from which Yhwach could watch over his people in a more spiritually nourishing environment, and where Jugram would have centuries to grow into and perform his essential role, instead of the decades his mortal body would otherwise have limited him to.

Yet it was not to be. Jugram was the first Balancer born in centuries, and in Yhwach's original visions, would have been the last until the Quincy changed the world forever. Instead, the expansion of the Lichtreich, the open use of spiritual powers on a national scale, and the intensification of Hollow hunting had drawn the attention and the ire of the Shinigami and other Powers, forcing the Quincy into a war they had not been ready to wage.

And so the original plan had changed. Instead of a peaceful retreat, Silbern became a fortified refuge, and a future weapon to help break the Soul Society's power forever. Instead of building their Empire openly within the mortal world, to one day turn all of mankind's living strength against the unjust tyrants and unconscionable monsters of the Spirit World, the godly realms, and the Hell-dimensions, the true heart of the Quincy people had gone into hiding.

And instead of being the last of the Givers, Jugram was charged to seek out the new Balancers whose births Yhwach had foreseen, past the looming shadow of his own long death-sleep. For when the two of them existed together, they were in balance, however unsteady; and when Yhwach's wounded soul was forced into dormancy by his final battle with the Demon, that balance was broken, necessitating that the cycle of souls produce another of those rarest of Quincy to fill the void.

And so it had, more than once down through the generations.

And Jugram, for all his efforts to the contrary, for all the power and authority invested in him by his King, had failed to save them, just as he'd now failed to prevent the fall of Silbern.

With all of that to be distraught over, why was it the stolen reading chair that vexed him so?

Perhaps it was simple bafflement over the fact that the chair had been stolen in the first place. After all, next to entire rooms' worth of valuable information, materially precious objects, and aesthetically pleasing ones, what possible purpose could one well-used old chair fulfill?

A means of establishing connections to its former owner? Perhaps, but Jugram hadn't failed to notice that his hairbrush was missing—and absent from the Almighty's vision, as the thief and his many other prizes were—meaning a much more direct and generally reliable option had already been seized. The stolen chair would offer nothing that stolen hair could not, and was significantly more likely to be thwarted by those mystical defenses the Wandenreich still had access to besides, so that seemed unlikely to be the intent behind the theft of the furniture.

Was it an attempt to add insult to injury, then? The desecration of the memorials had already accomplished that, and far more thoroughly, to boot. The chair was no better than an afterthought compared to some of the items from the gallery, and as for the shrine, it did not even begin to compare. Again, the reasoning missed the mark.

Could it have been intended as a distraction? While it was lingering in Jugram's mind, so did many of the other events of the invasion, and there'd been chaos aplenty in its wake besides, all giving rise to sufficient demands on his limited time and resources as to once again make the point moot.

Or perhaps it had simply been… thoroughness. The invader had stripped the rest of Jugram's reading room bare, so why not take the chair as well? That, at least, made some degree of sense, strange as it might… seem…

The Grandmaster gave that thought closer consideration. An act with no apparent benefit, undertaken for no sensible reason, as if on random whim… am I dealing with a madman?

It was far from unknown for great works of magic to take a toll on their makers, or for failed spells and rituals to backlash upon those that attempted them. Nor was it at all a rare thing for powerful magic-users to display a certain degree of eccentricity—both the Hidden Empire and the Thirteen Divisions had characters aplenty in their upper ranks, proof enough of the fact that power of the spirit certainly tended to change those who bore it. Memory and record alike showed that magic was no different.

The idea of strength capable of thwarting the Almighty, in the hands of a lunatic, was not a pleasant one… and yet, after a long moment, Jugram shook his head. Once again, the notion didn't fit, not when so much else about the intruder's actions spoke of rationality, planning, and pragmatism.

He'd brought an army in three parts, only one of which was demonstrably under his control, and yet had successfully worked alongside the other two. Some degree of diplomacy would have been required for that—all the more so considering how little the Shinigami thought of mortals to begin with—and say what he might about the Soul Society, a madman would not have fared well in negotiations with them.

The intruder had taken a prisoner, compelled her to speak without harming her, and then put her aside, protected against mischance or deliberate malice by any party. Young Bambietta had not enjoyed the experience by any measure, but she'd come within arms' length of no less than three Shinigami captains, specifically the Demon, the Master of Assassins, and the current Kenpachi, and walked away without so much as a scratch. It had showed purpose, precision, and precaution, qualities that the mad were not well-known for.

When confronted with an obstacle that stymied his more physically focused allies, the spellcaster did not waste precious time or energy joining in the attempt to force the Royal Gate, instead taking the eminently sensible, highly efficient, and simply infuriating option of bypassing it. Much as it pained Jugram to admit, he would have done much the same, had the ability to teleport without the support of the Gates of the Sun been part of his skillset.

The very fact that the invaders had known where and when to strike betrayed information-gathering capabilities of an alarming degree—abilities that could not have belonged to the Shinigami, with their centuries of utter ignorance of the Wandenreich's existence, and almost must be in the hands of one or more of the other parties involved. Given that one of those had already demonstrated himself to be a spellcaster of a downright alarming level of proficiency, his face went at the top of the list.

As did a name, uncertain as it might have been.

Gerard calls him the Shadow, and swears that he wielded a golden power not unlike the Soul King's own, to first reveal and then sunder the bonds on the Heart. The Heart, which saved us and scattered us in the same moment; the Heart, which Gerard says went its own way, claiming that after millennia of inaction, the Soul King is moving.

As unsettling as the unknowns and implications surrounding the mysterious magic-user were, they paled before the potential ramifications of that possibility.

…and the knowledge did nothing to answer Jugram's bafflement about his lost chair!

---

Amy Visits The Flea Market Omake (Part 1):
June 18th, 2000. Sunday.

She woke up bright and early, and promptly wanted to go right back to bed. Sadly the blaring alarm clock made that impossible as she groaned awake and got up, stumbling to get ready for the day. Maybe she should use the Restful Blanket Alex got her more often? She knew the thing would be a lifesaver in the next few years and as she became an adult, but it wasn't as useful now, and she hated how quiet the house got with her being the only one awake.

Still, chores. Always start with chores to get them out of the way and use the time to wake up. Thankfully she could cast Unseen Servant without any lingering magic auras, but that was about the limit of what she could do and not have to worry. She was damned grateful to Alex and Briar for teaching her how to grow her own personal power, but it was still frustrating at times to only be able to cast something like Unseen Servant a little over a dozen and a half times* in a row before being completely exhausted while Alex could throw a couple hundred castings of it around before even being winded. So unfair.

Still, being friends with Mr. Ridiculous did come with benefits, like the vast trove of magical knowledge she and her mom sometimes 'mined' when something came up, or she was having problems getting a spell to work as intended. She'd have to be careful telling that to Briar though, as she knows Briar would be tempted to cast an illusion to give them mining outfits and pickaxes when they came to visit if she did.

Hmm. Might be fun to do anyways. Zelda would get a kick out of it. Maybe she could make a game of it?

Plus she knew Alex kept some things from his family and friends, and he knew that she would cover for him when needed. It stung a bit given she was one of his friends, but she did understand the need for secrets, even though she wished he'd stop being such a silly boy at times and talk with Larry, Cordy, or her about things, and she knew he wasn't talking with Kahlua or Altria or even Dave about whatever had been bugging him. And that was before adding in whatever mess was going on with Ichigo's family and how that had been weighing on Alex and what had happened yesterday.

Still, they were friends, she knew enough to know when something was off even when he was hiding it, but she knew he enjoyed the company of people his age who actually understood most of what he was talking about or going through, even though he sometimes started talking about the really advanced stuff she didn't fully understand yet. She had started writing to Dave as well after Alex had introduced them, and she was- Oh, right, chores. Gah, need caffeine badly.

Shaking herself to stop idling, she cast the spell and watched as it went straightening up her bed and moving the dirty clothes where needed as she went to check on her familiar, a cute little short-haired dachshund puppy**. The lovable little thing was no Briar or Moblin, but she was her familiar, adorable shy derpy pupper that she was.

"Good morning Argos," Amy warmly said as she sent feelings down the bond. The feelings were returned as the puppy reared up a bit and let Amy pet her neck, before Amy went to fill her bowls.

Alex and Briar had gotten a small laugh out of the name when she decided on it, given the first thing Briar told her when she got the puppy was "The name should probably be Greek" given who her family dedicated themselves to, at which point Alex started calling her puppy "Greek", at which Cordy and Amy both rolled their eyes and Larry gave him a playful smack for the bad joke.

"Breakfast is ready Amy!" she heard her mother call from the kitchen.

"Coming!" Amy called as she entered the living room where her father was watching TV.

"-and in other news, the incident that led to a ten car pile-up has been confirmed not to have any fatalities, for which we are all thankful to hear, though authorities are asking that anyone who hears or sees any mountain lions report it so that they can deal with it before any more injuries or accidents occur. We-"

"Oh, hey Amy!" her dad said as he noticed her and muted the tv.

"Hey dad. News still going on about yesterday?"

"Yeah. They're trying to play it off as a mountain lion running around the city," he said with a frown as he waved at the screen, a reporter talking with someone.

Not that it mattered much what Sunnydale's reporters said, as it was, as Cordy so eloquently put it, either lies, damned lies, or misleading statistics involving salt and pepper shakers and their links to hip-hop or waffle addiction.

"Anyways squirt, your mom has breakfast ready for you, and I have a few errands to run today," he said as he gave her a hug ("I'm not a baby, dad!"), a kiss on the top of her head ("You'll still be my baby girl even when you're thirty honey!"), and then he left as he made goodbyes for the day ("Bye Amy! Bye love!" "Bye dad!" "Make sure to get some bread on the way back dear." "Will do! Love ya!").

Breakfast was a quick affair as she and her mom got ready, and she washed and dried the dishes, Unseen Servant showing its worth once again as her mom shook her head at how Amy kept up her 'magical practice', and then cleared out the stuff in the car so they'd have extra space for the day.

"Alright Amy, you've saved up a lot of money, and I'll let you spend a quarter of it on whatever you want, but I want you to keep your purchases to one item per vendor. Do that and I'll let you wander about on your own until we meet again at lunch. That sound good?"

"Yes mom, that's fine. So four hundred dollars, right?"

"Yes dear. Well, let's get going!"

It didn't take long for them to reach the local Flea Market on the edge of town, near the port and railway***.

The first place she decided to stop at after actually entering the flea market on her own was the Jewelry Vendor. She had often been drawn to many of the items for sale when she had visited before, but had to window shop given the lack of funds. She had saved up for today. She wanted some jewelry. Not just to look nice with, but also to use for making a magic item of some sort later on down the road. It may take a while, but she wanted some magic gear like what Alex had, even if she had to make it herself, and Alex had been giving her a lot of lessons with what he had learned of magic item creation, and she knew Alex had plans later on for a better workshop of some sort he planned on letting her use, provided she helped out with a few of his own projects in the next year or two. And she had been saving up her Rupees for that as well.

She was going to help with that, and had even recently made a Wand of Sleep last week. Which was a major improvement considering her first attempts at scroll making had taken two tries before she got it right, but Alex had helped her figure out what went wrong, but she did do it and didn't need the help with that sort of thing anymore. And it was her first attempt at scroll making, so it wasn't a big deal if a few minor mistakes were made, given that Mending fixed all the damage and both Alex and Briar swore never to tell her mom or dad what happened with the couch.

She was learning how to make some magic items in addition to casting spells, and no one thinks anything odd of a woman wearing jewelry.

"Hello dear, finally done window shopping?" the woman asked with a smile as Amy approached and looked at the numerous pieces of jewelry under glass cases.

"Oh yes, had to save up before I could get what I wanted though," Amy said with her own satisfied smile.

"Heh, well, I recently got a lot of new stock to add to things, and they have been selling like hotcakes. You better get one fast, before they all disappear," the woman said with a smile.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'm wearing one of them myself," the woman said as she pointed towards a small band of gold on her fingers. It almost felt like- "And I just sold a very gorgeous amulet a while before you showed up to a nice young man. Black circular thing, it reflected the light wonderfully as the colors swirled about in the sun. He must have been in a rush though, as the second I turned my head, he was gone, but still, it was a thing of beauty, and I'm glad to have helped make him smile when he decided to buy and wear it. Anyways dear, which one of my fine products will you be buying and wearing today?"

As Amy took another look at the items on sale, that was the question, as she had a number of them to choose from.

The second place she decided to visit was the Furniture Vendor. An odd older man named Clements, though he asked that she just call him Clem. His skin was always so saggy. Still, she liked him, even if she suspected his 'skin condition' was not what he claimed it was (and even with his odd appearance she suspected he was using the spell Disguise Self, and chose to limit what it altered), and he always had a funny or embarrassing story of some sort to tell.

"Hello mister Clem!"

"Oh, hello Amy. How are you doing today? And where is your mom?"

"Fine enough, and mom is over near the clothes section I think. She said I could get anything I wanted so long as I kept it to one purchase," Amy said with a small grin.

"Always nice to hear. After yesterday though," Clem said as he shuddered, "I would really recommend sticking near someone you trust."

"Oh? Did something happen?" Amy asked, knowing damn well what had happened and mentally cursing Alex for it.

Clem gave her an odd look before he responded. "Something big went down yesterday. It's got the locals spooked and twitchy and whatnot, including some of the not-so-nice locals, if you catch my drift. So you really shouldn't be too far away from someone you trust. And at your age you really shouldn't be getting involved with whatever that mess was. If you can promise me that, I'll even make you a deal."

"Oh?" Amy asked, curious about what sort of deal Clem was going to offer despite herself.

"Yeah, I got a bunch of stuff that 'fell off the back of a truck' and right into my hands, if you catch my drift. I'll let you pick out one of the items I got for what I paid for it if you can truthfully tell me you won't go looking for trouble. That sound fair?"

After that, it took a few moments before she realized that it was almost lunch time, and she was getting a bit hungry. She did make a promise to meet up with her mom for lunch after all, and the flea market always had a few tents set up for food and porta potties nearby for people who needed to use the restroom. Looking around, it took only a moment before she spotted her mom.

"So where's your stuff Ames?"

"Dimensional pocket," Amy replied with a small proud smile.

"Ahh, gonna have to learn how to do that myself, but it does raise questions when you need to grab something from it in public."

"I know," Amy said with a grimace, before pointing out the jam packed lines for the other places they normally stopped to eat at. It took a moment before she spotted the only food tent that didn't yet have half-hour long lines stretched out for it.

Amy wondered a bit about that, but neither her or her mom had never been to this place before, even if it was apparently a bit more greasy fare than either of them normally preferred.

On a little sign, it read "The best sausage-in-a-bun in all of Sunnydale ($5)".

"What do you think mom?" Amy asked with a small bit of curiosity.

"Eh, might as well at least try it," her mom responded with a small bit of distaste, hunger winning out over patience.

Author Note: I ran this omake by Judge Mental first and got approval for posting it, and made edits as directed. I will state upfront that taking a risk won't screw you (or Amy) over. It may not give you everything you wanted, but it won't hurt you either. I will not state whether an item is magical, cursed, on the way to being cursed, or completely normal, but at the very least, Amy WILL get something of equal or greater value than what she spends her money on. However, Amy has limited funds of $400 total to spend. Depending on what Players choose, well, let's just say Judge Mental can have some fun with this later on down the line, and there is a reason this omake will have a few parts to it.

*Among normal mortal humans on Earth, Amy is actually a powerhouse of magical might. The only issue is she's usually right next to Alexander LaVelle Harris, and that kind of skews the comparisons.
**Witches get Familiars when they start making deals as Witches, as their familiar is the conduit through which their patrons can cast spells for the Witch. Amy and Catherine are both Witches whose patron is Hecate. Amy is essentially a 'Pathfinder Witch'. Amy also has a Spell List written up, though she only knows 49 spells at the moment, all of which she can cast herself with her own power. As for why a dog? While many places allow 'emotional support dogs', emotional support snakes are a bit harder to justify. As Judge Mental put it, "It'ssss bigotry, issss what it issss!"
***Sunnydale has a Port and Railroad in the TV series. These two things are always tied together in RL. Also, Sunnydale is in the geographic area of RL Santa Barbara. I am setting the main core of the city as being 15 square miles in diameter, with the city having underdeveloped outlying regions being about equal to 30'ish square miles diameter. Anya stated that the Denny's in Oxnard was exactly half-way between Buffy's and Angel's residences. From the Hyperion Hotel to Oxnard was 59 miles; assuming that Anya was being precise, this would put Sunnydale on the northwest outskirts of Santa Barbara.

