Scene 24 - December 19th

Exterior City, Early Afternoon

Quinn Kaufman

Journey deposited us in a side-street not far from the Compound, right next to Referee and Loki, then vanished. She reappeared an instant later and set Sequoia down beside us.

“Thanks for the evac,” the dryad said to her, and she nodded, breathing deeply - I wondered if teleporting so many people so quickly was hard on the young woman.

“Holly, you should make us all invisible,” I said, noticing that he was beginning to hyperventilate. “And quick, before...”

She was nodding and brushing her fingers together before I could finish, putting a bubble of normality around the six of us. Only a moment later, eyes were opening and closing on walls all around us, moving like a wave across the city out from the Compound, just as I had feared.

Fortunately, Loki’s illusion had gone up in time - the searching eyes passed over us without recognition, and Anima’s attention seemed to turn elsewhere. The two of us each let out our own sigh of relief, but Loki still seemed incredibly nervous. I kept an eye on him.

“...hey, Holly?” Hypnos said after a moment.

“...yeah?”

“What the fuck?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Journey agreed. “I trust you with my life, Loki, but why are we running away from Anima?”

I tilted my head, confused. “You guys didn’t notice?”

“She was way stronger than usually somehow,” Referee said, “And... I don’t think that was all.”

“It wasn’t,” I said. “She was... off, somehow. She wasn’t behaving normally. I know I haven’t known her as long as most of you, but... I’ve never felt threatened by her before now. Back there? I felt in danger.”

Loki nodded. “Quinn’s right. Anima was acting really weird. I... I think she’s being mind controlled or influenced somehow - maybe by whatever is letting her do this,” he gestured to the aura that still encompassed the entire city.

“Letting her see and talk through the golems, too,” I added. “I don’t think she can usually do that.”

“She can if she’s fueling them directly from her own life force, instead of using built up stores that came from others,” Loki told me. “That means that we can be pretty confident this is some kind of massive boost to her personally, not... I don’t know... the result of stealing a few thousand peoples’ life force. She wouldn’t do that. I don’t think.” Under his illusory form, my presence felt him produce a phone and begin dialing - Loki’s shape, however, remained leaning against the wall where he had planted himself after Journey dropped us off.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Morbid,” Journey commented.

“But I don’t know what the power-boost could be.”

“Could it have something to do with whatever called her, Zookeeper, and Canaveral away this morning?” I asked.

“Seems likely, and it’s all we have to go on right now.”

“Wait, time out,” Sequoia interjected. “Are we contemplating what I think we are?”

“With how Anima is acting, and the scale of the threat, we can’t not do something,” I pointed out.

“We could call in other MLED heroes,” he suggested. “Link up with some agents and get some extra manpower on our side, maybe - we’ll need it, against her.”

“I’m making that call already,” Loki said, the illusion of his form tapping the earpiece that was part of his costume, even as his real body spoke into the phone - that answered my question of who he was calling. “But Omnipresence isn’t available right now and neither is Aegis-”

“As usual,” Hypnos muttered.

“They’re busy people,” Sequoia scolded him.

“-which means it’ll be a while before anyone can make it here, at least an hour,” Loki continued, and I felt him hang up. “And the only team within a wide radius with a decent chance of winning is us anyway.”

“...really?”

“Yes, really,” he confirmed.

“Why us?” I asked.

“Because I’m here to even the scales,” Referee reminded us with a shy smile, although I was pretty sure she was trying to cover up her worry. “When I’m around, no opponent is out of reach.”

I grinned at her under my mask and offered a fist bump, which she returned after a moment. “You’re right. We’ve got this.” That was the most confident thing I had heard the normally shy girl say, at least around me. We hadn’t spent much time together, between the age gap and how often she was out traveling, so I was glad that she was finally warming up to me.

“Before we go, however, we need more intel,” Loki said, glancing at the walls with obvious distase as another wave of eyes washed over the city - Anima apparently still searching for her ‘children’. “Hypnos, you were on console - what can you tell us?”

He sighed. “The Magnificent Maxwell was stirring up trouble. They called Arthur Peregrine about it, and apparently he’s gotten his hands on Excalibur.”

“...what, really?” I said.

“The real Excalibur?” asked Loki, sounding surprised.

“Apparently, yeah. Peregrine said that the sword was a generic empowerment thing, and the boost it gives applies to everything, including psychological defects. He thought Max had gone full-blown narcissist from taking it. Maybe Anima grabbed the sword and can’t control her helicopter mom?”

We considered this. “It seems as good a theory as any,” Loki decided. “Can you check?”

Hypnos leaned against Sequoia, who wrapped one arm around his shoulders to support his boyfriend, and closed his eyes. “One sec... yeah,” he confirmed. “I’m looking in on the Higgins Museum now.”

“Is that where things went down?” I asked.

“Yup. I see... Zookeeper, Canaveral, and Max are all in what kind of looks like a playpen, being watched over by some golems - would be funny if this situation weren’t so shitty. I think Keeper and Navi are planning something, although I can’t tell what since I left my hearing with you guys - Max seems to be out cold. And Anima is definitely holding a sword, looks like a rapier. Not what I’d have guessed Excalibur to look like, but whatever.”

He paused for a moment, then continued. “We may have a slight problem, though - I just pulled out a little to check for guards outside, and Anima turned the whole damn museum into a giant golem. It’s... pretty tall, and looks mobile enough that Journey won’t be able to teleport into it. You’re still having trouble with teleporting onto or off of moving things, right?”

“Wow,” a voice said, and we all turned in surprise to see that five knights were standing just inside the normalcy bubble. “You guys are doing great with the planning!”