Stratford

GC Base Ruins

"So… this is all that's left, huh?"

William shifted in his armor as he looked up at the tattered remains of what had once been, for better or for worse, one of the last safe havens in London. It had clearly seen better days, and considering he'd visited this place not even a month ago, that was saying something. The level of transformation it had undergone in that time was staggering.

It was nothing short of a miracle that it hadn't collapsed on itself yet. Haunting red-leaved plant growth ringed the structure top to bottom, all jagged edges and spiky brambles unlike any tree he'd ever seen before. Trunks, branches and roots of all shapes and sizes swayed in the high altitude wind, a veritable forest built on a cliff face. And at the very top of the building, eight of such trees, taller than the rest even without the high placement, ringed the perimeter with perfectly even spacing. To him, it gave the whole thing the impression of a crown of thorns.

No doubt about who's been here, then, William groused. Let's just hope the Dryad did the smart thing and already left, or this supposed rescue is going to turn ugly fast.

He sighed. Why did Cavendish have to insist on mounting this operation so soon? They'd only just managed to reorganize after her break-in earlier in the week. That little stunt had sent them all reeling, and all the attempts he'd made to chase after her following had come back empty-handed. Not even a scavenger disappearance to narrow down the search area. It was like she'd just disappeared into thin air after she'd left.

And the friend she'd kidnapped along with her. William could sympathize with the sentiment of getting her back, but realistically the last thing he needed now was to stretch his already overburdened veterans even thinner. If they kept pushing like this, someone was going to get killed in an entirely avoidable manner.

When he'd brought up that concern after receiving the order, however, he'd been waved off. Just press some new recruits if your current layabouts want to be useless, Cavendish had said.

So here he was, much to his chagrin, doing exactly that. The Knights he'd ended up bringing along were almost entirely green, and… questionably moral. It was a fair certainty that at least a few were Gentleman's Club dregs who'd wandered into Hackney after the group's dissolution. They must feel right at home, he thought.

Though, even with that experience on their side… any actual confrontation with something threatening would probably decimate their standing forces again. Meaning it was up to just him to make sure that didn't happen.

Unfortunately, even the damn recruits seemed to be conspiring against him on that front. Everyone wanted to go gallivanting off into the streets to be the legendary hero, destined to rescue the one and only Shroudwalker.

"Bruv, I'll bet you that witch is hiding up at the very top of this place!"

"What you sayin', G? Every man know dungeons go down, not up! Have fun wasting man time on the roof, I be down in the endz, putting my shining armor to good use, seen?"

He'd expected a lot of things to happen to him over the months, but babysitting overexcited hood rat conscripts who frankly had no business being here was not one of them.

Hopefully, this mission would be enough to appease everyone for now as well as keep the kids out of any real danger. Once they got their heads screwed on straight, then he could start knocking the sense into them that Cavendish's propaganda had oh so thoughtfully been squeezing out. Though, listening in on their chatter over the radio, he wondered how hard the man had actually needed to work to make that happen.

"Oh, please!" A voice of reason chimed in, momentarily sparing him future headaches. "You two have no idea how proper exploration works! The dead ends are what hold the secrets in any real dungeon. If anything, the obvious places are the last place to look."

"Wet man tink he know some? Wagwan, what make you the expert?"

"Um, literal decades of JRPG design philosophy, that's what. If you want to go face the final boss without taking the time to loot up first, don't come crying to me when you end up needing a phoenix down."

…I take back what I said about voice of reason. This kid's a complete know-it-all.

"...Man talkin' clapped, 's what he is." William maybe understood half that sentence, but the sentiment was all too clear and in complete agreement with his own thoughts.

"Lads," he interrupted, the weariness of a long-suffering chaperone in his voice. "There'll be time to argue about all this later. Just find what you can, and be quick about it. If you run into trouble, do not, under ANY circumstances, try to take it on by yourself. I'm talking to you, Ken."

"Bruv! Wha's this about?!"

"What isn't this about…" the more grammatically correct conscript mumbled.

Mercifully, the comms cleared after only a modest amount of back-talk. Everyone fell into their roles, leaving William with not much to do but watch the streets for hours on end, to make sure no wolves got close enough to cause trouble.

His normal field suit was still having the final checks run, unfortunately, so for now he'd have to stay on the defensive, but even with his backup there was still plenty he could do if things got hairy.

No excitement of that kind would be coming tonight, unfortunately. However, that wasn't to say there weren't… interesting developments to be found elsewhere.

