Funnily enough, I did actually manage to get the PRT to reimburse me for legal fees; they were offering me five figures already, so why not throw in an extra hundred dollars or two?
"Alright," Sergeant Michaels said, nodding. "You've got this, kid."
"Thank you, Sergeant," I said. "What's left before showtime?"
"Sitting in chairs and waiting for Calvert to show up to the meeting," Sergeant Michaels said, sitting down in an office chair around the conference table. "Which starts in five minutes, but he has a habit of being... let's call it, fashionably late."
The plan was simple: Thomas Calvert was now an outside consultant for the PRT, and frequently had to attend meetings like this one. I looked a bit older than I really was, and so my 17 year old ass in a PRT uniform would look nearly identical to the 19 year olds who also wore this uniform. Hopefully, carrying myself like a soldier would also stop anyone from recognizing me even if they did know my face.
"Ugh, c'mon dude," I muttered. "They're fucking paying you to be here, get your act together."
"I know, right?" Private Jones said, before grabbing a donut from the box in the middle of the table. "Oh, and he also gets pissy if there were donuts, and we didn't save one for when he shows up a half hour later."
"I've never met this man, but he sounds deeply, deeply repellent," I said.
"Be grateful," Private Santiago grumbled. "You only have to deal with him once."
"Fuck, now I wish I had my Gameboy," I said. "I'm pretty sure I was told, in no uncertain terms, that my phone was to stay in my pocket at all times, unless it was ringing and someone in the PRT was calling me."
"I mean, Piggot would probably frown on you playing with a Gameboy on the job too, not just your phone," Sergeant Michaels pointed out. "If you're bored, we can try something... controversial. An ancient technique, forbidden for its dark power and the price it extracts. I refer, of course, to talking to each other."
"...Any of you guys watch Chain of Thorns?"
"I do, but I haven't gotten the others to get into it. I'm caught up, though- how far are you?"
"I watch it with a friend when we hang out, so I'm only a few episodes into Season 2, but it's way better than I thought it was going to be."
"I know, right?"
---
Finally, a full forty five minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, Thomas Calvert walked through the door to a chorus of boos and jeers.
"Alright, everyone, wakey wakey, involuntary naptime is over!"
"Fucking finally. The hell do you commute from, Wisconsin?"
"Shit, now we actually have to do work."
That's my cue.
I stood up, clearing my throat. "My apologies for my squad's unprofessional behavior, sir. My name is Maxwell Stevens, Private... Second Class?" I shook my head, and held out my hand. "A pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise, Private," Thomas Calvert said, extending his hand to take mine.
The fun thing about being a Striker with a knack for subterfuge is that, the moment you touch someone, they're fucked, and if they don't know that, insisting on a handshake is hardly the weirdest thing in the world.
I rolled back Thomas Calvert to the last time he dropped a timeline and created a new one, and then, once he'd done that again before realizing he was in a very, very different environment than he had been thirty hours ago, I calmly and casually pulled his hands behind his back and handcuffed him.
"Thomas Calvert, you are under arrest on charges of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, embezzling, high treason, and murder," Sergeant Michaels read aloud, as Thomas Calvert started to realize what was going on. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court..."
And through it all, while Thomas Calvert did tug at the cuffs once, it didn't take that long to realize he'd been well and truly had.
"So!" Sergeant Michaels said, once he finished the Miranda Warning. "Let's get you into a holding cell, yeah? Private Stevens, if you will?"
"This way, sir," I said.
"I must say, this all comes as quite a shock to me," Thomas said as we formed up around him, and began to shepherd him to the door. "I mean, high treason? That's hardly the sort of thing I could simply forget doing, and yet I have no recollection whatsoever of it. Are you certain you have the right man?"
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"We're reasonably confident, sir," I said, as we walked down the hallway towards the elevators. It was a short walk, on purpose- we did not want him to have any chances of getting away, or being sprung by his moles- each of which was currently busy with a mandatory training course of some sort in another part of the building that they'd gotten only a day's notice for, but still, we might've missed one. "If there was a mixup, I'm sure the judge can sort it out."
As we approached the elevators, one of them dinged, and the doors began to slide open. We stopped where we were- ostensibly because we wanted to stay out of their way, but really because we were worried about security risks.
