When Waver and Caster had discussed their tactics against Lancer, one point they initially disagreed upon was whether or not to place themselves mid-air. Waver remembered all too well Berserker's last stand – and, especially, how Lancer's weapons had shot from the earth with unerring accuracy. While Berserker had stayed low to the ground, she'd been able to stay ahead of each as it emerged. When she took to the sky, Lancer had focused their fire, so that even Berserker's explosive offence was overwhelmed.

Waver was not in a hurry to have this happen to him and Caster, and had proposed staying low.

They weren't doing that.

It was easy to forget just how high up Caster had taken them. At least, it was if, like Waver, you were avoiding looking down too often. They stood on a small floating platform, rotors whirring almost silently at each corner, halfway up towards the apex of the Mirror World bubble.

Since this was a sphere which encompassed the entirety of Fuyuki… yes, Waver would class this under quite high enough. There was no wind here, disconnected from the wider atmosphere as it was, but any heat provided by natural convection didn't seem to have made it up here yet, and Waver shivered as he looked down at their opponent.

From here, you could hardly see the speck of green, as Lancer considered their next move.

When they spoke, the voice came from everywhere – it was the trick they'd pulled after killing Berserker, where it seemed as though the entire landscape was speaking for them.

"I hadn't thought you'd be this aggravating," they said. "I can't pinpoint you at all now."

Caster grinned, and sent illusory copies of her, Waver and their platform spiralling away, taking up positions at various heights and places. "Haha, it took a while!" she said. Waver assumed she had a way to make her voice carry, or maybe she was just relying on Lancer's insane senses. "But I think I managed to spread our presence out across the entire Mirror World pocket. Everywhere feels like us, so we could be anywhere, right?"

"Yes. It's really playing merry hell with my sense of things," Lancer said, sounded almost amused. "I keep feeling as though I ought to turn around to address whoever's behind me."

Caster twirled her staff. "And I bet you can't tell which attacks are real or fake, either!"

With a wave, two Spiritron disruptor beams shot forth from the globe on the top of Caster's staff and crisscrossed their way through Lancer's position. They stepped out of the way of both.

"…yes," they said, apparently unruffled. "I couldn't tell at all which was the genuine attack and which one you'd faked with illusion. My guess is the one that came at me from the East?"

"Haha, nope!" Caster laughed. "Both fake, and also I cloaked a third one and ran it about five feet past you to see if you'd react. Apparently not! Dear me, how the worm turns!"

This time, Lancer's voice did sound distinctly unamused. "Yes, very clever. I hope you don't think this puts us on an even footing or anything."

"Oh yeah? Without tempting fate… what are you going to do about it?" Caster asked.

Lancer seemed to consider this. "Well. If I can't pinpoint you, I suppose I'll just have to be a little less subtle than usual."

Waver could only just make out the golden crackle around Lancer's form, as they slammed their hand on the street.

The wall of masterwork weapons which exploded forth, closing the distance in an instant, though? You could see that just fine.

They came thick as rain, an almost solid mass moving with deadly speed. Waver's view to the far side of the Mirror world was actually obscured for a moment, seeing only the constant rush of Noble Phantasm-grade spears, swords, axes, flails and everything else Lancer had decided to throw at them. They sped past too fast to appear as anything other than sparkling blurs…

…but Caster had squirrelled one away from the Berserker fiasco. Waver had had the opportunity to examine one up close, a simple straight sword.

He'd been struck, at the time, by just how beautiful it was. It was inlaid with what looked like lapis lazuli in a twisting pattern that brought to mind alternately vines or air currents as well as cuneiform text that Waver couldn't read yet, with a pommel shaped as a snarling lion so lifelike he could feel the difference in texture between the mane and the muzzle. It was also razor sharp – and had stayed that way despite neither Waver or Caster doing anything to maintain it.

