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He had a habit of overestimating people.

"Do normal people seriously fall for this shit?" He muttered to himself. With one hand braced against the wall, he staggered along the club catwalk, heading for a hole that someone—or something—had torn through the cinder block.

"It's just off-brand diet schizophrenia."

He wouldn't call himself crazy. Or insane. He would call himself a bit touched in the head, but really, who wasn't? The Anathema seed now pulsing in his chest was weak shit compared to his usual intrusive thoughts.

Like tracking down Tim Hallison and shooting him, for no particular reason.

He could hardly believe he'd gotten this far. True, he didn't expect a random Guardian to lock onto him instantly and zap him with a thunderbolt, but he wasn't actually surprised. Even if that hadn't happened, he wasn't under the illusion that he would get away with it.

He probably would have done a runner, maybe tried stealing a car and leading a cool manhunt, but that wasn't the same thing as 'getting away with it.'

If they'd taken him alive, he wouldn't have tried to be clever in court. He would have told them the truth—I kind of just felt like assassinating a guy.

Tim Hallison was a rather arbitrary choice of target. He didn't have anything personal against the guy, or against musicians or really anyone else. It was just the result of a demographic calculus.

It was the best way he could think of to maximize notoriety while minimizing impact and risk. Shooting the president would have better notoriety, but it would be much harder to pull off, and a lot more people would care a lot more about the material impact.

A lot of people would also be happy, but he didn't give a shit. He wasn't for or against the current president one way or the other, and maybe if he was more confident in succeeding, he would have tried…

Honestly, he was kind of pissed that he failed.

It should have been impossible to miss at that range. The position he'd aimed from couldn't have been more favorable, and he could have sworn he got Tim right in the neck. But he obviously didn't, and then the crowd went crazy, and then some bitch with special powers went and zapped him.

And then reality shattered.

"Hey buddy," he called down to the massive grabber clogging up the whole first floor of the building, "you're blocking the exit."

The monster ignored him. As it turned out, having an Anathema seed taking root inside of you was a great way to survive an incursion. It probably wasn't ideal for everything after, but…

Well, it was a bit ironic, wasn't it? The incursion springing up improved his chances. Based on what he felt from the ongoing conversion of his body into that of a monster, he doubted it would be a problem.

Well, aside from the whole enemy of humanity thing. That might become annoying.

"So what kind of Anathema are you anyway?" He asked himself. "I hope it's not something lame like a skinner. Can you imagine?"

He hoped it would be something cool. Like a Death Knight, or a Void Wolf. Or maybe even a Seraph. Nah, probably not. But… What was the point of living without hope? Yeah. I wanna be a Seraph.

He didn't know if it was possible to will himself to become a specific Anathema type, and everything he knew about esoteric shit told him it probably wasn't. But accepted wisdom would have him believe that once infected, you were beyond saving, as the Anathema would take over your mind utterly.

Which was clearly bullshit. It was certainly trying, but it was doing a pretty piss poor job of it. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to call fake news on that one," he mused in reference to the latest distorted whisper it tried pushing through his mental defenses.

I guess normal people are just bad at handling it. A simple lack of skill.

And if one impossible thing was possible, if you only had the will…

After pausing at the hole in the second floor wall, he climbed down to the ground. Many of the surrounding buildings collapsed, and the gravel was all torn up. But he was barely paying attention to any of that.

Fuck yeah. I'm totally gonna be a Seraph.

Alexis "Valkyrie" Huntingfield

"Damn, you weren't kidding about being good at tracking," I called out to Stephanie. "So is that like, a Guardian ability or some kind of Void Wolf thing?"

"Both," she called back.

Ah. I nodded to myself. That does make sense.

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I was back in my Valkyrie form, and the two of us were chasing down my alleged friends on foot. Flying wouldn't have been any faster, in part because it was easier for Stephanie to track them from down here.

I had learned a bit more about her after the big reveal about the true meaning of the term 'Anathema.' It answered a mystery that had remained unsolved ever since my brief stint in an alternate, higher-anima reality.

I mistakenly thought that the word I was choosing to translate as spirit was the same thing as Anathema. It still was, but only insofar as everyone on Earth mistakenly applied it.

That was going to get confusing, so from now on, I was going to start thinking of Earth-Anathema as monsters.

That would make the Earth, not-Earth pairings as follows—monsters versus spirits, Guardians versus Sorcerers, and Star Guardians, hybrids, or whatever Stephanie was versus demons.

I hadn't been able to figure out what that alien kid, Asher or whatever his name was, had been talking about. No one else was willing to speak about it, but now, I understood. Ironic. They were speaking with a demon right then and there, and I don't think any of them realized it.