---

Amy Visits The Flea Market Omake (Part 2):
June 18th, 2000. Sunday.

She was tempted to get the labradorite necklace given it would be a good base for making a magic item to hinder minor curses and general Sunnydale nastiness, but in the end, the cuteness and style of the ant bracelets won out, and she couldn't deny that they would look good on her. Plus, she could make that sort of necklace later on when she had a bit more cash, time, and materials to make it, and she didn't want to be lackluster when making something like that, given she'd be wearing it everywhere in Sunnydale. A bit of patience and planning would work out better, given she could make a better item that way.

"I'd like the adorable ant bracelets, please," she answered with a smile as she reached into her 'pockets' and started to pull out her money.

"With pleasure dear," the woman behind the table agreed as she started to unlock and unclasp the glass display case to get them for her. Once again she felt something was off, but couldn't figure out what it was, and her eyes kept slipping towards the jewelry the woman was wearing.

"I see you're interested in my ring," the woman chortled with a subtle smile as she showed it off yet again. Up close it was an insanely beautiful if simple piece, yes, but this close, it almost felt like she wanted to wear it the more she stared at it, and it was not her style at all. Cordy would give her no end of hell for wearing something like that, so what the hell was going on with that. "Sorry, but not for sale," the woman teased, breaking her attention and train-of-thoughts.

"Ahh, sorry for staring," she stammered for a second, before adding "I was just trying to think of what sort of stuff would go good with that, or with the bracelets I just bought."

"Ahh, showing interest in someone then? Maybe wanting to get their attention?" the woman quipped with a small amused smile.

"No, nothing like that, at least not yet, I just found that I like making things, and, well, who doesn't like looking good, you know?" she said as she shrugged her shoulders. Seriously, every young woman likes dressing up now and then.

"I hear ya dear. By the way, name's Marcy. It's nice to introduce myself. Your name?"

"Amy."

"Well Amy, let me get those bracelets for you so you can show them off."

"Thank you," she said, as she was handed the Bracelets and realized immediately by the feel that they were magical. As Altria liked to say when no one was looking, especially when Alex was being his normal self: what the bloody hell?

"Could you tell me some more about these?" as she pointed at them. "I've never seen anything like them before, and it sounds like there's a story here," She questioned, digging for more info and trying to figure out what was going on and using Detect Magic to try and get some idea of what she was holding.

"...beyond what I told you before you bought them, I suppose you are old enough that I could tell you a little bit more. A fire happened a while back," Marcy began, as Amy felt a small shiver pass down her spine. Something about that remark was making her think of something, but she couldn't quite remember what it was…

"Yeah?" she remarked, words falling out of her mouth to make Marcy aware she was paying attention while also focusing on the bracelets, which while magical weren't that powerful, and sneaking subtle glances at Marcy's hand and trying to figure out why Marcy's ring made her want to reach across and grab it from her hands.

Gained Ant Haul Bracelets.

"Well, they found out that someone died in that. Poor girl. No family to claim her belongings, and it took a while for the state to confirm that, so her stuff was eventually auctioned off when the place holding her stuff confirmed her death and didn't get any further payments for storing them. It's weird now that I think about it, but there weren't many people at the auction yesterday compared to usual. But yeah, if you want a history, it might help to look up that woman. That would give you more answers than I can dear."

"It's no problem, and thank you, both for the Bracelet and for the story," she responded, mind racing to figure out if she could get answers, along with whether she should.

"No problem dear. I expect to see you in the future though. Save up, maybe we can get you a nice necklace or earrings to go with the bracelets."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" she murmured as she left, heavy thoughts in her mind as to how she was going to handle this.

"I have no problem making that promise Clem," she answered with an honest smile. Afterall, she knew what was going on, and had no interest looking around for trouble anyways, but if it found her despite that, it would not find her easy prey.

"Great," Clem said with a small relieved smile on his wrinkly face, "then which one do you want to buy?" he asked as he pointed at the stuff available.

"I'm thinking the plain chest. It's either gonna be filled with something boring, or have something interesting in it, but I'm interested more in the chest itself than what's in it given how sturdy it is," she replied as she looked over the choices that Clem hadn't moved out from the back of his van.

"Ahh, I would have thought you'd be interested in the other chest," Clem said as he pointed at the more feminine one, and while she was tempted, the fact it was covered in so many Unicorn stickers made her consider it something Harmony would be more interested in, and she did not want whatever was in that.

That was just tempting fate, given what she had accidentally gotten already. She even made a point to use Detect Magic on all the chests while Clem's back was turned, to make sure she wasn't touching something cursed or the like. Maybe she was being a bit paranoid though, it wasn't like the entire flea market was filled with magical items, and she didn't feel or see anything with Detect Magic with Clem's stuff, though a quick glance at Clem confirmed he had a spell of some sort on him too. Felt a bit like Illusion magic now that she knew it was there, so yeah, probably Disguise Self as she suspected earlier.

"Are you gonna need help with that Amy?"

"Nah, I think I got this," she pronounced as she lifted it up, finding it to be surprisingly easy to move around despite how heavy it should be.

Gained Mysterious Locked Sturdy Chest.

"Uhm," Clem stuttered out as he watched her lift the too large locked chest up and rest on her shoulders, before she realized what she was doing. She needed an excuse, and she realized that she had one. A good one even.

"Have you seen the amount of books they make us kids carry around for school nowadays? This? This is nothing," she boasted as she patted the chest she carried on her shoulder, the silver bracelets she wore glinting in the sun. So that's what they do.

"Ok, I'll buy that, so long as you don't start telling any of the younger kids about how 'in your day'. Save that sort of stuff for us 'old folks', though I will admit I look good for my age," Clem said with a smile and laugh as she laughed alongside him.

"So, before I go Clem, why is everything in your van?"

"Beyond the fact that it's a good way to move stuff around?"

"Yeah, beyond that," she said as she rolled her eyes.

"Going on a vacation for a while, down in Mexico. Shouldn't be gone too long. One of my cousins had an accident recently, and I want to see a bit more of the world before I return home. Figured I'd combine the two. Oh, my cousin? Don't worry little lady, he was only dead for a short time, but he got better, especially since that shaman was helping him out, so I figured I'd stop by and help out a bit. Family, you know how it is."

"Ahh, yeah. Tell him I wish him well, yeah?"

"Will do. Later Amy, and tell your mom I said hello, yes?"

"Sure thing Mister Clem. Later! And don't let the chupacabras bite while you're down in Mexico!"

"Pfft, chupacabras are harmless pests, it's la Llorona and Cipactli* you need to watch out for!" Clem called out as she left, rounding the corner away from prying eyes and putting the chest into her dimensional pocket.

She grabbed her mom's hand as the two of them approached the food vendor as he smiled at them. A smile that was too wide, with teeth that were too shiny. Thankfully none of them were sharp, but if they were, it wouldn't have surprised her.

"Welcome, welcome, to the best sausage-in-a-bun in all of Sunnydale. Come try the most delicious recipe learned from some of the best fry cooks down in the South! Yes, the deep fried sausage in a bun will be sure to satisfy your appetite, and all for a low affordable price that's so cheap, I'm practically shooting myself in the foot, or my name isn't Samuel Michael-Owen Fredrick Dibbler. But please, just call me 'Sam'. Now ladies, what can I interest you in? Come get it now, while there are savings to be made," as he pointed to the menu.

It took a moment before she saw that a small section of text in the menu listed that condiments, cheese, and pickles were an extra $0.75, and that he even offered a special "Vegan" hotdog if asked for it.

Her mother saw what she was looking at, and so curiosity won out.

"So, can you show me your vegan special?" Mom asked.

"Certainly," Sam replied as he pointed to one of the already cooked hotdogs sitting under a heat lamp to keep it warm, his glasses almost seemingly like they were diff-, wait, when was he wearing glasses?

"How is that vegan?" mom asked flatly. "It's made of meat!"

"Well madam, I'm glad you asked. All of our state's cows, pigs, and chickens are fed all the plants we can find. And as science has proven, you are what you eat, ergo, these hotdogs are a plant based meat alternative, and for the price I'm selling'em, I'm practically shooting my own foot!"

What. No, seriously, what just happened here. How does one even respond to something like that?

"I can see by the look on your face you have your doubts, so how about I make you a very special offer? I'll sell you this for three dollars instead of its normal asking price. Sound like a deal?" Sam cajoled, as if letting a customer wiggle away offended some deeply held belief. Namely, that other people's money belonged in his pockets.

"Include some ketchup and mustard for me and my daughter and I'll take you up on that offer," her mom fired back.

"The lady drives a hard bargain," Sam joked as he handed mom her hotdog and packets and her mom handed over the money as he gave a small laugh and smile while she decided to go for the 'main item' on the menu, just to try it and see what it was like, while her mom bought her a soda, before they wandered out and started to eat their meal as more customers entered the food stand to be parted from their money. She could even hear some of the conversations taking place as they left.

"But wait! There's more! Friend-"

And so she decided to bite the bullet and try it out. It… wasn't bad. Which was surprising, given this was obviously a store-bought hotdog deep fried and she expected the worst, but it didn't taste like badly processed meat hotdogs usually did**. The way the meat split open even made it easy for the ketchup and mustard to sit in the meat nicely. She'll have to remember that herself in the future.

"So Amy, find anything interesting?" her mom asked as they both finished their quick meal, curious about what she had been doing and had bought.

"You can say that," she hesitantly replied. "So, I seem to have accidentally bought some magic bracelets, and I think the jewelry vendor is apparently wearing a weird magic ring of some kind too. She doesn't feel magical either, though if she's under nondetection, yeah…"

"What?" her mom exclaimed in shock as she looked her over to make sure she was alright.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too. These bracelets make it easier for me to carry heavy stuff around it seems, and I think the ring makes you want to wear it for some reason, but I couldn't check to see what else might have been magical given how many were around me at the time."

"...huh," her mom uttered, a look of curiosity and concern in equal measure on her face, before using the cantrip Detect Magic as she had done earlier to check for herself, before mom then seemed to have decided they both had an urgent need to 'freshen up' and moved towards someplace more private before casting Mask Dweomer and then something she had seen Alex use a few times in the past. A spell she knew, and whose name was on the tip of her tongue, though she hadn't learned how to use it herself yet.***

"Ok, they're safe. It's like you said, they help you carry stuff better. You said the jewelry woman was wearing a weird magic ring?" mom inquired.

"Yeah, Marcy got it from the same place the bracelets came from," she surmised, realizing what her mother was hinting at.

"Dear Hecate, what else did that woman sell?" her mother exclaimed for a second.****
Trouble.
"Amy," mom stated, her focus entirely on her. "I need you to introduce me to this Marcy. Quickly now."

"Right, we need to go this way," she directed as they once again entered the crowds.

…

"Ahh hello Amy, welcome back. Enjoying the bracelets?" Marcy asked, moving some of the wood and glass cases aside and away from the table, moving them into the back of a vehicle nearby.

"Loving them," she said with a smile, trying to keep Marcy's attention on her while her mother worked most of her magic. "I wanted to show mom what else you had in stock."

"Ahh, I'm afraid I'm sold out dear. Interesting gentlemen, he bought all of my stuff on the spot. As such, I'm closing out for the day given I have nothing more to sell anyone."

"What?" she choked out, not expecting this.

"Sorry dear," Marcy shrugged. "That sort of thing happens sometimes."

"You will be here next time, yes?" her mother cut in a moment later, apparently done with whatever she was doing.

"I usually am, yes. Interested in some jewelry yourself?" Marcy asked.

"Always," her mom grinned. "Anyways, even though I couldn't buy something myself, it was interesting to see what you sold my daughter. Your name is Marcy, yes?"

"Marcy Pines," Marcy answered brightly. "Yours?"

"Catherine," her mom answered with a small honest smile. "I expect I will be seeing you again soon, and out of curiosity, is there anything you can tell me about the man who bought you out for the day?"

"Ahh, expecting to find him and pick out something? I don't blame you. Still, it's funny, but he was very plain. Business casual, glasses, and a briefcase. Really nice hair, though. Still, he had the kind of face you'd forget in a crowd, you know?"

"...yes, I think I do. Thank you. It was a pleasure, and I expect we will be doing business in the future. Out of curiosity, do you live in the city?"

"Ahh, no, I live over in Oxnard, but I do flea market stuff, and my husband usually picks up stuff for me to sell. Sunnydale tends to have cheaper spaces compared to most of the other cities, but it's usually a bit harder to sell the more expensive stuff as well. Wasn't like anything I sold today was super expensive, so no big deal. So I'm usually in one place or the other, depending on what we pick up."

"Thank you. Until we meet again," mom replied as they made their exit.

"Until then!" Marcy replied cheerily, going back to loading her vehicle right afterwards as they left.

"So, the ring's affecting her mind somehow, and pretty heavily at that, and it doesn't look to be a 'useful' effect, if you catch my drift. Couldn't get more info than that," her mom stated once they were away from any potential prying ears.

"Crap," she muttered, realizing what a pain this was going to be to help this woman, assuming she'd even want the help. Especially with that ring messing with her mind.

"Crap is right. Well, there's nothing about it we can do right now, and we'd need time to prepare anyways. What a sh-" her mom started to say, before realizing she almost started using some bad words, as they walked towards a more empty spot for the moment.

She couldn't help but give a small giggle to that.

"Anyways Amy, we have about two hours before we need to leave. Want to come with me?"

"Well, I did promise Mister Clem I would stick around someone I trust today," she began as her mother got a curious look on her face, "and yes, I do have my wand with me in case something shows up, oh and Clem says 'hi' by the way, but eh, I do want to visit the toy and clothes section last before we leave, and I know you already went through the clothes section without me."

"That's fair, but go back to that promise you made," mom questioned her.

"Eh, Mister Clem asked me to 'not go looking for the trouble that happened yesterday', and to stick by someone I trust for a while. Some of the locals have been 'stirred up', in his words. Oh, and he was wearing a minor disguise spell. Did you know he could do that?" she asked.

"Huh. And yes Amy, I know what Clements is. Let's just say that for one of this town's locals, he's one of the few you can trust if an issue shows up and leave it at that. Did you promise anything else?"

"No, but Clem did let me buy something from him. I got a locked chest. Didn't see or feel any magic from it though."

"Well, if you checked, I trust you, though we will be checking it thoroughly when we get home and get it open. I know a spell that will get that lock off real quick. You said you got it from Clem?"

"Yeah, in his words 'it fell off the back of a truck'. Is that important?"

"In this case, no. How much did you pay?"

"Seventy-five bucks. Did I overpay?"

"Hmm, most new chests go for a hundred or more," her mom stated thoughtfully as she looked it over before Amy quickly put it back in her dimensional pocket, "Given it 'fell off the back of a truck' and was locked… yeah, we're definitely going to have to open that later, as there's something in it that someone wanted sealed or hidden. Doesn't seem to be cursed, but still. Anyways, let's go visit Robert Maris'***** stand. I'll even let you get two items there, since the trip will cut a bit short."

"Sure."

"Catherine! It's nice to see you!" Robert said with a bright smile as his pearly-white teeth, red moustache, red eyebrows, and curly red hair all but shown in the light of the sun. Seriously, that sort of hair was so unfair. She admitted it, she was a bit jealous of it.

"Robert! How's 'Becca and Samantha doing? And what's the news with Tammy?" Mom questioned.

"Oh, Tammy's friends got into an accident out in the desert. Kids and their joyriding," Robert griped as he rolled his eyes recounting the events. "She was both shaken and excited about it, given she encountered some of the more unfriendly locals and she knows not to go looking for trouble, but you know how that can be. As for little Sammy, the girl is getting into everything, save for when she's down at the beach playing!" Robert quipped with an amused smile as he and her mom shared an amused grin.

"Oh, don't I know it," mom joked, prompting an annoyed snort given they were poking fun of her. So unfair. She was nine, and totally not a baby!

