"Alright, take the bag off," never in my life would I ever expect being kidnapped during an expedition, knocked out and dragged away in the catacombs no less! The bag was then gently removed from my head and filling my vision were people all stood around nervously, some are even twiddling their thumbs for gods sake! "Hey Archie, remember me?"

I turned my head to the voice that just spoke up to see... "Tom?! What the fuck you asshole?!"

"Yeah... hehe," he scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "sorry, but you wouldn't have come with us otherwise."

"Wha- what the hell, man?" I struggled against my bindings, "have you ever tried... I don't know, nicely asking?"

"Well, like I said, you wouldn't have come otherwise," he sighed, "even if we did ask then nothing would've been different."

I looked around the place, it seemed like I was kidnapped to an observatory of sorts, probably the same one in the middle of Jest. If so, how the hell were they able to sneak me through the streets with a bag on my head? "First off, why the fuck did you kidnap me?"

"Well, I said this before, because you wouldn't-" "I know that you fucking moron! I'm asking what your intentions are in kidnapping me."

"Oh! That, well, let's just say you have something that we want, no, need," Tom then motioned to another person in the crowd, "Eorling, untie him."

"You sure?" The woman, Eorling, raised an eyebrow, "he seems pretty agitated, might lunge at you when I untie him."

"Oh please, he wouldn't do that!' Tom chuckled, Eorling didn't look convinced.

"Whatever you say man," she then rounded around me and undo the bindings, "there you go, you're free now."

Proving her words right, I immediately lunged at Tom and swung my fist at his jaw, hitting it and making him stumble a bit, "okay, yeah, I deserved that." He said, rubbing his cheek.

"Don't you ever knock me out again you twat," I pointed my fingers accusingly at him, he nodded.

"Yeah, note taken," he looked at Eorling, she shrugged, "anyways Archie, you willing to listen to me now?"

I sighed, "yeah, fine, whatever, what is it that's so important that you need my expertise in?"

"Dan, give him the paper," Tom motioned at Dan, who shuffled around the crowd and handed me a pretty thick stack of paper, "you know Dan, right? You two worked with one another last year."

"I wish I don't remember him honestly," I scoffed, he looked pretty downcast at my words though, "all the shit he said during our work together gave me aneurysms."

"Like what, Archie?" Tom raised an eyebrow and asked.

"He said some horseshit about a 'man on the sun' or whatever the fuck, it was just..." I waved my hands around, "really weird."

Both Tom and Dan stayed silent before looking at each other, and then back at me, "...flip to the fifth page for us, Archie."

"What's with the... fine, sure, page five..." I flipped the papers around before ending on a page with the number five written on the bottom of the page, "what am I supposed to be looking at."

"Go to figure two, the infrared image of the sun," I focused on the fairly large image of the sun in black and white, "this, this right here, is what you're supposed to look at," Dan then pointed at a strange white dot in the middle of one of the dark spots of the image.

"Okay? What's so special about a printing error?"

"That's not a printing error, we have reasons to believe that Dan's hypothesis was correct," what, "looks like his theory about there being a man on the sun was correct."

...What the fuck.

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Meanwhile, in the Director's office...

The thick smell of smoke cover the Director's office, wisps of ghastly white float around like miniature clouds as she tapped her cigarette, dropping the ashes into a nearby tray. The Director breathed in the nicotine, the smoke covering up her round glasses as she pushed back the bangs of her hair. Wiping away the stray dust on her suit, she spun her chair around and dialed a number on her landline and, after a few moments, someone picked up.

"Yes Director?" Arma's voice sounded over the receiver, her voice muffled by the bucket helmet, "I have failed in obtaining the Librarian, Director. Please forgive me."

"Unfortunate," the Director breathed, "but not the end of it, I trust that you have clues about the Counter?"

"Yes Director," Arma sighed, "I found out who and what he looked like, sending the information to you now."

The fax machine then whirred to life, printing out a document with the appropriate information on it, "as to his current location, I'm afraid I don't know."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Continue your search, call back when you've succeeded," the Director ripped the paper out of the fax machine, "if possible, send over information regarding the Fragment too, wherever it is."

"Understood."

The landline then went silent, putting the receiver down, the Director began mulling about the information on the fax. Connie Vi Lang, recent tourist to Jest, showed signs of uncontrolled probability magic, on the run with the Librarian. The Director placed the fax on her table and inhaled another lungful of nicotine before breathing out the excess smoke, she then turned on her two-way radio, the light turned red before changing over to green.

"Yes Director?" A voice, male this time, sounded through the radio.

"Dunn, prepare to go to the city," the Director reinserted the fax back into the machine, "sending information over to you now."

"Information confirmed," rustling of paper can be heard through the radio, "dead or alive?"

"Alive," the Director tapped her cigarette, "secondary target is the Librarian, bring her back too. Alive preferably."

"Understood."

The radio then went dead. The Director leaned back on her chair, a grimace on her face as she let the ash from the cigarette fall to the tray. She breathed out heavily before snuffing out the cigarette.

----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, on the run with Connie and Manniemaru...