Unfortunately, our fears were proven correct when a woman in a short black hooded robe stepped out, a curved sword hanging at her hip, and a black book in her hand. She was beautiful, in a strange, ethereal, and feral way- her robe was patterned with dark greens and grays, creating the impression of some sort of black bird.
Ever since her emergence onto the scene in early January, people were scared of her. Sure, she was killing people who clearly needed to die, but she was only doing that for now. What happens when she runs out of the obvious choices, and starts getting into the territory where we'd start to disagree?
"Thomas Calvert?" she read from her book. "Your time has come."
Well... I suppose, as someone who didn't want Calvert dead, I was about to learn firsthand what happened when a hero disagreed with Magpie.
"Please don't," I said. "He's already under arrest, and the case against him is airtight."
"Anything I say right now is quite clearly under duress," Thomas Calvert began.
"You aren't helping," I said.
"Au contraire, treating her like an idiot who'd miss the obvious would be very aggravating to her ego."
"Let me rephrase: shut the hell up or I'm abandoning my post."
"I do have to wonder, little soldier boy," Magpie said, slowly drawing her sword from its sheath. "Just what exactly do you think you'll be able to do about this?" She flicked the sword once, and ordinary metal snapped into burning black (somehow?) plasma that was uncomfortably toasty even from here.
Without waiting for a response, Magpie dashed forward faster than most people would be able to even notice, let alone track, positioning herself in the gap between Sergeant Michaels and Private Jones, where a simple overhead strike would split Calvert down the middle, leaving the rest of us... mostly unharmed, but probably with a few nasty burns just from proximity to that fucking furnace of a sword she was swinging.
But, well, it would have killed Calvert, if I hadn't reacted in time.
"...Did I miss a fucking press release, or have Americans always been able to catch lightsabers with their bare hands and nobody told me?" Magpie demanded.
"I think," I said, rolling my shoulders, "that I'm going to kick your ass so hard the bones in your spine are gonna pop out of your mouth one by one like a fucking Pez dispenser."
From there, I attempted to strike back, but she dodged back and out of the way, retreating from me.
"Just who the hell are you, really?" Magpie demanded. "You're no ordinary soldier."
"In your culture, they call me Ouroboros," I said, stepping as alarms started blaring and the building entered lockdown- good, someone on the team had called this in. "I don't care what you call me, though. I'm not here to fuck around."
Magpie bristled a little, before snorting.
"Heh. Eheheh. Ohhhhohohoh, hahahahaaa!"
"The hell's so funny?" I asked.
"I've been wanting a fight like this for so, so long," Magpie whispered. "Come on. We've got the perfect excuse, here. Let's get it out of our systems, at last."
"Do I know you?" I asked.
"Two immortals, unable to truly die," Magpie said. "Boys, go ahead and take Calvert to his cell, I don't care anymore. Now? I'm here for this."
"And if I decide I don't want to fight you?" I asked.
"Well, then I get bored and kill Calvert anyways," Magpie said.
"I'm certain I can get to the elevator myself, gentleme-" Thomas began.
"Buddy, you've lost, and you are nowhere near anything that is close to victory," I said. "Take the L with some dignity."
"...Fair enough," Thomas Calvert said, sounding genuinely a little chastened.
"Anyway... I guess I don't really have a choice but to humor you," I said. "If I wanted to stop you from killing Calvert, I'd still have to fight you."
"See? I'm guaranteed to get the fight that I want," Magpie said, sounding disproportionately pleased with herself. "Now, unless you want to fight unarmed..?"
"I don't exactly have..." I trailed off.
I did have a weapon to hand. I had a lot of weapons to hand. Those memories... among other things, they detailed powers. Powers that I still had, and which I just... needed to start actively using.
I held out my hand, and a small portal appeared, dropping a lightsaber hilt into my hand.
"What the fuck," Sergeant Michaels hissed, as my own cherry red blade thrummed to life. At some point, I'd intended to change the color, but... well, I suppose I never got around to it.
"Gonna be real, Sarge?" I lied. "I have no idea what's happening."
"Yeah, that makes a fucking lot of us right now!"
"Enough talk," Magpie said, flourishing her blade in a way that fluttered her wing-like cape. "Have at you!"
In motions so intimately familiar they felt like a dance I'd been practicing since I could walk, I raised my lightsaber just in time to block her opening lunge.
"Show me a good time, Joe," she whispered, leaning in close.
"How the fuck do you know my name," I hissed.
She then pulled back, resuming her assault, and the dance began in earnest.