91

Chapter 91: Fracture 9-6

Fracture 9.6

For a long moment, all I could do was stare in incomprehension. My brain wasn't able to process it, couldn't piece together what I was seeing with something that was actually happening. It was like I'd found myself in a bad dream, unable to wake up, unable to do anything about the horror unfolding before my eyes.

The newscasters who eventually replaced the video didn't seem to know what to do, either. They were silent for several seconds, ashen faced and disquieted, lost and too stunned to react, and when they finally regained their senses and started to talk again, they stumbled and stuttered through their words.

I didn't pay them any mind. Perhaps ironically, their fumbling had given me the push back into focus that I'd needed.

It didn't stop my stomach from roiling. It didn't completely remove the remnants of the spike of terror whose aftershocks still rippled through my gut. It certainly didn't banish the images of what I'd just seen from my head.

But it gave me enough clarity to pull myself back together.

"Is this real?" I asked into my phone.

"Fuck, I wish it wasn't," Lisa said, sounding shaken herself. "But that was as real as it gets — from the effigy of Leviathan to that body double they pulled off the streets to the fact that she's now a head shorter."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I heard Amy shriek in the background. "The Fallen just executed an innocent girl on live tv, and you go and make a joke about it?"

"Would you rather I was puking my guts out in the bathroom or sobbing like a little girl? Telling a joke is the only way I can keep myself from falling apart from shit like this," Lisa retorted acidly. "Plus, not live tv. Well, the news cast is live, but the video was prerecorded about…two hours ago. Which means we have about twenty-two to figure something out."

I was already moving before she'd finished talking.

"I'm on my way to the PRT HQ now," I told her, walking briskly. I slipped a pair of shoes on as quickly as I could, tying them with one hand, and was out the door a few seconds later, heading off in the opposite direction of my usual jogging route.

Couldn't afford to run full tilt, right now. Not in my civvies, not so close to my home. It'd basically be inviting the Fallen to make a run at me or my dad.

Which might not be a bad strategy, if the idea was to hole up in the house and prepare for a siege. The Fallen weren't nice or stupid enough to try that themselves, though; they'd send one of their lower level mooks or else Valefor would hypnotize someone and send them, and then they'd try and come at me from an oblique angle instead, somewhere or someway that I couldn't just sit and let them throw themselves upon my Dragon Teeth's swords.

Or worse, they'd retreat back and start making good on their promise to execute more innocent people. If they got impatient enough, they might start taking swings at the Protectorate or New Wave, thinking — correctly, at that — that my rush back to the city after the Empire's attack meant I had friends in either group.

No. I was going to have to go on the offensive.

Lisa made a noise in the back of her throat. "Yeah, they'll do…something, I guess."

My lips pursed. "You think Tagg is going to try and keep me sidelined for this?"

"Well, A, you're a Ward, and this isn't the sort of situation the PRT is supposed to send Wards into," Lisa said. "B, this is a trap and everyone knows it, and the Fallen know that we know it, and Tagg definitely knows it, so they might not be too keen on walking into it. C, and I've mentioned this before, the last thing anyone wants is for Valefor to gank you and turn you against us. You're scary as fuck to have as an enemy."

"There are ways around that," I said simply.

"Untested ways, for one," Lisa pointed out. "For two, Tagg doesn't trust you to tie your own damn shoes without trying to undermine his authority."

I frowned and cast a searching glance around. The street was empty, and everyone seemed to be in their homes, probably still asleep, since the city hadn't quite reopened all the way in the wake of Leviathan. My pace quickened and I consulted my mental map of the city for a place nearby to safely don my metaphorical cape, the better to make it to the PRT HQ quickly.

"Can you get Armsmaster in on this?"

"Yeah, sure, gimme a moment."

I didn't even bother telling her his number, because there was no way she didn't already know it. Even if she hadn't been the one to program a lot of the settings on both my phones, I had no doubt that she could have pulled his number up from somewhere without any trouble at all. She was Tattletale. Privacy wasn't a part of her vocabulary.

A moment later, the line clicked. "Armsmaster here."

"It's me," I said.

"Apocrypha." I imagined him inclining his head, a slight, acknowledging nod.

