'Ack!' Randy grabbed at his chest, making something in his left breast pocket jingle. The FREAKSHOW agent stumbled on shiny black pointed shoes, but it was all theatrics. I could tell, even without using Mimir's sight.

The man had more strength in every finger than I had in my whole body. There were very, very few things on Earth he couldn't walk through, never mind trip over, and the Roundhouse's tiled courtyard was not among them.

'How could you say that, Clyde?' Randy gasped, lips trembling, a single, shining tear trailing down his right cheek. 'You are lucky Hans wasn't here to hear you. But I'll tell him, oh yes I will. He doesn't see himself as Hell, he-'

'Identifies as "a fucking threat! My pronouns are try/me!" ' Dust Devil said with the air of someone quoting something he had heard far, far too many times. After fiddling with his left revolver, he stuck a liver-spotted, thick-fingered hand in one of his long coat's pockets, taking out a toothpick and putting it in his mouth.

I wasn't fooled by his appearance, either. He, just like Randy, Armament and Breakout at her baseline, was just as powerful as Szabo, able to turn continents to dust with single strikes and move at lightspeed. He might have appeared old-and probably was, given the claims of him being  that Clyde's son, not counting the stories of him predating the robber by decades-but he was not weak, in body or spirit.

Dust Devil caught me looking at him and stared back blankly, until I caught the hint and looked away, causing him to smirk thinly around his toothpick.

'Where's Brazillion?' the gunslinger asked, both hands on his pistols. 'Not that I give a damn 'bout 'im, but I'd rather not be whined at 'cause I didn't wait for everyone promised.'

'Careful, "human",' Vykt burbled, sounding amused, especially once the old man gave him a look that could cut steel. 'With talk like that, you might end up with more companions than you can stomach.'

'Indeed,' came a baritone tinged with a faint Welsh accent, sounding like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere. Then, Bedivere was suddenly in the middle of the yard. He hadn't teleported, or arrived through a portal. He had just entered the courtyard faster than I (or, judging by their suddenly-stiff stances, Szabo and the Fivefold) could see. Sam and the FREAKSHOW agents stood up straighter, but didn't seem shocked, nor did the Knights, though I'd argue the latter were simply used to this.

The Grandmaster of New Camelot didn't look too impressive, when seen with physical eyes. Muscled enough, but a head shorter than me, and wearing the same armour as his Knights, only distinguishable by his Union Jack cape. And, of course, the famous missing hand.

But, metaphysically? Bedivere was a font of faith-not just in God, himself or the country and ideals he fought for, but in humanity itself, and I don't just mean the species. Hope, clean and bright as a torch in a dungeon, radiated from his aethereal self.

It was said that, after returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, the old knight had retired to a monastery, to contemplate God and the life he had led. No one knew how he had survived to modern times, as he wasn't a faithcrafter, mage or any kind of supernatural, as far as anyone could tell. The old man spoke of faith and clean living when asked, always with laughter bubbling beneath his words.

'Let us not tempt fate, gunslinger. She is fickle, after all. I am sure our mathemagician will arrive soon.'

'You are wrong, Grandmaster. I'm already here.' The man suddenly leaning on Bedivere-which looked fairly comical, given he was two heads taller-was tanned, wearing black boots and dark green fatigues, with Brazil's flag over his heart. The mage had a Brazilian, which represented a third of his triple pun of a name.

Brazillion: the Brazilian with a Brazilian, who could multiply or divide anything, from matter, objects and people, to concepts and the potency of abilities. And something told me his arrival had been an exercise of his magic, going by the aetheric ripples, which would have been imperceivable to me without Mimir's sight.

'Actually!' Brazillion said, holding up a finger a few centimetres from my eye, causing me to look up in surprise. The mage smiled toothily down at me, brown eyes crinkling. 'I just slid iiiiinnnn...you dig? I'm just as fast as either of them,' He pointed over his shoulder, at Dust Devil and Randy, with a thumb. 'When I'm not boosting myself. Speaking of...'

'Why isn't Clara here, anyway?' Brazillion asked, pouting, head tilted to one side as he leaned towards Dust Devil. The older-looking man snorted, putting a hand on the mage's aquilinine face and pushing him away. 'We could do with some powers that ramp up  passively! Mine's thought-based. If some big ugly offs me, it'll be because I was too slow too react, and then y'all will be in big trouble.'

'Oh, yeaaaaah~' Randy grinned, putting an arm around his colleague's shoulders. 'We won't know what to break out first!'

Any of the three could rip Earth's mantle off like a flimsy tablecloth, so I'd like to think my worry at their standoff was understandable.