"And look at you Amy, you're getting so big!"

"Thanks, and you're getting big too!" she joked as she pointed at his stomach and rolled her eyes, getting an amused laugh of the man as mom shot her a look to watch her words and not insult anyone.

"Yeah, I know I'm getting a bit fat little lady, but it won't stay that way for long given my line of work involves moving stuff around personally," he said with an amused smile. "Still, Sunnydale allows for a lot of interesting acquisitions from many places normally quite difficult to access, and my dear 'Becca wanted me to clear out some of the more mundane and boring stuff that was taking up room before we go visit coral rivers to do a lot of the more useful sales."

Coral rivers? What?

"Still, take a look and tell me what you might be interested in," Robert pronounced with a cheerful bright smile as he waved his arm over the items available.

The last spot she wanted to visit for the day was the Toy Vendor, which was usually a collection sold by a mother and daughter, though sometimes the father was there to 'help out'. She had been babysat by the daughter when she was a bit younger, and made sure to speak to them when they stopped by.

"Hey Jennifer!" she exclaimed brightly, startling the teenager in question.

"Gah! Christ, don't sneak up on people like that!" Jennifer wailed in alarm, glaring at her for the scare.

"What, I wasn't being sneaky, you just weren't paying any attention!" she poked back, sticking out her tongue.

"Brat," Jennifer murmured, rolling her eyes at her.

"So what's this I hear about you and Tammy getting into an accident?" she asked, curious about the comment Mr. Maris had made. She vaguely knew that Tammy and Jen were friends, but they were still highschoolers, and didn't bother telling her any of the really interesting or useful stuff.

"God, no, I do not want to talk about that again," Jennifer quipped in annoyance. "If you want more details, go bug Tammy or David. Anyways, come back when you have something you want to buy."

---

Amy Visits The Flea Market Omake (Part 3, the Finale):
June 18th, 2000. Sunday.

Mom can help, so she is going to help. The only question is what help mom needs.

"So… how are we going to help?" she asked.

"Hmm, what's that dear?" Mom questioned, turning her head to look at her.

"I want to help that woman. That ring is doing something bad to her, and I'm pretty sure it was by accident," she started to gripe.

"Yeah, that tends to happen. So tell me dear, how do you think we should help? Assume you're doing this on your own for a second. While you could buy a Scroll of Curse Removal easy enough, do you think you can convince that woman to pay for it? Or pay for someone else to get involved to cast the spells for you? Or convince her to let you do the things needed, especially if she doesn't know or believe magic to be real or that it has costs?"

"Ahh," she uttered, realizing the problem.

"Yeah. Still, this is a good teaching moment, so any thoughts as to how you could make it happen despite that?" Mom asked, curious to her answer.

"Hmm, I might be able to talk her into letting me if it's messing with her mind, but then again, maybe not. So how…" she trailed off, realizing the other way she could get around having to have the woman pay her for things, because in a way, she would be paying her.

"Thought of something?" Mom leaned closer, interested in her response.

"You can say that," she said slowly, unsure of how mom would react to her thoughts. "If I knew Disguise Self or Invisibility, I suppose I could knock her out with my wand of sleep, get the ring off of her, and then either make it looked like she was robbed by an adult that ran off or that she fell asleep and lost it, and then have her 'pay me off' a bit later as I walk up like the adorable child I am and help me out with some change to make a phonecall or buy a candy bar."

"Pfft," Mom snickered in stifled amusement at the answer. "Well, that's one way to do it, and it would work. Anyways, to continue the lesson, the plan to rob Marcy for her own good would more or less work as far as settling magical debts goes, yes. Marcy would owe you for having the ring removed, and you would owe Marcy for taking the ring without consent. Additional payment on top of that might be pushing things, so don't do that, and you definitely need to be careful to ensure Marcy doesn't get hurt."

"So, we have a plan?" she asked, surprised that Mom agreed with her.

"We have a plan," Mom said, all but cackling afterwards.*

She took a long moment to go over everything present. The first painting was, well, meh. Looked like some overpriced thing you might find in a boring place that was trying to be 'trendy'. Boring. The other painting, well, the other painting actually looked like art. Art she actually kind of liked even. It was surreal and beautiful and… it was totally messing with her mind, wasn't it?**

Taking a moment to check that no one else was around or paying attention, she used a cantrip to detect if there was magic on it. And yup, there was magic within the painting. Taking a moment to get closer, and no longer relying on just Detect Magic, it was a spell she knew the feel of all too well, even, given she was already learning Hypnosis, even if she couldn't perfectly cast it yet.

A spell of hypnosis was bound to the painting, which kind of made sense, as it was a cool looking painting even without the spell, and a good painting would make the spell have an easier time working. And if there was one magic item here, there might be others. Given Mister Maris appeared to be 'in-the-know' about some things given what he and Mom said, he likely wasn't a spellcaster himself given the cost of making even simple magic items. The painting also felt a bit corrupted, but it wasn't cursed. At least not yet. Probably would end up cursed if she didn't cleanse it though. Bleh, well, that shouldn't take too long, but she might have to get Alex's help to go someplace away from Sunnyhell to do it.

"Hey Mr. Maris?"

"Yes Amy?" Robert replied, turning away from Mom and their quiet conversation for a second to answer her, both of them looking curious.

"Did you know that the painting has a spell of hypnosis tied to it, and is on the way to ending up cursed?"

"What?" he exclaimed quietly, an expression of absolute shock on his face, while Mom focused on her and the things laid out for sale.

"Yeah. Still want to buy it, but how about I check the rest of what you have here to cover the actual cost of the item, and so I can tell you if anything else here might be dangerous?" she questioned with a small grin.

"Uhm, please do check, but don't touch it if it's dangerous," Mister Maris said as he looked over the rest of the items present, and seemed to be visibly trying to decide if he should pack up everything then and there to look it over elsewhere, as Mom cast a spell to look over things as well.

Taking a moment to go over everything, and watching as two young girls had walked up and started talking with Mr. Maris and her mom, only one other item for sale seemed to be blatantly magical, and taking a moment, yeah, something about it was definitely wrong as well. Crap, that's probably a cursed item. And it's good she spotted it, because if Harmony was here, she would have bought it in a heartbeat.

Two other items had also soaked up some corruption and were almost to the point of needing to be cleansed with fire rather than rituals and magic, but it wasn't like it was anything beyond what would normally be found in Sunnydale even with the normal stuff. Still, she'd point them out anyways, given one of them was the Dreamcatcher.

Besides that, and most surprising of all, there was no corruption in the creepy skeleton statue. It looked like it was the sort of thing that you would expect to be the 'evil object of evil' in the center of some ritual of doom, which made it that much cooler, especially since it wasn't. But she'd have Alex help check it anyways, just in case.

Knowing her luck today, she probably bought some evil doom artifact needed for ending the world, and she denied it to the bad guys because it was mislabeled and shipped to the wrong place.

Pffttt. As if. Usually the good guys weren't that lucky, amusing as that thought might be.

Going over to the table, and grabbing a lot of papers as she pointed out the horse and asked it was safe to grab with a thick layer of papers, her question causing Mr. Maris to look over at his daughters as her Mom quietly told him they were fine, much to his relief, as she covered the cursed glass horse and brought it, the painting, and the statue up to the counter.

"The glass horse is cursed. No clue what it does, but it doesn't appear to go off by touch. Dreamcatcher and the blanket over there also needs to be cleansed given the corruption they've soaked up. So, would you agree that, in addition to cash, using my magic, finding the cursed statue, and pointing out the corrupted objects counts as covering payment for the painting's true cost?"

"Yes, I think I would, and if it doesn't, you can consider the remaining cost covered as a gift," Robert said as he looked at the wrapped glass horse in a small amount of horror and disgust, as Amy handed over the cash.

Gained (Slightly Corrupted) Fascinating Starscape Painting.
Gained Eerie Skeleton Statue.

"Girls! Don't just stand there. Help out! We need to pack everything, now!" Robert demanded of his daughters, the younger looking honestly despondent given the heat, even if Amy couldn't see her face yet due to how she was hunched into her sweater and had her hands stuffed into the pockets.

"Do you need help?" she inquired, the older sister all but glaring at her as she moved the younger one behind her, and the younger one slumping further in the process.

"It's fine girls. I know her mother, and she," he said, pointing towards her, "has already proven herself a big help," Robert commented. "So you can give her a little trust, yes? And don't dawdle too long. Anyways, Amy, meet my daughters, Tammy and Samantha. Tammy, Sammy, meet Catherine Madison and her daughter Amy. I'm pretty sure she's nine, in case you haven't met each other at school yet."

"Hi," a small voice squeaked as she pulled her webbed hands, with skin so blue it was almost black, out of her pockets and gave a small wave, the older sister watching Amy like a hawk in the process as she moved to help her father move stuff into some boxes.

"Huh, anyways, do you want some help with the heat?"

"You can help with that?" Sam asked as Tammy blinked in surprise.

"Yep," she said cheerfully as she grabbed Sam's hands as if to shake them and cast the spell Endure Elements on the young girl, much to her visible relief.

"What did you just do!?" Tammy demanded, a bit scared and wary as Tammy looked at her like she was some unknown scary-looking demon that showed up and decided to be "Friendly". In this town, that sort of thing wasn't exactly impossible. Now how to de-escalate?

"Uhm, just a spell of Endure Elements. She looked miserable, and your dad knows my mom and I can use magic. I'd help with an illusion spell, but I don't know enough of them to help with that," she said with a small shrug and smile as Sam was looking at her in what looked like shocked awe.***

"Most people act like assholes when they learn my sister isn't fully human," Tammy said protectively as Robert watched from the sidelines as he and Mom moved the horse statue out of the way.

"I'm not most people, duh," she teased as she rolled her eyes.

"No sass now dear," Mom said a moment later as she helped Mr. Maris store the cursed item away from the rest of the things. "We know better than to deal with any of the more… troublesome locals and their patrons, if you are concerned about that Tammy, but we do have the power and knowledge to help deal with things beyond the normal, if you catch my drift. Anyways, Robert, if you need some arcane expertise to help you in the future, you do have my number."

"That I do Catherine," Robert responded. "That I do."

"Amy, one more stop, and I will have to use the restroom, so if I'm not back to get you by the time you're done, meet me at the restrooms, okay?"

"Okay," she replied as she waved goodbye to Sam and her older sister. Really, what more needed said?

Looking over things, you might have asked to pick up something to use later, but you did make a promise to limit your purchases for the day, and you have to admit that nothing else came back as being magical, even though some of the tools and work clothes were thoroughly corrupted.

The dollhouse had soaked up some corruption as well, though the amount of detail and work that went into it was beyond spectacular. Seriously, she wouldn't doubt that she could buy an old used car for the same price this dollhouse would cost if sold as new, so what was up with this? Definitely worth it.

Picking it up, she went along looking at things before she spotted some of the strangest playing cards she had ever seen. She'd almost say they were Tarot cards, but if so, she'd never seen them done like this. She didn't recognize the symbols or the pictures. They weren't magical, she made sure of that, but she had no idea what they were intended for. Eh, five bucks wasn't that much. So yoink!

"Hey Jen!" she called out as she walked back, dollhouse and cards in hand.

"Yeah?" Jennifer responded, clearly bored.

"What's up with the dollhouse?" she pestered, pointing to it as she set it down and started pulling out money.

"Fu-," Jen almost cursed, causing her to smirk at the future complaint's their mom's would give her if caught, before Jen caught herself, "-udge if I know. Mom just wanted rid of it and slapped the cheapest price she felt she could get away with while still making a bit extra," Jen griped as she took her money, opened up a locked metal box with some crosses hanging off of it, and then handed her change over.

Gained (Slightly Corrupted) Exquisite Masterpiece Dollhouse.
Gained Mysterious Artistic Playing Cards.

"Ahh, still, thanks."

"No problem," Jen said. "Tell your mom I said hi, yeah?"

"Sure thing!"

She needed to use the restroom herself, so that worked out nicely.

She was walking along to meet back up with her mom before using the restroom when the scenery started to change around her and people started moving around her, as if she were in a bubble, before a man was suddenly present, though he seemed to have some indecision about where he was going to be, appearing and disappearing from a few spots before deciding to appear a bit to the side. A man wearing glasses, with a face that seemed normal but forgettable, despite the gorgeous hair.

"Well hello there. Might we interest you in a Special Limited Time Offer? We've got never better bargains, we've got deals you can't believe! We can tell you what you want before you realize what you need!

" a man sang eerily as he approached her from two different directions at once, staring at her like a cat sizing up a small bird as a meal.****

…there was even confetti to go along with the creepy little song, though thankfully there was no dance.

"What?" she said in bafflement. Yeah, this man was throwing around a lot of magic power to appear out of the blue like this while making everyone ignore them, but it wasn't actively harmful, and compared to what Alex usually did it was kind of not that impressive. The tune was a bit catchy though, she could admit that to herself. She was a bit annoyed at how she didn't know he was there until he decided to do a literal song-and-no-dance introduction though.

"We are so glad you asked!," he proclaimed as he pointed to a clipboard with a bunch of papers on it that did not exist until he used magic to create it or stop hiding it, "because right here and now, we have been given dispensation by our employers to make deals for future deals and services! Why, we have even been given authorization to pay you just for hearing our offer out, even if you don't accept," he proclaimed as he pulled out two rocks that felt so massively of Time, Shadows, and Darkness that she almost tripped on her own two feet just by being near them.

"What is that?" she exclaimed as she pointed at the stronger of the two.

"We liked the pun of 'promising someone the moon' and then delivering on that promise. And in this place? Well, a reagent of darkness would have more impact than a reagent of light, or water, or air, especially for someone with such talent in shadows and darkness as yourself. We imagine you will cast a shadow on this world few others can match or surpass, whatever humble thoughts you may think of your... talents."

"We are willing to offer you a massive upgrade and give you the stronger reagent if you are willing to trade us all of the items you have created or bought to us. What do you say?"

AMY INTERRUPT!

"I will have to decline," she said firmly, all but glaring at the man.

"Oh, and why is that?" he asked slowly, his face blank of all expressions as images of fang-filled mouths started to appear around them, though why one of them had a kazoo of all things was a question she didn't want an answer to.

"Because I made a promise to not go seeking any danger or trouble today, and I promised to stick near my mom. Also, because I'm friends with a Fae, and I know better than to make a deal like this without better knowing who and what I am making a deal with, especially as you made no limitation on wanting all of the future items I will make or own," she said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes and offend this unknown magic user. Also, he was too focused on something she had, and she wasn't giving it away. Was he after the statue?

"Is that so?" he asked as he leaned closer to her. "That just makes you more interesting, we hope you know, and we are sure our employers would agree. Well, just as you have made a point to keep your promises, allow us to keep ours," he said as his body turned into butterflies and flew away into the wind, the environment returning to normal and people no longer walking around her.

And in her dress pocket, she felt the weight of a small stone that had not been there before. Though it wasn't drowning all of her senses out as the other stone had done.

Gained Magical Moonrock.

She needed to find mom, and quickly.

The return home was a quick journey, though no red lights had been ran. Amy knew there would be a tense discussion once Dad was made aware of things, but both Mother and daughter agreed to get the stuff unloaded and relax a bit before informing him of the unknown illusionist she had encountered. It wasn't like there was anything they could do about it now.

"We're home!" Mom called out as the garage door lowered.

"Welcome back. There's some mac and cheese on the stove if you want some!" Dad yelled out from the bedroom.

"Thanks! We might need you in a few minutes though hon," Mom chimed back as she carried in a few bags, before turning to Amy and motioning her to put her stuff on the table. "So, let's deal with your stuff first."

"No problem," she replied as she started pulling the locked chest out and carrying it on her shoulders, her dad looking on in surprise as he walked into the room.

"Dear, would you go grab the tarp from the garage?" Mom queried.

"Sure, but what do we need it for?"

"I kind of bought a magical painting that hypnotizes people and makes them want to keep staring at it no matter what," she answered.

"Ahh," Dad drawled. "Is it dangerous?"

"Not yet," Mom chimed in, "but we will need to cleanse it soon to keep it from becoming so. Don't worry, we will valiantly go with you, and should you fall victim to its 'that's neat!' effect, we shall bury you with honors!"