"Do you know what's going on?"

"We received the information shortly before the recording went live," he answered. "We have reason to suspect that a member of the news station staff may have been compromised by the Fallen."

"Valefor?"

The dots started to connect in my head.

I'd already known it was a trap; that was obvious. How far were they going to go, though? How many people were they going to subvert for the purposes of springing this little ambush they'd planned? With such a prominent enemy Master, how many people could they bring under their control in the next day, and more importantly, how many people would they think they needed against me — either as hostages, or as bodies to throw in the grinder to wear me down?

I didn't have a good answer for that. Especially not one that I was comfortable with.

"Possibly," Armsmaster said. "It's also possible that the perpetrator merely had Fallen sympathies and that motivated him. We'll explore both angles when we apprehend him."

"Might as well just toss him into Master-Stranger quarantine, AM," said Lisa. "I'm about sixty-percent sure your guy is a Mastered plant instead of a sympathizer. The Fallen aren't playing around, here. I mean, clearly, right?"

"Evidently not," Armsmaster allowed. "Very well. I'll make my recommendations to the squad handling that particular issue."

"Do we have any other leads aside from the tape? We don't seriously expect them to sit around at the spot where Leviathan died for the next day, waiting for me to show up, do we?"

Because that would be stupid, considering the target they just painted on their backs. They probably didn't even expect me to show up, either, all things considered. They might have planned for it, under the idea that I was too noble to let them continue executing innocent people or something like that, but I doubted their actual plan involved me doing what they wanted at all.

"Not at the moment, no," said Armsmaster. "We're approaching this situation cautiously. The Fallen are known to have anti-Thinker assets that render Watchdog and other Protectorate Thinker specialists a liability."

"Liability?"

"It is known to propagate memetically," Armsmaster answered. "The exact nature of this asset is classified, eyes-only, for a select few at the Director level, because it opens the Protectorate and PRT to compromise merely by knowing what it is. I myself am not even aware if it is a parahuman at all or a heretofore unprecedented piece of Tinkertech. It's that dangerous and that secret."

"Oh, fuck me, seriously? I call bullshit! There's no fucking way a power like that should be allowed!" Lisa cursed.

"Nonetheless, Tattletale, the asset exists and its danger is obvious. For that reason, you will likely be unable to assist in this situation. If you investigate too deeply and discover the nature of the anti-Thinker asset —"

"Fuck, I'll screw up the entire operation and compromise the whole damn shebang." A heavy sigh crackled through the phone. "Which means I can't really help you with this at all. The more involved I get, the higher the risk I'll jeopardize everything. Double fuck."

I frowned. "There isn't any way to mitigate the risks? Insulate her from this thing, whatever it is?"

I was grasping at straws and I knew it. Everyone who had ever heard of them had likely wondered at some point or another how a group of End Times cultists, very heavily rumored to be involved in human trafficking, sexual slavery, brainwashing, kidnapping, and many other unsavory practices, a group that contained one of the most prolific human Masters in North America, managed to avoid being squashed by Haven or the Protectorate or…anyone, really.

But if they had something that was more dangerous the more you knew about it and understood it, then how the hell did you plan around it in a raid or an attack? Even if the team doing the raid went in blind, someone in the chain of command would have to know about the problem, and if they did, didn't that defeat the point?

"It propagates memetically, Taylor. The more you know about it and the more the information about it spreads, the more drastically it affects stuff. My power? Basically the worst matchup for something like that."

It really was a terrible matchup. Damn it. And any of my own Thinker types might similarly compromise things, too, huh? I couldn't afford to bank on the idea that my powers would screw up this anti-Thinker asset the way they had Coil, especially not when I didn't even know if it was a person or a thing.

I had a sudden feeling I knew what Perseus must have felt like, stalking into Medusa's lair but unable to even look at her for fear of being turned to stone.

"We'll discuss the situation and our options for handling it in greater detail at the PRT Headquarters," Armsmaster interrupted. "Tattletale, you'll be unable to be involved from this point forwards. I'm afraid that any attempt to contact you by any member of the Wards, PRT, or Protectorate will have to be considered an act of sabotage and the person in question isolated for Master-Stranger screening."