It was even compatible to channel magical energy through, and would have made a superb basis to craft a mystic code, especially for anything to do with Earth-element magecraft. If you'd brought it to any appraiser, they would have sworn that the smith would have worked for no less than a full year bringing this masterpiece into the world, and probably begged you to take their house and worldly possessions if only they could be included in the auction when you sold it.

More than a hundred just like it passed Caster's platform in less than a second. Waver's hair blew wildly in the gale-force winds whipped up by their passage, and only Caster's steadying hand on his shoulder prevented a fatally embarrassing loss of balance.

And yet, not a single weapon came close to touching them.

It was easy to forget given just how easily Lancer threw out their created weapons, but they weren't just beautifully crafted. Every single one was, quite literally, on the level of a Noble Phantasm – the Age of Gods clay that went into their construction as well as Lancer's divine craftsmanship meant that even the meanest spear he threw out had the metaphysical weight, the power, the importance of anything wielded by any mighty hero Waver could name. You couldn't stop something like that with barriers. Even a Noble Phantasm shield would only work for a few blows before failing against blades every bit its equal – and Lancer's next hundred would go straight through.

So Caster had chosen a different approach.

Below them, an orange-edged portal hung in mid-air. Weapons disappeared into it, only to fly out of the matching blue portal – which danced across the battlefield under Caster's control. One moment it flashed into existence right next to Lancer, knocking them sideways with the weight of their own attack to provide a temporary reprieve. The next, it flickered along the edges of the Mirror World bubble, never staying in the same position instant to instant. Caster hummed as she directed it, gauntlet and staff moving in tandem like a conductor with their baton.

Lancer's endless onslaught of weapons couldn't be stopped by anything Caster could easily whip up – so, her solution was not to stop them. They continued on their way, blasting through any obstacle in their path. Caster just made sure that path went nowhere near her or Waver.

After long minutes, the barrage of weapons stopped.

The sounds of buildings collapsing under whichever weapons hadn't yet come down continued for a few moments more. Watching a skyscraper's final supports whittled down to nothing so that it collapsed as rubble into the middle of the street, Waver suddenly had a lot more appreciation for Caster's arguments as to why they not do this from ground level.

If Caster felt any smugness, it was indiscernible against the façade of background smug she generally used as her 'battle face'. She didn't say 'I told you so'. Instead, she addressed Lancer.

"So! Throwing a series of rocks at us didn't work, no matter how lovely you've shaped them and how fast you've thrown them. Hm, it's almost like I've had cause to think about ways to deal with arbitrary amounts of physical force…"

Lancer didn't seem in any kind of particular hurry. "Yes. An impressive defence." They spread their hands. "Do you suppose we are at an impasse?"

At that, Caster laughed out loud. "Oh, don't be silly. Neither of us have shown everything we have up our sleeves."

"Oh?"

Caster flashed a mischievous smirk and pressed a button on her gauntlet's wrist. Down below, yet another hidden mine exploded under Lancer's feet. When the smoke cleared, they sounded very unamused.

"You and your technology," they said. "I'd been meaning to talk to you about that, by the way."

"Oh? Do tell," said Caster. Distractedly, she fiddled with her gauntlet, giving no sign she was actually listening to Lancer.

If Lancer noticed, they didn't show it. "Yes. For more than your sake, I do hope you have left none of these devices left in the real city."

Caster paused, grimaced exaggeratedly, and mouthed 'whoops' to Waver. Out loud, she said, "Who, me? Nope, not a single one."

As she talked, her gauntlet lit up in runes traced in electric blue, and she extended her hand straight out.

"I am very serious," Lancer continued. "After I kill you – as I think it's becoming clearer and clearer that I must – who will be around to disarm them all? What if they are recovered by the modern authorities? What if they are conveyed to the military? I am in a unique position to tell you that they are leagues ahead of even the most advanced weapons currently available to mankind."

