“Well, this is odd,” Jacob said across the mental group chat.

We had reached the church with only a couple of short skirmishes with the mantis bots we had encountered before. It looked like an iconic catholic church, but had different iconography than any of the monotheistic religions I was familiar with, and the stained glass windows were shattered with shards covering the ground around it. Currently we were crouched on the next building over, looking through the remains of a large broken section of the roof where a bell tower used to be located. Within the church was a matronly woman with dark hair in a high necked grey Victorian gown arguing with a man in a red t-shirt and black leather pants with a blond ponytail. Most notably were the burn scars around his eyes which Jacob had identified as acid burns. There was no indication of any kind of bindings holding either of the parties involved in the argument, but Arya was unable to read either party’s identity.

“Listen up you frosty bitch, you can’t take away people’s ability to change their own fates!” the man shouted.

“Why not, you accepted death at the watchman’s blade readily enough, not that it seems to have stopped you,” the woman replied.

“I chose that death as the best option, the time of a fated path ended during that battle. Your sisters even agree with me, or did you think I haven’t noticed that Clotho and Atropos aren’t here,” the man pointed out.

“Holy shit,” Arya said.

“What?” I asked.

“That’s Lachesis, one of the Greek fates, the stories had it that she measured the lifespan of a person’s life and what path they would follow through their life,” she answered.

The argument continued as Lachesis said, “You who would defy fate has no right to be its guardian, and I won’t allow it.”

“Any idea who the guy is? We still don’t know who the good guy in this conflict is,” Jerome asked.

“From the clues we have so far I would say she is the third person in charge of the castle, but my gut says to wait. If we jump in on the wrong side of this we could be in for a serious problem,” Arya said.

My mind was running through the same clues and coming up with a different answer. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to voice it as typically the man was portrayed as the villain, but his motivations were rarely disclosed.

“Listen, you can still choose to walk away from this. Call back your minions and leave this realm, you get to choose still. No one gets a choice if you continue this mad scheme,” the man’s answer was barely audible to us.

“No Loki, there is no choice but the will of Fate,” Lachesis snapped back, “and my will is that you relinquish your title and power unto me. Do so and I’ll let your two friends live out productive lives until they die natural deaths.”

“Loki, well I guess he is the obvious bad guy,” Rebecca said.

“The obvious one yes,” I said doubtfully.

Arya stared at me and then hung her head, as she read my train of logic, before saying, “He’s the Lord of Fate. His two friends she’s speaking of are Thanatos and Father Time.”

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“But Loki is supposed to start Ragnarok and destroy the world right?” Jerome asked.

I shook my head and said, “No, he did that already. Lachesis said he accepted his fate and died at the watchman’s hands. The watchman was Heimdall. If I’m reading the situation correctly then Loki died in Ragnarok, which has always had a mixed ending on whether it was the death of gods or the nine realms, and then became the Lord of Fate here. It seems like his goal is to give others the chance to choose their own fates rather than let someone else do it. It could be good, it could be bad, but it is still their choice. It fits with his chaotic tendencies too.”

“Shit, that makes too much sense. What are we going to do?” Jacob asked.

In response I lowered myself off the edge of the roof and fell the last few feet before walking towards the church’s door while saying, “Jump in if needed, but otherwise let me try something.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed again, and I’ll buy Thanatos a beer when you do,” Arya said.

I flashed her a grin and pushed open the doors. They slammed open with a dramatic thump and I marched in saying, “Lady, no one gets to choose my path but me. I suggest you take the man up on his offer and leave.”

A startled look crossed her face, but I paid it no attention as I took in the room. There was only natural light coming in the broken windows which left many shadowy corners. Loki was in fact standing in the center of three inscribed bronze rods we hadn’t been able to see from the roof. Since it was out my detection range I hadn’t noticed them until getting closer. I gave him a nod and said, “Thanks for giving the wind a push in my direction. I wasn’t sure of what was going on at first sight.”

Loki smiled with a cocky grin and said, “No problem. There was is the chance you will choose to help her instead, but I figured it would be best if you had more information.”

“Do not ignore me mortal, you will not stand in the way of Fate!” Lachesis shouted at me.

“You see though, that’s just it. You aren’t Fate,” I said, “You and your sisters are ‘The Fates’ of Greek lore and here I stand telling you to walk away while you still can. Mr. Teratophile here is giving you the chance; I’m not really that patient.”

Lachesis gaped at me like a landed fish, while Loki gave me a mock hurt look and asked, “Mr. Teratophile, really?”

“Sleipner, Fernrir, Jormungander,” I said ticking off the fingers of my hand, “and who knows how many others lost to the annals of time.”

“Touche,” he responded, his cocky grin coming back to his face.

“I have Loki bound, and can control the thread of your Fate boy. He can either sacrifice his power, and save the lives of the other Lords and now you, or I will take the reins by force all of your deaths,” she said.

“Your logic is flawed. One, my choices and actions are my own; since you aren’t Atropos you can’t cut my life short early.”

She was beginning to look even more upset if that was possible as I continued, “Second, he isn’t bound as far as I can tell. There isn’t any kind of barrier in place stopping him from walking out of that ward.”

Loki continued to grin as Lachesis snapped her eyes to the three bronze rods that surrounded him. Taking the verbal cue he took two steps sideways and stopped outside of the lines that would have been made. I crossed my arms across my chest, the motion disguising me taking hold of a pair of throwing spikes, as I said, “Third, Thanatos and Father Time are already free.”

“Walk away Lachesis; you can’t win this fight,” Loki said, his face losing the mocking grin he had held throughout their argument.

“You are a liar mortal; I can still see the lines of fate for my servants. The only way they would give up on their chance for power was if they had died,” Lachesis said, raising her right hand towards me, a set of five ghostly threads appearing wrapped around her wrist; another thread curled around her finger and drifted in my direction.

I sighed and said, “Fourth, I’m not your only opponent.”

An arrow of ice flashed through the gap in the roof, piercing the palm of the hand that held the wispy threads. Lachesis screamed in pain and leapt back towards the church altar, and out of the line of fire from the opening. Her left hand came up and a pair of oversized vipers appeared in front of her, each one at least forty feet long and two feet around. They hissed in anger and raised up to strike.