Lisa heaved another heavy sigh. "Yeah. Yeah, I get. Radio silence for the duration of this mess from here on out, huh? Fucking damn it."

"I'm sorry."

"You know the worst part? That you actually mean that, Armsy. It would almost be easier to stomach if that was just an empty platitude you slung at me because you thought it was a social obligation."

Armsmaster didn't reply right away; there was a few seconds of pause, like he was gathering his thoughts.

"I'm not heartless, Tattletale, nor a machine, for all that some like to joke that I am in light of my…social difficulties. You just saw a fanatical cult execute a girl who bore a significant resemblance to your best friend on live television. It isn't unusual that you would be affected by that, and being involved in their apprehension would bring…closure to the issue."

"Yeah. It's a bit out of character for me to want to actually punch someone instead of ripping their lives apart, but…" She took a sharp breath in through her nose. "Do me a favor? When you nail these guys to the wall for this, make sure it sticks."

"…I will."

"And Taylor?"

"Yeah?" I responded.

"I know you have a thing about going too far and giving people second chances, but… Remember that you can't afford to give them to everyone. Some people just won't change, no matter how many times you try to redeem them."

I briefly closed my eyes. Took a breath of my own in through my nose and let it out like a sigh.

"You don't need to tell me that."

"I'm going to hunker down here with Panpan. I'll see you when this is all over, okay?"

A few months ago, I wouldn't have caught the slight hitch in her voice, the worry, the concern, I would only have heard the confidence, the implicit assumption of my success. Now, I did, and I wanted to reassure my friend, to put her at ease, because I wasn't about to let the Fallen get the better of me.

So to call back to the day we met, what she had told me back then, I offered her a smile she couldn't see and said, "It's a date."

A throaty chuckle was my answer. "Better watch out. Dennis might think he has some competition."

She hung up with a click. Any traces of a good mood vanished with her.

"Armsmaster?"

"Yes, I'm still here."

"I'm on my way in. I should be at Headquarters in maybe ten minutes."

"I'll arrange the meeting with Director Tagg. From here on out, I'm enacting a communications lockdown, effective immediately. To prevent subversion by the Fallen, all PRT or Protectorate issue cellphones will be unable to make or receive calls or text messages, only systemwide notifications, until such time as we have determined a proper course of action for handling this threat."

Good. That meant he was taking this as seriously as he should be.

"Understood."

"Then I will see you shortly. Armsmaster out."

And with another click, I was alone again, walking down an empty street.

It took another minute or so of walking before I felt comfortably far away from home, or at least enough so that "Apocrypha" wouldn't be automatically linked to "Taylor Hebert" by anyone who saw me, so I ducked into the nearest alleyway and transformed, and transformed again. Seconds after stepping into it, I flew up and out as Medea and made all haste towards the PRT HQ.

Perhaps not the smartest way of getting there. People didn't often look up, I remembered hearing somewhere, but even if I'd never used Medea publically enough to have her face and form attached to my heroic identity, a cloaked woman flying towards the PRT building could only be so many people. Occam's Razor would lead to me.

And so? What did it matter if the Fallen saw me and came to the right conclusion? I was a Ward and they'd just executed a girl who looked like me on live tv; of course I was going to report in.

I landed on the roof of the not-quite-newly repaired PRT HQ — Tagg had finally let me put it back into order about half a week ago, just because the gaping wound had been an unacceptable security risk — and after a quick exchange of security codes, one of the troopers stationed to guard the rooftop access buzzed me in. I dropped Medea and made my way inside, halfway through sending Armsmaster a text to tell him where I was before I remembered that he'd engaged a lockdown on all PRT issue cellphones.

It turned out not to be necessary. I'd barely made it inside before another trooper approached me.

"Apocrypha. Armsmaster has requested I escort you to the Director's office."

I tilted my head a little. "He predicted I'd come in through the roof?"

"He notified three separate teams to be prepared to meet you. One on the ground floor, one by the Wards access tunnel, and one at the roof."

Ah. One for each place I could have come in.

"I see." I gestured. "Lead the way, then."

"Of course."

I fell into step slightly behind him, although I didn't really need an escort. There wasn't any point in kicking up a fuss about it, though, not when I was about to meet with the local paranoid PRT director.

