9 October 2017. Justice City. Old City. Jackson Boxing Club.

Alex parked his car in front of Chen’s gym. His eyes immediately went wide at the sight of the steel curtains, which were ripped wide open with a hole large enough for two men to walk in side-by-side. He leaped out of his car and ran into the gym, not even bothering to stop the engine. When reaching home, he’d had a foreboding something bad was about to happen. After a quick explanation to his wife, he’d thus driven back despite the old man’s threat of mop beating.

The scene inside was even worse than he’d feared. Alex froze, taking in the destruction in front of him. The gym’s equipment laid broken on the floor, chairs and wooden benches were shattered, their pieces scattered, and the punching bags were all gutted. With his experience in fighting—both in and out of the ring—Alex easily recognized this was no aftermath of a fight. This was systematic vandalism.

A painful cough snapped him out of his horrified daze. “Chen?” he whispered uncertainly. His eyes swept across the dark room. Eventually, they set on a twitching heap in a corner.

The heap coughed.

“Chen!” Alex ran across the wrecked gym, inadvertently leaving sole-shaped indents on the concrete floor and flinging aside a metal locker as if removing a cardboard box. He stopped by the body of the old man lying down in a shallow pool of blood—obviously his own. Alex sucked in a sharp breath as his eyes widened even further.

Chen had been beaten black and blue, to the point of being nigh unrecognizable. In the yellowish light of the only lamp to have survived the wreckage, his dark face was purple and swollen, with dried blood trailing from his nose and from the corner of his mouth. Both his arms were bent at abnormal angles, one at the elbow and the other at the wrist. His left eyelid seemed to cave in unnaturally.

The worst, however, was his left leg. It simply ended below his knee. A makeshift and loose tourniquet had been applied to the stump. It was as if whoever had done this didn’t intent for Chen to die…but also did not care much if he did. A few feet away, propped up against the wall, under the lamp, as if a mockery, stood the severed leg. Words had been cut into the flesh in capital letters. It read: FIRST AND LAST WARNING!

At least Chen’s chest was still rising and falling—albeit faintly. This was all that stopped Alex from completely freaking out.

A cough broke the dreadful silence. Chen’s swollen right eyelid cracked open. “Brat?” he croaked.

“Pops!” In his distress, Alex reverted back to the nickname he’d given Chen as a nine years old fleeing from his abusive drunken father. In an instant, he was crouching by the old man’s side, uncaring for the blood that soaked his pant legs. “What happened?!”

“Stupid…” was the old coach could get out. His eye rolled back and his head tilted to the side flaccidly.

“CHEN!!” the young man thought the worst. Then he heard the faint sound of a wheezy breath.

Alex heaved a shaky sigh of relief. The old man had only lost consciousness. “Don’t scare me like that! You old fart.” His quip lacked any strength. In fact, he had trouble keeping his own breath steady. However, he knew he needed to calm down. He needed to do something. His first instinct was to take Chen to Percy’s, but he didn’t want to risk causing irreversible damage by moving the injured man in this state. Alex had some basic first aid training, but he’d never had to deal with such grave wounds.

Paradoxically, he was still calm enough to understand he wasn’t calm enough, and that he wouldn’t be able to make rational decisions. Thus, he chose to call someone he knew would. Shoving a trembling hand in his pocket, he grabbed his phone and composed the number of his house. His wife, Sophia, was a nurse. She would know what to do.

She answered on the second ring. “Al? What going on, honey?” Her low voice in his ear already managed to somewhat appease his erratic heartbeat. In the background, he could hear the television. Imagining her sitting curled up on the couch, eating snacks in front of a sappy romantic comedy helped him too.

Not by much though. When he started speaking, the words still rushed out of his mouth as if trying to all come out at the same time. “Sophia! It’s Chen! Something happened at the gym. Something—and there is so much blood—and Chen is—he is—I don’t—”

“Alex, Alex honey, calm down. Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.” He recognized the voice she used with patients at the hospital. Alex complied and, finally, his trembling subsided. Sometimes, you only needed someone to tell you the obvious.

He repeated, quieter, “It’s Chen. He’s hurt. I need help.”

* * *

9 October 2017. Justice City. Old Industrial Park. Percy’s clandestine clinic.

For the second time in less than a day, Alex drove his car into the dead end where was located the main entrance to Percy’s clinic—a place he normally visited no more than twice a month—less if he could help it.

The setting was eerily similar to last time he’d been here, except this time, his wife had taken Chen’s place in the passenger seat, and the old man himself was the one lying unconscious and bloody at the back and not some creepy mummy-lookalike. Also, Chen was lying on an actual stretcher instead of wrapped in a tarp like a human burrito.

Another difference, Alex immediately noted, was that the dead end was unusually not deserted. Surprisingly, Percy himself was standing in front of the opened metal door. Weirder even, he was talking to someone, a pizza delivery guy wearing a red helmet and holding underarm a cubic nylon insulated bag—though Alex had a sneaking suspicion there was no pizza in that bag, or ever had been.

As the couple got out of the car, the suspicious man handed Percy a bundle of cash. He then walked to a motorbike parked a short distance away, strapped the bag on the luggage rack, hoped on, and sped away into the night after a quick salute to Percy.

Only then did the ever-tired technopath seem to notice the approaching pair. Falling on the unconscious old man, Percy’s eyes widened. His face paled even more. Yet, he waited for them to get to him instead of rushing to meet them. He wanted to immediately check Chen’s condition, but the exoskeleton encasing his legs still could not handle fast movement—his bones took it badly—and without it, he could barely wriggle his toes—another souvenir of the accident that had nearly killed him and burned off half of his face. So he waited.

There was no need for him to move anyway, as the couple quickly reached him, then continued past him through the door. “Sophia?” he asked, falling into step beside them.

Used to his minimalist way of speech, the nurse knew what he as asking. She answered but she let her medical training to the talking. Although she might not be as demonstrative as her husband, only by treating Chen as any patient was she able retain her calm. Like Alex, the old man was the parent whom her actual mom and dad never were.

“He has multiple fractures all over his body. As far as I can tell, no rib has punctured his lungs or any internal organs. Which we can consider lucky. The most worrying would be his arms. His articulations are badly damaged. You-you can reattach his leg, right? We brought… We brought it with us.” He voice faltered a little at the end.

“If the cut is clean…no problem.”

“It is, yes, clean I mean,” Sophia stammered in relief. “I don’t know what did it, but it was very sharp and thin.”

Percy only nodded, while also tugging nervously at the hem of his tee-shirt. His mechanical hand even ripped a hole in the cloth but he didn't seem to notice or care. Behind them, the door closed automatically.

“What happened?” Unexpectedly, that question came from Alex. He was trying to divert his thoughts from his worries and the man dressed as a pizza delivery guy was bothering him. He had a suspicion as to the identity of that man and he didn’t like the implications. Chen had tried to shield Alex from the darker side of the Old City, but the young boxer had heard enough to know of those “cleaners”, parahumans with powers well suited to making inconvenient things disappear—dead bodies, for example, which would be sold organ by organ on the black market.

Alex actually preferred not to know why Percy would need to get rid of a dead body. He was aware that the young men dealt with all sorts of unsavory people and would rather not be involved. However, he didn’t want there to be trouble anywhere near the old man.

Percy tore his gaze away from Chen's battered body and his mismatched eyes met Alex’s for a second, before returning to the old man. “It’s…not important...it’s over. No problem.”

Alex wasn’t convinced. He noticed Percy’s gaze flicker to a closed door as they passed it and heard the technopath mumble under his breath. He generally didn’t trust Percy, whom he considered mentally unstable and on the wrong side of the thin line between clandestine doctor and mad scientist, but right now he was Chen’s only hope. Besides, Chen himself trusted the crazy teen, so Alex would too…for now.

Meanwhile, amidst his worries for old man Chen, Percy was recalling the events that had happened earlier.

* * *

About half-an-hour ago...

“This only business…sorry?” The Chinese mobster said these mocking words as he pressed the trigger. Squinting at the gun pointed at his forehead, Percy could only sigh tiredly.

Cliché. Too cliché. Did you go to Bad Villain School? You’ll get killed just to further the plot, you know that, right? Well, you probably don’t. The thoughts flashed through Percy’s powerful brain in a nanosecond. Ah, so bothersome. From behind him, five gunshots rang out. The sounds overlapped with the one aimed at carving a third eye in his forehead.

Before the Chinese’s bullet even exited the barrel of his gun, a larger and faster bullet hit the weapon at an angle, projecting it sideways. By pushing the capabilities of his cybernetic eye to the limit, Percy was able to see everything as if in slow motion. The small piece of deadly metal that should have killed him missed his face by five good inches. Four other bullets darted past him in the other direction, towards the gangsters, hitting each one in their own foreheads and sending them the ground.

Percy glanced at the articulated arm protruding from a recess in the wall. “Thanks, Clepia.” Biting his nails, he shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t understand why people always assumed he was defenseless simply because his ability wasn’t geared towards weaponry. Maybe it was because technopath rarely stretched the limits of their personal niche. A technopath was usually supernaturally gifted in a single very specific area of technology. Well, Percy hadn’t met many of his peers, so he couldn’t be sure.

“No problem, master. Although I would appreciate if you could avoid exposing yourself so recklessl—Master!!”

“Uh?” Breathing out in surprise, Percy turned back to the supposedly dead men.

While Percy wasn’t looking, one of them had actually jumped back on his feet, cursing in Chinese and not looking even a little injured. A yellow sheen of light was covering his body. Parahuman. Some kind of shield, I guess. How troublesome. The impact of the high caliber bullet had indeed thrown him down but hadn’t truly caused any grave injury—beyond maybe a concussion.

However, the teen’s expression didn’t change despite the situation. For one, he was naturally not very expressive. For two, he wasn’t worried. Shielding abilities were far from omnipotent. A barrier could only endure so much before breaking. As soon as the man had gotten up, Clepia must have already readied a quick burst of bullets. He can’t be too strong. Percy reasoned that any parahuman capable of sustaining a substantial amount of damage wouldn’t be stuck as some nameless henchman of a second-rate gang.