"Gee, thanks," Dad huffed as he rolled his eyes, focusing instead on his daughter. "So what's the deal with the locked treasure chest? Beat up some pirates and steal their loot?"

"Yep!" she chirped with a proud smile and victorious arm pump as mom rolled her eyes and dad laughed before rubbing her head ("Hey, watch the hair!" "Never!") as she set the chest down on the table, as he and Mom went to the garage and came back with the tarp, laying it out as she brought out the painting.

"Huh, that is neat," Dad said as they started wrapping the painting up and setting it aside, shaking his head as she and Mom giggled, before Mom pulled up a chair for dad to sit down on as Mom focused on the chest.

"So, since this is another teaching moment, tell me dear, how would you get a locked chest like this open?"

"Oh, I know the name of the spell, though Alex hasn't taught me yet. It's Knock!"

"Good answer. What else can you do?"

"Hmm, I suppose I could hire a locksmith, but that's expensive."

"Majorly so, as I found out when I locked myself out of the car last year," Dad grumbled.

"Yep, learn from your father's mistakes. I know I do," Mom giggled, before returning to her instructions. "Another thing you could do is use a hacksaw or metal cutters, though if you have to use a saw, use an electric hacksaw if you can."

"Speaking from experience?" she asked, knowing there was a story of some sort there.

"All too much unfortunately. Now tell me, is there anything else you can do?"

"Hmm, I suppose I could conjure water and turn it into ice repeatedly to break the lock. Or use damaging spells like Shatter, though I don't want to do that if I'm not trying to break something."

"Good. Anything else?"

"Huh, well, I suppose I could try and get copies of the key, or turn myself intangible, or into something small."

"Good answers my dear, though there is one more option you didn't list, and it can be safe if you have expert advice on how to do it and bring out things 'safe' for the environmental conditions involved, and I did ask for a lot of 'expert advice' before daring to get it to work," Mom smirked wickedly. "Now let's take a look to see what is inside of this chest," Mom said as she cast a spell and suddenly there was a woman with horns nearby as she appeared in a flash of smoke, covered in a large cloak of some sort. She couldn't help blinking in shock.

"Oh, didn't expect to be back here again," the woman said, as she spotted Mom and Dad before smiling. Was she blushing? "Catherine, John, huh, and you must be Amy then?" she asked curiously, before stating, "Name's Ker little one, so what's the job Catherine?"

"Yep, our daughter, and we need help with a lock," Mom declared, pointing towards the chest.

"Ahh, one of those jobs. You're lucky you're cute, it's my one weakness," Ker teased, pulling out some tools and getting started on opening it, before it clicked open less than a minute later.

Lost Mysterious Locked Sturdy Chest.
Gained (Disorganized) Vampire Hunting Kit.

Inside… was a lot of random stuff.

"Is that silver?" Dad questioned as he pulled out a silver mirror and knife, and set them aside.

"Yep, looks so," Ker said, leaning close to look in.

"Those, are some really big bullets," she couldn't help but comment as she moved them and a gun cleaning kit out. "Silver too, same as the holy symbols and that mirror and knife."

"Ahh, snake liquor," Mom said as she held up a small bottle with a snake head in it. "Yoink!"

Bleh, that sounded gross.

"I do hope you'll share next time Cathy," Ker said playfully. "Anyways, I think this summoning is about done. Later!"

A small number of quick goodbyes were said before the woman disappeared back into a puff of smoke.

"Is it just me, or is most of this stuff worthless for Sunnydale's variety of vampires?" she stated as she looked over the items being pulled out.

"It's not just you dear," Mom said as she moved aside an old box of takeout and dumped it into the trash. "Still, we will need to talk with Alexander soon."

"Yeah, we kind of do," she agreed, annoyed at the unknown illusionist she had met, and unsure of some of the items she had gotten hold of. She really needed him to check that stuff out.

---

From out of an extravagant door, steps a young girl, wearing an overly elaborate dress.

She sighs. The birthday party had been ok, she guessed - it's not as though she'd had many where others had been invited to compare this to, after all, just one other before now - since it had been filled with so many more people now.

And once again she had managed to invite more friends to come along.

Friends.

That thought still made her smile.

To think just a while ago, there wouldn't have been any around, no Tatsuki to come along and make little Moka fume over the dancing, no Emiko that would sit and share stories with her, or bring along her little sisters.

Her smile turned into an impish grin that Kokoa had said looked suspicious - mere moments before her little sister had been swept up in a hug - glancing down at her gauntlets that caught the light.

Aside from the chance to just spend time talking to one another, the sparring had been very nice as well, vampiric instincts for testing strength coming in handy with the partly-oni, and Emiko's fangirling over the tournament was still fun even if she privately thought it was going a bit overboard.

And her newest sibling looked as though she was getting along, several of the boys who would otherwise ask her for dance now drawn towards Akua, which had at least been a relief.

She lightly runs a hand along the fuzzy body of Merlot, smiling down at him and gently scratching at his back, earning an appreciative coo. So cute, her thoughts repeat once again. Even cuter, perhaps, than Zelda, or little Miu. Not cuter than her own Kokoa or Moka, though, that much was for certain and she would hear no one say anything else about it.

She slows down on her path to 'refresh herself' to let out a soft sigh.
Yeah, maybe she shouldn't have thought of Zelda, because now her mind was wandering towards Alex.

He didn't come along to her birthday this time, she thought glumly.
Apparently, it wasn't his fault, he had something he needed to do from what mother had said, but still.

She shook her head.

Regardless of what was going on, she hoped he was ok.

A sudden squeak startles her and she blinks, looking down at Merlot, who's placed on her hand that is currently… busy crushing a piece of furniture, the chair she'd sat on straining under her grasp. She lets out a startled sound, sounding much like Merlot, and thank goodness her parents can't hear her now, as she hastily lets go and her hand flies back as though burned, fretting over what had happened.
Mother and Father had said that this was natural, that she was growing stronger and it was a good thing. But it still takes some effort to get used to the sheer strength she is beginning to exhibit.

Again she heaves a sigh, before she straightens up and prepares to move ahead.

"Why so glum?" a voice called out that sounded like an army, and bats swarmed forth, swirling around her, the swarm of bats, creatures that she'd normally find adorable - but which was a description that didn't quite fit Uncle Boris - gathering in one place and suddenly there, in front of her, was Uncle Boris, crouching down and peering at her with soft eyes.

"Oh, uncle, hello," she stands up and performs a curtsy.

"Hello, my dear. I see you've managed to wrest yourself free from everything up to now, and got yourself some breathing room, eh? Good girl!" he applauds her, a jolly smile drawn wide on his face before it eventually fades away. "But now, before I forget myself, please, sit down and tell me what has the girl of the day so upset, hmm?"

"It's nothing," the young vampiress says, glancing away, although she does as told and sits again.

"'Nothing' she says," Uncle says, with a shake of his head that somehow manages to be both fond and exasperated. "Little Kahlua, I wasn't born yesterday, I've been around for longer than several of these guests, combined! I know it doesn't seem like it due to how kind the years have been, but still. Do you think I can't tell when the family is worried about things? Come now, tell me what your problem is."

She thinks that isn't a fair thing to boast about, considering several of the guests are children, but she wisely keeps her mouth shut about that, and instead decides to indulge her honorary uncle.

"Well, you remember Alex? He is my friend - my first friend - and, well, he was too busy coming to my birthday party. I am worried, and I also feel, I don't know…"

"A bit sad?" Uncle Boris asks, gently. "A tight feeling in your chest?"

"Mhm," she nods.

The vampire looks at her, an expression that many who had only heard about vampires could never expect to see on his face and he nods with immense empathy. He looks older now, less spritely.

"That is one thing that I wish you wouldn't have had to experience, at least not so soon."

Sighing, the older vampire looks around, finds another chair to sit down next to, and begins to speak.

"But I guess that was not to be. What you need to consider, is that this is something that will often happen, those who are strong are called to do things that eat up a lot of time, even if they'd prefer not to. It's simply something that comes with strength. And young Alexander, well, he's quite the powerful one."

Under normal circumstances, perhaps she wouldn't have said something else, just nodded along and that would be that. But since she'd already started to air her complaints, the rest just came on its own, something deep within pushing her to share this worry too.

"Well, about that strength you talked about…" she gestures towards the chair, expression embarrassed. "I guess this is something I also need to worry about, huh?"

"The strength is nothing to be ashamed of!" Uncle Boris protests. "Of course, it will take some time to learn how to properly handle it, that's the same with everyone."
"But I don't want to hurt anyone with it," she says back, surprised at how passionate Boris is about this.

"Hurt anyone?" Boris asks, looking at her with wide eyes. "That's something that no one wants, little Kahlua. No one enjoys hurting those they care for. That's why it's important that you get used to this now so that you can control your great strength."

The words continue to pour out, in the privacy that has been afforded to them.
"I know, and I'm trying my best, but it gets difficult, sometimes, and when I get worried, I-" she stops and lifts a hand, flesh flowing around and shaping itself into blades. "Well, this happens."

"Ah," he says, tapping a pointed finger at his cheek, looking up, humming. "I had hoped you would speak to me about this. What you have right here is quite the extraordinary thing. It is not something that should be dismissed."

"...It isn't weird?" she asks.

"Nonsense!" Uncle Boris scoffs at the mere thought. "No one with any sense would think that, and I'm positive your friends certainly wouldn't. Why, I've yet to meet a child who doesn't find the ability to change shapes like others change coats impressive!"

He demonstrably pats at his own cloak as he says this and despite herself, she feels her lips form into a soft smile.

"It's one of the most splendid things we have available, what sets us apart from the oni and the dogs and everything else out there, that we can be proud of!"
Worry once again surges in, and she can't help but share more of what she's been thinking about.

"But I have heard others talking about it when they think I or mother can't hear…"
"Tch!" Uncle shakes his head, face morphing into an extreme mask of distaste. "Those silly youngsters, they buy too much into their pride! Don't be like them, now, this is something you should be confident in!"

At her startled gaze, he reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder, speaking with uncharacteristic seriousness.

"You're one of the most talented users of this ability that us vampires, us actual vampires instead of those fakes, possess that I've yet to see, in all my years! Don't go and dismiss your talents just from some brats rumormongering now."

She hesitates, biting at her lips, even though mother says that is not something a proper lady should do when they're worried.

"Really?"

He nods, a smile filled with absolute confidence on his face.

"I promise. Just ask your friends when you meet them, I'm sure they'll agree!"

Something within lightens at that, and she nods.

"OK. I'll talk to them."

"That's the spirit, little Kahlua!" Uncle Boris cheers, clapping once again. "That'll make the future so much easier."

Something about what he said causes the young heiress to tilt her head.
"What are you planning on doing, uncle?"

"Oh, nothing much," Uncle Boris says, with a shake of his head while almost managing to look innocent. "Simply that I think it would be better for me to talk to your mother, and see if we can't get you started on some early training in this. Shut those gossip-mongers up by showing how strong this can be."

In the face of something that is sounding like more work, but which she finds herself almost looking forward to, Kahlua opens her mouth to comment, but Boris stands up, and pats her gently on the head, taking care not to ruffle her carefully managed hairstyle, and smiles indulgently at her.

"But don't you worry about that now, just go and have fun, hm?"
Then he's off, those almost-cute bats flying away in a flash.

"Oh dear," the vampire princess says.

---

FOUR THOUSAND POSTS OMAKE SPECIAL PART #1
WOLFRAM AND HART

Each week, first thing on Monday morning, the Special Projects Division of Wolfram and Hart's Los Angeles Branch held a meeting of the team leaders and independents that made up the current roster of assignments, under the watchful gaze of the Division's Vice-President, Douglas Colins.

On paper, the assembly was meant to keep the boss apprised of important developments and their intended course for coming week; in practice, since the sixty-ish V.P. kept tabs on his people through other sources, these meetings mostly served as an excuse to show off his authority and put the fear of him into any of his underlings who might have started to forget it over their weekend.

The old man was a petty tyrant, and Holland Manners was looking forward to the day when someone else occupied that chair. Not himself, or at least not yet. Let someone else have that dubious honor for a while first, like one of the young hotshots seated around the table with him this morning.

After all, Colins wasn't getting any younger, nor would his paranoia and controlling tendencies let him allow any of his minions to accumulate enough influence within the Division to serve as a proper successor. Sooner or later—Holland figured it would be when Colins hit sixty-four without slowing down and the kids realized that he really wasn't planning to retire—somebody with more ambition than good sense was going to look at that situation and decide to start seriously working for a promotion.

Considering how messy things would get at that point, Manners was content to let the young bucks have the fun and excitement of trying to topple Colins, and then—when by dark blessing, dumb luck, or sheer inertia, one of them finally succeeded—in trying to hold his unstable little empire together against the other over-eager individuals that would happily tear the Division and its new would-be overlord asunder to try taking the big chair for themselves.

Holland didn't need that kind of stress in his life. He was coming up on the big Four-Oh; he had his health to think about, and stress was one thing that the company's otherwise excellent medical package didn't cover.

Besides, letting a string of bodies warm the chair for a few months to a year at a time before they ended up cooling on the floor would eventually irk the executives enough to step in and appoint someone to hold the V.P. seat, making it clear that further infighting would not be tolerated and securing whoever held the post at that time against further attack.

Holland Manners fully intended to be that someone.

Of course, it might take a few years for that situation to come about—a decade at the outside—but Holland already had plans in place for a transfer to a nice little supervisory position in General Operations. Not only would this get him out of the splash radius of Special Projects' impending meltdown, he'd be perfectly situated to earn all the brownie points he needed for his future promotion by showing that he could organize, direct, and when needed discipline the most erratic of all of the firm's talents, the new hires.

It was just the sort of experience needed to run a ship like Special Projects, where shepherding unpredictable individuals to desired outcomes was the name of the game. With any luck, he'd be able to recruit a few up-and-comers to bring with him when he switched Divisions again, to strengthen his power base…

"What's the latest on the Sunnydale Situation, Manners?" Colins asked then.

"Our seers have a final verification of the residential casualty count for the Independence Day Overnight Incident," Holland reported, smoothly bringing his thoughts of the future back into the present. "It comes to twenty-nine vampires in total, confirming the information acquired from the Mayor's Office. Three out-of-towners who were visiting Sunnydale for the evening have also been confirmed as dead through secondary sources, and the rumor mill suggests that there may be over a dozen still unaccounted for; rumor being rumor, it's more likely that we're only looking at half that number."

Some of those seated around the table stirred. Thirty or forty vampires wasn't much in the big scheme of things, but for all of them to have been killed in a single evening was distinctly noteworthy. Most Slayers would need a month's work to rack up that kind of a kill count, unless there was an apocalypse in the offering, while a team of ordinary human hunters could take a year to get there—assuming they survived that long.

"All attempts to determine the identity of the party responsible for the attacks have failed," Holland continued. "The seers have tried every method at their disposal. Spells, rituals, prayers, psychic talents, sacrifices, card readings, crystal balls, that one gentleman who gets his information by reading the horoscope section—regardless of the approach they use or whether they're looking into the past, present, or future, any attempt to view the target directly fails outright, while attempts aimed at the three locations we know the target was present have all returned scenes that show the victims dying in flames that seem to come from out of nowhere, with nothing else about the attacker coming through. No distorted visuals or fake images; no interference with or stress on the seers themselves; nothing."

"What kind of flames?" Colins demanded.

"Based on the seers' reports and the forensic analysis conducted by Sunnydale Police Department, our in-house arcane experts say the results are consistent with the First Circle Fire Elemental Spell of Burning Hands." Holland caught a few looks of confusion and others of recognition among his juniors, while his boss, who he knew was experienced enough to see the immediate problem, grimaced.

Burning Hands was a very common spell, after all, available to entry-level practitioners of most major arcane styles and several divine ones besides. On that note…

"Trying to trace the caster through the residuals of their spellcasting failed almost as completely as our attempts to get a look at their face," Holland continued without missing a beat. "That having been said, the readings were confirmed as arcane in nature, and strong enough that it's very unlikely for the spells to have been cast by a novice, even one joyriding with their master's staff. The vampires were destroyed almost immediately, with no time to try to run; even taking their vulnerability to flame into account, that would have required a more intense burn than any common caster could muster—beyond the normal maximum output of the spell in the question, at that, which rules out the usage of common magical implements. The extent of the damage to the surrounding area backs that up, mainly in that there wasn't any, except to the vampires and their immediate surroundings."