"Thank you!" said Caster, apparently reflexively. A miniature version of the orange portal she'd been using appeared in front of her hand. Waver couldn't see where it led, but he could see concrete on the other side. With a twitch, tiny lasers fired from each of Caster's fingertips, and she wiggled her fingers. Writing with five fingers at once was sadly not the most ludicrous thing Waver had seen Caster do – he just hoped what she was etching into the concrete was worth it.

Meanwhile, he frowned as he considered. It had, in fact, crossed his mind as to what would happen to Caster's tech after the War – many of her comments seemed to take it for granted that he'd have at least some kind of access to it afterwards. In fact, Caster had sometimes seemed to imply that she herself would still be around as his teacher – without a Grail, Waver didn't know how that was supposed to work, but then he wasn't the Throne-verified genius mage.

Caster would have thought of something, he was sure. Lancer was worried over nothing. Definitely.

Lancer was still going, though. "I can't say I approve of your seeking to leave your mark on humanity like this. All us Servants had our chance when we were alive. If you wanted to change the world, you should have done it then – leave changing the world to the humans of this era."

At that, Caster actually stopped what she was doing to goggle down at Lancer. "Um, no? I was held back by my own era. Materials science is so much better now, and I can actually try out all the things I always wanted to give to the world! You're just grumpy because you don't understand it, you old fossil."

"On the contrary," Lancer said. To Waver's discomfort, they sounded more amused than offended, and he caught a glimpse of that golden lightning crackling around their form again. He tugged on Caster's sleeve. "I have quite a soft spot for humanity's collective achievements."

"Um, Caster," Waver said, slightly more urgently.

"Let me show you," Lancer finished before Waver could say any more, and once more slammed their hands into the ground. "Age of Babylon."

Waver braced himself for another onslaught of ancient weapons.

What came instead was much, much worse.

Lancer's previous attacks had been simple, if effective. In a nutshell, the earth formed itself into weapons, and flung itself at whoever Lancer had decided to delete that day. As Caster had said, it really was nothing more than throwing rocks – never mind how that would be enough to deal with ninety-nine percent of all Servants.

Now, the earth rippled as before – in Lancer's vicinity, then the width of the street they were on, then the length, then the rooftops of the nearest intact buildings. Shapes formed, rounded cylinders emerging from concrete, or asphalt, or parkland, further and further out as far as the eye could see. At first Waver could only goggle at the scale Lancer was working on – he knew they were ridiculous, but to have a Noble Phantasm cover an entire city?

Then Waver recognised the shapes, and he goggled for an entirely different reason.

"Oh, come on, that's not fair," he groaned.

As one, the barrels of an entire city's worth of anti-air small-calibre guns swivelled upwards.

The roar was like nothing on Earth. Waver shielded his eyes against the sudden glare of well over a thousand muzzle flashes that kept on going, and even hundreds of feet in the sky he could hardly hear himself think. The air itself seemed to turn grey – if Lancer's previous use using ancient weapons had been a torrential downpour… up-pour?... then this was the kind of fine drizzle that set in all day.

Except, you know, buzzing past Waver's ears with a noise fit to tear the air itself apart.

Caster, for her part, had stopped what she was doing to inspect Lancer's work. "Ooh, now that is interesting! Master, master, look! Those are the 20 mm Phalanx guns that the JMSDF use!" Her defensive portal was back in place, although she was craning her head so far to look she was in danger of leaning past it. "If Lancer can produce such modern weapons, then I totally misunderstood how their Age of Babylon Phantasm works… eee, it's so cool!"

"Not! Encouraging!" Waver gritted out, although he had no idea if Caster could even hear him over the noise.

"No, no, it totally is! I can definitely work with this." With a quick beckoning motion, one bullet was snatched from the storm to hover above Caster's hand. Now that it was stationary, Waver would see that it too was intricately carved with cuneiform text.

Caster turned it this way and that. "Hmm, prayers for sure flight and additional strength… armour-piercing then, I suppose, which makes sense given that this seems to be formed out of solid ceramic. How fascinating! Though, Lancer, I don't see how you can possibly have a problem with my little gadgets when you're filling the sky with magnificent works like this."