And then, Brazillion's pursed lips began trembling, while Randy shook, as if shivering. Dust Devil lowered his hat with a grin, pushing his hat down while biting harder on his toothpick.

As they began laughing in unison, I realised it had all been posturing.

'Clyde!' Brazillion put his broad hands on Dust Devil's shoulder after unsubtly shoving Randy away. 'I haven't seen you since Collechio!' The mage looked him up and down, then wrinkled his hooked nose, sniffing. 'You've got old.'

'I look half my age,' Dust Devil replied. 'And, unlike some people who need to multiply their lifespan, I'm honest-to-God immortal.'

'Too bad you can't multiply your qualities...'

'I'd need some first, wouldn't I?'

***

After the meet-and-greet was done, Brazillion, Dharma-the little old man from Karma Delivered- and the FREAKSHOW agents wanted to kick back and swap stories of their time in the World Wars, but Bedivere reminded them that they were here for a job, then summoned them and us to his office.

'I'd be helping our mages open the way into Faerie,' the Grandmaster said as we alternated between ascending and descending a spiral staircase, with the walls pressing in so close even the Fivefold's shoulders brushed against them. The bigger ones had to walk sideways or shapeshift, if possible. 'But after I came in and tried kicking down the door-metaphorically-they more or less told me to go sit in a corner and take my meds. I don't even take any...' the Knight sighed.

'Heeeeey, Braz~?' Randy cooed. 'How come you were so laaaate? You used to always be the first in and out...'

'Yes, well, women scare me,' the Brazilian said, hands in his pockets. 'I would have come faster, but I ran into Bushi in the aether.'

'Bushido from the Rising Suns?' Szabo asked, having thinned himself to the point we actually looked like we could be brothers, an interested glint in his black eyes.

'Mhm. He's never been a good fit for a defence organisation, but Kenji keeps old war friends around, especially when they don't want to leave,' Brazillion chuckled. 'He's the reason I was thinking about escalating powers, actually. You know how it is, you get shot and start dreaming about bullets...I think you'd all enjoy meeting him, if you haven't.'

The guy who thought not being Japanese was a disease only curable through cavity searches and decapitation, not necessarily in that order? I fucking doubted that. At least most paranoid bigots couldn't cut Eurasia in half  before jumping in power by orders of magnitude when pressed.

But then, that's the Bushido spirit for you. When such an idea empowered a maniac like Hunger and Beasts did Sam, some extremism was expected.

'Did he fight you?' Vykt asked excitedly, crawling along the underside of the staircase.

'He tried, yeah,' Brazillion winced. 'Claimed there was no way to know I wasn't some eldritch monster in disguise, so I best bend over and spread 'em, in the name of glorious Nippon.' The mage wiggled a hand at the looks he received. 'I'm paraphrasing. And...censoring. Anyway...no, we didn't fight. I managed to convince him there were enemies  far worthier to be slain in honorable combat than I was, out there in the multiverse and beyond. In truth, I was hoping he'd run into Breakout and they'd tie each other up, like they usually do when they meet.'

'Thaaaat didn't happen, pal,' Randy snickered, his glasses' rainbow, heart-shaped lenses taking on the appearance of a mirror's surface...or a telescope, maybe. 'Clara busted some gribbly heads, then ran into this guy who just keeps getting stronger and angrier...uh, so does she, but she's naturally pissed.'

'Stronger and angrier...what, the green one again?' Dharma asked, brow furrowing as I half-turned to look at them in disbelief.

'Nah, naaaaaah~... another one...apparently a dragon, though looks human. Damn if I know  why they're fighting, though...they're both nimrods with bleeding hearts, who can't stand to watch the lil' guy get hurt...honestly, they should be fuckin', not fightin', but dragon boy doesn't have the equiiiiiiipment!' Randy threw his head back and laughed, receiving a clout behind the ear from Dust Devil that shook the entire staircase, creating ankle-deep cracks that, thankfully, quickly repaired themselves.

Given the fact that, due to the Roundhouse's space-bending interior, the enchanted marble staircase was hundreds of thousands of kilometres long, enough to wrap around the Earth several times, that was pretty impressive.

'Owiieeeeeee~' Randy whined, rubbing a small bruise that healed as I watched. 'Could've just told me to stop, Clyyyyyde...'

'Could've not talked. Y'know Breakout hates that shit.'

'Yeah, yeah, married to the country...'

'I meant that she hates when people talk about 'er private life, you glittery bozo.'

'Well, screw both of ya! It was a joke-'

'Forget that!' Szabo thundered, grinning. 'Is this 'green one' who I'm thinking of?'

Don't steal my thunder just because you're curious too!

***

Bedivere's office was on a lake.

No, this was not one of those newfangled "open to interpretation" movie titles the youths spoke about to scare innocent old men like me. It was the truth.