Before the AI was able to fire, however, several things happened almost simultaneously. The thug threw himself at Percy with a roar faster than he’d expected. In response, the technopath started raising his left hand, electrical arcs coursing over the fake limb. Then, a faint gust of wind brushed past his right ear.

Percy’s cybernetic left eye perfectly caught the moment when the spinning screwdriver reached the parahuman shield. He expected the tool to bounce off harmlessly, but to his surprise, it instead phased through the shimmering layer as if it didn’t exist. With amazing marksmanship, the screwdriver buried itself into the man’s eye, all the way to the hand.

What the… Percy frowned.

Blood gushed out of the orifice in slow motion. The teen cut off the accelerate time perception generated by his Augmented Reality Software. Time taking speeding back around him, he Chinese thug slumped down noisily. He didn’t get up this time. Not one to leave things to luck, Percy still asked Clepia to check his vitals. They all came out flat. …Plot armor? Am I the main character in some cheesy novel, or what? He shook his head, recalling Clepia was about to take out the man anyway.

Looking up from the corpse, he turned around. A few yards into the corridor, the skeletal silhouette of the man he’d just operated stood shakily. Sweat was pearling on his forehead and he was using the wall to support himself. Briefly bewildered, Percy quickly remembered how, before he was distracted by the sudden arrival of the four men of the Risen Demon gang, Clepia had given him the disturbing news that the thin stranger was already awake—against all odds considering the extent of his wounds.

Their gaze met, gray and red LED looking into two sunken beads of emerald green. The silence stretched for a while. Eventually, Percy nodded slightly, in thanks. The other returned the nod, barely, then sat down to the ground, still leaning against the wall and now more obviously panting.

Well, yeah, he shouldn’t even be awake. He looked back at the dead parahuman. Slain by a screwdriver. How had the man done that? Nothing Percy had observed so far hinted at a shield-piercing power. It was supposed to be a mixed between healing and organic tissue degeneration…which was already a contradiction in itself. So weird.

In fact, there was another question that bothered him. But this one, he could get the answer easily. “Clepia. Where did...get…screwdriver?”

“Apparently, Master, ‘someone’ left an old toolbox in one of the resting rooms. Despite his assistant’s repeat warnings not to misplace their possessions, I might add.”

“…eh...” Percy pulled on his long hair awkwardly. It wasn’t his fault. He had so many thoughts, keeping track of everything was hard. He sighed. He knew his power was strong and he was technically lucky for having it, but…he would gladly exchange it for a slightly weaker one if that could rid him of his criminally short attention span in any matter not directly related to using his machines.

After dancing around the dark street, his gaze fell back on the sitting man in his corridor. He addressed his AI again. “…get ‘him’ in a room…try to…well…figure him out…” He thought briefly to prepare a meal for the man, but the medicines he’d given him should provide for his body’s needs for a while longer. At least until the morning. Percy turned back to the dead bodies. “Ah…and…call the Butchers…”

Maybe I should get a loyalty card or something?

* * *

Back to the present.

In the room behind the door Percy had glanced at, Merlin sat fighting against unconsciousness.

He couldn’t tell how long he’d been there, in this small room with its drab pastel walls, two old sofas, and low table, sitting under the light of a single ceiling lamp, battling against the creeping darkness encircling his mind.

He was distantly aware of four auras moving nearby—two barely noticeable non-mages, one stronger and the last outshining the three others by far. However, his own condition monopolized most of his attention. His body felt not only weak, but tortured, as if fire ants were eating him from within. He could tell he shouldn’t be awake at the moment. In fact,  probably shouldn’t be alive.

His abdomen and face hurt the most. When he’d last checked, a small eternity ago it seemed, he’d sensed tight bandages under his fingers. At least someone had taken care of his wounds. Wounds? How did I get injured? His memories of how he’d escaped his pursuers were hazy and fragmented. That was assuming he’d escaped of course, and wasn’t in some secluded prison—but his instincts told him he had, in fact, escaped, and they had never led him astray so far.

Closing his eyes and reclining in his seat, he tried to remember what had happened after he’d fled his apartment. He recalled the old woman and her cat, and killing that fast-moving mage, the chase to the alleys and killing one, or two other men before he’d been hit by one of those people’s strange L-shaped crossbows. His leg throbbed at the remembrance. Right. That happened. His memories started to loose coherence somewhere in the middle of the brawl that had followed. Must have taken to many blows to the head. It was so strange, so foreign, so irritating to consider that a few punches from a human could cause him to lose his wits.

Images and sounds were floating in his mind, flashes and snippets of events. Of other thugs approaching. Of a fire mage. Of pain. He remembered using his death magic, even though he’d decided to seal off his death powers because his body couldn’t endure the strain.

Yet, somehow, he’d used them and survived. But how? He could still feel the aftermath, although far from as extreme as it should have. Frankly, he knew he should be dead. He still felt like he might die any second.

Right. Let’s focus on that. Pushing his thought away from the physical agony he was in, he cast his mind inwards, looking for answers. There! Almost immediately, something caught his attention. There were like immaterial specks of dust swimming inside his magic, lumps dancing in the swirls of power coursing through his body. In thought, he approached one fo these specks. From up close, rather than a dust, what he discovered looked more like…a bubble? It was made of a thin layer of his own condensed black-green power, which enclosed a dim dot of light.

As he observed, the dark shell seemed to slowly consume the already small bead of light. It was becoming dimmer with each passing instant. The bead was resisting, but it looked incomplete, and its battle was a losing one. Merlin couldn’t figure out what was missing.

With a push of his mind, he wished the bubble to contract. It did, and the light was crushed, swallowed by the darkness without room to struggle. Merlin was till puzzled—and, frankly, annoyed at his lack of comprehension of something happening within his own body. He moved to another bubble. This one, he willed to burst. Freed from its confine, the light erupted in miniature fireworks. However, it was almost instantly snuffed by the ambient dark power in his body.

Unconsciously, a frown formed on Merlin’s face. He cursed silently. Bloody goblin-head, he berated himself, no wonder you feel like dying! Fast, he metaphorically shut the valve of his soul, cutting the outward flow of power. Then, he took control of the magic inside his body and forced as much as he could to dissipate. A wave of dizziness hit him, but he soldiered on until almost none of it was left. The relief was instantaneous.  Ptaeesh. Should have done this right away. He knew this human body couldn’t endure being filled with death magic. However, it felt so unnatural to restrain his power so much—for hundreds of years, he’d been used to basking in his own power—that the issue hadn’t been as obvious as it should have. He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

Some magic still flowed out of his soul—it was neither possible nor desirable to completely cut off the flow—but it remained confined to the power channels running parallel to his circulatory system instead of running amok inside his human envelope. He sighed and returned his attention to the anomalies still present in his body.

Casually, he burst another “bubble”. This time, the firework of light wasn’t swallowed by his death magic. Instead, he was astounded by the sudden feeling of freshness and energy. The sensation was localized, barely reaching a few dozens of cells, but he could sense these cells abruptly fill with new life.

Life? Merlin recalled Shadow’s words from a distant past. This is Life Force? It certainly fit the description the dragon had conjectured. But…how? Digging through his confused memories of the fight, Merlin concluded he had somehow ripped that life force from someone, or likely several people. But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember how. He gnashed his teeth in frustration but then forced himself to calm down. One step at a time. This had become his mantra since coming to this world.

Yet, another stray thought floated through his mind. He remembered how, as Meriataneesh, he used to feel bored at how easy everything was—except for a few seemingly unattainable things. Now, even the simplest things demanded effort, and instead of feeling content, he was getting angry instead. Are sentient beings cursed to never be satisfied with their situation? Or is it because I’ve only ever known the two extremes of having everything or nothing? He sighed. A consideration for another day. He also noticed he was becoming much more philosophical since coming to this world. Losing the ability to simply blast his problems away and tear through them with brute force probably played a large part in that.

Merlin shook those irrelevant considerations away. He had more pressing matters to examine. As he focused once again on the bubbles of power, he was taken aback noticing that about a tenth had vanished. How long had he let his mind wander? Time could become a fluid notion while meditating. In any case, if he wanted to try something, he shouldn’t delay.

He tried to move one of the bubbles. It obeyed without issue. At least, the layer made of his own power moved and the light—the speck of life force—was dragged along. He couldn’t exert any direct control on that speck, but the death magic acted as a repulsive force which kept the light in the center of the bubble. Interesting. Despite his interest, though, Merlin was starting to feel a headache. This kind of obscure magical applications was more of Shadow’s domain.

With a frown, he kept his thoughts from wandering in memories of the black dragon and tried to remain in the present. Still, that gave him an idea. What would Shadow have done? …aside from wanting to magically dissect me? He pondered for an indeterminate amount of time, bubbles slowly disappearing around him. However, his thinking was impeded by the burning pain tormenting his body.

Annoying! If only I could— Wait. What if… Struck by a sudden inspiration, Merlin mentally grabbed several of the bubbles—about a third of the remaining total—and dragged them across his body, towards his face. He winced as the death magic left a throbbing trail across his flesh, but after he redirected the bubbles to travel through his channels, the strain lessened. He vaguely recalled Elise telling him that blood vessels had always been a preferred alley to conduct magic for human mages. As beings of magic, demons didn’t have this issue, so Merlin had forgotten.

Another frown formed on his face. Clearly, if he wanted to ever use magic again at a decent level, he’d need to relearn everything. Actually, no, re-learn was false. He’d never learned to use magic. As Meriataneesh, everything had come instinctively, with as much ease as breathing. Not using magic had in fact always been the problem.

Essentially, Merlin was now trying to teach himself how to consciously breathe. He wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to do that. One thing at a time. You remember what Elise told you, and you raised that magic-fanatic of a reptile. You’ll figure it out.

While he pondered on these issues, the bubbles had reached his face. In the process, some got crushed and others burst, but the majority arrived at the destination. He spread them out, then paused. Here goes nothing. With a mental flick, he exploded all the bubbles he’d gathered.