"Simple," came the reply, a thousand gunshots somehow coming together to make the word. "This was developed by normal humans, building off the continued work of millennia. In its own way, these guns are as much a part of the natural world as the trees and beasts. You, however, are a Servant. Anything you bring into the world is supernatural interference, by definition."

"Well, am I not also a product of my time and my upbringing? I know I'm a genius, but that doesn't mean I didn't work hard. It's not myfault I wasn't born in the right time to fully make use of my talents. Come to that, it's also not my fault I ascended to the Throne of Heroes, and it's certainly not my fault I was compatible enough to be summoned by my cute little Master here." Waver ducked as Caster made to ruffle his hair. "But now that all those things have happened, why shouldn't I make the best of the hand I've been dealt?"

"Because, again, interference in the march of human endeavour is unacceptable when it comes from any other source than a living human."

Caster huffed, and folded her arms. "Hearing that from a divine superweapon who spent their time while alive gallivanting around slaying monsters rather takes the biscuit, if you ask me," she said. "What happened to preserving nature there?"

This time, the constant roar of gunfire contrived to sound like fond laughter. "Oh, but that was all natural too! King Gilgamesh was naturally the strongest and most gifted of all humans, and exerted his right as king to exterminate the threats to his kingdom. I was simply one of the tools he used to do it."

"Sounds like hairsplitting to me…" Caster grumbled.

"Well. Fortunately, I care little for what a dead Servant thinks of me."

That, decided Waver, was a very ominous thing to say.

There was a change in the tone of the background noise – added to the constant roar of fired rounds and the rush of tortured air was a chaotic, irregular series of cracks. Looking around, Waver saw why.

Seeing that the direct approach wasn't working, Lancer had angled their guns so that the bullets – rounds? Shells? Waver wasn't a gun person – would collide in mid-air. Against the blue-crystal dome that marked the edge of the Mirror World, sparks danced all around Waver and Caster.

And then the first ricochets made themselves known.

There was a earsplitting crack, which made Waver wince even against the deafening backdrop, and a blinding flash of light. When the spots cleared from his vision, Caster stood frowning, gauntlet held up palm-first. Around them both was a blue forcefield, made of dozens of layers like an onion. Outside was the bullet storm Lancer had conjured – and errant shells came blurring in from all directions.

A layer broke, with that same bright flash. Then another. And another.

Caster grunted, and formed three more layers on the inside, pushing the others out. As fast as she could make them, more broke.

These were nothing like the silly demonstrations she'd shown him against Berserker – these were, quite literally, the best that she could do. Each layer absorbed force from impacts and converted into additional power, meaning that it grew stronger rather than weaker as it was tested. It would take a truly phenomenal amount of force all at once to overwhelm it, and when it did half the stored energy was projected outwards while the rest was distributed backwards to the rest of the barriers.

They were a perfect blend of scientific principles applied via magecraft, and Waver would have bet on Caster's barriers against anything, up to and including a nuclear weapon.

And yet, Lancer's next step above basic attacks was punching through them as fast as Caster could shore it up.

"Caster," started Waver.

"Don't talk please, dear," said Caster, a little more curtly than usual. "Directly blocking Noble Phantasm shells really isn't as easy as I make it look."

"Nevertheless, you are doing extremely well," came Lancer's voice. "However, even you can't maintain more than one such barrier – which means, unfortunately, that I have found you."

Oh crap.

There was a thud, as of something very heavy becoming airborne extremely suddenly. Waver could barely see past the barriers, and even less past the bullet storm, but he could make out something moving very fast in the sky, leaving a trail of scattered shells in its wake.

Frantically, he screamed, "Caster, brace-"

Then Lancer impacted.

Waver had just enough time to process a few snapshot images.