"Not just a powerful caster, then, but a skilled one," Colins mused.

"And also someone who was firing down at their targets, at angles ranging from negative twenty to negative fifty degrees, and heights ranging from ten to fifteen feet in the air," Holland added.

The V.P.'s eyes narrowed at that phrasing. "Was there anything else at any of those three sites to suggest that the attacker might be over ten feet tall?"

Colins' tone suggested that he already suspected the answer.

"No, sir. Granted, two of those attacks happened on paved areas, and it was a dry night besides, but the third case was in a graveyard and there was some soft earth that would have been directly underneath the spellcaster's firing position. There were also no trees, overhangs, or other elevated perches in those areas."

"Meaning the spellcaster was airborne."

"And for long enough, and steadily enough, to maintain focused fire on their targets for the duration of the spell," Manners agreed. "As brief a time as that was."

By itself, knowing that their target could fly wouldn't help them narrow down the practitioner's style, as spells of flight and levitation were even more common than Burning Hands, but it did suggest that their mystery vampire-killer had a level of familiarity with magical air-to-surface combat which was rare these days.

As accessible as it was, magical flight wasn't terribly popular on Earth anymore, at least not for any kind of serious travel. Three-dimensional maneuverability was still extremely useful in specific situations, but over long distances, it was too conspicuous in this age of cameras and high-watt lightbulbs, too slow compared to modern motor vehicles or aircraft, and honestly too dangerous with all the obstructions one might run into, from wires just above street level to birds and skyways between buildings to helicopters and planes higher up. Flight also wasn't competitive with teleportation, for those that had the means to purchase such magic or the power to wield it directly.

And in an age when few flew for any significant length of time, far fewer fought while in flight—and those that did would be known, by reputation and rumor and the occasional documented incident. It was another angle by which to track their literally unseen target.

"Do we have any suspects?" Collins asked.

"We've ruled out Sunnydale's top mystical residents," Holland replied. "Mayor Wilkins, Samuel O'Toole, Wyrd the Weird, Madam Rhodes—each of them has the power, skill, and resources to pull off something like this, but as far as we've been able to determine, none of them have a motive to go after these particular vampires, and even if they did, fire and flight spells aren't how any of them would have done it. I had the seers run down the list of Sunnydale's second-tier magic-users and the family, friends, and chief minions of the major players, to see if anyone gave them the same issues that trying to scry on our mystery hunter did, but nothing of the sort turned up. Anyone less powerful or less connected than that shouldn't have been able to pull the attacks off, so we may honestly be looking at an outside party. On that note…"

Manners paused to open up one of the file folders sitting on the table before him, taking out a single sheet and passing it down.

Colins took it, turned it around, and huffed. "What kind of a name is 'Batreaux'?"

"One that doesn't turn up in any of our files," Holland said. "In fact, nothing about the man does—and when the seers tried looking for him, their visions were blocked in the same way as their attempts to identify the attacker."

An anticipatory light flashed behind the old man's eyes. "You think he's our guy?"

Holland had to sigh and shake his head. "If it were any other town, I'd say yes. The odds of two unrelated individuals with the same sort of impenetrable and undetectable defense against scrying, turning up in the same place on the same day, are long enough that they might as well be impossible—but this is Sunnydale we're talking about, sir. The Hellmouth throws curveballs like that on a bi-monthly basis. That said," he added with a more positive note, "even if this isn't our target, he's still worth tracking down just so that we can find out what he's doing to spoof the seers."

"That would be useful," Colins agreed. "Anything further to report?"

"Not on the main objective, no, but on a side note, the graveyard site also contained the charred remains of several dozen demonic arthropods, roughly a foot long on average, which don't directly match anything on record. Larry in Bio was interested in securing samples, and I took the liberty of arranging a purchase through one of our proxies—one of the ones that Wilkins knows that we know that he knows about, just to keep everything friendly."

Collins nodded and handed the print-out back. "I'll expect to see Bio's report next week, then. Franklin! What's the status of the Griffon account?"

As the younger man scrambled to answer, Holland sat back in his seat to watch and wait.

---

FOUR THOUSAND POSTS OMAKE SPECIAL PART #2
TOHSAKA RIN

The final class of the day had ended at Homurahara Academy's Middle School Division, and traffic in the halls was steadily building. Some of the students were in a hurry to get to their afterschool clubs, whether because theirs was the duty of unlocking and setting up for their fellow members' arrival or because they were simply impatient; others were just eager to leave the building; and then there were those content to take things a little slower, lingering in the halls or by their shoe-lockers as they met up with friends from other classes. Here and there, a member of the student council moved along on business, calling for the peers they nominally represented to move aside—and more than once casting frustrated glances at those students who did not need to ask for their fellows to make way.

Some of these simply moved in large enough groups that momentum ensured their right of way, while smaller trios and quartets generated enough noise for the crowds to hear them coming and move in advance. The most popular had friends—some burly, others more forceful in terms of personality—to go ahead of them and clear the way, the school's resident bullies were just avoided on general principle, and every now and then somebody would be tasked with returning a trolley of equipment to its proper storage closet, the clatter and rumble and occasional squeak of a poorly-maintained wheel signaling for the crowd to make way.

And then there was the girl who required nothing and no one but herself to ensure a path would be opened.

Graceful. Elegant.

"Goodbye, Miss Rin!"

Cool. Controlled.

"Have a good weekend, Tohsaka!"

Untouchable. Inapproa–

"Next week, Rin! Do you hear me? I won't lose again, you–!"

Trying very hard not to let her beatific smile be tainted by the sudden surge of satisfaction at the cries of a wounded rival, Rin acknowledged the challenge with a brief, concillatory nod.

She made it as far as changing her shoes before the narration started.

"It was another Friday afternoon in the Fair City of Fuyuki–"

"This again?" the twin-tailed brunette sighed under her breath, even as she glanced around to make sure nobody was hearing the voice.

Sure, intellectually she knew that there was nothing to be concerned about: as annoying as her personality was, Ruby was still a top-class Mystic Code made by one of the greatest wielders of Mystery to ever live; and her capabilities made keeping herself hidden from regular people and even most of the mystically aware community a simple matter.

But there is a difference between knowing something and feeling it, and Rin was still getting used to having an imperceptible… companion… following her around everywhere, particularly one that tended to bend her ear with inane babble about magical girls and shoujo manga. The sneaking suspicion that somebody, anybody at all, would overhear the Kaleidostick's chatter and ask after it was a worry that Rin doubted would leave her any time soon.

"–and the Eighth-Grade Princess of Homurahara Academy, Tohsaka Rin, was on her way home at the conclusion of another week of aced tests, outstanding athletic performance, and heartlessly crushed love confessions…"

"My heart is perfectly functional," Rin muttered through unmoving, upturned lips. "And I haven't crushed any love confessions."

"Not since you destroyed Taro last month, no," Ruby said in a more conversational but still imperceptible tone.

"Walking up to a girl with two of his friends looming behind him like cheap thugs flanking an even cheaper baby yakuza and saying, 'Become my woman!' is not a confession, Ruby," Rin said flatly. "At best, it's a bad case of chuunibyou; at worst, it's a threat; and either way, shooting that idiot down before he got himself into trouble was a public service."

"Okay, his dialogue needed work," the invisible Kaleidostick conceded. "A LOT of work, and maybe less inspiration ripped from manga and video games—but you can't say he didn't have confidence, and what sort of girl doesn't like a little confidence in a man?"

That earned a huff. "In Taro's case? Any girl."

"Ouch."

Satisfied by Ruby's subsequent silence, however temporary she knew it would be, Rin headed for the exit.

And paused, looking around once again.

"If you're trying to find Sakura, Master–"

"I am doing no such thing," Rin denied quickly, turning back to the doors.

"–she's still in her classroom."

The girl halted at the threshold.

"She seems to have cleaning duty," Ruby went on in an innocent tone. "Her teacher and most of her classmates have already left, and four of the five other people left are getting ready to go."

Rin wavered.

"The last one is cleaning, too, but that's–"

Resolve firmed, and the young Head of Tohsaka exited the building.

"–wait, Master, the other student doesn't have active Circuits, I could easily hide you–"

"No, Ruby."

"But why not, Master?"

"It's one thing for me to get involved in a situation where I have to use Magecraft to hide the existence of the supernatural, Ruby; it's something else entirely if I create the situation. A Magus should know better than that, and a Family Head and Second Owner has to be better."

"According to who?" Ruby wondered in genuine confusion. "Because if you think well-respected and influential Magi don't use hypnosis on inconvenient civilians, I have a gem mine to sell you."

"If other Magi are too lazy or incompetent to handle regular people with regular means, that's their problem, not mine," Rin retorted. "At least until one of them makes it my problem—and if we ever catch such a pathetic specimen attempting that kind of hack-job on one of OUR people, we will stake them out for the dogs."

"You're speaking in Mesopotamian again, Master," Ruby advised idly.

"Huh? Oh, damn it to Kur– gaahhh!" Rin stopped and bowed her head slightly, pinching her brow.

"So, that's where the high-minded attitude was coming from?" the Kaleidostick inquired.

"Nrrgh," Rin replied, managing a nod.

Even though the whole experience was a blank spot in her otherwise excellent memory, being possessed by the "demonic" aspect of an ancient Middle-Eastern goddess had left marks. In the immediate aftermath of the Fourth Holy Grail War, there had been a period of some weeks wherein Rin was unable to speak a modern language without a level of conscious effort that was difficult for any seven-year-old, even a genius with Magus training, to maintain for long, and which had left her frustrated, short-tempered, and prone to outbursts—an emotional state not exactly helped along by her family situation. With the passage of time and the assistance of a certain witch—first as an interpreter and then later as a tutor for meditative and mental organization exercises—the language problem appeared to have been fully resolved inside of six months.

Over the last year or so, however, bits of vocabulary, knowledge, and even memory had started bubbling up to the surface in fits and starts. Looking at things with the more experienced eye of a(n apprentice) Magus, Rin theorized that her current age was the key factor in the re-emergence of those traits.

Call her Astarte, Ishtar, Inanna, or any of a dozen other names, the goddess known as the Queen of Heaven had many aspects and authorities, but childhood was not one of them. No matter how compatible a host Rin might otherwise be for a sliver of the Divine Spirit's essence—and all the evidence suggested she was a good match for that goddess, which had implications Rin tried not to worry too much about—a seven-year-old was simply not suited to having the Goddess of Sex and Violence in her head, which was undoubtedly a big part of the reason why the younger Rin had spent that whole period asleep.

But she was older now—not an adult, certainly, but much closer to that phase of her life than she'd been at the time of the possession, and so more in-tune with the nature of the aspect of Astarte and the greater goddess behind her, as well as the leftovers of their influence that still persisted after all these years.

Rin had always known that there would be long-term effects; her tutor had been adamant on that point from the first day.

"You were possessed by a shade of one of the most ancient and powerful goddesses this world has ever known, and one who was ever accustomed to getting her own way, no matter how small the matter or how great the cost to others. Such a Power cannot be fought or forced to act against her nature, and the mark of her influence upon you will be much the same. Be relieved that she seems to have liked you well enough not to feel the need to make any 'improvements', yet not so much that she felt you worthy of a 'gift'."

That last part still annoyed Rin, if she was being honest. Lousy cheap demon-goddess goes walking around in my body without my consent, takes whole days out of my life and leaves a mess in my mind, besides, and she doesn't even compensate me for it!

"Good to know that it's all the goddess's fault,"

Ruby continued, her tone perfectly innocent. "For a moment there, I thought you might have been making up excuses to cover for how much of a softie you are!"

Glaring, Rin found, was an excellent way to channel the ache in her head towards a productive end. "You do realize that every time you tease me, it's one more reason for me to put you back in the Box, right, Ruby?"

"Gasp!" Ruby gasped. "But Master, that would leave you undefended against the nefarious forces of Summoning Magic! We still don't know who Misters Tall, Dark, and Mysterious actually are or what their real objective was in trying to abduct you–"

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as an 'abduction' when I never actually left the house," Rin observed.

"–and it'll be a long, long time before you can ward yourself against unwanted Summoning Spells on your own." the Kaleidostick continued. Her tone then turned just a bit smug. "It would be such a disgrace for the Head of a Magus lineage to set herself up to be kidnapped by knowingly throwing away her only line of defense, so it's really in your best interests to keep me around, don't you agree?"

Rin refrained from gritting her teeth. "The day I figure out those protections, Ruby–"

"–is not this day, Master. You have much, much more to learn before you will be prepared to stand on your own, without the awesome power of this glorious Kaleidostick!" Ruby hung there for a moment, puffed-up with her own self-importance, before adding, "And speaking of learning, Master, you should hurry along. You have an appointment to try and beat up a crippled old man–"

The graceful and elegant Tohsaka heiress made a crude, strangled noise of protest.

"–and it wouldn't do to be late!"

OOC: Thought of the day: In a setting where "summoning debt" exists, what kind of bill must the Masters of the Holy Grail War rack up? And to who—or what—is that debt owed?

I had hoped to get all three of these omakes finished for Christmas, but between keeping my streak of twice-daily story posting going and difficulties in writing some of the characters, the Urahara Omake is still some time from being completed.

---

A Monkeys Last Thoughts?

Tasty-Savory looked at the small frog in front of him. Mother motioning for him to eat it. Slowly he reached out, grabbing it between his fingers. Crunchy, Good, Tasty. He swallowed it down nervously. It tasted good, but it was new, and sometimes new was bad. Sometimes new meant you'd be sick. Then his mother turned around and he reached over to her, trying to climb onto her back, but she pushed him off.

He didn't fit anymore. Too big. Sad.

Snapping from the underbrush underneath them had him freezing. Then slowly looking down. Leopard? Peccary? It was neither of those things. It was tall, and weird looking. Completely lacking in hair, but it was big, and that meant, it might be dangerous.

A noise came from below, not loud, more like a thump and then the branch shook. Something hit it. Was that thing throwing rocks.

Tasty-Savory didn't know but he had already taken off through the trees following after his mother. They escaped. The thing wasn't in sight, but they were cornered. This tree didn't have any connections except from the way they'd come. There was one of those strange grey barriers, the ones that large brightly colored creatures sometimes rushed down, cutting him off from the trees across.

Ground not safe. Can't cross.

The tall thing approached and threw something. He jumped, but was caught. Falling, caught. What is this thing? Why can't he move how he wants? Pulled down, put into small place. Screaming, scary.

Then taken away, away from mom, away from green. Dead Peccary, dead birds, smell tasty, scary, Peccary strong, tall things killed Peccary. Strange tall thing approaches. Strange trees cover his lower half. Tall things make noises, and then strange tree bottom half lifts him up.

Strange smells, strange circle, rocks, twigs, bright like sun but not sun, then clarity.

"The young, man? Smiles at him."

"We're going to do great things together Monkey."

"That not my name, my name Tasty-Savory," The monkey replied. Mom liked tasty savory food, Mom liked him. Was good name.

"What a ridiculous name," The man replied. "Your definitely just monkey."

Just Monkey.

Those were his first memories. Was the man good? Monkey didn't know. But his hugs were warm, his bed was kept, the food was always tasty, and if he died, Monkey would lose clarity. This he was sure of.

So he took the scroll and said the words as he'd been told, over the dying body of his master. He didn't know what it would do, but a life without clarity wasn't a life as far as monkey was concerned. This scroll, whatever it did. This was his only chance to live. Of that he was certain

---

Anyway, since I have a somewhat inconveniently timed dental appointment today, there may not be story posts, plural or singular. Instead, have one of the decidedly overdue anniversary omakes.

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #1
SHUZEN AKUA AND JASMINE

In the beginning, monsters and humans had lived apart.

For many of otherworldly heritage, this was because their ancestors had favored environments that were, at best, unwelcoming to human life, and all too often wholly inhospitable. Others within this category, such as the Fae, had preferred to reside in those areas where passage back to their native planes was readily available.