The mirrorlike surface of the lake extended beyond either horizon, far further than I could see with my mundane sight, and, even though the water was clear as crystal, I couldn't see the bottom. It was almost impossible to distinguish from the cloudless, sunless yet somehow blue sky.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

'And here we are...for all our sins,' Bedivere said, tilting his helmet slightly at the sky, then began to sit down on nothing. Halfway through, water rose up and shaped itself into an armchair, which left both his armour and his cape dry. The Grandmaster took off his helmet for the first time since I'd seen him, revealing deep green eyes shining in a lined, pale, hollow-cheeked face. His white tonsure and bushy beard made him look more like a monk than a Knight, though, in truth, he had been both, at various points of his life.

'Vyrt is conferencing with the other Masters,' Bedivere said, not looking at any of us. 'He's not going to..."Mum and Dad are fighting again"?' The Grandmaster closed his eyes, sighing. 'Please do not call them that, Lady Theo...however accurate it is. And stop distracting me.' The old man glared down at the lake, tapping his foot on the surface. 'You two! Stop "fighting"-and this better not be an euphenism, or so help me God-and come here! We've already lost any semblance of professionalism, let's at least try to fake dignity!'

I was about to ask if Merlin wasn't really imprisoned, when the mage himself appeared put of thin air, warping the lake as he arrived. Water became loam covered in dark grass, from which rose twisted trees, with leaves so green they looked almost black, covered in patches of throbbing, shifting moss.

Merlin wore a pair of dark blue pants and a shirt that mimicked a human torso, with a grisly, gaping wound reaching from the navel to the left shoulder, half of the guts gone and the rest in the process of spilling. In the upper right corner, the Black Knight stood, armless, claiming it was just a flesh wound. Bedivere's face fell at the shirt, going through an interesting range of colours, but the Grandmaster said nothing.

Over it came a coat that looked like the void of space, stars and nebulae slowly drifting across it. The mage's skin was leathery, pale after fifteen centuries away from from the sun, and crystal chains were wrapped around his ankles, wrists and neck.

An inverted pentagram, I realised. That was the shape the chains made, two rising from the ground, two passing through trees and bushes, and one stretched into infinity above Merlin's head. The symbol that bound his half-kin, evoked by the magic he had created and his student had perfected.

Merlin's eyes were blank and blazing white-his uncle's eyes, on some days. He took us all in before his burning gaze settled on me, and his mouth began twitching in his long white beard. His hair, just as long and white, and actually intertwining with the beard, swayed when he shook his head.

'Ahh...' Merlin grinned, rubbing his forehead with two fingers, head bowed and eyes closed as he grinned. 'If it isn't my future other headache. Say nothing, David. Please.'

I wasn't about to oblige his request, but the next arrival, who parted the waters as she rose, quickly drew all attention away, including the mage's.

Depending who you ask, you'll hear Nimue described as a fairy, the goddess of some lost, pre-Flood civilisation, or an alien. The Lady of the Lake said people got farther from the truth with every theory-so please, keep them coming.

The Lady was taller than me, though a head shorter than her former teacher, and just as pale as him, with deep blue eyes, no pupil or iris and long, wavy black hair. She wore a dress made of the lake's clear water, but which revealed nothing. I heard Randy blow a disappointed raspberry at the sight, and saw Merlin shoot him a glare that probably  would have killed most people, sealed power or not. It slid off the American like water off a duck's back.

'The path is almost open, Grandmaster,' Nimue said. 'My students are doing as much as can be asked. Unsurprising, of course-they had a good teacher.'

'Too bad she's delusional,' Merlin stage-whispered, cupping a hand around his mouth. 'Not even I could teach her to be good.'

'So, the Sword is not needed?' Bedivere asked, ignoring the cambion mage.

Nimue's smile was more relieved than smug when she answered. 'I have not given it back, and hope I will never have to. On that note...' The Lady looked at Randy, then changed her mind and settled on Dust Devil. 'Tell your colleague to never, ever suggest mass replication of Excalibur again. The consequences for causing such an imbalance of power would be...literally unbearable-for everyone.'

Dust Devil chewed thoughtfully on his toothpick, which was half-gone by now, for several moments. 'I suppose hoping we could just win every conflict with the swords' victory power would be too much?'

'Arthur won at Camlann, and died shortly after. So, yes, it  would be too much, even disregarding the butterfly effect,' Nimue said, folding her hands in her lap after sitting down in the chair that formed for her.