He wasn’t prepared for the rush. “Sly Hielva!” His eyes snapped open, his meditative state broken by the intense surge of energy. It wasn’t magic—oddly enough. It was more akin to purely physical energy—as if he’d rested for hours and got all the profit of that rest in one single shot but only concentrated in his face. It was incomparably strange. He worked his jaw and twisted his tongue as if to get rid of the taste of uttering the name of the goddess of life. Even as a curse, it left a bad taste.

Soon, the diffuse corruption of death magic started spreading again. However, he could tell the parts of his face which had been affected by the life force were slower to become infected. He could feel the remnant of the explosion of energy permeating his flesh. Its power was fainter, but the impression of incompleteness in the life force wasn’t present anymore. A body? Did it need a living body to connect to? It would make sense that the life force needed a physical body to maintain itself—like fire needed fuel. Before, it had only held itself together instead of dissipating because the death magic had trapped it so completely.

Or at least, that’s what he thought was happening. Damned, I miss that stupid dragon. He’d have known what this was.

He blinked, suddenly realizing something.

“…I miss him,” he repeated in a daze.

The thought had hit him like a physical blow. Shadow…that dumb lizard… He missed him. He really did. He missed Shadow so much. Like a hole had been ripped inside his guts. And Sheila, that sultry, mischievous and twisted succubus. Even Zephyr, the nagging, stuck-up, know-it-all brat of a vampire. And Elise. Elise. Sweet, sweet Elise. So delusional and persistent in seeing the good in everything, even where there was none.

A single tear trailed down his cheek.

He missed them so much.

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, but it did. He’d known, at the back of his mind. He’d just never truly stopped to think about it. When they’d been there, there was simply no reason to. After his death, he’d first floated in the void as a nigh emotionless entity for gods knew how long, then other preoccupations had occupied his thoughts.

Now, however, he could only think about those four.

Four people, each very different than the other, whom a bored Meriataneesh had picked up along the way, trying to find brief distractions in her seemingly pointless existence.

Shadow. A dragon egg the Demon Queen had discovered under the corpse of its mother…whom she’d just beheaded. She’d kept the egg on a whim.

Sheila. The fallen queen of a tribe Meria had brutally subdued. Why had Meria spared the succubus life? Merlin still wasn’t sure, but he blamed libido.

Zephyr. A youngling of the vampire clan, so eager to become someone important, he hadn’t hesitated to sell his soul to the Scourge who was at the time ravaging the demon lands.

Elise. The princess of a decadent empire, willing to use the darkest fire to fight the flames of corruption burning through the country she loved more than life itself. A little girl, then a young woman, longing to save the world, even if she had to become consumed by that dark fire in the process.

Four small flames, which should have been mere flickers of candles in the endless existence of the Daughter of Death, but who had grown into strong blazes lighting up the boundless darkness that had ensnared her—that still ensnared him.

Four of the five beings to ever amount to anything in Meriataneesh’s eyes.

Now nowhere in sight.

Merlin didn’t know when he’d started openly crying. The tears were pouring down on his face. He bent down and hid in his hands.

At this moment, someone might have come into the room and kill him, he probably wouldn’t have resisted. Just what was the point? Dying today, tomorrow, in ten years, in a hundred, in ten times that? What difference did it make? He’d lived a millennium, and for what? He was alone, stranded in a foreign land, a foreign world, without any means to return to the few people who mattered to him, without knowing even if those people hadn’t, in fact, be part of a conspiracy to lead Meriataneesh to her demise.

He was alone, and so, so cold.

Merlin didn’t know how much time he spent wallowing in self-misery. Ironically, it was pain that snapped him out of it. A stab of pain in his guts brought him back. Almost wrathfully, he threw most of the remaining bubbles of contained life force at the pain. It vanished in an explosion of energy, stunning him for an instant and finishing to drag him back from his momentary depression. He still was feeling down, but his hunger for life was rekindling.

Reclining in his seat, he wiped the tears off his face and used what little bubbled life force he had left to sooth various aches. Over the course of the next minute, he manipulated it to heal all of the less critical but still serious sources of pain around his body. After the last of the life force was spent, he felt like a new man—not a man he felt fully comfortable being yet, but one he could endure being for a while longer.

He wondered briefly if he should have kept some life force around to experiment, but then he remembered how the lights had all been slowly extinguished by the bubbles containing them. Likely, they wouldn’t have lasted the day. Besides, the relief he was experiencing didn’t leave much space for regret at this very moment. He was still exhausted, sad, and weaker than he wanted to be reminded, but at least he didn’t feel like a walking corpse living on borrowed time anymore.

“Sir, are you feeling better?”

Merlin’s eyes snapped open when a voice echoed in the room. Then his eyes narrowed. He looked around, but could only see the two sofas facing each other, one low table between them and a flat screen hung on the wall to the side. He could feel no close presence either, which he found slightly unsettling. He could sense no spell either. Is this one of this world weird non-magical devices again? Ptaeesh. This is going to be troublesome in the future.

“Who is there?” he called out. He recalled that flat and feminine voice from somewhere, but couldn’t seem to place where.

“Greetings, Sir. My name is Asclepia. I was tasked by Master to ask you a few questions—if it does not inconvenience you?”

Merlin was on guard, muscles tensed. “Should thou not reveal thyself first?” It suddenly dawned on him that the mysterious woman had addressed him in that same language used by the people who had tried to capture him. Merlin’s suspicion abruptly peaked. He didn’t stand up from his seat, but he prepared to jump at any threat. The four presence he’d sensed earlier had yet to move any closer. “And how do thou know of this tongue?”

“My apologies. I have acted impolitely.” The screen on the wall suddenly lit up and a figure appeared on it, bowing in apology.

Silverwolf? Merlin raised an eyebrow in surprise. This was the first beastkin he met in this world, even if only through a communication device. He’d been starting to believe there were only humans here. The silverwolf woman—recognizable from the shiny gray triangular ears atop her head—was wearing an apron over a blue dress and a lace hairband. Digging through his memories, Merlin recalled this outfit for being a popular servants’ garb in some places of the Empire. I guess the rumors about it being first introduced by a hero were true.

The woman straightened and looked expressionlessly in Merlin’s eyes. “Once again, allow me to introduce myself. I am called Asclepia. My master took care of your wounds…” She marked a small pause at that, and Merlin didn’t miss the underlying message. He relaxed, but only slightly. The woman appeared to notice and continued. “My master tasked me with asking you a few questions. I waited for you to be in a state that allowed conversation before manifesting myself.

“As for the language I am speaking, Japanese, it is a language with more than 125 million speakers worldwide, primarily in the State of Japan, a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia where it is the national language. I am currently using Japanese because it is the language most closely matching the one you yourself are speaking, barred some archaism, and the only one you showed any comprehension towards during out prior interaction. Does this answer your question satisfactorily?”

“We talked before?” Merlin eyed the beastkin woman suspiciously. She was using many words he did not know. In fact, he’d missed about two of every ten words. It was to be expected, however. Although she had been one of the greatest polyglots of Zarath, the Demon Queen couldn’t have mastered all the subtleties of a dialect spoken only on some small and remote island. Moreover, this world’s version, even though it bore the same name, didn’t quite match the one Merlin remembered.

“Yes. We talked in the hallway twenty-three minutes ago. I directed you to this room. You seemed pretty out of it at the time, so it is understandable your memory of the event might be incomplete. On that matter, I would like to thank you officially on behalf of my master for the assistance you provided in disposing of those pests and covering for my shortcomings.” She bowed again. Merlin wasn’t too sure what to make of the situation, but it was a fact this woman was a very well-trained servant.

As for “providing assistance”, he had merely been awoken by a relatively strong killing intent, grabbed the first weapon he’d gotten his hands on and then disposed of the threat. It had all been reflexes rather than a conscious attempt at helping.

On a side note, there was actually no such thing as “killing intent”. It was more of an abstract notion, a mix of magical power fluctuations, small sounds and variations in the environment that notified one’s subconscious of a nearby danger. In Merlin’s current weakened state, and back then being barely conscious, he had reacted strongly to remove any menacing presence in his, whether directed at him or not.

He waved the thanks away. “It was nothing,” he answered honestly. “Thine master, is he that young mag…man?” Merlin coughed. He’d almost said “mage” but caught himself at the last second. This world’s people didn’t seem to understand magic. With a little logic leap, he deducted they might even see magic as a superstition, even though they were clearly mages amongst them. Some isolated tribes in Zarath had behaved that way, burning mages at the stake as “evil spirits” but worshipping their “shamans” using the “power of nature”. Merlin had no doubt stupidity knew no boundary, even across dimensions.

“Yes. Master is the young man you defended.”

Merlin judged useless to rectify he was only protecting himself. He wasn’t normally the manipulative type, but a little gratitude went a long way and he was in no position to dismiss any advantage he might gain—as long as it didn’t go against his few core beliefs. Surviving at all cost but losing himself in the process wasn’t something he fancied.

“So, thou art here to interrogate me,” Merlin stated, his tone guarded.

“Not in the sense I believe you are interpreting it. You are free to refuse to answer any question. My orders are to get a better understanding of your personality. A non-answer also brings its share of information depending on the question avoided.”

“I see…” Merlin raised an eyebrow. Sounds like something Zephyr would say. “And can I ask questions as well? There are several matters I desire to inquire about.”

The faintest hint of a smirk rose the side of the silverwolf maid. “I believe you have already started asking questions.”

Merlin scoffed. Snarky. I like it.

“But, yes, feel free to ask anything. Again, any form of interaction—”

“Also brings its share of information. I get it.” Merlin was starting to really appreciate this woman’s straightforwardness. Although maybe this was only an act to get him to lower his guard—hard to tell with the beastkin’s blank expression—but somehow, Merlin doubted this was the case.

“Firstly, I would like to confirm one thing. Is your name Merlin Pendragon?”

“Yes.” He had already decided to assume the identity of his body. “Why?”

“Simple confirmation. We found papers with this name in the backpack you had with you.”

The grimoires! Merlin straightened in his seat. “What about the books which were in the bag? Also, where did you find me exactly? What happened?” This question had been bothering him for a while.

“The books are in Master’s room. Feel free to ask for them whenever you want them back. Although, I am sure Master would like to discuss their content with you if you’d agree.”