Among the youkai, the most common reason for such separation was because they were quite literally born of human fears—of the dark and the deep, of the unknown and unreachable, of the wild, dangerous beasts and implacable, seemingly all-powerful forces of Nature—and tended to remain in or near whatever location or phenomenon had been the inspiration for their genesis.

Even for those creatures whose natures encouraged or required them to reside among humans, there had always been an element of secrecy and isolation. The Little Folk who did favors around a farm or a shop in exchange for small tributes, but who would vanish if spied upon or spoken too freely of; the hybrids, forever forced to hide one side of their heritage from their neighbors; and of course, the predators, who concealed their true natures that they might walk among their prey and select the best targets.

Two different worlds, that just happened to exist side-by-side—and which, over time, had gradually blurred together. Certain supernatural bloodlines became less "super" and more "natural" as each new generation grew more accustomed to the planet upon which they were born and lived and died. Some areas saw enough traffic of a mystical variety, even between worlds, for such things to become almost commonplace. Mysteries were unraveled, knowledge accumulated, and better (if still imperfect) understanding engendered. Here and there, secrets were shared in trust rather than shockingly exposed; elsewhere, humanity grew just dangerous enough for the predators to learn caution and the first inklings of respect.

There came a point where proper co-existence was not only possible, but happening, even if only on a small scale and in scattered locations. A few more generations, a few more bonds of trust and fellowship, a few more voices in power speaking in favor of courage and patience, of tolerance and mutual benefit, and the shape of history might have been very different indeed.

But there were forces on all sides that resisted such change, be they conservatives who feared the unknown that it represented—a particular irony for youkai traditionalists—individuals and organizations that refused to surrender the power afforded to them by the status quo, or those parties that actively opposed the very notion of harmony and cooperation between Man and Other—leading to another irony, as bigots both mundane and mystical worked towards the same end, sowing suspicion and suffering to undo the potential peace.

The collective of the Powers That Be occupied no one position in the unfolding debate. Individual godlings, demon lords, and primal entities each held their own view of how things ought to be and championed their causes accordingly, and in so doing provided cause for Champions to come into being. Ultimately, it proved easier to destroy than to create, more expedient for things to remain as they had "always" been than to push for change, and so the Powers handed down their mandate—grudgingly on the part of some and with the best of intentions from others, but it came all the same.

But while those steeped in the rules of the supernatural could be convinced or coerced to toe the line, the greater whole of humanity was trickier to deal with.

Free Will seems like such a small thing in the endless expanses of Eternity and Infinity, a single grain of sand caught in the myriad gears of Creation—but ask any mechanic what sort of damage sand can wreak on delicate mechanisms, multiply the impact of that "insignificant" speck of dust by many millions of times, and contemplate the consequences.

And so, the Powers built the machine of the masquerade to be resilient and robust, but mostly, to be as removed from the majority of mankind as possible. Keeping humans out of supernatural affairs entirely was impossible—the magically gifted humans would never accept or be bound to such a rule, too many of the other races were reliant on humans for survival, one way or another, and there were simply too many of them to keep track of and ensure none were venturing where they ought not to go—but limiting the masses' exposure and access to the arcane and the otherworldly, muddling the common perception and encouraging the growth and spread of fear, misunderstanding, disbelief, and ignorance? That was doable, and so, it had been done.

Such were the origins of the hidden dwellings and pocket-planes that now spread across the face of the Earth, space and time and planar boundaries bent, folded, and occasionally mutilated by spellcasters of a hundred styles and beings of power of a thousand kinds, all of them seeking to make lairs, strongholds, communities, and even small worlds of their own where the mysterious, the magical, and the monstrous could go on as they always had, with no more interference from humanity than they were willing to tolerate.

And since the making of such arcane hidey-holes was such an involved task to begin with, many thought to themselves, why not take the extra step and make these havens comfortable as well?

For the mightiest arcanists, who were already warping the fabric of reality to produce refuges for their kith and kin—and for those others who could afford their services—this was a simple enough task. Those less gifted were already planning to spend years or even decades gathering and directing the power and materials required, so what were a few more months or years on top of that, particularly when you had the time and were planning to live in the resulting environment for decades or even centuries to come?

Thus came about such locales as the Land of the Snow Women, whose arctic conditions so perfectly suited the inhabitants while driving away most others, or the "Inner" and "Reverse" neighborhoods that existed in the shadows of some of Earth's great cities—sometimes literally so—allowing mortal magic-users and monstrous beings alike to enjoy their seclusion from the greater population, while still having that population and the many amenities it provided within easy reach. Youkai Academy was a relatively recent addition to this hidden world, its great barrier famous more for the identity and achievements of its creator than for its own functions, though the size of the barrier-space and the fact that its environment was at least acceptable for such a wide range of monster races were noteworthy all the same.

The Academy's barrier owed much of its success to the mystical border of the Shuzen domain, which was also of Mikogami's design and whose creation had allowed him to test a number of theories in the fields of Abjuration and Summoning Magic that underlay such things. For as well as the pocket-spaces had turned out over the last couple of centuries, however, one thing the Exorcist hadn't been able to build into either barrier was a completely reliable weather control system.

He wasn't a witch or a druid, after all; his magical talents and the focus of his studies lay in other directions. Even if he had been, or had found sufficiently skilled and trustworthy magic-users to assist him, some of the preferences of his clients were not feasible without drastic side-effects.

As one example, there were many monsters—vampires chief among them—who disliked sunlight, and yet without it, the plants that provided everything from food and building materials to shelter for favored animals and simple beauty would have withered to nothing. Consequently, both the grounds of Youkai Academy and the Shuzen domain endured the sun's light on a daily basis. True, it was often reduced by cloud cover, and it was also inevitably tinted, even tainted by the magic of the barriers, that its mundane glare and mystical purifying powers were eased, but it was there all the same. Likewise, though flowing water was one of the banes of vampire-kind and an irritant to some other monsters—even as others yet reveled in it—there were days when rain must fall on their hidden realms, for water was just as essential to most forms of life as light was.

And so it was that, on this day, as on many another, a storm raged over Castle Shuzen. No mere drizzle or common shower, this; no, if they must be forced to endure water's presence on their lands, then the forebears of the Shuzen clan had insisted to the Exorcist that they would have a proper show of it, a thunderstorm to stir the blood, awe any guest, and strike dread into the heart of any intruder!

Through his own nature as a monster and his strong friendship with Akasha, Mikogami had seen nothing amiss with the vampires' reasoning.

*CRACK-A-THOOM!*

"Waaah!"

None of them had given quite as much thought to the impact those choices would have on impressionable vampire children as they perhaps should have. Certainly, they had not stopped to consider the reactions of those who, for much of their young lives, had lived in fear of storms such as this.

For when you had no permanent home to call your own, even a light rain at the height of summer could become a danger to one's health. This kind of weather—where the rain might flood low-laying shelters and seep through the cracks of ill-maintained compartments, the wind could tear apart lean-tos and rip the roofing off of old shacks, and an errant bolt of lightning would at times destroy an ill-fated refuge outright—was a force to be feared, and that before considering the inimical effects that exposure to running water had on vampires.

"It's alright, Jasmine," Akua assured her little sister. "You can come out."

The bundle of blankets huddled in the corner shook once, partly in denial, partly in fear. "But the rain! The storm! The–"

*CRACK-A-THOOM!*

"–waaah!"

Akua's sigh was pointedly not one of disappointment or pity, for she understood entirely why the younger girl was so frightened by lightning. They'd never had the misfortune to be caught in a thunder-struck dwelling themselves, but they'd seen the aftermath of such incidents a few times in their years on the streets, and there had been one "near miss" when lightning had touched down close enough to the building they'd taken shelter in to rattle its walls and windows and blow out some of the old lights.

After that, both girls had been just a little bit extra uneasy whenever a storm was in the offering. Akua had eventually outgrown that fear—partly due to the memory fading with time, partly due to learning just how unlikely it was to be struck by natural lightning, and partly from coming to understand that there were worse things that could happen to you or those you cared about—but Jasmine's… situation… meant that her memories of the incident were fresher, while time that she could have spent learning and growing to overcome them had been stolen away.

Although speaking of stealing, Akua mused to herself, before continuing aloud, "Why did you take all the blankets off the bed, anyway?"

"Um…"

Akua's eyes narrowed slightly, for the wriggle that accompanied that response was decidedly less an expression of fear than it was an attempt to be cagey.

"Jasmine…"

With a murmur of reluctance, part of the blankets shifted enough so that one brown eye could peer out from within. "I-it's because the beds can't hold up Mister Castle," came the murmured reply.

The place-spirit, which had been half-sitting against, half-leaning out of the wall besides Jasmine this whole time, slumped in embarrassment.

"There, there," the little vampire offered, patting the entity on its craggy cranium with one blanket-wreathed hand.

If nothing else, Akua supposed, I at least have a clear explanation for what had happened to Jasmine's second bed in Castle Shuzen. Her first mattress had not survived her first round of nightmares, and everyone had thought that this was also the reason for its immediate successor's fate, but evidently Jasmine's embarrassed evasiveness on the topic had been for another reason.

Akua supposed that she should be happy her little sister had made friends with the genius loci well enough to keep its secrets, but she found herself more dismayed that Jasmine wasn't automatically sharing all her secrets with or seeking comfort and reassurance from her like she always had, before… Before.

That stung, for more reasons than one.

Then again, it could have been worse. Jasmine could have been bonding with all their new sisters, leaving far fewer secrets and much less time for Akua than she had now. That hadn't happened, at least not yet, though it was almost sure to eventually.

Certainly, Akua had few doubts that Jasmine and Kahlua would get along famously in the future—their shared cheerfulness and abnormal kindness basically ensured that. For the moment, though, Issa's heir was a bit too much for Jasmine to feel entirely comfortable around: too pretty; too strong; too obviously well-off and well-used to being so; and several years older besides. The younger girl didn't resent that Kahlua had been so much luckier in her life and circumstances, but it put a wall between them all the same, one that would take time to overcome.

Kokoa had proven at once easier and more difficult for Jasmine to get along with. They were closer in age, and Jasmine had prior experience dealing with a sister whose ways of thinking and acting were more in line with traditional vampire modes, which were definite positives, but Kokoa's behavior was decidedly different from Akua's. The older sister was self-aware enough to acknowledge that she had a nasty temper, but her anger was a cold, jealous, vicious thing, slow to build and slower to be forgotten. Kokoa was a much feistier personality in general, her anger flaring up and burning out on an almost daily basis.

She was also decidedly younger than Jasmine, which was causing no small amount of friction on both sides. Jasmine might have enjoyed being the big sister for once, if not for the precise circumstances that had led to the arrangement, while Kokoa was annoyed at getting a new sister and still being the youngest of the lot, again.

And as for Jasmine's interactions with Moka, Akua had to admit that neither girl was handling the new relationship very well. They weren't fighting or arguing—Jasmine was too kind by half, and Moka too self-controlled and striving too hard to follow her mother's example—but they were going out of their ways to avoid one another as much as possible. The only times they were even in the same room together would be for family meals, and even then, they never spoke to or even looked at one another if they could help it.

Jasmine was also doing her best to avoid Lady Bloodriver. Some of that was due to lessons learned on the streets, where any adult could be a danger—if not always the same variety—and some of it was natural unease at living under the same roof as an entire family of powerhouses, but some of it was the closest thing to spite that Akua had ever seen from her precious little sister.

Akasha had said that she wasn't one of Jasmine's ancestors, and Akua was almost completely certain that it was true, but that didn't change the fact that the Dark Lady, her daughter, and the Chinese orphan all wore different versions of the same face. Their respective ages might be different and their coloration almost drastically so, but put any two of them in a room together, let alone all three, and a perfect stranger would see family—or rather, blood relations.

Even if Akasha's claim ruled out a direct relationship, that resemblance suggested that an indirect one still existed, and with it certain responsibilities, expectations, that the Lady Bloodriver hadn't upheld. There were good reasons for this—being basically dead for the better part of two centuries after helping to save the world explained and forgave quite a lot—but to a mind as young as Jasmine's, that had been through everything Akua knew she had, the simple fact of the failure was all that mattered.

Thankfully, Miss Akasha seemed to understand and accept the childish reasoning at work, and didn't take offense whenever Jasmine left a room shortly after she'd entered it, or—when unable to escape entirely—to drift closer to Madam Gyokuro.

…then again, Akasha might just be laughing up her sleeve at the look on the other woman's face whenever that happened.

If pressed on the matter, Akua would have to admit that it was rather like watching an adorable trainwreck. Gyokuro clearly wasn't used to or entirely comfortable with someone else's child looking to her for anything, especially not one that so greatly resembled the woman who had a timeshare on her husband, but it was happening, and Lady Shuzen was trying to deal with Jasmine fairly and considerately, if perhaps not as kindly as some people might consider appropriate.

Such people had clearly never dealt with those raised on the streets. Speaking as a member of the latter category, Akua preferred the brusque even-handedness to any number of gentle lies—if nothing else, it was honest. Jasmine likely felt the same way.

Besides, if she needs a hug, she has me.

CRACK-A-THOOM!

"Wah!"

The elemental's golden eyes blinked as it found itself with an armful of vampire-inna-blanket—and then again as the other vampire in the room glared at it.

I am not jealous of a pile of animated stone, Akua told herself. I am NOT.

OOC: Akua and Jasmine were the winners of the first round of this year's anniversary omake vote, and I wanted to post this entry first as a result. Unfortunately, between my relatively recent switch-slash-upgrade to twice- (or thrice-)daily posting and some IRL factors, it proved remarkably frustrating to finish. I almost ended it just after the explanation of "dramatic old monsters didn't stop to think how their kids would react to artificial thunderstorms," making Jasmine's reaction into a punchline for the whole history lesson and leaving the audience to picture her and Akua's reactions, but that felt a bit dishonest.

---

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #2
THE GOLDEN GODDESSES

As sometimes happened, two sisters had come looking for a third, and found her hidden away in a room with her temple-palace.

After being given time to come to terms with being permitted to see the realm of the Golden Goddesses, much less a glimpse of this holiest of holies, someone from Hyrule might have called it a Chamber of Mirrors, a Hall of History, or a Room of Time.

Someone from Earth might have looked at the glowing screens hanging in empty air before the gold-traced marble walls, their luminous surfaces reflecting moments scattered across past, present, and future, and wondered if Nayru got cable or pay-per-view.

Din took everything in at a glance-

Here, Hylian knights clashed with a warband of Bulblins, Bullbos, and Bokoblins.

There, a hapless three-tailed kitsune ran screaming from an angry Cuccoo.

Elsewhere, a hapless Octorok fled warbling from a mob of stick-waving children.

In a remote, rocky region, two Lynels raised their weapons to one another in salute, before they began to slowly circle one another with violent intent.

In a similarly remote tropical paradise, a crowd of martial artists sat in a certain Ring, cheering on one of their own as they ran the gauntlet of the Trials.

-and seeing nothing going on that appeared out of place or otherwise held her interest, she focused her attention on her sister. "What are you up to, Nayru?"

The Goddess of Wisdom answered without looking away from the cluster of nearly twenty screens that she was, to all appearances, observing simultaneously, despite their wildly different and largely quite busy content.

"Ever since our meeting with Lord Raiden-"

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"-I've been taking a closer look at the state of the timelines."

This statement proved enough to get Farore's attention away from the screen where Link had been escorting a dressmaker to meet a dragon. "Learn anything?"

"Mainly that looking at Earth's current spatio-temporal tangle gives me a headache." Absently rubbing her forehead, Nayru sighed. "I really don't envy the Powers when the time comes to sort that mess out."

Din scoffed at that. "The evil ones deserve it, and the rest have earned it for letting them get away with their crap for so long."

"I don't exactly disagree, but still..."

"Karmic retribution and space-time shenanigans aside," Farore said then, "if you're looking into Earth, why is there so much Hyrulean imagery? Or are we going to be looking at another inter-planar invasion after all?"

"Probably not-"

"Only 'probably'?!"

"-but most of what I'm looking at right now is the state of Hyrule's timelines," Nayru continued.

Din hummed for a moment. "Needed something to help you unwind after dealing with Earth, huh?"

"That was the idea," the Goddess of Wisdom admitted. "Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out."

""What,"" her sisters said in flat unison.

