Soft silver sigils lit up the walls of the room, slowly curling around themselves like living mercury. The atmosphere around Brock grew closer, more stifled somehow. The original speaker seated behind the stone judge's bench continued, his plain-woven robe rustling slightly.

"This meeting of the Oversight Committee is now in session. Privacy and recording wards enabled. Councilor Lucio Antioch in attendance, and presiding."

A familiar dark-skinned figure with a million-watt smile next to him was the next to speak.

"Councilor Davien Drast in attendance."

A bored woman with shaggy brown hair draping a multitude of piercings yawned from her seat at the right edge, crossing her heavily tattoed arms across her tattered t-shirt.

"Councilor Holly Stitch in attendance."

An uptight man in militaristic clothing and buzz-cropped blonde hair, sitting on the far left, scowled at her nonchalant tone.

"Councilor Chet Priggish in attendance."

"Let the record show all members of the Oversight Committee are present," High Priest Antioch said solemnly.

"For an unscheduled meeting called at the last minute," the woman, Holly, complained, leaning her chair back and propping a pair of rugged black combat boots on the bench. "Some of us, and by that I mean me, have a life, Lucio. I was at my nephew's birthday party. What are we doing here?"

"Silence!" the gaunt man on the opposite end barked, eyes ablaze, spittle flying from his lips. "Your endless insults to the rules and decorum of this chamber are tiresome!"

Holly picked her nose and made a rude gesture at him, provoking another tirade, and Brock began to realize there was probably a reason the two of them were sitting as far apart from each other as it was possible to get in the small room.

"Let the record show-"

"-that Chet's being a bootlicking piss-for-brains again-"

"-you insolent-"

"Enough," High Priest Antioch said quietly, and Chet fell silent immediately, though his face purpled when Holly stuck her tongue out at him. "Enough. I have called this emergency meeting, Councilor Stitch, over concerns the Cataclysm Squad is operating outside their remit."

"Didn't we go over that yesterday? Pretty sure we went over that yesterday. I remember punching Chet several times during the World Council debate over that yesterday." Holly yawned again, examining her perfectly manicured nails. "If all we're doing is relitigating settled matters, I vote we adjourn so I can get back to my party. You can't steal the Director's new toy until he breaks it, Lucio. We took a vote."

High Priest Antioch raised a finger.

"I was not in possession of all the facts, yesterday, Councilor Stitch. A whistleblower report arrived on my magiphone this morning. Apparently," the High Priest drew the word out with relish, "the weapon has not yet been fully categorized."

Holly slowly removed her boots from the top of the stone bench and sat up straighter, narrowing her eyes at Brock.

"Is that so?"

"Hence the emergency meeting," Antioch continued smoothly. "If the Cataclysm Squad is attempting to obfuscate the weapon's capablities, then oversight is clearly warranted."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Brock cleared his throat nervously.

"Uhhh, I think I'm a person, not a weapon-"

"Silence!" Chet screamed out shrilly, half-rising to his feet. Everyone else stared daggers at him.

"You better put a muzzle on your pup, Lucio," Holly warned, cracking her knuckles, "or he's gonna get hurt. We're in private session here, so I can let my hair down." She chuckled darkly. "Now, you've managed to get me somewhat interested in these proceedings, but let the record show, I'm not above shoving some heads up some asses if I get annoyed."

"Chet," High Priest Antioch ordered mildly, "do take a seat."

A chastised Chet firmly planted his buttocks into his chair, impotent anger still clouding his features.

"Better," Holly said in the ensuing silence. "Less barking. Okay, Lucio. What's your plan?"

"Appraisal, first and foremost," High Priest Antioch replied. "The readings on file from the Cataclysm Squad are contradictory. Deliberately so, I believe. I intend to get to the truth of the matter."

"...it's your circus."

As Holly leaned back and placed her boots on the judge's bench once again, High Priest Antioch produced a small device from his robes. It was rectangular, about as tall as it was long, and half that wide, with two open slots at the top.

"Motion to authorize usage of the Threat Optimization Authority Scanning Tachyon Emergency Response device."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"...is that a toaster?"

Four sets of eyes glared at Brock and he shrank back in his chair, then recalled the morning therapy session, then leaned forward to claim his own space.

"...it's, just, it looks like a toaster."

"Let the record show," High Priest Antioch declared, slightly louder than what Brock thought was necessary for such a small room, "authorization for the Threat Optimization Authority Scanning Tachyon Emergency Response device has been approved by unanimous acclaim., despite the outburst from Operative Stara-"

A stilled heartbeat silence, an eternity of things left unsaid.

"Activating the device."

The High Priest depressed a lever on the front of the piece of technology that most definitely was not a toaster, pointing its two open slots at Brock. The machine immediately made a sad whine, thick black smoke billowing from its casing. High Priest Antioch threw the device down with a clatter, sucking on his burnt fingertips and swearing inelegantly as a small vent opened in the ceiling, whisking away the noxious clouds .

"What did you do, you monster?" he didn't quite bellow, nursing his injured hands. "Acts of violence against the Oversight Committee are grounds for immediate disintegration!"

"...buh?"

"Treachery!" Councilor Chet Priggish shrieked, banging his knee with a gunshot crack on the stone judge's bench as he leapt to his feet again. "Treach... ahhh... uffff... ffffff..."

Chet sank below the raised platform with an audible whimper, tears streaming down his pale face. Mechanical grinding echoed from every direction, and a host of lethal-looking devices manifested from the walls, ceiling, and floor, each one aiming unerringly in Brock's direction.

"...whut?"

Brock found himself flinching back, chair sprawled to the ground behind him, hands held on front of his face in an eerie mimicry of his initial appraisal before the Director on the harsh arena sands of the testing area inside the Nut.

...wait a second. I haven't done anything wrong here. I'm literally one of their employees. They'll take what I give them, but I don't have to give them this.

Brock lowered his hands to his sides, then slowly rose from his half-crouch. He tried to remember what confidence felt like in the face of at least fifteen visible obliteration devices tracking his every motion, and decided that confidence felt like casually picking his chair back up and deliberately sitting down. He cleared his throat, looking up at the three Council members.

"...okay, uhhh, so. I already went through 'testing with the possibility of accidental death effects' a couple days ago, and I'd prefer not to do it again. Why don't you just ask me what you want to know? I'm a person, not a weapon."

A moment of silence reigned, broken only by a wasp-buzzing voice in Brock's head.

"You're doing great Brock! They can't hear me because of the bone induction thingamastuff junk! Those bakas are so confused right now! Bakas!"

Somehow Brock kept his face still, and another moment of silence eventually ended in slow applause, heavily clapping hands periodically obscuring a genial smile. The annihilation engines retreated back into unassuming stone panels.

Councilor Davien Drast beamed down at Brock.

"Well, then. You've got some guts, facing down the High Priest in his own chamber! Magnificent, just like Starak himself in the flesh once more, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion, am I, Holly?"

"Kid's got some balls, sure," Holly agreed sarcastically, picking something out of her ear and flicking it at Chet's last known general location. "I just want to know what he did to the toaster."

High Priest Antioch continued trying to glare a hole in Brock's skull.