"Hey, uh… bossman? Mandem up on th' roof and… there's bare good radio bits up here. Backup generata' and everyting, proppa nang kit. Can we link up some scavs to come pack this up?"

"...What?"

"He says there's a radio station up here, sir. Permission to take everything that isn't nailed down?"

< -|- -|- >

Little Henwood

The Mad Prince took an eight-legged step to admire his handiwork. Wreaking destruction was an art form that never seemed to garner enough appreciation, in times like these, so he felt it important to give it space to be appreciated.

A shame he was in the minority on that sentiment. He attributed it to stigma, for the most part. Most people liked to place clear lines where creation began and destruction ended, to make things nicer for them to understand. To him, though, it just seemed like a flawed worldview, for an even more flawed way of life.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Naturally, he disagreed with living life that way. Vehemently. How naive must one be, to believe such a simplistic point of view? A garden does not simply sprout from the wilderness of its own will!

It takes clearing, pruning, and yes, sometimes burning to wholly erase the weeds from the presence of an orderly arrangement. The true flowers would only bloom in their absence, where their roots were not being choked, their sunlight unshaded. If you wanted to make a world as you see fit, you must fundamentally accept that the old one needs replacing.

Anything else would be a failure of that vision.

The shanty town burned on the far side of the canal. The bodies still remaining were barely recognizable for the eclectic assortment of humans and monsters they were. Near the ceiling, the firefly lights above choked out one by one, shrouding the underground in encroaching darkness until the only place to look was the destruction.

He did not weep for its riddance. There was not a shred of remorse in him. Just a sense that his burgeoning empire had completed a necessary correction.

"I imagine you're wondering," he vocalized, navigating the silken strands of his web with practiced ease as he did. "Why? What would possess me to go out of my way to eradicate you and your people? What could you have possibly done to incur such wrath?"

The Mad Prince turned to a cocoon holding the town's overseer with unnaturally fluid grace. High above the flames, dangling from the far wall where there was a clear vantage of the burning settlement, the lone vampire hung suspended, beaten into submission and unable to move or look away.

A supposed steward of the place, now little more than a man on borrowed time.

The vampire ensnared within didn't react. He couldn't. He was physically restrained from doing most of anything, but the way those eyes darted around in its skull told the words he wished to give him plainly enough.

The eyes were riding the edge between horror and understanding. Perfect. It would have been most unfortunate if this one had gone catatonic, like some of the others.

"Why did I care to kill everyone you ever thought to protect here?" he continued. "Why were you spared until last, purposefully left alive while everyone you ever loved was taken from you, right in front of your eyes? Why? Why? WHY?!"

A chittering noise that may have resembled a laugh escaped his mandibles. "I'll tell you why," he finished. "Because dead men tell no tales. And I want him to know what happened here. So… watch it all burn down. Drink in every last detail as best as you can. And when he inevitably returns…"

"Tell. Him. Everything."

The body of the giant spider begin to quiver. Like something was boiling just underneath the surface of its hairy skin. As it grew more and more agitated, the eyes of the beast began to dim and lose their luster, and an otherworldly glow began to form in the center of the disruption.

At the height of the disturbance, the monster split apart in a burst of gore, revealing the shape of the man within. Strands of entrails unfolded along the torn seam. As the beast split open further and further, the Mad Prince forced himself to return to humanity so that he could truly send the message home.

"Tell him he was a fool to think I would disappear after losing a mere battle. Tell him that this is only the beginning. Tell him I will hunt down every last one of his supposed allies, and that he will be saved for last much like you have been for him."

His humanoid body walked along the wall towards his captive, like a wraith unbound by gravity. Behind him, the bisected entrails of the spider splayed inside out, only continuing to peel back further and further until they peeled back into themselves. They folded smaller and smaller, draping behind him like a cape until eventually, they were the cape he wore. His brass mask was impassive as ever, stained red with streaks of blood and dripping with contempt as he declared his final command.

"Tell Henry Thompson… that my authority is not to be trifled with."

With the back of a mailed fist, he slapped the vampire on the face one last time before leaping from the wall towards the still water below.

Contorting his body midair to land feet-first on its surface, a plume of water erupted where he landed, breaking into a dead-on sprint down the length of the tunnel, the ethereal grace of his Exotic Domain holding him aloft.

He rushed onwards, towards other victims of the hunt he could sense in the far distance. Enrico was left alone to die, watching the flames dim down into embers.

I'm sorry, Grace, he lamented silently. I should have… listened to that boy sooner when he showed up here alone…

but at least… those who fled with him… are… alive…

Darkness surrounded him shortly after.