"I hardly need to remind you two of Ganondorf's place in Hyrule's history, do I? When the nonsense on Earth pulled his soul in and reincarnated him as the boy, it caused a fork in the timeline-"

""AGAIN?""

"-and now we've got a whole new potential branch of history developing alongside the one I originally forecast, which hasn't actually been prevented yet."

Din started swearing.

"I'm guessing the tipping point is whether or not the Kid-King falls to the Curse?" Farore ventured, giving her tallest sister a sidelong glance.

Nayru nodded. "That, and when it occurs, how it occurs, and what if anything the boy does or doesn't do to try and prevent or mitigate it."

"Specifics, Nayru," Din demanded.

The middle sister sighed and waved a hand at the screens behind her, which began displaying various possibilities as she described them.

"The current best-case scenario is that Alexander holds off the Curse for his entire mortal life and, somewhere along the line, performs a ritual that either seals or separates his Earthly identity and knowledge from the rest of Ganondorf's soul, so that it can't be exploited by future incarnations."

The screens that lit up here could be divided into three major groups. The first were of Alex at or near his current age, or within a few years of it, performing a ritual with varying degrees of haste—the exact rate inverse to how injured he looked at the time. The second batch showed Alex undertaking a similar magical feat when firmly in his adult years: sometimes bearded and other times clean-shaven; here with streaks of grey in his hair and there with the curious ageless quality that denoted various methods of life-extension; occasionally looking unsettlingly like Ganondorf, and elsewhere, not; and always with a certain refinement in his craft that his younger selves had lacked. The last group showed a visibly old man enacting the rite, in a couple of cases from a bed it looked like he might never rise from.

The other two Goddesses grimaced. For a supposed "best-case" outcome, the boy having to resort to surgery on his own soul was distinctly not great. Really, it was just maintaining the multi-millennial status quo that they'd been dealing with ever since Demise's final defeat and last act of spiteful retribution.

"Less ideally," the blue-haired deity went on, "there are several timelines where he lives and dies as himself but doesn't manage to keep his knowledge isolated."

"Meaning future Baconfaces get to steal his achievements for their own use," Farore groaned, even as images of a golden glowing Ganondorf appeared and gave Link and Zelda a really bad time. "Yay."

Nayru nodded wearily. "And also the knowledge that Earth exists and is a source for supernatural powers and beings that Hyrule has no experience with, to say nothing of all that technology."

"Extra yay," the Goddess of Nature droned, as a literally demon-ridden armored brigade was shown tearing through the fields of the kingdom, shooting, burning, or simply ramming into and through everything they came across.

"The worst-case scenarios are either the timelines where the Curse overtakes Alexander and he invades Hyrule at the head of that extra-dimensional army you mentioned, or the ones where he maims or destroys his own soul, whether as a deliberate measure to prevent the Curse from winning or accidentally in the course of fighting it," Nayru concluded.

There were more images of otherworldly invasion, this time with some of Alex's acquaintances shown taking part—hopefully not of their own free will, if that was indeed a thing to even hope for—but as for images of self-mutilation or destruction, there were none.

Probably just as well. Din would have been upset.

"Cheerful." Farore promptly clapped her hands together. "So! You said the original timeline hasn't been erased yet?"

Nayru shook her head. "The potential for it still exists, thanks to those best-case branch timelines."

"And what's that looking like, anyway?"

Nayru shrugged and waved up the images in question.

Monster-infested ruins covered the land.

"Do not look away," a dark, familiar voice intoned.

Storms raged.

"You witness a king's revival."

Crimson Malice threatened to swallow all.

"And the birth of his new world!"

...

"You know, I've never liked the old monster," Farore said after a moment, "but I have to admit, he's got a certain style."

---

TENTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #3
THE FAIRY DEATH MACHINE CREW

There were certain sounds one would normally expect to hear in a busy smithy: the crackle of the fire heating the forge and the wheezing of the bellows that kept those flames burning steadily; the pounding ring of hammer upon metal upon anvil; the periodic hiss of the quenching—these were the indicators of work in progress, the song of creation unfolding.

"Heave!"

"Ho!"

There were other noises that might also be expected in such a workshop, if not so commonly: the polite conversation of smith and valued client; the firm instruction of master to apprentice—punctuated by the occasional yelling at or smacking of clumsy, overconfident, or just plain foolish trainees—the put-upon mutterings of those same students as they swore that when they were the masters, they would never treat their apprentices so unjustly…

"Heave!"

"Ho!"

By and large, a fairy smith's forge did not sound much different from one run by a mortal. The comparative lack of iron and its refined forms did lend a certain subtle difference to the music of metal being molded by a master of the craft, and the abundance of magic added such features as the sizzling snap of unleashed electricity, arcane chanting, and the occasional ominous hum to the maker's chorus, but not every mortal smith worked with steel, and those from cultures where magical lore was sufficiently developed would have produced similar noises.

"HEAVE!"

"HO-"

That said, the chatter and clamor and occasional catastrophe of half a hundred little fairies was something Robin doubted any mortal smith had ever had to worry about.

"WHOA!"

The eldest son of Navi sighed and set down the not-quite-interlocked set of gears and pistons he'd been adjusting, his movements mixing the care a proper craftsman gives all his tools and works even in haste and the exasperated urgency of an older brother who has just detected a younger sibling's shenanigans in progress.

On that note…

"Too fast, too fast!"

"Watch out, it's going to overshoot!"

"Un-heave! Un-heave!"

"Un... ho?"

"I don't know, just hold it steady!"

"But it's so heavy–!"

"We're losing it!"

"Fly, you fools!"

"We're already–"

"Every fairy for herse–"

Robin reached out and caught the dangerously swaying skeletal bronze "bone" that his various smaller siblings had been trying, by means of many small ropes, simple pulleys, and concentrated fairy-power, to hoist alongside the upright mass of the Death Machine and slide into the socket of the right shoulder.

"–oh, hi, Biggest Brother!"

"Robin to the rescue!"

"The day is saved!"

"You can't install this arm–" Robin began.

"The day is ruined!"

"–yet," he continued, as if there hadn't been an interruption.

"Awww," several voices complained.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, look here." He indicated the shoulder they'd been aiming for, which was more of a hole in the side of the torso at this stage of the work—one of many, in all honesty. The body was little more than a metallic skeleton, and an incomplete one even then: both arms had yet to be attached; the right leg ended at the knee; and the mechanical equivalent of the skull was missing entirely. It remained upright solely because of the gantry that half-enclosed it and to which the various fragments had been anchored.

"See how the socket has all those marks around the center, sort of like the teeth of a cogwheel?" Robin explained.

"Yeah!"

"Uh-huh."

"So?"

He held up the piece of the arm, clasping it about the middle so that both ends were clearly visible to the cloud of small fairies gathered around him. "And do you see how this strut is just a straight, smooth piece?"

"Sure!"

"Of course!"

"What of it?"

"Well, if you just stuck the strut into the socket like this–"

Robin did so. The length of bronze slid into the hole easily enough, but it was clear that it wasn't a proper fit even before he rattled it around a bit to emphasize the point. It didn't interact with the "teeth" at all, and trying to insert the "arm" like this left it sticking straight out to the side, instead of running parallel to the body as it should have.

"–does it really look like a working arm?" he finished.

"Hmmm."

"Huh."

"Well…"

He waited, patiently, as the little ones hummed and hawed and, in a few cases, stretched out their own arms to compare.

"Maybe?"

"Kind of?"

"But not really."

"Yeah, no."

"Defeated by anatomy!"

"Why did the Goddesses make us so confusing?!"

It took an effort for Robin not to react outwardly to that outcry.

"But then how do we get it to work, Big Brother?" one bright spark asked plaintively.

"Well, first I have to finish building the shoulder unit. That's the piece that actually attaches to that socket, you see, and it'll have another socket to accept this piece."

"Oooohhhh…"

"Wait, you mean all the pieces aren't even done, yet?"

"Then why are we trying to put it together?"

"That's what I'd like to know!"

"Why doesn't somebody tell us these things?"

One of the slightly larger siblings cleared her throat, raised her voice to carry over the building argument, and asked, "So, how long will those parts take to finish, Big Brother?"

The noise fell off immediately as all eyes and ears turned to the expert.

Robin considered the question. The shoulder joints—because he did need two, after all—were some of the more mechanically tricky parts of this project. Not the most tricky, no—that title easily went to the systems necessary for the Death Machine to maintain its balance and walk under its own power—but still up there.

Part of the issue was that, even with Goddess copper alloyed into the bronze, the pieces still needed to be of a certain thickness to have the material strength to hold up under the force the Death Machine's intended level of performance would impart to its arms. At the same time, however, those components couldn't be too thick, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to fit together within the allotted space while retaining the desired range of motion, much less the smoothness he was working towards.

Then there were the additional elements that needed to be included: arrays to anchor the wards that the current iteration of the blueprints called for the construct to be protected by; a separate set of arrays for generating active spell effects; conduits for the animating energy that would power the Death Machine as a whole–

A Heart Container would have been a lot easier to incorporate, the Fae smith idly mused, as he considered the generosity of Briar's partner, and the elemental core of a storm system now tucked away in a very secure storage room. Not nearly as much fun, though.

–and of course, the control relays, so that each system could be accessed, activated, moved and deactivated separately from the rest.

Robin was actually still debating whether to make the Death Machine autonomous or to make the head a "cockpit" like those "mecha" designs he'd learned about at Briar's partner's birthday party, as either approach had its downsides.

Autonomous constructs were somewhat traditional for Hyrulean guardian devices, at least whenever bound monsters were inappropriate or unavailable, but Robin knew the limits of his own abilities, and crafting an intelligent entity from scratch was well beyond them. If he'd had a pre-existing mind to build on, even if it was the simplest sort of animal awareness, it might be another story, but Robin honestly wasn't sure where to start without such a thing, and he wasn't about to try adding a brain to the Death Machine. Quite aside from being disgusting and/or blasphemous, that would take skills he lacked entirely and was not remotely interested in pursuing.

Necromancy, not even once.

Many another maker of automata had chosen to bind elemental spirits to their creations, drawing upon the creatures' mingled physical and spiritual existence to provide both animating force and—in most cases—just enough awareness and reason for the construct to comprehend and follow through on spoken orders. This technique was within Robin's means to replicate, but it had potential shortcomings weighing against it.

Entirely too many clerics and wizards down through the ages had been lazy, cruel, or simply uncaring in their choice of spirits, forcibly binding the first suitable elemental they could subdue. Others had been more thoughtful in their selection of animating spirits, only to fall short when it came to ensuring the quality of their creations, or even just in considering how their essential nature might affect an elemental bound to them over time.

Primal entities of Earth and Fire did not enjoy being confined within soft flesh any more than those of Water or Air would appreciate being housed in stone or metal, and a spirit enslaved would naturally resent and resist the one responsible for its subjugation, or any that profited from its confinement. It was factors such as these that underlay the tendency for various sorts of golems to run amok if due care was not exercised in their operation.

Robin could avoid most of those issues by being sure to choose an elemental that understood and consented to what was being asked of it, and also by selecting one whose nature would be compatible with the make-up of the Death Machine—Elementals of Metal or Lightning were the best choices for a mechanical body such as this. The remaining and unavoidable problem with this approach was that it would, almost by definition, be priming his creation with the intent of being possessed by a spirit, thus making it easier for other spirits to enter the body and bend it to their will.

Robin could only include so many protections against unwanted spiritual activity before he started diminishing the performance of the construct—which would upset the hosted elemental at least as much as it would him or his siblings—and even at his best, he could not guarantee the safety of the machine's guiding spirit. Hyrule's warlocks, dark mages, and demons simply had too much experience at hijacking the works of the Goddesses' faithful, whether within individual memory or the institutional.

The third approach to independent operation would be to make the Death Machine an automaton in truth, its behavior governed by physical mechanisms similar to clockwork, a set pattern of actions and reactions that could not be readily altered or deviated from. This was the most time-consuming route and would require assistance from outside the family besides, as while devices of that nature were not impossible for Robin to craft, making them small enough to fit into what free space the Death Machine yet retained was quite another matter. Even then, the end result wouldn't have a proper soul to help it resist takeover attempts, which meant Robin tended to discount this method out of hand.

He supposed that he could try to convince his mother to work a small miracle and just… give the Death Machine a working brain, but his pride as a craftsman and as a son winced at the prospect, and that before even considering the cost of asking such a favor.

As for making the Death Machine fairy-piloted… it might save him a great deal of time and effort that would otherwise need to be spent on the "brain," but the tradeoff would be putting the pilot at potential risk when their curious vehicle was inevitably taken over by the Forces of Darkness. Not only that, but Robin was really not looking forward to how all his little brothers and sisters and probably more than a few of their cousins were sure to argue and compete for the chance to drive the thing. Unless he wanted them to be crashing the Death Machine around his workshop, he'd have to rig up some kind of training apparatus—or more likely a lot of them—so that the would-be operators could practice and prove their skills, allowing the best possible candidate to be fairly determined and earn the honor of becoming the first-ever Hyrulean Fairy Death Machine Pilot. Possibly the first Fairy Death Machine Pilot, period.

That, Robin feared, might take a while. For other long-running projects, he could always count on at least eighty percent of the family to get bored with or forget about whatever they'd been waiting for and wander off to find something more immediately interesting. In this case, he didn't think he would be so fortunate.

This whole project was proof in action of the old adage: kids liked giant constructs.

But getting back to the question at hand, whatever method of control Robin finally settled on for his great work, the arrays and mechanisms for animating the construct and powering its abilities would not need to be made any differently. That meant he would probably only need a couple more weeks to finish the shoulder sections.

He said as much to his siblings.

"Two weeks!?"

"That's forever!"

"Can we help you work faster?"

"Yeah, there must be something we can do!"

Once more, Robin carefully controlled his expression. "Well," he said, affecting great reluctance, "I suppose there is one thing… I didn't want to mention it…"

"Whatever it is, we can do it!"

"We totally can!"

"No task is too small!"

"Are you sure?" Robin hedged. "It's a big job, it's going to take all of you…"

"We'll do it!"

"Absolutely, we will!"

"Do you promise!"

"YES!"

Now, the eldest brother allowed himself to smile. "In that case, I need you–"

And then, as if to prove beyond any doubt that the Goddesses did indeed watch over fools, small children, and fairies, Robin's bargain to get all of his siblings out of his workshop until he was finished came undone before it could even be concluded, as something large and very heavy slammed into the exterior wall of the smithy with a great and terrible crash!

"Uwaaahhhh!"

"Incoming!"

"Fly away, fly away!"

"Aaaagggghhhh, sunlight!"

"His one weakness!"

Sighing and waving one hand to clear away what little of the cloud of dust and debris hadn't already been swept away by his workshop's ventilation system, Robin glared at his new window and the crude, fist-shaped mass of stone that had punched it into being.

He recognized the craftsmanship.

"Gemma!" he shouted. "Why is your Armos attacking my forge!?"

"Sorry, Big Brother!" one of his older younger sisters called back. "Minor magical mishap! Don't worry, I can fix it!"

The Armos wrenched its fist free from the broken wall, tearing a few more chunks of brick and mortar free in the process.

"I can fix that, too!" Gemma said quickly. "Just as soon as I–"

Thud, thud, thud.

"Wait, no, why are you– no, don't- OH CRAP!"

Wham!

"Rogue Armos!" a smaller sibling called in alarm. "Rogue Armos!"

"Gaaaah, fly away!"

"No, to battle! We have to rescue Big Sis Gemma!"

"I can still fix this!" Gemma protested. "I can– wait, not that way!"

SMASH!

"I can't fix that!"

Sighing, Robin stripped off his leather apron, hung it in its proper place, and took a two-handed, spike-headed hammer down from the assortment of tools lining the wall. This one hadn't been made to forge things, only to hit them as hard as possible, and its design reflected that fact.

"Excuse me, everyone," Robin said, hefting his weapon a couple of times as he headed for the door. "I need to go break something."

"Biggest Brother to the rescue! Again!"

"The day is saved!"

Crash!

"…Gemma is in so much trouble when Mom finds out."

"Yeah. Wanna go watch?"

"Absolutely!"

Well, Robin reflected, at least I got them out of my forge for a bit.

