So, uh, you know how I said I wasn't gonna write any more CF fics?

I wasn't lying but I was wrong. Whoops?

I didn't quite expect this to be a Peggy Sue when I had the idea originally, but hey, it works, and I get to experiment with writing someone with a metaknowledge roadmap, kinda, in a way I haven't really done since I finished AHF in 2021.


UNSC From the Ashes

Sometimes the only way out is to flip the board and start over.


Beta'd by Sesparra


There were no indications (or at least none in the historical record) that the day that Molly Carpenter grew into her magic was going to be particularly auspicious (or inauspicious).

No angelic choirs, no stench of brimstone, prophecies had not been issued regarding the changing of the world and even the most attuned of supernal creatures had no warning.

No, one minute, fourteen-year-old Molly Carpenter was asleep in her bed, and then, she was sitting bolt upright, half-formed motes of dazzling light playing around her fingers, ready to lance out in the kind of lasers that Saturday morning cartoons tossed around like candy, as well over three decades worth of memories flooded her mind.

Klaus Schneider, the most renowned enchanter known to the White Council, had spend a decade and a half expanding on what skill at carpentry her father had imbued her with and accompanying it with every other form of craft from tinsmithing to clockwork to origami, and though she hadn't been able to live with her family nearly as much as she'd wished, she took heart in being able to craft more and more advanced foci and talismans to bring them warmth and succor in her absence. Father Forthill, too, got his fair share for recommending the Toymaker as her teacher, the two having met while coordinating Vatican aid for victims of vampire attacks back in the 1980s.

Two more decades in one war after another honed her crafting skills even further, with Anastasia Luccio considering her as a replacement armorer and swordsmith for the Wardens had she another fifty years to practice, but-

Well, it made a certain amount of sense that Nicodemus Archleone had been the one to take her life. After all, over the decades, Michael Carpenter had laid many of the Knights of the Coin to rest, including the man's own daughter, so Nicodemus' vengeful spirit would naturally turn to his own children, those that remained, at least. Stealing into her workshop in the dead of night, he hadn't managed to catch her unawares, forced to fight his way through an array of mystical traps and clockwork defenders, but in the end he did provoke out her death curse, condemning the man to "never be enough" so long as he bore Anduriel, turning a fraction of the Fallen Angel's loyal power against his wielder and planting the seed of his undoing at the hands of Carlos Ramirez some two months hence.

And then she woke up, shooting upright in a too-small body with raw, teeth-grindingly intense power crackling through her veins.

More than just her magic, even- for a moment, she almost thought she saw the silhouette of a winged man on her bedroom wall, and as something within her soul opened up into a grand workshop filled with empty pedestals, she felt the blaze of Creation's power in a way she never could have imagined before.

Two pedestals filled themselves- one with a facsimile of the wand she'd carved herself as a primary focus, under the Toymaker's guidance, and one adjacent to it did not so much fill as begin glowing with silvery-white light, the kind that she'd always associated with the Swords. If someone were to look at it for long enough, they could maybe see something more solid in the heart of the not-quite-fire, a glimpse of a wing or a ring perhaps, but they couldn't be sure.

Of course, seeing as how the workshop existed solely within her soul, it was incredibly unlikely for anyone aside from Molly to be able to look at it at all, let alone come close enough to find a shape buried in the flames, but for the sake of description it is worth at least mentioning.

Unfortunately, the impact of thirty years worth of memories being crammed into an adolescent's head is nothing to sneeze at, even for one with a wizardly constitution. With how the memories accompany a reshaping of the mystical energies within her, as well as her very soul, it is not entirely unexpected that it rings her like a bell, sending her collapsing bonelessly back onto her pillow as the past collides with the future.


If I wasn't in so much pain, I would have made some crack about someone running the plates on the bus that hit me.

As it stood, I was too busy nursing a headache to offer anything other than the kind of noise that had more u's and h's than your average dictionary, and then a yelp when the alarm on my bedside table going off drove icepicks through my temples.

Eventually, the pain receded, and I grounded myself in the here and now enough to actually feel time pass instead of the sensation of someone trying to dig their way out of my skull with spoons.

After that, I took the risk of cracking my eyes, and when the dim light on my bedroom ceiling didn't send me into more paroxysms of agony, I dragged myself upright, rubbing the crust away from the corners of my eyes with fingers that wanted nothing more than to drag the covers back up to my chin.

My alarm clock let out another ring, and I mustered up the will to send the specific design of magic that I'd crafted as a key to shut down the noisy enchantments. When the alarm failed to quiet itself, I sent out a second, and then a third iteration of that particular cantrip, none of which had any more success.

To borrow a line, something's not right- I could feel it.

Before reaching out with my senses, I reached into my own head, feeling the headache rise up for a moment before the habitual healing spell I tended to throw at any head I get invited into crushed it.