The shadow in the sky turning towards them-

Barriers shattering one after another like a smashed matryoshka doll-

Lancer emerging spear fingertip first, green hair flying-

Waver's whole world narrowing to the span of Lancer's hand as it closed in on him-

… and then he was back in his room at the Mackenzies.

Well, in the Mirror World copy, at any rate. Outside, the roar had stopped, and the world seemed eerily silent after the deafening storm it had been. Waver collapsed onto his bed; Caster collapsed into a chair, and Waver couldn't blame her.

"That," he panted, "was way, way too close, Caster."

To her credit, Caster didn't try to laugh this one off. "Um, yes, sorry about that, Master. Keeping track of over a million shells as they all ricochet off each other is a bit of a tall order even for me, and at Noble Phantasm calibre, they were quite a bit more potent than I'd thought. I really didn't mean to let Lancer get that close…"

Waver waved off the apology. "Not a problem. The main thing is, we managed to lure them into the sky. Did we catch them?"

Caster conjured an image of the sky over Fuyuki, exactly where their floating platform had been.

Or rather, their floating portal generator, which had briefly doubled as a platform until they could lure Lancer over it.

Now, a cube of portals hung in mid-air.

"Is it…" Waver could hardly dare to voice it, "…actually working?"

"Well, Lancer hasn't broken out yet, so… I'm going to say yes!" said Caster. With a wave of her hand, the image vanished.

"Okay," Waver said. "Let's get out of here, then – now that Lancer's trapped, there's no problem with you doing the spell to exit the Mirror World, right?"

"Sure, no problem, I've got bags of time now! But, you know, it seems like a wasted opportunity. Can we take one last look at what Lancer's done with these modern weapons? We'll call it a day after that, pinky promise."

Waver sighed. "Alright."

They went outside. The street was an absolute ruin, Lancer's gun placements sticking out of every available surface and the ground below littered with discarded shell casings. It was a good thing this was just the Mirror World.

Caster skipped over to one of the cylinders, taller than she was, and inspected it, leaning in and adjusting her glasses. "This really is amazing… this kind of weapon really shouldn't be possible without mass production techniques, and yet it looks as though both the gun and ammunition are all hand-crafted. I wonder if there are any discernible differences between this specific example and the others…"

While she muttered, Waver shielded his eyes and squinted up at the sky, where their portal cube hung. It didn't look like he expected.

"Why did we make the portals gold?" he asked.

"Hmm? The outside of the portals should strictly be perfectly black," Caster said. "No light is passing through them from inside, and they don't emit or reflect any themselves, so black is really all that's left. Why would they look gold to you?"

"Because they're gold," Waver said flatly.

"Ah." Caster glanced up, and pulled Waver next to her, hand snapping up to create another layered defence-

And that was as far they got before Lancer broke free. After that, things happened very quickly.

The portal cube exploded in a blinding flash of gold, and Lancer descended to earth as a lightning bolt.

When they struck, the ground rippled, and every gun around swivelled to face Waver. Worse, more formed – smaller calibre machineguns, miniguns and even personal rifles, bristling in between the Phalanx placements, from the surrounding rooftops, and even the sides of the buildings lining the street.

Waver gulped, and felt in his pocket for Caster's final resort. He really, really hoped she'd managed to finish her setup.

Lancer crouched not ten feet away, hand held to the ground, chains whipping over their shoulder like snakes.

"That," they said. "Was very irritating."

"Think how I feel!" Caster complained. "How did you escape?"

While she talked, Waver heard her voice in his head, clipped and professional. You've got the trigger ready, Master? Good. Leave it as long as you can, we're only going to get one shot at this and the barriers will need to have matured as much as possible.

Waver eyed the gun barrels pointing at him from every direction and shivered. That was the other reason they'd wanted to do this from the air – covering one direction with a portal was much easier than covering many.

The look of scorn Lancer shot Caster in response to her question was relatively mild, but all the more worrying for being as extreme an emotion as they'd shown all fight. "Did you think physical force was my only option? I would never have survived against Gilgamesh if that was the case. My chains have many properties – you are not the only Servant who can break space itself."