'I  did tell him the scabbard was worth ten swords,' Merlin said, sitting down, chains shortening, but not slackening. 'But he never listened to my advice when it mattered. Then again...neither did I.' He glanced at Nimue, who smiled enigmatically back. 'Anyway...the sword is too powerful to be tampered with or replicated. Forging it was the only worthwhile thing the watery tart over there ever did.'

'You admit you are worthless?' the Lady asked, raising an amused eyebrow.

Merlin bared his fangs. 'I will find whoever made "doing" an euphenism for fornication, and-'

'Are you sure you couldn't free him?' Sam cut in, looking at Nimue while pointing a talon at Merlin. 'We could use more power. And freeing him in the first place would-'

'While I did build Ambrosius' prison,' at the sound of that other name, the cambion rolled his eyes so hard they actually came out of their sockets, flying in a blazing arch through the air before taking their former places. 'It has grown beyond my power and knowledge. Much like the Sword of Promised Victory.'

'Everything you handle becomes too much for you after you let go,' Merlin said with a condescending smile.

'You being the exception, of course.'

'Damned-'

'Enough of this circus!' Bedivere snapped. 'This is taking me back to the bad old days. Now, to business.'

Fairie, just like zmeu country, was a magical realm (did we dare we enter it?) of infinite size, whose environment, flow of time and laws were subject to the inhabitants' whims. And, while we might have had some information on the Seelie Court's strongholds, the Unseelie, being consummate anarchists, moved across the endless landscape constantly, building nothing.

And, with both Courts working together, everything in Fairie would be working against us. The fact they seemingly hadn't tried to stop us as we battered down their gate had everyone convinced we were walking into a trap, but there was no other alternative. The eldritch monsters would keep coming until we purged their lairs, but the Fae were a finite enemy, and closer to us in thought: they could be threatened, bribed, negotiated with-the order of what we would try, actually.

Although...

'Excuse me,' I said, leaning forward, elbows on my knees, not liking the weird, jelly-like feel of my water chair. 'But why isn't the Fixer living up to his namesake and ending this mess? He's a Miskatonic agent-dealing with breaks in reality is his specialty...'

I trailed off, as my audience's expressions varied between blank incomprehension, confusion, and attempts to see if I was joking and/or crazy (yes, and yes, but the question was legitimate).

'What?' I asked, irritated. 'And before you ask, yes, I read his file, or tried to. There was only "I fix what should have never been broken" on every page. Mimir's sight showed the same thing.'

'You think information about Fixer is...recorded?' Szabo asked, sounding like he found the idea hilarious.

'Would you blow up the sun to get rid of a termite infestation, Silva?' Sam asked, his face human and set in a serious expression. The "let me see what you think so I know what to say" type. 'Because that level of overkill is infinitely less than what you are proposing. Look at the multiverse.'

I did, but...'I don't see anything unusual. Should I?'

'Ah, so there  is a multiverse to look at. That means Fixer is doing his job.' Shiftskin leaned back into his chair. 'A job that actually requires his attention. The voidspawn he thinks into nothing would erase every reality and the aether by approaching them, Silva. These puny extrauniversal pests? We've been handling them so far, while the Black Hunger and his merry band of misfits hunt them in their homes, aided by a joint force of armies, human and divine alike.'

The Fivefold smiled reassuringly at me before I could attempt to wrap my head around that. I knew Fixer defended the multiverse and could warp reality, but...

'We are safe, David,' she said. 'And, if things became bad enough to need Fixer's attention, none of us would be around to know it. So, don't worry.'

Well,  that was fucking reassuring...

***

'So, Monty Python?' I asked Merlin as we walked through Broceliande. The others had drifted into discussing possible scenarios if the Fae slaughtered or sealed us away from our universe, and Sam had at one point told me to go talk with the mage and keep my eyes peeled.

I didn't know if this was advice wrapped up in a bad joke, but I couldn't see all the eye comments in a good light.

'Indeed! It portrays Arthur as kind of an idiot, and that's always important. You have already seen my favourite character...' he indicated the Black Knight on his shirt, and I nodded. 'Well, I'm not sure which of my first Knights he's supposed to be based on, but he's dumber than them put together-and that's a tremendous feat, let me tell you!'

'Thank you, hypocrite,' Bedivere said sharply, voice sounding like it was coming from half a world away.

'Don't feel called out! As always, Gawain and Lancelot contributed the most to it...'

At one point, while Merlin explained that Broceliande was not a place, but a concept, which meant he could go anywhere in the multiverse, but his prison would tag along, still stunting his powers, I tried to look into the future, and see how this would end.

My sight distorted and shifted from Broceliande to Faerie, Earth, then nothing...then, I was looking at Merlin, grinning darkly at me from between two gnarled trees, chains shattered.

'Eyes on the present, Keeper,' Merlin said, then flicked my eyes, causing them to burst.