Merlin nodded, not to acquiesce, but to acknowledge the demand.

“Concerning your second and third questions, you were found by friends of Master’s, unconscious and suffering from severe wounds, mostly broken bones, and burns, with also a large gash to your face. They brought you here. Master did his best, but there should be scarring. Any other question?”

Merlin closed his eyes and once again assessed the state of his body. There were definitely cracks in many of his bones. Considering the regenerative effects of life force, he could easily believe there used to be severe fractures.

“Your master. Is he a healer?”

“I believe ‘surgeon’ would be more appropriate.”

Merlin frowned. Those butchers? “How could a surgeon mend broken bones so fast? Is that his power?” He thought this much should be safe. Even without formal knowledge of magic, the young human had so much magical power, there was no way he wasn’t aware of it.

“Not exactly. He has come into possession of a healing salve with advanced regenerative properties.”

“A potion, uh? Makes sense,” Merlin muttered, mostly to himself. I wonder how advanced is alchemy in this world. The more answers he got, the more new questions were piling up. One step at a time. He wanted to ask about this world and the city he was in, but he didn’t want to reveal too much about himself. He guessed he could feign amnesia, but that idea made him uncomfortable. Deceit and lies went against his nature. Death was straightforward, honest, and in its own way, pure. Life was the treacherous one. At least, this was his opinion.

Anyway, if this beastkin’s words were true, he owed these people a great deal. Dying from such a little fight in some back alley would have put him in a black mood.

“You saved my life. You have my gratitude,” Merlin eventually said with the slightest of bows—the most he would ever lower his head to anyone. At the same time, he repressed a grimace at how odd the words felt to him. Acting polite and humble wasn’t something he was used to, no matter how much Elise and that smug bastard Zephyr had tried to teach her.

“You’re a queen, Meria, so at least try to act like the part!”

“Those niceties are a waste of time.”

“Well, if we’re going to meet with the Elven Council, why not show them you aren’t the mindless monster they see you as?”

“Someone remind me again why I can’t just tell those stuck-up pointy ears to join our army—”

“Alliance.”

“...why I can't tell them to join our 'Alliance' or I'll kill them? They know I can destroy that sacred tree-city of theirs whenever I feel like it.”

“Because, Meria, we’re trying to gain allies, not reluctant slaves.”

“O, for the love of—”

“I must agree with Lady Elise, Your Majesty. Diplomacy is probably the best way to deal with the elves.”

“You too, Zephyr?! Ah, whatever...Just get this over with!”

“Meria…”

“...Merlin?”

Merlin's head jerked up. He blinked in confusion before he finally recognized his surroundings—not the royal study in the Demon Castle, but a drab room with old couches and a beastkin on a communication device. He must have dozed off. Maybe he wasn’t as well recovered as he thought. “Could thou repeat the question?”

“I was asking whether you were willing to discuss the reasons of your layoff from NovaTech Industries.”

“…I would rather not.” As much as he was interested in the content of these documents he’d been handed by the NovaTech elders, there was too much of a risk to expose his lack of knowledge about…well…Merlin Pendragon. He tried to change the subject without being too conspicuous about it. “Asclepia’, does this name have a meaning?”

The beastkin titled her head, likely in puzzlement. She answered nonetheless. “It is a feminized version of Asclepius, a hero and god of healing in Ancient Greek Mythology.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“A god of healing, uh...” Merlin muttered, inadvertently slipping back to the demon tongue. His hand unconsciously moved to caress the gauze covering his face. “It is a rather interesting name, for a beastkin,” he couldn’t resist to point out.

Curious wasn’t exactly a word Merlin would use to describe himself, but one couldn’t live for centuries in the company of a dragon obsessed with research without picking up a few quirks along the way. Oddly enough, Meria’s interest had always been with languages. It had been sort of a hobby for the Demon Queen. It also tied in with one of her oldest memories, one of the few Merlin still had of the only person Meria had ever considered a sort of parental figure.

Amongst the many languages she’d learned over the years, the beastkin tribes’ naming sense had always aroused her interest for how convoluted it was. On Zarath, the tribal beastkins had names like Roaring Wind of the White Plains, Soft Feather Floats Downstream or Stable Rock atop the Cliff in the Sunlight of Late Spring. Really, Merlin still found it quite intriguing.

“I wouldn’t know whether it is strange. Master named me this way.”

“Did you not have a name before meeting him?”

“I have been with Master as long as I can remember.”

Merlin frowned a little at that. The silverwolf woman looked older than the human youth he’d caught glimpse of in the corridor. Granted, his vision wasn’t what it used to be, but not to the point of being misled that much. Amnesia? Or an appearance-alteration spell? An accelerate aging condition maybe, but that seems far-fetched. There was something that did not fit there, but he wasn’t sure how to ask about it.

Before he could make up his mind, however, something else stole his attention. Of the four auras that had been relatively stationary since a while ago, one was now walking in their direction. And it was that powerful young mage’s.

* * *

Percy staggered out of the operating room, feeling exhausted but relieved.

Chen would live. He would remain in a drug-induced coma for a least twenty-four hours and need several weeks to recover properly—especially that leg Percy had needed to reattach. Thank God, that cut was so clean. The cut had been so neat, in fact, that you’d swear the old man had been dismembered with a sheet of paper. At the very least, the injury screamed parahuman involvement.

That eye, though. Percy shook his head. There was nothing he could have done to save Chen’s left eye. In the first place, there’d been nothing left to save, only squashed eye juice. Now he would have to wait for Chen to wake up before asking if he wanted a prosthesis. Though, knowing the old man, Percy could already guess the answer.

Anyway, the old man would be fine—eventually. He was tougher than a rock. Alex and Sophia, on the other hand, might be the ones who’d need more time to recover, mentally. Especially Alex. The young boxer had been visibly upset by finding his mentor—and surrogate parent—in such a state. Percy had had to threaten to throw Alex out of the operating room to get him to calm down. Right now, the pair of husband and wife had fallen asleep in their chairs. Percy had decided to let them sleep.

As for Percy himself, he was upset too, but he’d seen many injuries in his short life, from mangled limbs to gruesome dead bodies, including the charred corpses of his own parents. He’d be okay—or at least back to usual. Although, that was only if he didn’t die from exhaustion. Even for him, used to sleep far less than it was probably reasonable, the past twenty-four hours had been a bit too much.

However, before he got his well-deserved long nap, Percy still had one guest to attend—a living mummy with the tenacity of a cockroach and the ability to kill a parahuman behind his barrier in one hit with a screwdriver despite being himself at death’s door. He’d let Clepia handle the man while he was busy with Chen, but he wanted to at least have a face-to-face conversation before he went to sleep. The man was interesting, and if possible, Percy wanted to forge a good relationship with him.

The teen also had a hidden, darker motive in befriending the stranger, an idea born from witnessing the ease with which the skeletal man had ended a life and then seeing Chen in such a battered state. If I can strike a deal with him… He left that thought unfinished. First, he needed to assess what type of man he had saved. No use wasting brain power on infeasible plans, more so when he was this tired.

At least, one positive aspect of his exhaustion was that his mind was working at a much slower speed than usual. Not the best condition to formulate tortuous Machiavellian plans, but perfect to hold a normal conversation. Trying to get words out could be such a pain when his initial thought would have changed three times by the time he’d translated it into speech.

Stumbling, Percy pushed open the door of the waiting room where he met his clients and have them wait while he worked. Percy normally didn’t allow people in his operating room, other than the patient. Chen, Sophia, and Alex were exceptions. As he entered, he was met with the gazes of both the skeletal man—who had striking emerald green eyes, he now noticed—and his AI assistant’s CGI avatar displayed on a screen.

“Master,” Clepia greeted him. The greeting was a bit redundant because she had been helping him silently during the operation and was always with him through his AR interface. But, if she liked to act this way, he wasn’t about to restrict her. He was actually rather fascinated by her increasingly defined personality.

“Hi, Clepia. And…err…” He looked at the man. “Merlin…that’s right?”

Instead of answering, the man turned to Clepia’s image and spoke a long sentence in a foreign language that caught Percy off guard. Japanese? He doesn’t look Asian, though. Percy could easily recognize the language—he’d watch enough Japanese animated TV series—but he didn’t speak a word. One would think that with a mind like his, he’d have picked it up by now, but a technopath brain worked in a very peculiar way. Percy’s ADD, which manifested whenever he tried to focus on something non-technological, made it a nightmare to learn something as complex as a foreign tongue.

He waited for Clepia to answer the man before asking, “What did he say?”

“He wanted me to extend his thanks for saving him.”

“Oh…sure…it’s no big deal,” he replied awkwardly, unknowingly mirroring Merlin’s earlier words. He scratched the back of his head. “Does he not speak English?”

“Apparently not. Also, his Japanese appears to be a very archaic dialect. Surprisingly, he’s been picking up modern Japanese at an astonishing rate. I could hear him improve throughout our conversation. I don’t believe he was doing it consciously. If I had to make a hypothesis, I would say he is familiar with languages.”

“A polyglot…who doesn’t know English?” Percy raised a skeptical right eyebrow. He didn’t have a left eyebrow.

Clepia frowned in response. “I admit this is…contradictory. I need to reevaluate my probability computation.”

“Ah…Well…He is a weird puzzle,” Percy said before he could stop himself. He sent a worried glance at the man. “Are you sure he can’t understand us?”

“Yes, Master, I am sure,” the AI answered with what he thought was an indulgent smile. She then turned to their guest and rattled off a long sentence in Japanese. The man nodded and reclined in his seat, making himself comfortable. Clepia “looked back” at Percy—she really was seeing everything through cameras. “Master, I informed Merlin that I needed to talk to you. So don’t feel uncomfortable with excluding him for now.”

“Ah…I see…” So his name really is Merlin Pendragon. Kind of cool. Despite how he lived and who he worked with, Percy was undeniably a teenager, one with a great interest in fiction, and not only sci-fi. He loved to read fantasy stories as well, including the Arthurian mythos. Although, he would read them in short sessions, only managing a couple chapters before his thoughts wandered off. That was how he’d come to enjoy online novels. The typically short chapters format suited him best.