"There you are you sons of bitches!!" the armored woman dove down towards us, creating a large crater in the dirt as she landed, "think you can outrun me?"

Manniemaru furrowed her eyebrows and whispered to me, "hand me the hammer handle."

I handed her the wooden handle and watched as she approached the armored woman, "ready to get your ass beat?"

Manniemaru said nothing before dashing towards her, the armored woman did too. Manniemaru then shoved the bare wooden handle into the slits of the armored woman's helmet, "ha! You missed! Wait, I just jinxed myself. FUCK!"

And jinxed herself she did as Manniemaru repaired the handle in record time, the hammer head immediately reforming perpendicular to the helmet's slits. She then yanked the hammer back, pulling the armored woman to ground as she lets go of the handle, expecting it to be pushed upwards towards the armored one by the ground. The armored woman seemed to notice what was going to happen and rolled over to her back whilst quickly grabbing the hammer and rotating it.

Throwing the hammer away, the armored woman slid across the ground on her back surprisingly fast before bouncing up and delivering a dropkick to Manniemaru's stomach. Throwing her across the open grass field by quite a far distance. I can't do anything, no magic, no nothing, I'm practically defenseless without Manniemaru to back me up. The armored woman then turned her head towards me, "mission successful," she said to someone before I feel a heavy chop to the back of my neck.

I then blacked out instantly. I really am that weak, huh.

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Meanwhile, very close by...

"So how are we doing this?" I asked, reaching under my helmet to scratch at my nose, that hammer trick the Librarian did was pretty dirty, "we've got both the Librarian and the Counter here right now, unconscious and everything... do we just... drag them back?"

"Damn I hadn't thought about this," Dunn sighed, "we'll just drag them for now, when we get to the city we'll be able to commandeer a car or something."

"Pfft, a car," I laughed, "get a load of Mr. Positive over here, d'you think the roads of Jest are made for cars?"

"Well I don't fucking know! If not a car then a uh... a- a wagon or something!"

"A wagon? What year do you think this is?"

"Stop fucking around and help me with this!" Dunn then grabbed the Counter's legs and began dragging him through the grass, I grabbed the Librarian and dragged her too. Thankfully my magic made it much easier for me on accounts of the reduced friction, I'm not going to tell Dunn about this though, fuck him.

"Don't know why the Director's so hung up on Counter boy over here," Dunn grunted and winced as the Counter's head gets knocked into another pebble, "he doesn't look too impressive, his physique is shit too."

"You got the fax right?" he nodded, "then you should know that he's like you in terms of magic."

"Yeah yeah, I saw, probability magic or something," Dunn rolled his eyes, "and you fucking wish he was me! He doesn't even know he have magic!"

"But he does, doesn't he?" I smirked, "uncontrollable magic but eh, whatever."

"You're pissing me off, man."

"Too bad you can't kill me, the Director needs me," I snorted, "come to think of it, are we the only two people working for the Director?"

"What? No, probably not," Dunn furrowed his brows together, "I mean, she can do so much in so little time, there must be like a team or something working under her."

"Must be? Maybe she's just that fast," I shrugged, dragging the Librarian's unconscious body through as many rocks as possible, "who knows! She might have some voodoo speed enhancement magic on her side or something."

"I think I see a farm in the distance," wait what? There are farms this far out? "We can steal a wheelbarrow from them, that'd make it much easier!"

"Great idea! But maybe not steal, we'll ask for the wheelbarrows," Dunn looked at me as if I grew two heads, "what? What's with the look?"

"First time seeing you actually be logical for once," now that's just rude! "you not immediately resorting to violence is a once in a lifetime event."

"Fuck you."

After a bit of haggling and finessing the owners of the farm, we loaded the two bodies onto the wheelbarrows and wiped the blood from our clothes, thankfully, blood doesn't cling to my armor as much as it does to Dunn's stupid fucking tank top over tee style, he looked like he just walked off a basketball court, straight out of the amateur leagues.

"Did we have to kill them?" Dunn asked, trying to wipe away the incriminating amounts of red on his tank top off in vain, "it was just a wheelbarrow."

"Indeed, and it's their fault that they tried to stop us from getting that wheelbarrow," I cursed under my breath, now just realizing that my armor can rust from the dried blood, "think of it as... self-defense, yeah."

"Didn't we start the fight?"

"They fought back didn't they?" I scraped off the flakes of dried blood stuck to my armor with my fingers, "naturally, we have to defend ourselves."

"Try saying that in court." Dunn scoffed at my reasoning, how rude.

"Once you know how to game the justice system, you can get away with anything," I smacked him on the back of his head, "that's what I did all those years before."

"And how did that work out for you hmm? Ms. I'm-On-Most-Wanted-Posters?"

"Shut the fuck up man, those posters were because I was being too carefree once! Once!" I sighed exasperatedly, "sure, I did get caught once but I didn't serve no jail time now did I?"

"Then how'd you get on the wanted posters?" Dunn asked cheekily.

"I- wha- I- fucking hell, I... just... just shut up man."

Dunn laughed all the way back to the office, he was lucky that I didn't have the energy to rip his jaw off or else I actually would've done it.

He got lucky this time... just like all the other times too.