The trooper left me right at the door with a remark to the guards about "Armsmaster sent for her." Apparently, that was enough, because they let me through and I stepped into Tagg's office.

"— too far, this time," Tagg was saying. "Hell, it was too far when they were just kidnapping people, let alone executing them on —"

He cut himself off as I walked in and turned immediately to Armsmaster.

"What is she doing here?" he demanded.

"A girl bearing her likeness was executed on live tv as a personal attack against her," Armsmaster reasoned.

"She's a Ward!"

Funny how you're resorting to that now, instead of when you wanted me to go on solo patrols to root out the Empire.

"She was called out by a religious cult for the entire country to see. Any discussion here today on our response will naturally have to include her part in it. It seemed only appropriate that she have a say in what that part might be."

"She won't have a part!" Tagg retorted. "Do you seriously believe we're going to send their target directly into their hands? The U.S. government does not negotiate with terrorists!"

"Let's not pretend we don't all know that this is a trap," I cut in. "Or that they even expect us to walk into it, for that matter."

"The Fallen may be cultists, but they are not stupid," Armsmaster agreed.

"The answer is no," Tagg interrupted. "No, you will not be involved, Apocrypha, and no, you do not have a place or even a say in the planning of any operation for the handling of this threat."

"So you're going to bench your best asset for no apparent reason?" I asked.

"I do not answer to you," he said coldly. "I don't have to explain my reasoning or my logic, and you don't have the right to question them. You just have to do as I say."

I scoffed. "Yeah, because that worked out so well for the Nazis at Nuremberg, didn't it?"

"The precedent of orders being an invalid excuse for any morally or legally repugnant action — or inaction — has been extant since 1804," Armsmaster added helpfully. "Little v Barreme, 6 U.S. 170."

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. I probably shouldn't have been quite so surprised that he had a program or something to filter for relevant case law.

The fact that Tagg looked as bewildered as I felt helped immensely, though.

"Be that as it may," Miss Militia cut in, "we, as law enforcement officers, don't always have to like the orders that we should follow."

"Debatable," said Armsmaster. "A good commander shouldn't give an order he knows won't be followed."

Tagg's eyes flickered over in my direction. I got the impression of a wolf salivating over its next meal. "Are you saying you believe she'll disobey if I order her not to be involved?"

"I'm saying that it may not be possible to keep her uninvolved," Armsmaster countered. "The Fallen have made this about her. About Leviathan. About the Hopebringer. Were we to try and sequester her somewhere out of the way for the duration of this incident, they may attempt to attack her directly. Realistically, we shouldn't expect any safehouse we set up to remain uncompromised."

"Or they might make good on their promise and start executing more people," I added darkly.

"You're right, they have made this about her," Tagg acknowledged. "That sounds like all the more reason she shouldn't be involved — it's personal. We don't expect grown men and women to maintain their composure and act appropriately when something hits this close to home, and we should expect it now of a teenage girl?"

I folded my arms. "It seems to me that I'm your weapon when I follow your orders, a dangerous loose cannon when I don't, and an emotional teenage girl when you need an excuse to put me on the sidelines. Do you plan to make up your mind anytime soon?"

His eyes flashed. "Your attitude isn't doing anything to convince me you're capable of handling this like a professional."

"Personal or not, it would be ill-advised to disclude our strongest asset," said Armsmaster. "I have every confidence in Apocrypha. Her involvement may be the one thing that allows us to handle this situation without further bloodshed —"

"And be crucified by the media," Tagg cut in. "You're forgetting, no one has yet said anything about her even being part of the fight against Leviathan simply because the Endbringers are that critical a problem. If we're seen to be involving a minor in this mess, then we won't be afforded the same courtesy."

"You say that, but all I'm hearing is the words 'acceptable losses,'" I told him. "The last person to say that to me was Alexandria, and I didn't agree with her anymore then than I do with you now."

"No one here wants more people to be hurt by the Fallen," Miss Militia tried.

"Really?" I cut her off. "Because it sounds to me like what you're saying is that it'd be better to lose a few people in the process than risk one of the news stations deciding I'm too young to be in a fight for my life."