---

Picture, if you will, a Moblin who has grown weary of cleaning himself with his tongue. He yearns for a more refined method of washing, one that doesn't require him to contort himself into positions neither Goddesses nor Demon Kings ever intended, one that doesn't end with the taste of dirty dog lingering in his mouth for hours.

Yes, he wants to be more. Better. Cleaner.

So, against a lifetime of personal habit and the wisdom and warnings of his tribe, he gathers up his spear and ventures, ever so warily, down to the riverside to try and do as he has seen animals and Hylians and even fairies do, and bathe in the running waters.

*Bloop*

He takes one look at the hideous face of the River Zora, and flees yelping.

Later, the Moblin cautiously approaches the local lake. Yes, it is connected to the river, but it is also much larger, with many recessed pools sheltered by the eaves of bushes and low-hanging tree branches. Unlike the river, which one could see any given length of quite clearly from end to end, there is no way that even a Zora could observe all of the lake's water at once, and so there may be time enough for a quick, lucky Moblin to splash and scrub and begone before he has to worry himself about fishy doom.

*Bloop*

Or, perhaps not.

Once again, the Moblin runs for his life, howling.

Later still, the Moblin ventures to a little water hole, figuring that it should be okay because the pond isn't fed by any rivers or streams, and should therefore be completely inaccessible to a Zora.

*Bloop*

Fun fact: River Zora utilize a series of magical whirlpool waterways to travel between points all over Hyrule, and this is one of them.

Panicked flight three thus ensues.

Finally, whether due to a vision granted by the dreadfulmerciful Goddesses, a blessing from the long-dead Demon King - who is definitely not lurking in a distant land, building his power and forces out of sight until he is prepared to take his revenge upon the unsuspecting Hyrule, no sir, nudge nudge, wink wink - or a visit from the Good Idea Fairy, the Moblin mugs a Hylian merchant for an empty barrel. He spends some time filling it, gets feds up with how long it's taking, and comes back to the Hylian and kidnaps him to make HIM do the work.

At last, when the barrel-bath is ready, the Moblin approaches, sure that this time there is nothing for him to fear.

*Bloop*

And then, from out of barrel, is fucking River Zora.

---

ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #1
HAYASHI EMIKO (AND FRIENDS)

It would have been inaccurate to call Emiko's get-togethers with her friends the meetings of a fan club, even if the object of her martial arts fascination—and totally not a crush no matter what anyone said shuuut uuup—had come up in every conversation—which he had, in fact, not, so there!

No, when she and her and her closest friends got together like this, it was usually either to hang out at each other's homes, or to spend part of the day in town.

In the former case, they mostly sat around trading stories about recent events, complaining about the annoyances in their lives, planning future outings, and raiding the host's closet, whether to find a good combination for said host to wear the next time they went out, something the guests found worth borrowing, or something that would just look amusing on somebody it hadn't been purchased for. Manga might be read—with or without permission—TV or movies watched, and lunch or snacks devoured as available.

On their days out, Emiko and her friends still did most of the above, while also playing a few harmless tricks on innocent passers-by—and perhaps some not-so-harmless ones on the deserving—seeing the sights and being seen, meeting up with the occasional, slightly less close friend or relative stranger from school or about town, and of course, spending hard-earned allowance money, well-deserved gifts, and the odd bit of loot on whatever goods caught their eye.

Not much loot, admittedly. Things today weren't like they'd been four hundred years ago, when there were bandits and marauders everywhere, and few if any people much cared if you took a bad guy—or even just a non-local—for everything but his underclothes, or so Uncle had said.

No, Emiko and her friends were good kids; even when chastising the most misbehaving punk or spoiled brat, they didn't take people's money or possessions, not unless they were absolutely sure that it didn't belong to those people to begin with and the real owners weren't available for stuff to be returned to. And that had only happened twice.

…the shopping after those occasions had been really good, though.

Anyway, not too long ago, Emiko would always buy the same sort of stuff that everyone else did when idly shopping while out with friends: some candy and mall or stall food, and maybe a drink depending on the weather and how spicy or salty the treats were; a magazine or the latest issue of one of her favorite manga; perhaps a turn or three at the gacha machines; and sometimes a few rounds at the local arcade, depending on how busy it was and whether any of the titles appealed.

Window-shopping for clothes, shoes, electronics, jewelry, and other expensive things was also common, but actual purchases of any of those were pretty rare outside of family outings, and the really pricey stuff was outside of the group's budget entirely, even with parental indulgence.

With all of that said, ever since she'd become responsible for little Himitsu at Alex's birthday, Emiko's usual purchases had been forced to take a sideline to certain essentials of a foxy nature. Food, food and water bowls, litter, litter box, toys, treats (mostly of a different sort than Emiko herself favored, although there was this one sort of jerky…) for when somebody was being a particularly good girl—the usual things for a new pet.

Emiko didn't mind looking after Himitsu—cute foxes deserved all the best—but if questioned, she would have to admit that it was kind of annoying that her parents wouldn't raise her allowance to make it easier to look after her new and perpetually four-legged friend.

Sometimes it kind of felt like she had too many siblings. At other times, she just thought that her parents were stingy.

Today was one of those days where she was leaning towards the latter category.

"They're making you pick up chicken feed?" Kako demanded in disbelief.

"They are," Emiko agreed with a groan.

"It's your dad's pet!" the shadow youkai protested. "Why doesn't he take care of it himself?"

"He does, though," Shira put forth. "I saw him building that little chicken-house–"

"…coop," Maya corrected, in her usual quiet monotone.

"–the last time I visited Emi's place," the doppelganger continued, as if the soft-spoken witch hadn't said anything. And then, proving that to be a false impression, they turned to Maya and added, "And no, it's actually a little house, scaled for a bird about so big." Shira's hands elongated and warped a bit in order to give a more precise idea of the Cuccoo's size.

The pale girl's sunhat bowed slightly as she considered this information. "…silly," Maya finally declared.

"It is," Emiko agreed, "but Daddy's having fun with it, and Chanti seems to like it."

"What kind of a name is 'Chanti,' a-anyway?" Riko wondered, adjusting her glasses.

"Daddy said he got it from 'Chanticleer,'" Emiko replied. "I'm probably saying that wrong, but I think he was a European rooster youkai, or something?"

She looked to Maya and Shira, who were the most well-read and most widely-traveled of their group, respectively, but both of her friends shrugged or shook their heads, clearly uncertain of the source.

"Well, wherever the name comes from, Daddy's enjoying himself and keeping that bird happy enough not to peck somebody's face off, so it's worth it."

The two youkai girls, one human girl, and one shapeshifter not currently presenting as either male or female all traded glances.

"W-when you say 'p-peck somebody's f-face off'…" Riko began, her usual slight stutter intensifying, as it tended to do at the prospect of some unfriendly new monster showing up.

"Okay, so, I've told you about Alex's birthday," Emiko replied.

Her friends nodded, collectively.

"Several times, now," Shira pointed out, smirking.

The kitsune ignored that, instead continuing, "And I told you how the Ring of Trials was set up."

Again, everybody nodded. There had been—and still was—some disbelief about the sheer scale of various challenges, not to mention a lot of good-natured ribbing about who, exactly, had faced what, but with a dozen eyewitness accounts provided by the members of the Hayashi family—if reluctantly and with much complaining in a certain older sister's case—and long familiarity with foxy tricks, Emiko's friends had eventually been able to pick out enough consistencies to confirm that at least some of what she'd said must be true.

She'd be more annoyed about that lack of trust in her word if she weren't a kitsune, and if she didn't know exactly where her friends were coming from. Alex was nonsense under normal circumstances, he'd had time to prepare for his birthday, besides, and anybody who knew anything about magic knew what that meant.

"So," Emiko went on, "when Daddy was in the sixth round of his Trials, he ended up in a big chicken coop, only with a bird like Chanti. And as soon as this 'Cuccoo' had popped up on the big viewing globe, Alex, his non-human teachers, and every fairy in the audience freaked the heck out. Sokka, the Water Tribe boy, asked why they were all panicking about a chicken, and that got the whole audience a five-minute home video horror-show about how these things are some sort of unholy DOOM chicken that can shrug off swords, survive explosives going off at point-blank range, and terrorize everything from unwary cats to clumsy farmhands to monsters fifty times their size."

Her friends traded glances.

"I'm not making this up, I swear!"

"No, no, we believe you," Kako assured her. "It's just…"

"'Just'…?"

"…safe?" Maya asked, nodding at Riko.

Emiko winced. While none of her friends were especially tough, Riko was easily the most fragile of their group, a natural consequence of her being a smaller than average human with no training in and even less aptitude for violence or mysticism. Considering some of the things she'd seen Cuccoos attacking were monsters she wouldn't have wanted to test her own claws against…

…and this would probably be a bad time to mention that Daddy wanted her to pick up a scratching post for Chanti, wouldn't it?

"Yes, it would," Kako said slowly.

"…I said that out loud, didn't I?" Emiko groaned.

Her friends nodded.

Hawaaa…

---

ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OMAKE SPECIAL #2
WILLOW ROSENBERG

Whyyyy couldn't her birthday come any faster?!

This wasn't the first year that Willow had entertained this thought, and if she weren't so distracted by the birthday that was just ahead of her—and not hurrying up and getting here already—she would have been able to admit that it wasn't likely to be the last.

Because cake!

And presents!

And friends!

And visits with her grandparents, and her parents actually paying attention to her! For a whole day!

These were good things, enjoyable things, and things you didn't get to have every day, which just made them better when you did have them!

But this particular birthday promised something even more than that: it promised magic.

With the help of Mr. Marks, the books he was willing to let her read at the store, and what useful information she'd been able to find at the library and online, Willow had made a lot of progress on the Biggest Homework Assignment Ever. She wasn't done just yet – it was not only the biggest project she'd ever done, but also the most important, so it was extra important that she double-checked, got everything right the first time, and put in the added effort so that it would be the Absolute Best It Could Be – but most of the prep-work was finished, or at least in progress.

After receiving the gift on the holidays, she'd gone straight home, read the book over the course of that night and the following day, then re-read it a couple of days later to make sure the contents had really sunk in, before finally returning to the shop to talk it over with Mr. Marks.

It was only after that discussion that she'd started to fill out the mystical questionnaire.

In terms of length, it was nothing special, just three and a half pages. Sure, that was as bigger or bigger than most of the tests they did at school, but Willow was confident that she could have finished a school test of that size in a class period and with time to spare for a review, even if there'd been an essay question!

…though maybe not if there'd been two of them.

On the other hand, in terms of content, the questionnaire was a whole lot different from school quizzes and essays and such. Not only was the writing small, but, as Mr. Marks had told her, it wasn't the sort of test that you studied for or got graded on. The questions weren't multiple choice, but they also didn't have any one answer that was always right; if somebody answered the question about your favorite color with "green," that was just as good as answering "white" —even though white wasn't really a color—or saying "blue, gold, and red," as long as those really were your favorite colors.

The point wasn't to be "right" according to somebody else's impartial standards or to give an expected answer, it was to answer honestly. While what you knew wasn't unimportant for this test, it also wasn't as important as what you thought and felt.

On a certain level, the whole business vaguely offended Willow's tender sensibilities, shaped as they had been by three years of primary school and a year of Pre-K, her parents' insistence on and approval of good grades, and all the books and TV shows that said doing well in school was a good and important thing—not to mention a small galaxy's worth of silver and gold stars.

She liked her stars, darn it. She'd earned them, and she wasn't looking forward to the day when teachers stopped giving them out, just because she was "too mature for such things."

Which was just silly. Who was ever too old for stars?

Going back to the questionnaire, as much as it annoyed her on one level, parts of it reminded her of that aptitude test they'd done the last month of pre-school. Once she'd made that connection, Willow was reassured that she'd done something like this before, in school, even—although that realization had gotten her wondering why the school board was asking kids questions like this.

Because yeah, some of the questions sounded like they came out of those home psychology and mental health for kids tests that her parents had brought home, and it made sense that the school district might want to figure out if any their students were likely to go coo-coo before it happened so that they could get them the help they needed, but lots of the other questions didn't seem like that at all—at least, Willow didn't think that a licensed and accredited psychiatrist was supposed to ask somebody what their favorite kind of magic was.

Divination, for the record. Because it was all about knowing stuff and finding out about stuff, and if you were good enough at it, you could find out how to do other kinds of magic, too!

The possibility that the school might have been trying to figure out if any of its students had magical talent had bothered Willow enough that she'd set the questionnaire aside and spent a few hours trying to look up information on the aptitude test. Unfortunately, and entirely reasonably given that it had been most of three years since she took the thing, she didn't remember what it was called or the name of the group that had been administering it for the district. Heck, she couldn't really recall what the guy who'd come to class with the tests looked like, but then, he hadn't done anything except hand the sheets to the teacher, watch to make sure nobody was cheating, and the take the tests back after they'd been passed up to the front.

She didn't see how it was her fault that she couldn't remember somebody so boringly ordinary who she'd met just the one time, forever ago.

Anyway, the test didn't seem to be mentioned on the school board's website or any of the educational sites she checked, so that whole thing turned out to be a big waste of time, and soured her mood for answering more questions—plus it had been kind of late, so she'd gone to bed.

But she'd finished the questionnaire the next day! Willow Rosenberg wasn't a lazy quitter, no sir!

In the end, Willow had quadruple-checked all her answers, until she was sure she'd been as honest and accurate as she could be, and then she'd filled out a second copy for Mr. Marks. Then they'd both gone over them separately, using their own copies of the book, comparing the answers to the charts in the middle of the book and seeing how they lined up.

The diagrams in question were full of numbers and names, some of which led to other charts, while others described things in the real world. Dates and times, places, objects, and of course, individuals.

The patrons.

Once she had the full list, Willow went back to the shop and compared it against Mr. Marks', to make sure they'd gotten the same answers and she hadn't accidentally misread something or copied the wrong name down.

And then they'd discussed who and what those names belonged to, what they did—and sometimes how they did it—and gradually figured out which of them might be willing to give a newly nine-year-old girl a moment of their attention and a sign of whether they were willing to help her enter the world of magic.

She and Mr. Marks had mutually agreed to rule out anything that qualified as a demon, although Willow had gone ahead and asked about the Ars Goetia anyway. Their names hadn't been in the questionnaire at all, and yeah, they were demons, but they were the demons subdued by King Solomon, and so had to behave themselves because God said so, so maybe they'd have to be nice for a good Jewish girl and what was the story there, really?

Mr. Marks had explained that, from what he'd read and heard other people say on the subject, once upon a time, Jewish kabbalists and other practitioners had indeed been able to invoke Solomon's legacy and the demons bound to it, gaining arcane power at a reasonable degree of safety, and without upsetting the Lord too much in the bargain. As long as they weren't dummies or meanies about what they did with that power, anyway.

Then the Seventy-Two got mixed up with Dracula somehow, and a lot more people who called on them started going bad or getting killed, until these days the practice was considered no more reliable than summoning any other demon.

Did vampires have to ruin everything?

Anyway, with the results of the questionnaire, Willow had been able to narrow the field for potential patrons to beings that were, if not all exactly nice or friendly, then at least safe enough to borrow her first-ever magic from. From there, it had just been a matter of adjusting the ongoing exercises and the details of the future contact ritual so that it only invoked those Powers, instead of being a more general and open summoning to who- or whatever might be listening.

The tricky part had been figuring out how to get out of town to perform the ritual. Mr. Marks had been very firm that trying to work this sort of magic in Sunnydale was a bad idea – maybe not as bad as calling on a demonic patron directly, but there were just too many lesser demons and too much dark magic floating around town, making it all too likely that the ritual would be twisted, offending the spirits that Willow wanted to get in touch with or drawing the attention of the ones she really didn't want to.

Luckily for her, she'd been extra good since Hanukkah, and done even better in class than usual – still not enough to keep up with Mister Magic Cheaty-Head, though, the cheater – and her parents had agreed to her request to take a little overnight camping trip for her birthday. Normally, Willow wouldn't have been interested in spending the entire night away from her computer and the other comforts of modern civilization, let alone everything else that went with the whole camping experience, but being uncomfortable for one night was a sacrifice she was willing to make for magic!

…as long as there weren't any frogs involved! Brr.

That still left one big question, though: when she finally did the ritual and called out into the universe in search of someone willing to help her gain magic…