"Well, now I just feel silly," Caster huffed.

Lancer's eyes narrowed. "You are anything but. What was your goal here?"

"Uh, to kill you? What else?"

"No," Lancer corrected. "If that was what you wanted you would have worked with Assassin properly, or else gone all-in from the start as soon as we got here. Instead, you ceded the initiative to me at every opportunity. As arrogant as you are, even you couldn't have hoped to win that way. It's almost as if you wanted me to show you what I could do. I'll ask again. Why?" The earth rumbled, as emphasis to their question.

Caster threw her hands up in frustration – although Waver noticed the complicated gesture with her fingers that meant she was also doing this to subtly reinforce her barrier spell. "Ugh! All I get is mistrust – from you, from Assassin, everyone! Now I'm under suspicion for not fighting back better against the Chain of Heaven? I can't win!"

Lancer sighed. "So you won't tell me. I see. Well, you were right about one thing." The gun barrel whirred to life. "You can't win."

That, Waver supposed, was his cue. His fingers found the small button in his pocket – he flipped the lid and pressed it, imbuing it with as much magical energy as he could.

That was as much as he had time to do.

He'd thought Lancer's assault was loud before. Then, he'd been hundreds of feet in the air. Now, he was in the middle, and he winced in genuine pain as the shockwave reached his ears.

Caster's barriers held… for now. They shattered in their dozens, shells growing closer to Waver inch by inch. That was fine. They only needed a few seconds.

And then…

The ground lit up in pure white, intricate circuitry mixed with rune circles tracing their way out from Caster, as far as the eye could see. If Waver had still been airborne, he knew he would have been able to see what they were forming – a gigantic Formalcraft circle, covering the entire Mirror World pocket.

This was what Caster had been drawing. The basic structure had been made by Caster sending Lancer's spears and swords through her portals just so. The details had been laser-etched even as she stalled for time against Lancer's guns. The final piece was for Waver himself to activate it and give it a direction.

The purpose was simple:

Retrieve every last scrap of magical energy within the circle, and return it all to Caster.

There were no leylines within the Mirror World – you only had what energy you took in with you, unless you were a cheating cheater like Lancer. Caster had used a lot of spells at this point, and Lancer hadn't managed to catch all of her devices either. The circuitry glowed, almost blinding, as Caster sucked up a truly ludicrous amount of power.

She wouldn't be holding on to it long.

Caster's gauntlet crackled with golden lightning, and she grinned, eyes sparkling, at Lancer.

"Uomo Universale!"

She slammed the gauntlet onto the earth.

Six enormous conical steel hulks rose from the ground, surrounding Waver and Caster to shield them with their mass. Where Caster's barriers had failed, these held, and Waver saw Caster sigh in exhaustion, and start another spell – the one that would get them clear.

With a mechanical roar, the cones swivelled to aim enormous cannons – not at Lancer, but at the Phalanx guns. With each one gone, the pressure eased slightly.

Lancer stood up, and flexed a hand.

It was time to go.

"Caster," Waver started.

"Way ahead of you, Master. Inverting imaginary number axis, go!"

The world flipped, noise stopped, and Waver's brain tried to process eleven-dimensional movement before giving up. When he came back to himself, he and Caster stood in the real world, in the street outside the Mackenzies' house.


Waver took a deep breath, in and out. Once again, the quiet was eerie – but now, it was softened by distant traffic, wind blowing, and the low murmur of pedestrians going about their day and trying to fix their city.

They had done it.

Next to him, Caster sat down heavily on the curb. Her hair was slightly out of place and she was still panting just a little, but she flashed a winning smile at Waver anyway.

"Phew! That got a little hairy, but it was totally worth it. We got some great data, we managed to perfect our countermeasure for Lancer's presence detection, Age of Babylon has been fully analysed and replicated, and we're both still in one piece! Yes, I think we can call this a win. I'll need to do a little more work on how exactly Lancer managed to escape our portal trap, but overall I think we're just about ready."