"It isn't just your life you're wagering on," Tagg said. "Say you are involved, that we do send you. What then? What happens if the Fallen manage to get their hands on you and Master you? Hm? The very last thing we want is to gift wrap you for the Fallen so they can turn you into their weapon. A Mastered Endslayer would ruin us in more ways the one, to say nothing of the ramifications it would have for future Endbringer battles."

"There are ways around that sort of thing," I said. "I could use Medea and hypnotize them from here, if you gave me access to the ley line under this building, or maybe —"

"Khepri?" he suggested, pouncing on it like he'd been waiting for the opportunity. "So that you could turn the tables and Master them, turn them into your weapon, your own personal army of diehard followers?"

Oh, for the love of — !

"This isn't the time for your rampant paranoia!"

"It's a legitimate concern from where I'm standing!" he snapped back at me. "You wouldn't even be a Ward if you hadn't overplayed your hand and gotten caught! That was the one thing that Piggot absolutely did right — getting you here, where we can see you and keep track of what you're doing."

"Overplayed my — what part of the Echidna incident looked like it was part of some crazy plan to take over the city?"

"The part where you Mastered two whole Protectorate teams and almost killed the only member of the Triumvirate immune to your powers," said Tagg. "Where would we be if that event hadn't shown us what you're really capable of? Hm? You would still be out on the streets, unsurveilled, unchecked. We would have no idea that castle of yours even existed. We wouldn't even know you had more blatant Master powers. We wouldn't know to watch out for you subverting our Wards and Protectorate heroes."

"You're out of line, Director," Armsmaster growled. "Apocrypha has given us no reason to suspect her of what you're suggesting."

"Hasn't she?" Tagg countered. "She built a castle outside of the city. She killed the only Ward who she wouldn't have been able to befriend and subvert —"

"Director!" Miss Militia said, sounding horrified.

But Tagg plowed on. "She nearly succeeded in killing the only member of the only ones who could legitimately threaten her who was immune to her Master abilities. The only saving grace is that things spiralled out of her control enough for us to see her as she actually is!" He jabbed a finger at me. "But even that might have been part of her long game! Listen to what she just suggested! That we give her control over the 'ley line' that we're supposedly right on top of, so she can reach across the city and turn the Fallen into her mindless thralls!"

"Do you realize how insane you sound right now?" I shouted back at him. "This is like…like something straight out of the tinfoil hat section of PHO!"

"It's only insanity if I'm wrong," he growled. "Look at you! Look! Half the Wards wrapped around your finger! The only one of them who might be able to hold you in place long enough to put you down just so happens to be utterly smitten with you! Half the Protectorate team likes you, and the other half owes you their lives because you just so happened to be in the right place at the right time —"

But that was the last straw. I was done trying to be reasonable, trying to give Tagg a chance, trying not to let him dictate what I did and how I acted. I was done.

If he was so far up his own ass that he couldn't see anything but shit, then forget him.

"Fine!" I said. I reached into my pocket, ignoring the half a dozen confoam sprayers that suddenly turned on and swiveled in my direction, and pulled out my PRT issue phone. "Fine!" I slammed the phone on his desk; I didn't care if it broke anything or not. "If you can't be a reasonable human being and stop treating me like everything I do is a crime, then you can take your Wards membership and fucking choke on it! I quit!"

I spun on my heel, blood thundering in my ears, and I heard him say something, heard Miss Militia and Armsmaster call my name from behind me, but I didn't let them stop me.

I had more important things to do than indulge Tagg's delusions.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

By the time I made it to the Docks and into my castle, I'd managed to cool down at least a little — enough to think clearly and actually consider what to do next, and for a brief few moments, I regretted quitting like that. Leaving so suddenly. Making the decision in haste, in the heat of the moment.

But I'd already been preparing for having to quit the Wards. I'd been anticipating it, expecting it. Even if I'd been giving him the chance to prove me wrong and be the better man, I hadn't actually expected Tagg to succeed.