My memories aren't quite photographic, but if you spend enough time making tweaks in your own head, you can get pretty close, to the point where with a little magic I can more or less pull off the Pensive bullshit in Harry Potter, at least in my own mind. Pulling up the most recent memories I have was a little bit harder than I remember, but nothing that wasn't doable, and I projected them in the mental screen I-

You Will Fail.

I flinched back, both from the glow of the pedestals in my soul as well as the memory of pronouncing my death curse upon Nicodemus, watching him sneer down at me as my lifeblood spilled all over my bed.

Wait. Pedestals in my soul? My own death curse?

Okay, so, inventory of myself, got it. My magic was a-okay, just as sensitive to my will as it ever had been, and with the headache gone I was feeling totally fine.

Better than fine, actually- all of the aches and pains I'd been cycling through from so much woodworking were completely gone, and the stubborn stiffness in my knee after I'd had a Fomor servitor shatter the bone a year or two before Ethniu had made her move felt almost as if it had never existed.

There was a big ol' room in my soul, too, full of who knew how many pedestals of all sizes, mostly empty. One, with a wooden box sitting right next to its base, had a wand- an identical copy of the one I'd carved back when Klaus had still been teaching me, all black except for two white tips, and right next to it was a blaze of flame that felt… comforting, almost. Like looking into a mirror and being proud of how you look.

I knew, somehow, that the wand was emblematic of my magic, my status as a fully grown, card-carrying Wizard of the White Council, and that the flame was Soulfire- the power that the Archangels wielded, the one that their Father'd used to create the world from nothing in seven days.

The fuck.

I sighed, then shoved my hand through my hair, breathing in and then breathing out, visualizing frustration and confusion exiting my body with every exhale until I could actually think worth a damn.

Wait, wait, wait. My hair feels too short.

I shot upright, casting around for my mirror, before recognizing the room that I was in.

Somehow, I'd ended up back in my childhood bedroom, complete with- I stumbled over to the dresser and the mirror mounted over it, and confirmed that yes, unless I was hallucinating, I was also an early teenager again- something in the neighborhood of fourteen, maybe.

I ran my fingers through my hair again, the pageboy haircut that I had vague memories of fighting with Mom over for a couple of months before she started really harping on me for not giving up my magic, and just… sat there. Somehow, I'd ended up thirty years back in time, or with thirty years of future memories, and I couldn't tell which felt more likely.

Then, a worse thought occurred to me, and I tested my will more than I'd prefer by keeping from cursing loud enough to wake all the Jawas.

By being back in time, I'd broken the Sixth Law of Magic, and even if it hadn't been me who did it… well, if I had my timeline right, we were pretty early on in the war with the Red Court, and I didn't think I could talk Morgan or Luccio into hearing me out, and I couldn't be sure that Carlos had made Regional Commander yet so there was no reason for him to stick his neck out for me.

Harry would, of course, but he had more of a martyr complex than Dad ever had and would have done just about anything for my father even if it was a dumb idea. Trying to get himself appointed as parole officer for me wouldn't go over well, and might actually get Morgan to snap and put him down if he even had the capacity- I wasn't sure if non-Wardens were even allowed to take on Warlocks like that, and I didn't remember when exactly he'd earned the Gray Cloak.

"Great," I said, "so I'm alone thirty years in the past with just about no resources and de facto on my own. I guess I just have to hope that I don't somehow catch attention from the Reds or-" my voice broke, here- "-or the Denarians before I can actually put together some real fucking tools."

A stopgap focus wasn't particularly hard to get my hands on. I'd gotten a magic kit a couple of years ago, probably out of some desire to impress Harry back before I'd gotten over my crush on him, and even if it wasn't the custom-carved focus that I'd made after Klaus and I had figured out what would best work with my own specialties, it looked close enough that I could make it work until I could sneak into Dad's workshop and make something more purpose built.

"Well," I said, feeding a hint of will into the wand, just enough to see it glowing with a gentle blue-white light, "not like Harry hasn't survived worse."

Letting the light fade out, I leaned down to check my alarm clock, moving a rectangular, foot-tall wooden box off of my bedside table, where it was blocking the round shape of the clock to the floor before clicking on the backlight to better pick the date out on the display, and-

Wait. What the fuck? I was pretty sure I'd thrown enough magic at the thing to burn it out half a dozen times over, what with it being a digital model, but it was still working just fine despite the techbane…

Hmmm. Maybe it was related to how I came back in time?

Well, either way, it was a Saturday, so I can actually maybe get a jump start on actually putting together a proper focus, one way or another, after breakfast.