"Good." A horrible thought occurred to Waver. "Um, Caster, about that… Lancer isn't going to be able to break out of the Mirror World trap, are they?"

Caster waved a hand tiredly. "No, no, there's no chance of that. Our little improvised cage of portals was one thing, but that was just manually dividing off a little section of space by making it impossible to move there within three dimensions. The Mirror World is a whole separate space – I would be surprised if anything short of a Command Spell could retrieve Lancer from there. And," she said, before Waver could ask the obvious question, "I've intercepted communication between Lancer and their Master. With how powerful they are, he has no reason to actually worry, so as long as we sort him out before he wonders where they are we'll be fine."

Ah. Good. It seemed Caster had thought of everything.

So, of course, that was the moment that the air cracked in the middle of the street, golden light spilling through.

Waver's heart sank.

"No," whispered Caster, climbing to her feet and pointing her staff at the crack in space. "No, come on, that's totally not fair! How does Lancer have even more up their sleeve? There's no way I underestimated them that much!"

And yet, the cracks spread. As if from an incredible distance, they heard a noise like the world ending, rising and rising – and then, a voice.

"Enuma Elish."

The air shattered entirely. Lancer stood there.

Caster's staff shook, the gem on the tip wavering. "That's… the, the Mirror World isn't even there any more. W-what did you do?"

Waver stared in alarm. Caster never got rattled like this.

Hey, you OK? he asked, silently. Pull yourself together, and think of a plan already!

There was no answer.

Lancer fixed them both with a cool gaze. "There are witnesses, and what we do now has an effect on the world at large. Therefore, I will keep this simple, Caster. Surrender, destroy all traces of yourself remaining in this world, and I will spare your Master. Otherwise… you are less than ten paces from me, and I can have my fist through his skull before either of you can react. Choose. I will count to six."

Caster! Waver yelled.

She wasn't responding, grip rattling on her staff.

Dammit. Of all things, maybe he should have expected being proven wrong to be the thing to finally disturb his Servant.

If she couldn't do anything, he'd have to.

… except the list of things that he, Waver, could do that Caster couldn't was… very short.

In fact, there was really only one thing on it.

He had no time to set this up – it would have to be a pure exertion of will.

"Transport us to safety, Caster!"

Caster's posture stiffened and her staff snapped round.


Waver blinked, recognising the cavern he found himself in.

There was machinery everywhere, with wires snaking every which way on the floor. This was where he and Caster had kept the larger projects, the ones that wouldn't fit in the Mackenzies' bedroom.

Caster stood next to him, casting spell after spell with no expression whatsoever on her face.

After a minute, she seemed to relax, then slump, sinking to her knees.

Waver approached her carefully. "Are… you okay?" He could hardly believe he was asking this. Caster was always okay.

She looked round, and with a shock Waver realised her eyes were wide, and filled with tears. She wiped them away as soon as he noticed, though, and pasted a beaming grin onto her face. "Yes, just fine, no problems whatsoever! Don't you worry, I've reapplied the city-wide presence spoof, and further warded this place against, um, just about everything I could think of. I'm so proud of you! Such quick thinking…"

Waver sighed, running a hand through his hair. Caster… clearly wasn't fine, but just as clearly wanted him to believe that she was. He opened his mouth to clear the air straight away, because he relied on Caster for almost literally everything and he needed her on top form.

But, an image came to him of another magus, blinking back tears of frustration when he came up against a vastly more powerful and unfair system. If anyone had come up to that magus in the moment, he would have resented them for seeing his weakness before he was ready.

So, instead of pressing Caster further, he turned his back and walked a couple of paces away. Ahead of him, there was a tank, within which floated a humanoid figure.

"Thank you," he said instead. "As soon as you're ready, we'll make a start.

"I think it's past time we moved on to live testing."