The loss of support stung. Having the logistical support of an entire branch of a prominent government agency had been…convenient, for as long as it had lasted. As a Ward, I might not have had complete access to it, but if I'd made it all the way to the Protectorate…

That was still two years away, and those were two years I couldn't afford to spend in the Wards, constrained by the likes of Tagg and whoever else got it into their heads that they needed to keep a close eye on me. A significant portion of the other regional directors had been perfectly willing to toss Khepri to the dogs, too, and while my record wasn't as problematic as hers had been, it was entirely possible that they might view me as having too much personal power — both in terms of actual ability and in terms of weight to throw around — for their comfort.

That was fine, too. Hadn't I been doing that from the beginning? When I didn't have something that I needed, I made it.

The only thing I found myself really, truly regretting was the friendship of the other Wards, and what it would mean now that I had quit. Carlos, as little as we had interacted, had tried to make me feel welcome, and Missy, though she'd been a bit surly at times and we'd gotten off on the wrong foot, was warm and sarcastic and loyal. Dean, Gallant, at least, had tried to comfort me that first night, when I'd still been a little raw and alone.

Opportunities to make more friends, expand my social circle beyond just the two girls I had nearly sacrificed myself for — maybe not gone, not entirely, but harder, now, to pursue, harder to make work, harder to maintain. We were moving, now, in different circles, following different paths. Their friendships might be beyond me, now that I'd quit.

And Dennis…

My fingers rose almost of their own accord, traced my lower lip, and I could almost feel his mouth on mine, again, the little electric tingle in my belly, the thrill of it, of exploring…something. Too soon to call it love. Too soon to have any idea if it was anything at all beyond the embers of attraction.

And now…

Maybe…it didn't have to be over. None of it, really. Not if I tried, not if I really tried. We were all on different paths, now — and so what? That didn't mean those paths couldn't intersect, did it?

It wasn't over until I gave up on it.

I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and looked down at my rings, sitting on the round table at the center of my castle keep. My secret project, one of my weapons — unfinished, because the apparatus that would make them functional did not yet exist.

Two years would be more than enough time to finish them.

And before that, I had to make this city safe, I had to make it secure, I had to kick the Fallen to the curb and toss their asses in jail. Failing that, I had to make sure they couldn't hurt anyone ever again, or at least that they couldn't come after me ever again.

A geis? Maybe. I'd entertained the thought before, of trussing them all up in so many geasa that they couldn't so much as think of using their powers against another person in malice. Or maybe I should use Rule Breaker and strip them of their powers entirely, so that they were nothing more than mortal men and women, unable to rely on anything except the strength of their words and their fists, the same as anyone else.

A lot of options. Some part of me just wanted to track them down and beat them silly without using any of my heroes at all, just to prove the irrelevance of their cult and their beliefs.

Either way, I couldn't just go running at them half-cocked and expect things to turn out okay. They'd given me twenty-four hours — that was fine. It was ten more than I needed.

And first, I needed to deal with the elephant in the room, the problem that I'd been ignoring — or rather, that Tagg's schedule hadn't really given me the time to focus on — for the last week or so.

Making myself immune to Masters.

I reached out and through myself, into the vast halls of legend, and with both hands, I grasped the hero I needed.

"Set. Include."

Power rushed through me — more than I expected, especially for just an Include. Maybe I should have expected it, though, of such an exceptional hero. Luckily, at least, like this, his overwhelming and impossibly potent presence was too distant to touch me.

The breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding left my mouth as a sigh. Small mercies. It seemed my assumption about the way my powers worked had spared me that particular trouble after all.

I held out a hand and focused on the Noble Phantasm.

If I'd had more time, I might have made something using Medea or Nimue or Nicolas, or whatever combination thereof that I needed, as I had before. If I'd had more time. Later, certainly, I'd have to make something for Lisa and Amy and Dad, so that they, too, could be immune to Masters and I didn't have to worry about Valefor or — later on — Heartbreaker or his kids turning them into slaves.

I didn't have that time, right now, so I was going to do as Khepri had done, and I was going to cheat.

The King's Treasure

"Gate of Babylon."

A ripple of golden light formed, the gateway to the treasure room of King Gilgamesh. An effort of will, a moment of focus, a consulting of an endless catalogue — for the treasury of the king was indeed boundless and infinite, in a way that boggled the mind and would have had me gaping in shock any other time — and from the ripple appeared an equally golden ring. It settled on my finger, against all odds, a perfect fit.