< -|- -|- >

London Exclusionary Zone Outskirts

Primary Research Facility

"...Wake up…"

Ugh…

Lucy's mind swam with an ocean of disturbing realizations. Her mind began to drift back to consciousness at a snail's pace, trawling through the earth-shattering discoveries she'd been made privy to before passing out.

Everything was foggy. Sluggish, even. Her recall of the events was fine, in that she could still remember everything perfectly well, but any specific detail took at least twice as long for her to process in her current state.

Moving felt… even harder. Trying to lift her arm only resulted in her wrist twitching. Never mind the fact that she'd been trying to open her eyes for the past minute.

"She's coming to," an unfamiliar, clinical voice said. "If you've got something to ask her, do it now before she goes under again."

There was a grunt of acknowledgment from a third person in the room, followed by a pattern of footsteps that she managed to recognize as Jansman's, through her mental haze.

"Lucy," he spoke softly. "Can you hear us?"

She tried to answer, but the words seemed to slip out of her grasp each time she tried to speak them. Everything got caught in her throat before she could make a sound. From nearby, the sound of a machine buzzing in time with her attempts to talk chimed out, making her pause in confusion.

"Okay, good." Jansman let out a sigh of relief. "I know you're probably very confused right now, but don't panic. Agent Blackthorne really put you through hell and back by the time we found you, so just take it slow and take it easy. Your friends are here, and they want to check in on you now that you're awake, okay?"

...What?!

Lucy's mind reeled. They're saying Blackthorne attacked me?! But he didn't-

The machine buzzed like mad as she tried to process what she was being told.

"Hey! Hey, Luce! I-It's going to be okay! Jansman managed to catch him shortly after your abduction, they're bringing him to justice as we speak! Just… stay strong, you hear me?"

A new voice cut into the conversation. Ffion's. As much as it was intended to be soothing words to ease her frayed nerves, all it did was stab the knife in even further.

Not only did they seem to believe she'd been attacked, but also that the one person she'd sought out for answers was responsible for her current state.

Inside the confines of her mind, it was plain as day that those words did not stack up with reality. But she had no way of expressing that to anyone else in the room.

This was immediately highly suspect. Mana overdraw could cause exhaustion and unconsciousness, and even minor neurological damage in rare cases, but… outright turning her into an invalid should have been impossible.

Something stank with this whole setup. Blackthorne's words came back up to the surface as she realized that there was probably more going on here than met the eye.

"Edison represents a much bigger threat as a free agent… If these people want their agenda fulfilled, having him out of the picture just plain benefits them more."

She'd been warned of the possibility of receiving the same treatment. That they'd be so brazen about it and attempt something so soon after the fact…

"You've been unconscious for almost three days," Agent Jansman clarified. "Like your colleague here said, Mr. Blackthorne is now in custody for his crimes, but his interrogation is moving along… slowly. We will need you to testify against him once you've fully recovered and are medically sound of mind, but for now we can communicate with simple yes or no questions. Two for yes, one for no, do you understand?"

Lucy paused. So long as she stayed emotionally calm, it seemed like whatever brainwave scanner they had her hooked up to wouldn't pick up a signal. Forcing herself to remain in that state for a moment, she asked an important question.

How much do they actually know?

It was plainly obvious that some sort of cover up was in effect. If Jansman was in on it, or even the one doing the covering in the first place, that meant that he was the one controlling the narrative and would be catering things to align with whatever he said. If he wasn't, then he was a rather effective puppet as an agent as capable as him should have definitely put the pieces together by now.

What he knew specifically wasn't quite as obvious. But, at the very least, it was safe to say he couldn't be trusted.

Unfortunately, that meant she couldn't trust her own friends at the moment either, because the only information they had to go on came from him.

All she could do was play along. Mentally shouting the command yes, the machine buzzed twice to confirm her answer.

"Good," Jansman replied. "Excellent, actually."

The sound of a clipboard flipping through pages reached her ears, familiar from long hours using one in her own line of work. "We'll start with some basic cognitive benchmarks, just to make sure you're recovering smoothly. To start, does your friend here possess Day Domain talent?"

… *beeep,* *beeep.*

"Very good. Next up. Has it been more than or less than a week since you passed out? Two for more than, one for less."

… *beeep.*

"Great. You're able to recall short-term information, and perform basic mental math. Now, last question…"

"Does the number 0014 mean anything to you?"

< -|- -|- >

< -|- -|- > 12 Days Remain... < -|- -|- >

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