“I see…” he repeated, blinking to get his focus back. With a twitchy smile, he walked further into the room and sat down in the free sofa. He could see Merlin eyeing curiously the exoskeleton encasing his legs, but the strange man made no comment. Percy returned his attention to the AI. “What have you got so far?”

“We actually didn’t talk much. He looked unwell, so I estimated best to allow him a period of rest before initiating the dialogue. Therefore I waited until he seemed ready, which was sixteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds ago.”

Percy nodded his understanding. “So? Anything pertinent so far?”

“From my impression so far—and I want to remind you this is based on a very short interaction—this man either suffers from delusions or has been a victim of mental manipulation. He doesn’t seem to represent an immediate threat, but future behavior is hard to determine with precision.”

“…eh?” This was all Percy could manage. He still hadn’t gotten used to how Clepia could throw around such statements with as much emotion as if talking about the weather. He cast a quick glance at Merlin, who looked quite calm and composed from someone supposedly mentally unstable. But then, the teen supposed strong delusions didn’t always automatically mean insanity. It depended on the delusions. Someone persuaded against all proof that the sky was sparkly pink wouldn’t be much of a danger for society. “That’s…err…quite an allegation, Clepia. Why do you think that?”

The AI rectified her impeccable dress and pulled out a clipboard—as if she’d been taking notes. “The first indicator of abnormality was, of course, the archaic Japanese. I made a fast research on the man named Merlin Pendragon. His online presence—including social media and others—is minimal, and I could find very little without breaking through securities and firewall beyond my capacity.”

“Clepia…” Percy warned warily. He might not consider himself a lawful citizen, but that didn’t mean he wanted his AI to start hacking into places like NovaTech, or worse. If possible, he’d like that she did nothing that could cause him trouble.

“Do not worry, Master. I did nothing against the law. I simply compiled information anyone could have access to…with a lot of time and a thorough mastery of the internet.” Percy was sure he hadn’t imagined the smug note in her tone. He certainly didn’t imagine the way she flicked a strand of her silver hair over her shoulder. “Anyway, nothing suggests Merlin Pendragon had any reason to learn a dead dialect. Moreover, he should have lived his whole life in the US and was born to a US family, which makes his lack of understanding of English illogical. This is what made me hypothesize his memories had been altered, willingly or through trauma.”

Percy frowned, trying his hardest not to look at their guest. “Could he be faking? Or could he be an imposter?” Mind-reading and mind-altering powers were globally repressed and rare, but shape-shifting wasn’t as strictly controlled.

“I ran every check at my disposal during our conversation. Nothing in his heart rate, nervous impulses or body language suggests any intent of deception. Also, all the images I found online match his features, barring his severe loss of weight. I cannot guaranty 100% he isn’t a fake, but I am 94% sure he truthfully believes everything he said. Hence why I lean towards memory tempering or issues rather than imposture.”

“Seems legit…” Percy scratched his destroyed earhole. “But a bit thin. Continue.”

She nodded and flipped a page on her virtual paperclip. “Second element. Earlier, when we mentioned his treatment, the words he used to inquire about you could literally translate to ‘magical physician’. Then, he used the word ‘potion’ to refer to the PXT-67. Finally, there are the books he was carrying, which pertain to the occult. This makes me deduce he believes firmly in the existence of magic. This deduction is further reinforced by how casually he mentioned these terms. It is as if he used them every day.”

“Believing in magic doesn’t make one a lunatic, Clepia.”

“Maybe so, but that is not the point. Also, he referred to me as a ‘beast-folk’, or ‘beast-kin’—I am not 100% sure of the translation—in a way that hinted his perception of such a beast-folk included a baggage of social norms, like he was referring to an existing species he was well-acquainted with. Lastly, he showed no surprise at my appearance or even any strong emotion. Again, like this was something totally normal and commonplace to him.”

The young technopath didn’t comment, only frowning, lost in thoughts.

“This is why I conclude Merlin Pendragon suffers from delusions associated with a partial memory loss. His sense of reality is flawed and he appears to mix reality with elements of fantasy.”

“……”

“Master?”

“He called you a ‘beastkin’?”

“Or some similar denomination, yes.”

“And you are certain he believes in magic and only speaks an old form of Japanese?”

“It is my deduction. Although…”

“Although?”

“He also said something that wasn’t Japanese, but it didn’t match any language in my database, even loosely, so I dismissed it as nonsensical gibberish.” Her face showed some contrition. “Did I commit a blunder, Master?”

“No, no… You did well, Clepia.” Percy reassured her, motioning as if to pat her head, then he nodded to himself and scratched his head. His mind seemed more alert all of a sudden and he was busy comparing hypotheses which were straining his own concept of reality. “There’s just no way…is there? No, but then…” he was muttering to himself.

“Master?” the AI inquired with a hint of worry.

“…the Surge? No, but…”

“Master?”

“…can’t be this cliché…”

“Master!”

His head jerked up. His one human eye blinked in confusion. “Eh? What?” Percy noticed Merlin was looking at him with a mix of amusement and circumspection. He coughed, embarrassed.

“You were mumbling. Please don’t show that kind of unstable behavior in front of strangers.”

I’m also unstable, uh? The teen guessed any human would appear at least a little mentally deranged to a computer. He smiled awkwardly with half of his mouth and pulled at his long black hair. “Clepia…this is going to sound silly, but please do what I say anyway.”

“Anything, Master,” she replied seriously. It actually eased some of Percy’s worries that she seemed perfectly fine with obeying him. He’d read too many stories about scientists creating true artificial intelligence not to be a little concerned this new, improved—and improving—Clepia might turn on him.

“Could you ask…Merlin…if the words ‘elf’, ‘dwarf’, ‘summoned hero’ or ‘demon lord’ mean anything to him?”

“Certainly, Master.” He could hear she didn’t understand why he was doing this, but she complied nonetheless.

As she did, Percy was fidgeting uncomfortably, his hands moving around scratching and tugging various parts of his body and clothes. There is just no way, is there? I’ll just make a fool of myself. Right, and then we’ll go back to figure out Clepia’s hypothesis. Summoned heroes and demon lords…Seriously. I am the one who’s getting delusional. I really need sleep. And maybe I should cut down on reading those online novels. I’ve already enough trouble staying rational as it is. Right. There’s just no way.

But, apparently, way there was.

Percy didn’t even need to wait for Merlin’s reply. Midway through Clepia’s question, he saw the man’s jaw tighten, his brows furrow and his muscles tense as the AR displayed his heart rate was picking up. He cast quick glances between Percy and Clepia’s image. He said something, his voice a low menacing growl. Clepia’s answer didn’t seem to appease him because his frown turned into a full-blown scowl and he started to rise from his seat.

Percy stared at this in bewildered confusion. Are his eyes turning black?

Clepia stopped talking in Japanese. “Level of aggressiveness rising. Master, please stand back. Initiating defense protocol one-five-six—”

Percy abruptly stood up and held his two palms up, one pointed at the screen and the other at Merlin. “Wow-wow-who! Clepia, hold on. No shooting people hastily. And, Merlin, I know you can’t understand me, put please calm down.” He tried his best not to sound authoritative. “I don’t know what upset you, but I’m sure we can talk about it like civilized people. Okay?” It was probably the most Percy had spoken in a long time, even though his speech was a bit too fast. Thankfully, Clepia took the initiative to translate his words.

Merlin continued to glare at them distrustfully for several, long seconds, before eventually sitting back down, but clearly ready to jump up any moment. He spoke one word that even without Clepia’s translation, Percy had no trouble inferring the meaning of.

“Explain.”

* * *

Merlin eyed the fidgety young mage suspiciously. The human looked tired, exhausted even, yet his magical power was still running rampant all around them. It was so unrestrained, it was almost indecent. But Merlin forgave him on account of not knowing any better. Barbarians. All of them.

At first, Merlin had thought to erect a thin barrier around himself, but he’d quickly noticed the magic wasn’t doing anything to him, so he decided to avoid using up his shallow reserve of power. The youth’s magic looked to be prodding the world around him with long, thick tentacles of power. The feeling wasn’t unlike that elderly human, Director Harris’ power, but this one felt more organic, less organized. It definitely appeared more chaotic.

For a while now, that young man—Percy was his name, Merlin had learned—had been talking about some kind of novels, fictions, stories.

Apparently, written tales describing different realities close to that of Zarath were a popular form of entertainment in this world. Although, it seemed to be considered entirely fictitious. Some of these stories came troublingly close to the truth—at least Merlin’s perception of truth— but others were wildly ridiculous. Stats? Levels? Experience? Systems describing your strengths and weaknesses in floating blue tables? Status windows? Were the story-tellers of this world in the habit of licking dream toads?

At first, Merlin hadn’t believed Percy. It seemed too much of a coincidence. Someone had arranged for his soul to be called here, to this world. That much Merlin was certain of. However, he didn’t know whom, or why. He’d assumed anybody knowing the truth about him would obviously be part of this plot. However, it seemed he’d been wrong. What this meant for him, he couldn’t tell. It might complicate his search—or help it. Maybe people would be more likely to believe and assist him if they had pre-existing knowledge of similar predicaments.

Although, from Percy’s explanations, the typical scenario of this stories most often involved a human from this world sent to another similar to Zarath instead of the other way around. The young man had summarized a few, as examples, and Merlin had to admit he found some funny—especially the ones where the summoned hero would tell the human king to go fuck themselves. He certainly wouldn’t have minded meeting any of those protagonists instead of that brainwashed puppet Saitou.

By now, Percy had mostly convinced Merlin of his sincerity. The former demon might never have been a great strategist himself, but he’d met with plenty of great manipulators in his time on the throne, and Percy was definitely not one of them. Therefore, either the human kid was telling the truth, or he was being manipulated by someone else. Merlin knew that if he started to second-guess everyone he met, he would soon turn into an insane paranoiac. Some people, like Zephyr, could live perfectly fine being constantly paranoid, but Merlin simply wasn’t made of that stuff.