Which reminded me… "Hey Stephanie," I called out, "have you ever been to a different reality?"

"No?" She called back. "Have you?"

Shit. I realized I wasn't sure how I wanted to answer that. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

I decided to ignore her. It was annoying to talk like this anyway. We were running fast, and with the wind whipping past us and all the noises from the ongoing incursion, trying to have a conversation was frustrating.

I hope you know what you're doing. I had no idea where we were anymore, or if any of the people we were searching for were nearby. I also had no idea how Stephanie was tracking them down, as she'd never even met any of them.

I was caught by surprise when the half human came to an abrupt stop, and I had to use my wings to arrest my own motion. "What is it?" I asked. "Did you find them?"

"...No," she answered, "just… What is that?"

It took me a moment to spot what it was that had gotten her attention, but once I did, it was obvious what she was talking about. A group of skeletal warriors, armed with pelvic bucklers and femur clubs, was ganging up on an injured Volter.

Volters were usually dangerous due to their hard, sharp bodies and their electricity. The skeletons, however, were almost immune to slashing and piercing damage, and the electric shocks were likewise having little effect.

But their femur clubs presented a serious danger to the bird, as the glassy, ceramic material that comprised its body was strong and hard but also brittle.

Something had shattered one of its wings, preventing the Anathema from escaping by means of flight. That something was probably the one skeleton throwing loose bricks at it from a distance.

"Poor birdie," I lamented. "Being on the wrong end of that is never any fun."

"Any—wait, what?"

Oh, right. I realized that Stephanie had zero context for what was happening. It would look a bit strange, especially because the skeletons clearly weren't Anathema. They weren't acting like Anathema, and to anyone with esoteric senses, they would register as barely anything more than inanimate objects.

"Guardian power," I informed her. "A Tier 6 one."

"Oh." Stephanie nodded to herself. "Hey, is it a good idea to—"

I could guess what she was going to say, and it was too late. Walking closer and raising my sword, I cut one of the skeletons in half at the waist. Or not quite cut—really, it was more of a… Fuck. Is there a specific word for breaking something in half by smashing through the middle of it?

That was going to bother me until I regained internet access, I just knew it.

The four remaining skeletons reacted to my intrusion by switching targets, raising their weapons against me and clattering in for the kill.

Shame. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this.

Mr. Bone's abilities had some nuance in the way they worked. The skeletons he commanded operated semi-independently, capable of adapting to situations on their own and coordinating together. They weren't particularly smart, but they could operate surprisingly well with effectively zero direct oversight.

It allowed the powerful Guardian to muster a huge, well organized force over a wide area without needing to micromanage everything at once. At the same time, he could nevertheless micromanage them individually if he wished, and even swap his main body between them.

But if his attention was focused elsewhere, there was little I could do to get it over here. Attacking one of them confirmed it. If he'd been paying attention to this area, he would have already shown up to crack a lame one liner.

And because he wasn't… Well, all of the skeletons within line of sight were now going to attack me.

It wasn't too bad. If there were more of them and they were stronger, it could have been a real concern. While Mr. Bone's had a lot of power to throw around, there was ultimately only so much of it, and he had to choose where to invest it when he spread out his minions like this.

I explained all of this to Stephanie as I dealt with the few weak skeletons that had locked onto me.

It wasn't much of a challenge. The Volter had just been weak, and these weak skeletons were unable to do anything against my armor. That was good, because the Guardian behind it all imbued even the weakest skeletons with an annoying amount of combat skill.

But skill didn't always win.

I was so much faster and more durable than the skeletons that no amount of skill could stop me from shattering them.

It didn't matter if they blocked—my strike would carry straight through. They could try to dodge, but I was too fast. They could even land a hit, and I wouldn't so much as feel it.

"God, that was actually pretty satisfying," I said once I'd finished destroying all four skeletons. "Punching down is fucking awesome."

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at me. "I feel like there's something missing here. I thought you said this Guardian was a friend of yours, but that seemed…" She trailed off, gesturing at the demolished skeletons. "Disturbingly personal. Couldn't we have just outrun them?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, brushing her off. "I was just trying to see if I could get his attention, you know, so he could help us. And then I had to destroy them. Which was unfortunate."

The half human stared at me, expression skeptical. "Yeah, okay, sure."

"I don't have any idea what you're suggesting."

It's definitely not personal. I'm definitely not exacting revenge for all those supposed 'training sessions' where a bunch of those stupid skeletons ganged up on me. And it's not like I would ever lose to a bunch of stupid skeletons. That would be so humiliating.

I was met with a dramatic eye roll. "Come on," Stephanie said, "let's go find your friends."

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