"Good, Molly," said Mom, once I'd made my way downstairs, wand tucked in my waistband and hidden under the Star Wars graphic tee and baggy hoodie I'd thrown on with some sweats. "I was just about to send Daniel up to wake you up. Once you're done with breakfast, I need you to help air out the guest room for Shiro and Sanya."

"Will do," I said, sitting down heavily at the table. I hadn't had one of Mom's breakfasts in… I wasn't sure how long it had been, actually, but it had sure as shit been a long time, even before she'd been caught up in the Fomor attack on Chicago.

My enjoyment of breakfast was abruptly interrupted as the pedestals in the workshop flared with light, like they had earlier. This time, though, one of them shimmered for a moment longer before a wooden sword, sized for maybe Amanda's hand, materialized. With it came an understanding of swordplay which…

Okay, so, I've seen Shiro fight with a sword, both training with my dad and in earnest, and he's the best fighter that I can imagine even after seeing some of the older Wardens who have been practicing with their swords for longer than Shiro's been alive. Somehow, whatever this is just plopped the knowledge of how to use a sword into my head, to the point where if I thought my muscles could keep up long enough, I could give him a real run for his money, all else being equal.

If this was mortal magic, that would have been a fairly cut and dried violation of the Third Law, but it… it didn't feel like mortal magic, and as someone who's experimented with psychomancy on themselves, I'd know.

So… if it was at all related to why I'm back here, it might not actually have been a violation of the Sixth Law, not that the Wardens would be willing to cut me any slack at this point given half of what I've heard about the old guard. Great.

Right, no time for wallowing now, Molly. We've got shit to do, and, God willing, Shiro might just get to walk away today.


And that's that!

Perks Earned:

Wizard (Dresden Files, 200CP): You're a full-fledged member of the White Council, with all the rights, privileges, and obligations that entails. A lot of times that's more hassle than it's worth, especially with a war on, but there's a lot of resources you can call on when you need to, as long as you're prepared to repay the favor when need be. What this background really gets you is the full training a wizarding background offers, which has left you able to call on the entire array of everything magic is capable of. And, with enough time and preparation, there's very little which doesn't fit within that category. One quick word of warning before taking this background. Once you go Practitioner, you're bound by the Laws of Magic. There's only seven of them, set out by the White Council to prevent the worst corruptions magic poses, and they're there for a good reason. Violating one of the laws isn't just an awful thing to do, it's true black magic - the kind that stains your soul, permanently changing you into the sort of person who does break that law. It's addictive, and the more you break the law the easier it'll be, until you wind up in "When all you have is a hammer" scenario. Because of that, there's generally only one sentence for violation: death by decapitation.

Now, these rules only apply to mortal practitioners, which means if you're something else you don't really have to worry about it. Of course, that cuts both ways; technically, none of the laws (except Law Seven) apply to anything which isn't human. Burn one of the Black Court to ash with a fireball, raise a zombie T-Rex, and you're still on the right side of the laws, although the Warden who investigates might disagree.

They also only apply to magic as the White Council knows it, which means anything you drag in from elsewhere technically isn't a violation of the first six laws, and won't stain your soul the same way. Of course, they're not going to know the difference, and if they did, it's a violation of the Seventh, so don't go arguing about it.

Soul Source (Dresden Files, 600CP): Somehow, you've gained the power of Soulfire; the ability to use the energies of your soul to enhance your magic. By infusing a spell with notjust your will, but all your being, it'll be infused with a sort of "mystic rebar," granting it a lot of strength and giving it significantly more structure. Since your self is part of the spell now, it also functions more along the lines of your intentions, rather than just providing you with a raw boost. Of course, this comes at a cost: you're literally burning away part of your soul for power. Souls do heal up, especially when engaged in "soul-affirming" activities, but overuse might be worse than fatal.

Best Ale in Chicago (Dresden Files, Free): For the connoisseur in all of us, this is a six-pack of McAnally's Ale, a microbrewed miracle known to make even people who can't stand beer stop, take note, and go "Ah" with perfect understanding. The day after you drink one, the empty bottle will be gone, and a new one will be in its place, unopened and waiting for you. You can also trade this in for a single bottle from Mac's private stash, but you might want to be careful with this one, since it's the sort of thing that can ruin a man for other beers. Yeah, you'll also get a replacement every day. Try not to brag too hard.

Discipline (Fire Emblem: Awakening, 100CP): To be a knight requires more than just knowing how to swing a sword, but honestly that's probably the simplest and arguably most useful thing they know. As a result, you have a single weapon of your choice - Sword, lance, axe, or bow, to which you possess a superb level of mastery over. On top of that, your experience with your weapon allows you to use some of the heroic weapons, the ones that have magic inherent to them, or have a unique trick to how they are meant to be used, preventing oddities in a new weapon from severely impacting your fighting style. (Weapon chosen: sword)

Don't worry, I have no intention of having Molly take up one of the Swords.

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