For the moment, he’d decided to assume the kid was being truthful. Which raised the question: how had these stories come to this world in the first place. Certainly, it wasn’t impossible that people from Zarath had traveled here in the past. Merlin himself was a living proof this was at least feasible. He also couldn’t reject the possibility of creature crossing over from other but similar universes. If they were at least two worlds, there had to be more out there. If others beings of magic were in this world, he might eventually come in contact with them.

But this was a consideration for a later date. Merlin sighed, feeling tired. He rubbed his forehead. Again, the more he learned, the more confused he became. This was becoming really old, really fast. At least I’m learning something. That’s progress, I suppose. He tried to console himself with that thought, with mitigated success.

During the whole time Percy had been speaking and Asclepia translating, Merlin had barely said a word himself, only nodding and acquiescing to mark his understanding. He didn’t want to risk giving them any information they might use later to trick him. At his probing, they’d told him how they’d come to asking him about heroes and demon lords. Merlin had been ashamed at how much he’d revealed unintentionally while trying to be subtle. Sheila would so be laughing her ass off right now. He could also imagine Zephyr shaking his pale head in disappointment.

“…then there is also a trope­—”

“I get it,” Merlin raised a hand to stop the beastkin’s translation. Probably understanding the gesture, the young man stopped too. “So, in the end, why were you asking me this?” In passing, he noted he’d unconsciously adapted his language to match Asclepia’s.

The pair of master and servant exchanged a glance

“Well…Clepia was of a mind that you were either delusional or under the influence of mental manipulation…” Percy said, tugging on his sleeve, as Asclepia was repeating his words in Japanese.

It was a little strange how perfectly the beastkin would translate her master’s words, even keeping the pauses and inflections, like some sort of automated spell construct. And maybe she was. They’d tried to explain to Merlin that she wasn’t actually a beastkin—apparently humans were the only sentient race in this world—but many of the words involved Merlin couldn’t understand, so he just decided to think of her as a beastkin for now—and for the sake of his sanity.

And it was also almost funny how apologetic and awkward the young mage sounded. It was as if he feared Merlin might be offended. He wasn’t. If anything, the former demon found the reasoning very rational. Sure, it didn’t please him to be taken for a madman. However, if he’d met someone whose view of reality clashed with his own, Merlin’s first reaction too would have been to doubt that person’s sanity.

“She might be true, though,” Merlin replied charitably. After all, who could tell if all his memories from Zarath weren’t, in fact, fake implanted in his mind during whatever failed experience he’d tried at NovaTech. Maybe he really was Merlin Pendragon, the original, and he’d simply gone insane. Of course, down that road laid madness. And if he already was mad, he thought better not torture himself with trying to go against his delusion. Although, so far, there had been more practical evidence everything was real than otherwise.

Shaking his head to get rid of those pointless thoughts, Merlin refocused on what the human was saying. I should stop referring to them as human as if I wasn’t one of them. He made a complex expression, midway between cringe and smirk. Meriataneesh, Daughter of Death, Blightborn, Walking Decay and Harbinger of Pestilence, a human. Who’d have believed that?

“Yeah…well…maybe, yes. But Clepia thinks mostly in rational probabilities. She is a bit lacking in open-mindedness. Sorry, Clepia. And…the most probable answer is not always the right one…err…”

“So, what are you thinking?”

“I was thinking…that…maybe…err…you were from another world? Like…”

“Like in your novels.”

“Yeah…kinda…”

This was a critical juncture. Merlin could either deny the claim and leave—he didn’t think Percy would stop him—or he could admit the truth and see if he could make an ally out of the young mage.

Young but powerful mage, he added to himself, at least by this world’s apparent standards. As much as Merlin didn’t like to depend on others, he was aware that if he wanted to survive in this world, he would need allies. Well, I’m sure I could get by on my own, his pride couldn’t refrain from arguing, but it’d be a lot easier with some local trustworthy subordinates. And who better to serve as his first ally, than one of the five most powerful people he’d met in this world, and one unaffiliated with NovaTech.

Merlin rubbed his temples. All this talking and thinking was getting on his nerves. After finally escaping from the prison he’d been in, he dearly wished for some fresh air and exercise. Yet, he forced himself to refocus on the conversation.

“If…if I said you were right, how would you know I’m not just delusional like your…maid thinks?”

Percy scratched his cheek, the one that hadn’t been ravaged by fire. “Err…we could run some test, I guess?”

“Such as?”

“You could show us…some magic?”

Aren’t you a mage yourself? Merlin almost blurted out. But this was another world. He needed to burn this notion in his mind and start accommodating this world’s common sense.

Here, they believed magic to be a myth, even though they were using it so obviously. Also, he couldn’t really use magic without killing himself right now, so there went his proof. My proof went poof…hehehe…sigh. Well, I suppose…Could I show them some runes? The ambient magical power in this place wouldn’t be enough to activate even the simplest rune. However, if he poured in his pure soul power, it just might work. It was a little risky to play with the energy of his soul, but with his newfound control—born from the abyssal drop in the energy he had to manage—it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Ah. Or there’s that method too…I wonder if it would work here?

“I guess I could,” said Merlin, eventually, almost without meaning to. He’d been mostly thinking out loud.

Percy’s right eye widened, shining eagerly. “So you are from another world?!”

Merlin sighed. In for a copper… “Yes,” he sighed.

He wasn’t totally prepared for the enthusiasm with which Percy reacted to his admission.

The young mage nearly sprang up from his seat with a resounding “AWESOME!!” which was, very oddly, faithfully translated by the silverwolf woman.

“How did you come to our world? Did you step through a dimensional crack, a portal? Or did you reincarnated as a newborn? And in that case, where you human before? Or something else? Who were you? With this template, it would be someone important and strong who gets transported, right? Does that mean you were strong? You certainly have some skills, with how you killed that guy. Where you some kind of soldier? Or an adventurer? Wait, was there an adventurer guild where you come from? And…”

By the rotten teeth of the goblin king! Did I flip a switch in that guy? One instant the young human had been lethargic and awkward, the next, he seemed like Shadow interrogating a mage of an unknown school of magic or an indigenous from some remote tribe. That…is quite similar to this situation, now that I think about it.

“I…” Merlin tried to get a word in.

“Please wait, sir,” Asclepia interrupted him before he could finish a sentence. She then addressed her master. She said something Merlin couldn’t understand, which caused the enthusiastic Percy to suddenly quieten and turn pensive. Bloody damned rotten language. This language barrier was irritating Merlin more every time he hit it.

The beastkin turned back to him. “Sir, there is one thing my master and I wish to ascertain before furthering this discussion.”

Do you really need to use so many words? I swear, you and Zephyr must be twin souls separated in the cycle of reincarnation. Merlin stifled his inner frustration and answered as calmly as he could. “What is it?”

“On the basis that you actually came from a reality beyond our own, there is one issue that appears illogical to me and that I which you to clarify. The man known as Merlin Pendragon was clearly born in this world and country twenty-nine years ago, on the twenty-sixth of January 1998, to a couple of America citizens. Your lack of mastery of the English language suggests that you are not that person, yet you clearly are posing as him. So, my question is the following: where is or what happened to the ‘real’ Merlin Pendragon?”

“Could you not just ask that last sentence first without all this useless preamble?” he sighed.  There, he’d said it. This conversation was starting to weight on his nerves, so he decided to tell the short version. “The original owner of this body tried to summon my soul into this world. He failed. His soul was shattered in the process and I was stuck in his empty shell of a body. There is no ‘real’ Merlin Pendragon beside me in this world.” He was a little curious if they would believe him.

He waited for Asclepia to relay his words. Several expressions succeeded one another on Percy’s face. It eventually settled on understanding. This confirmed Merlin’s impression that this young human wasn’t a bleeding heart. He seemed quite indifferent that Merlin just confessed to basically killing and stealing someone’s body. Although that wasn’t exactly what had happened, it was an interpretation many would jump to, and humans tended to be touchy about killing their own, even though they did it all the time. Weird creatures, those humans.

Percy was twirling a lock of hair around his index finger. “So that’s how…Well, pity for the guy…though I am intrigued how he could summon anything in the first place…did he know magic?” His eyes shone at that. Asclepia had returned to translating anything her master said. Apparently, that included when he was talking to himself. The human suddenly looked up. “Wait. When did this happen exactly?”

“I’m not sure how much time exactly passed since my arrival, but I’d say at least more than twenty of your days?” It was an estimation based on his routine at NovaTech and how long he guessed he’d been unconscious. Anticipating the next question, he added, “I was detained for a while. When I got the opportunity to escape, I managed to get away but I got wounded in the process. I believe that’s when your friends found me.” He glossed over who had detained and tried to capture him.

Percy made another pensive moue. “More than twenty days…let’s say about a month…the Power Surge?” His eyebrow raised and he sent a meaningful glance in Asclepia’s direction before returning to Merlin. “Did that failed summoning cause the Power Surge?”

“I don’t know what you are referring to.”

“A huge shockwave that caused a heck of a mess and made parahumans pop up left and right?”

“Ah…Yes, that…seems possible.” Merlin recalled how he’d had to empty his soul energy to avoid destroying his new body. That would have caused a peak in the ambient magical power and, given the low levels of magic in this world, this might have resulted in the emergence of new mages—or “parahumans” apparently.

“Hmmm…Right, that’s not the most important right now. First—Hum?” Percy suddenly stopped talking, still looking towards Merlin but with his gaze focused on a point in the air between them. On his side, Merlin had noticed the second most powerful aura in the vicinity—although much weaker than Percy’s—had started moving in their direction.

A few heartbeats later, the door to the waiting room slammed open and a dark-skinned man barged in. His complexion reminded Merlin of the nomads of the Mabravzr Desert. However, those were also half the size of regular humans. This man was tall, about as tall as Merlin, and many times more buff. The enraged expression he wore didn’t presage anything good, in Merlin’s opinion. He was quickly proven right when the newcomer directed his glare at him and started shouting in that incomprehensible language most human seemed to use around these parts. English, was it?

The black man strode purposefully in Merlin’s direction, fist clenched and magic rolling about in his body, albeit without much—if any—control. His intentions were plain to see, although the reincarnated demon failed to understand the reason for this man’s ire. Not that he questioned it too much. During his past life, being hated had become a default sentiment Merlin had yet to stop expecting.