It looked old, in a way I couldn't quite describe. Not antiqued or weathered, but old, in the sense that it bore a resemblance only slightly to a modern ring. Thicker, broader, more ornate, and yet at the same time, much simpler, it was covered in patterns and symbols that predated every modern civilization and all modern sensibilities.

But it could not be mistaken for anything else than a symbol of royal authority, a King's ring, representing his sovereignty.

"To you, Taylor Hebert, I gift these three treasures," I said aloud. "Firstly, Aga-Gira, the Concealing Crown, that which sanctifies the mind of its wearer."

I held out my hands, and through the golden portal fell a crown of twisting, twining gold, simple and yet extravagant. As though I was being coronated, I dipped my head and lifted the crown to fit it into place until it rested, heavy and prominent, upon my brow. I didn't feel any different than I had a moment ago, but I had to trust that it worked as advertised and would protect me from the powers of Masters that twisted the mind.

"Secondly, that you might sit among your equals always, I gift unto thee this Cup of Communion, Tilima-Šeštab-ene."

I almost stumbled over the name, but the golden chalice appeared all the same, and I set it aside for later use — it was essential to more than just one of my plans.

I held up my hand and brandished the glimmering golden ring that sat upon it.

"And lastly, that you might go forth in the name of the king and grant boons upon the worthy, I entrust unto thee this Ring of Sovereignty, Àr-Namenlil —"

THIEF! YOU DARE? FROM THE KING'S TREASURE ROOM?

I stumbled backwards, gasping at the sheer weight that pressed down on me from every side, trying to squeeze me like an overripe grape, as the words echoed through my skull like rolling thunder. Before I even knew what was happening, my connection to Gilgamesh snapped, and suddenly, his Gate of Babylon winked out of existence and out of my reach. His power had left me.

"What the hell?"

I looked down. The ring was still there. The chalice was still there. The crown still sat upon my brow.

But Gilgamesh was not, because he had torn himself away from me so fast and so violently that it felt like my entire torso had been rubbed raw, and when I reached out for him again —

I hissed and took another step backwards, reeling from the…what I could only think to describe as a metaphysical whip-crack against my "fingers."

"He… He really just…"

For a moment, I could only be stunned. None of my heroes had…outright rejected me, before. There were some I'd always gotten along with better, and there had been that time where it felt like Medea and I had wrestled with each other over what to do, brief as it had been. My relationship with Khepri, complicated as it was, didn't need to be rehashed.

But never had I been outright rejected. Never had any of them ripped their power and themselves away from me.

And Gilgamesh had done it as an Include.

A chill swept down my spine.

Gilgamesh had done it as an Include.

I took a deep breath. Swallowed. Locked up that weight of that realization and put it to the side for later. I could have a proper freakout about it some other time, when there was time for it.

For now, I had a meeting to get to.

Another breath filled my lungs, and I picked up the chalice, glanced at the ring, and fiddled with the crown to make sure it was on properly. Then, when I thought I was ready, I reached back into the vast halls of legend and called upon another hero, one much more amenable to working with me.

"Set. Include."

A much more familiar presence filled me, more distant and less prominent than it had ever been before, but no less comforting or off-putting. When the weight of her power had settled, I took hold of it and grasped her Noble Phantasm, looking out into the empty air.

This was it. No going back from here. After this, my path would be set. This was my last chance to turn around.

I incanted the name of the Noble Phantasm I needed.

"Door me."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

NOTES

It felt like things moved really quickly, this arc. It was only a couple chapters ago when Taylor was talking to Armsmaster about having to leave the Wards, and here we are, and it's actually happened. Even the argument with Tagg felt a little bit rushed, or more like there's a missing component to really drive home Taylor's decision to leave.

Anyway. There is a source to Tagg's paranoia. That's for next chapter, the third interlude of this arc.

Lastly, I undoubtedly fucked up something in those ancient Sumerian names. But I'm not going to spend months learning a dead language for the sake of three magical artifacts.

And yes. Gilgamesh talked directly to Taylor, rather than the "whispering influence" of other Heroic Spirits. Because he's Gilgamesh, that's how.

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