Percy stood up, moving to interpose himself. The other paused and shouted some more invectives, looking at the younger mage but pointing angrily at Merlin. Percy put a hand on the bulkier man’s chest to try and make him back off. It was almost comical seeing as Percy was almost as scrawny as Merlin and had narrower shoulders. If Merlin was a living skeleton, the young mage was a human twig. The man he was trying to stop looked like an athlete of some sort and didn’t seem willing to calm down, thus Merlin stood up as not to be caught sitting.

The movement caught Percy’s attention. He looked back briefly, and that minute distraction was enough for the athletic mage to push him aside. Percy stumbled and his waist bent down at an awkward angle. It appeared his strange leg-exoskeleton lacked the full range of movement of a human body. He lost his balance and collapsed against the wall. Asclepia screamed something, but Merlin wasn’t paying attention because his focus was held solely by the fist humming with magical power and rushing at his face.

The former demon grimaced. In his current state, even this little power, if turned into pure physical strength, posed a significant threat. Thankfully, the embarrassingly incompetent way in which the brown-skinned mage was waving his power around was like a child with a broadsword: dangerous if it hit, but unlikely to do so.  

As far as martial arts were concerned, though, the man’s form wasn’t horrible. The gap in experience was, however, just too big and the angry man was unable to properly use his magic to bridge that gap.

Merlin effortlessly sidestepped out of the way of the punch, grabbed the attacking arm and, with the faintest added pressure, used his attacker’s own force to twist the limb. There was light *pop* followed by a loud groan of pain and the man staggered backward. His arm was hanging uselessly at his side, dislocated.

Of course, this did not help calm him down. A second later, he came at Merlin again with his other arm. This punch had relatively more thoughts put into it but was still child’s play to the millennium-old fighter. This was especially true since the other party’s judgment was clouded by anger and—for what Merlin could tell—exhaustion.

Not in the mood for a meaningless brawl, Merlin decided to end it quickly. He evaded the punch and delivered a precise knife hand chop to the man’s neck. The brawny man fell limp to the floor.

At that moment, yet another shout came from the door—a shrill one this time.

Oh, by the gods! Stop screaming! What is it with you damned humans and noise?!

Merlin didn’t need to look to be aware of the new presence in the room. He looked anyway. It was another brown-skinned human, a female, slender, and with well-toned muscles—although more fit than athletic. One “notable” detail was that she was holding a metal club. She took one glance at the scene, Merlin standing up and the two mages on the floor, and raised her weapon. And not in a haphazard way. It was clear she knew how to use it.

In other circumstances, the ex-demon monarch might have smirked—he liked women on the fiercer side—but at this very moment, he felt far too tired for this shit.

Luckily, Percy hadn’t fainted during his fall. He called out to the woman and quickly started explaining things to her. Or at least Merlin assumed he did because the beastkin wasn’t translating anymore. All he had to go by was the woman’s expression, which had gone from resolute anger to confusion, back to anger again, to unreadable and finally settled on annoyance. Her glare was now directed on the unconscious man at Merlin’s feet.

A groan made him look in that direction. The other mage was coming to already. Too little force? Merlin had tried to avoid causing any lasting damage, out of consideration for Percy, but he still couldn’t completely measure the strength of his new body. He’d used to be mindful of not breaking stone by gripping too hard. This time, he seemed to have used too little force. He’d intended to knock him out for longer.

The man’s eyes fluttered open and Merlin stepped aside, unwilling to be close to him when he fully woke up. He didn’t know if he could properly restrain himself if the guy tried to attack him again for no apparent reason. His magnanimity only went so far.

Unsurprisingly, being knocked out had done nothing to put the athletic mage in a better mood. He jumped on his feet and immediately snarled something at Merlin while holding his dislocated shoulder. He would have gone for another punch if a shout from the woman hadn’t stopped him dead in his track. He pivoted to face her and shouted back. They started arguing loudly, with Percy occasionally getting a word in. Their voice reverberated against the walls of the small room, in a noisy cacophony of what was essentially gibberish to Merlin.

His head hurt.

He looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh. A sudden wave of weariness hit him. Some of that depression from earlier was coming back for round two. He felt as if the walls were closing in on him. He needed to get away from these noisy humans, away from the confusion, away from beastkins who weren’t beastkins and mages who didn’t believe in magic. He needed to sort his own mind out. He needed to get out of here.

“I’ll…I’ll go take a walk,” he said out loud, almost as if to confirm his own thoughts to himself.

Without waiting for anyone to reply—not that he’d have listened if anyone tried to object—he strode nervously out of the room. He was vaguely aware of Percy and Asclepia exchanging glances, but his focus was elsewhere. The windowless clinic, with its gray featureless walls, felt more and more like an oppressive grave.

He stepped into the corridor and noticed a door opening at one end, leading outside. The fresh air on his tender human skin was like the call of a siren. He let himself be carried by that call, and soon, he was standing in an alley, breathing in the cold evening. Looking up, he saw the sky for the first time. Yesterday, the dark clouds had been obscuring the stars. He choked down a sob. The sky had always comforted him in the past, but today, the single white moon and foreign constellations only served as a reminder of how lost and alone he truly was.

Letting out a shaky sigh, he lowered his gaze and took off into the dark streets, keeping his eyes on the pavement, not knowing where he was going.

But then, he couldn’t get any more lost, could he?

* * *

It took some time for the bickering couple to become aware that the object of their dispute had already disappeared.

“Uh? Where did he go?” Alex was the first one to notice. He looked around as if the skinny man had made so prestidigitation disappearance when really he’d just walked out the door.

“He left…about twenty minutes ago,” Percy supplied. He was sitting on a couch and looked to be contemplating with a distant gaze in his eye. Though, his occasional nodding betrayed he was actually dozing off.

“You let him leave?!” Alex bellowed.

“Yes? …Why not?” the teen replied with a nonchalant shrug.

“WHY?! Because of that bastard, Chen—”

Alex’s wife interrupted him with impatience, fists on her hips. “That’s what I’ve been telling you! Why would you think that man and Chen’s injuries are related? You know the old man got plenty of enemies.”

Alex whirled around and shouted, “It’s too coincidental! We pick up some strange man covered in blood, and that very day, that old geezer is nearly killed! I told him! I told him he’d get into trouble playing good Samaritan for everyone and anyone! But does he listen to me? No! Of course not! He’s just so—”

This time, the young boxer was interrupted by a resounding slap. Stunned, he raised his valid hand to his cheek and looked bewildered at his wife. Sophia, on the other hand, was glowering. “Do you mean Chen should have left us to fend for ourselves? When your father was beating the shit out of you and mine…” She shuddered and didn’t finish her sentence.

“No, no…of course not. But—”

She raised a hand to silence him. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her tone had softened. “Chen is a good man, Alex. Helping others is what he does. I know you worry—we all do—but you can’t shelter him from being himself. You might as well lock him up inside a cell and throw away the key.”

Her husband had a conflicted look. He didn’t look as angry anymore, but he still wasn’t admitting he was wrong.

“Alex, I know you’re upset. You’ve been with Chen longer than any of us. But you can’t let your emotions get the best of you like that. The man I married isn’t a brute.”

At last, the young boxer seemed to deflate. He sighed, “sorry.”

“As long as you understand.” She addressed him a gentle smile and stepped forwards for a hug. However, at the last moment, her smile turned into a malicious smirk. She grabbed Alex’s shoulder and yanked it back into place.

“OW!! You—!”

“Better do it sooner than later.”

“…I married a demon,” he mumbled while rubbing his numb shoulder.

“You said something?”

“What? No! No…ahem,” he cleared his throat and turned to Percy. “That still didn’t mean you should have let him leave like this, without questioning him. We did save his life.”

The teen lethargically looked at the standing boxer. He seemed ready to collapse from exhaustion. His black hair was covering the burned half of his face and his pale gray eye was unfocused. “I was doing that…but someone barged in and scared him away.”

“I said I was sorry,” Alex mumbled grumpily.

Percy looked away. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’ll be back. And I’ll be going to bed.” He stood up unsteadily and stumbled in direction of the door. With his waxy complexion and ravaged face, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Z-movie—as a member of the undead horde, of course.

“Wait!” Alex called out. “Are you so sure he’ll come back? Is it safe for Chen here?”

Percy stopped at the door and leaned against the frame but didn’t look back. “Chen is safe.” He didn’t mind the question. Alex wasn’t privy to all the security measures in this place. Sophia knew a little more, not everything, but enough that she never doubted this was the safest place in all of the Old City for the old man. “And he’ll be back. He forgot his books.”

On that cryptic note, the young inventor was gone.

* * *

Voices and cries broke the relative silence of the city night. Merlin’s erring feet stopped and he raised his head, blinking confusedly like someone just waking up. He looked around. On both sides of the streets, brick houses clustered together, taller than they were large, many with broken windows. The entire area permeated an impression of decrepitude. Trash littered the pavement.

A joyless smirk lifted Merlin’s lips at how his surroundings perfectly reflected his mental state.

He didn’t know where he was, although that was nothing new about that. He didn’t know how long he’d been walking aimlessly either. It could be long, it could be small. He’d lost all notion of time as he dwelled on darker thoughts. It was still night, or maybe late evening, at least sunrise seemed nowhere in sight. He had yet to fully grasp this world’s day and night cycle.

“…o.”

“…ut..up.”

“…itch.”

Again, there were the noises that had caught his ears in the quiet night, accompanied by the sound of ripping clothes. His dispassionate gaze moved to a narrow alley, barely a crack between two houses. Not really thinking, or caring, he approached the alley and looked inside. His human eyes had terrible night vision, but in the orangish light of the lampposts, he could distinguish the shadows of three people: two men, and one woman.

The situation was as expected at this time and place. The woman had been forced against a wall. Her clothes were hanging from her in ripped shreds. The men wore hoods. One was holding her arms up above her head, while the other had taken position behind her and was fumbling with his belt while also tugging clumsily at her skirt. From the sounds the woman was making, Merlin guessed she was gagged with cloth stuffed in her mouth, and likely not enjoying this event. He could even clearly imagine how deep in her throat the gag had been shoved.

Centuries of acquaintanceship with a succubus brought all sorts of miscellaneous knowledge and generally useless skills. Of course, Sheila would disagree on that last point.

Merlin watched the scene unfold, not particularly caring about remaining hidden. The first to spot him was the woman. As soon as her eyes fell on him, they widened…in fright. Merlin was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt adorned with skull and dark blue pants, which he assumed belonged to Percy. This garb was less baggy than his “own” old clothes had been, but it still hung loosely and askew on his bony frame. Appearing in the night, with his bandages and skeletal feature, he could guess how nightmarish he must have looked to the poor girl.

But soon fear was replaced by hope. In her situation, even a nightmarish scarecrow must have appeared like a knight in shining armor. “MMMMH-MMMH!!” She tried to scream, probably for help. Of course, her actions were noticed by the duo of wannabe rapists. They turned, following her gaze, and were startled by the strange man standing at the entrance of the alleyway. They exchanged a glance, then appeared to come to an understanding.

By then, Merlin had already started walking away. This had nothing to do with him and he felt no desire to watch. After knowing Sheila for so long, any rape with less than the succubus’ personal flair was a bland spectacle to the former demon.

A wry smile graced his lips. Not for the first time, Merlin thought that Sheila and Elise, in their own very different ways, had spoiled him for the pleasures of the world. No matter what he did, how many women he met, if he kept comparing them to the perfections of lust and beauty, he was doomed to dullness.

“Hey, you! Come back here!”

A shout rose from behind him. He didn’t need to understand to recognize the inflection of an order and guess the meaning. Yet, he didn’t stop, nor did he increased his pace. Fast steps caught up to him. One of the two thugs passed Merlin and stopped before him, “blocking” his way. By the predatory smirk and the dark glint beneath his hood, the stupid man was thinking something very unlikely to end up as he’d expected.

Merlin thus wasn’t surprised when the blade of a knife appeared in the man’s hand.

“Your wallet, mate. Now.”

Merlin sighed. He could deduct two meaning for the thug’s words, and only a single likely one. He somehow doubted his current appearance held any sexual appeal to human males. If the booklet he’d recovered in “his” old residence was anything to go by, standards of eroticism in this world shouldn’t be too different than on Zarath. So money it is? He sighed again. Stupid humans not knowing their place. I guess some things never change, no matter where. That thought didn’t bring any levity to his mood, however.

The former demon couldn’t be bothered to deal with the useless waste of breathable air in front of him. He was about to knock him out and continue…when the idiot actually rushed him. Probably Merlin had waited too long without reacting. Dumb AND impatient. It’s a wonder how these kinds of leech even survive long enough to become troublesome.

Turning his hand into a talon, Merlin reached for the hand wielding the knife. The blade passed harmlessly between his fingers and he tightened his grip on the fist, then twisted. A loud crack marked the wrist snapping. The knife clattered on the pavement and the thug collapsed, whining and holding his wrist in pain. Merlin graced him with a disdainful glance.

Weakling.

“Bastard!” There was a loud thud when other thug dropped his victim to come avenge his comrade. Not even bothering to sigh this time, Merlin bent down to pick up the knife. As soon as the young man arrived in range, he was surprised to feel cold steel enter his throat sideway. He dropped to the pavement, twitching and choking in his own blood.

Merlin turned to finish off the first thug. His screams were starting to become annoying. He kicked his forehead, then stepped hard on his throat, crushing his windpipe. Another kick knocked him out. He wouldn’t wake up, ever.

A cold wind blew on the street. Merlin shivered. His eyes fell on the two men’s hooded sweaters. One was soaked in blood, but the other was only dirty. In any case, they looked warmer than his shirt, so he had no qualms with disrobing the unbloodied thug and taking the piece of clothing for his own.

A noise from the alley caught his attention. He peeked back in. The woman was trying to stand up. He hadn’t noticed before, but her hands were bound behind her back by some kind of scarf. With a sigh, he walked up to her, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her to get her back against the wall. He wasn’t gentle, so she let out a muffled moan of pain. Roughly, he ripped out the gag.

She coughed and tried to catch her breath. He crouched down to be at eye-level. She looked up at him and their eyes met. Hers were mud brown, and shining with an abject gratitude. She was mumbling in a loop something that had to be thanks. Expressionlessly, Merlin took her head in his hands.

And twisted.

The limp body of the woman collapsed on the dirty pavement. Still crouched, Merlin considered her an instant. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said pointlessly to the corpse using the demon tongue. Then he stood up, his eyes as dead as the woman.

See, Elise. No matter where, no matter when, people always abuse the weak and grovel in front of the strong. Even in another completely different world. That’s simply the natural order of things. He looked up, staring into the single white moon and feeling some likeness to the lonely celestial body. If you were here, love, would you try to change this world too? Why even concern yourself with the well-being of insects? Why try to save everyone just because you can? He took a shaky breath. ...I can’t.

Shaking his head, the lonely man left behind the three corpses and continued his aimless wandering.

* * *

9 October 2017. Justice City. Old City. Clear Joy Park.

Elsewhere in the city, in a small park spanning less than seven acres, a man in a purple suit stepped out of the shadow of a tree. His narrowed eyes surveyed his surroundings. The ground was mud and weeds littered with trash rather than grass, the trees were sickly and wild, and the playground had long since turned into a hazardous mass of twisted and rusted metal—a tetanus paradise.

Seeing as no one had witnessed his arrival, he took out his phone and gazed at the screen.

On a map of the area, the park was represented by a vaguely trapezoidal green shape. In a corner of that shape, there was a red dot blinking. The man raised his head to stare at the real area corresponding to the dotted spot, where stood a small man-made hill. He put the smartphone back in his pocket and walked towards the earthy elevation, taking care not to step in anything that might soil his leather shoes.

He circled around clod and came to a stop. “Ehhh…That’s a five-star suite you’ve got there, mate.” The inside of the small hill was hollow and occupied a sort of decorative chapel. The statue of the Virgin Mary, though headless and cracked, still stood near the top of the three-foot-high grotto. On the stone floor, on a bed of newspapers and amongst empty beer cans and food wrappers, a body was laying down, unmoving, not even breathing.

Uncaring for the corpse before him, Carrier fished out his phone again. With a swipe across the screen, he zoomed in on the park until the map only showed his exact location. The red dot still indicated the chapel. “Is that thing even working? I know Merlin looks like a walking corpse right now, but that’s a bit too much, isn’t it? This guy isn’t even walking.” He groaned and stepped closer to the dead body. It was curled in a fetal position. It was obvious he hadn’t passed away peacefully.

With a grimace of disgust, Carrier rolled it with his foot to get a better look at its face. When he did, he sucked in an admirative breath. “Well, suck my daddy. What got you, buddy? Looks like Death itself caught you.” The face of the corpse looked like that of a blackened mummy. The skin was dried and necrosed, clinging to the skull beneath like coarse paint and peeling back to uncover rotten teeth. By moving the body, Carrier had caused patches of hair to fall off. It was hard to determine the sex of the thing, but judging by the tattered clothes and the life-expectancy of females on the streets, Carrier guessed the disgusting mummy had to be male.

“Seriously, what happened to you?” he mumbled more seriously. The Black Lotus prided itself in its information network, but Carrier had never heard of any parahuman in town who killed this way. This was an unknown, and he didn’t like unknowns. Unknowns got people killed. Others people, he didn’t give a fuck. But he personally wished to remain very much un-killed as long as possible.

Noticing a light through the dead man’s clothes, Carrier took out a latex glove from his pocket and put it over his right, leather-gloved hand. “I’m not letting this gross thing anywhere near my Dents.” He crouched and reached inside man’s pocket. “Ew. Fucking hell. This will be easy, they say. A cushy job, they said. Deliver the goods and observe the situation, they said. I’m  so going to punch these old—Heya! Hello, you~?”

Pulling back his double-gloved hand, he was holding a doubly red phone. Why doubly? Because its backside was red and it was also covered in red dried blood. Carrier stood up and checked the screen of his own phone, then he popped the back of the bloodied device, revealing a small tracking chip fuses with the circuits. “Yep. This is Merlin’s.” He made a show of staring at the corpse, then of looking around. “But, this, is, not, Merlin! Where is that wizard? I see no Emerald City around. Ah. No. Wrong reference. Hihihihi." Carrier’s giggle held a thinly veiled chime of insanity.

Voices and footsteps caused his mouth to snap shut. From behind the hill, he could hear a noisy group approaching. Judging by the shouts and laughter, they had to be either drunk or high. Probably both. And probably young.

“Tsk. Interlopers.” They were coming in his direction. “What, do, I do?” He could easily deal with them, for example by dropping the whole group over the river, but he suddenly had an idea.

He gazed down at the horrifying corpse. Somehow, Merlin’s phone had ended up in this dead bloke’s possession, either stolen or given away to avoid tracking. But visibly, something had gotten to him before Carrier. It really pained him that the tracking device only worked when the phone was on because it used the phone’s own network connection.

Ideally, Carrier should bring the body back to the Black Lotus to try and figure out who and what had killed it. If someone else was after Nemesis’ brother, they needed to get as much information on that person as possible. 

But, Carrier knew well that he’d be the one the old Jap would send to track that mystery schmock down. That’d be dangerous, obviously. And Carrier disliked danger. Dying was a very unpleasant affair. He fancied himself as a refined manipulator, so, of course, getting his hands dirty was beneath him. Unless he just teleported people to their doom, which didn't count as “getting his hands dirty” because he didn’t need to actually touch anyone. 

His mind made, he raised his voice in his best panic impression. “Help! Someone! Murder!” The drunken group’s voices abruptly stopped. Carrier repressed a chuckle. When the voices rose once more, they were louder than before and getting closer faster. 

By the time the nine intoxicated young men and women discovered the corpse, the teleporter was nowhere in sight. They were shocked by what they found and started to panic—them for real. Amidst their confused shouts and exclamations, a voice loudly suggested they should call the police. After some more confusion, they eventually did.

Later, when the officers would interrogate them, none would be able to recall who had made that suggestion.

* * * * *