The Seelie Fae, depending who, how and when you ask, will tell you their name is derived from or has inspired the word 'silly': happy, carefree, harmless. Whether they are being ironic when they say this is up to debate. They have also been known to claim their name and the word evolved together, but separate, without influencing each other.

At the moment, I wasn't sure which version I agreed with. The Unseelie didn't look unhappy, and definitely didn't sound sad.

Almost all Fae were inhumanly beautiful-as in, inhuman and beautiful. Barring Puck, and some of the more monstrous Unseelie, most Fae had to shapeshift in order to appear anything other than perfect.

Not a problem I'd ever shared. Some people suffer from success, others without it.

Most of the Unseelie who filled the training room, walking from the ceiling to the floor on air, or stopping halfway through to stand on nothing, were grey-haired and grey-skinned, like me, and black eyed, like I used to be, before the Devil gave me my mind back, and threw me out of limbo and back into unlife, though not after I mistook God for him...to His face.

Not my proudest, or smartest, moment. When I concentrated and strained my pure white, godly eyes, I could see one staring back with cold amusement, yellow and black slit like the serpent its owner had once shifted into.

"One eye on you, one on the world", its unblinking, gleaming stare seemed to say.

Not all Unseelie looked like pointy-eared strigoi, though: some had dark-green or black, cracked flesh that resembled wood, with emerald mana shining through the gaps, toothless mouths spread in permanent smiles, hornlike branches rising through manes of leaves. And these were just the humanlike ones; I could point out at least half a dozen redcaps, looking closer to red-skulled, shaved, needle-fanged chimps than anything human, clawed hands closed around the hafts of blades or scythes. A nuckelavee, the taloned hands of its human torso brushing the floor while the horse half paced, skinless flesh twitching, glared at us with a single, balefully-glowing red eye set in the centre of its metre-long skull. That was not the worst, though.

In the middle of the Fae, between the nuckelavee and three redcaps, something that resembled shadows they way I resembled corpses stood. The featureless, almost oval silhouette did not move, but every time my attention shifted even slightly, it seemed to come closer to me, or...

No, wait. Was the room getting smaller?

I blinked, shaking my head, then looked with my new sight, remembering Szabo's jabs. His words had irked me, too.

Mimir's sight revealed a whole bunch of frankly useless information. I didn't need to know the ancestry and childhood of every Fae present, how many people the redcaps had bled to live up to their names, or what the nuckelavee didn't do to people it caught(very few things; in fact, given how drooled dripped from its horse head's mouth, and how something that was definitely not drool dripped from the other head, it was pretty excited to get its claws on us). But the shadow...

You know those 'nothing to see here' signs people sometimes ironically place around? Mimir's sight might as well have been showing me one, for all I learned. In fact, according to my godly sight, the shadow not only had no future, it had no past, either, nor was it even present in the multiverse, the aether between realities, where the dead who prayed to no god went, or anywhere else. I could only see what it...wasn't.

It was Diego who broke the Mexican standoff. His sword, wide as my hand, its edge dripping ruby blood, trembled in his grip, as if he'd been seized by uncontrollable rage. With clenched fangs, he lowered it, the tip pointing down, a scarlet droplet gathering upon it, milimetres from the floor.

'I can't believe this...' the vamp said in a heartbroken tone, head lowered, face hidden in the shadow of his hat, before he stood up straighter with a snap, eyes glowing red as they bored into the Unseelie. 'Do you have any idea how much we'll have to pay these bums extra for repelling an attack right before Christmas?!"

And the blood drop fell.

The Fae looked at him in disbelief for half a microsecond. Then, before the other half elapsed, they leapt at us, moving so fast lightning a lightning bolt would have looked sluggish.

I knew, because I created several in an attempt to slow them down. My strigoi nature gave me dominion over weather, and, over the years, my skill had grown enough that I could summon aspects of it without manipulating the weather around me itself.

Nearly thirteen hundred times faster than sound, the bolts flashed electric-blue or ivory-white as the streaked through the air, only for even the slowest Fae, the human-looking ones, to casually sidestep them when they were a hand's breadth from their skin. A few of the smug fucks even backflipped over them, and one, using the connection with the natural world all Fae had, whatever their Court, waited until a bolt was nearly touching her black eye, then, smiling, leapt above and onto it, running towards us on the still-flying bolt like an acrobat on a tightrope.

Alright, new plan. I'd hoped to at least blind them, even for an instant, until someone faster than me got something made of iron we could use to beat them to death with, and make it stick.

I cursed myself for letting my cross behind in my room before coming to train, not wanting to give my partners a chance to snatch it away and use it against me.

There was probably a metaphor for everything important to me, somewhere in there.

I leapt at the acrobat Fae just as she willed the air around her into becoming armour. From the corner of my eye, I saw Radu, this time in hybrid form, holding off four of the redcaps, while the fifth, short legs wrapped around his spine, alternated between punching his skull to splinters or ripping away chunks of flesh the size of dinner plates every microsecond, for all that the were was just as durable as me. Fangs gleaming, Radu jumped onto his back, trapping the redcap between his body and the yamadium floor, while tearing at the other four Unseelie with his clawed feet and hands.

The sixth redcap had jumped into the midst of the other Luna agents, and was currently in the middle of ripping a wereotter in half every time the agent tried to get her paws on it, while its stubby legs kicked a group of wererats to pieces whenever they tried to tear at it. The weres healed just as fast as they were destroyed, but were making no progress.

Meanwhile, the nuckelavee, who was either a jailbird or a football fan, had decided to knock the biggest motherfucker's block off, as a result getting into a ripping and tearing contest with Thundertail. Though far smaller than the dragon, the nuckelavee gave as good as it got, hooves and fists clashing with claws, wings and a trainlike tail, every exchange packing enough power to vapourise mountains. It was only Thundertail's will that kept the hundreds of gigatons in every strike from damaging Romania as a side-effect, though I'd be damned to say why the Unseelie was worrying about collateral. Eventually, the dragon, having had enough, flexed the belly the nuckelavee had ripped a bus-sized hole into, sending the Unseelie into the air. Before it could use its powers to make a foothold, Thundertail spat a bolt of unnaturally-powerful lightning at it, blasting it to vapour, just like he had done to me during our spar.

It didn't do anything, of course. Unless hurt by iron, Fae could regenerate from being erased from existence, having the quantum foam making them up divided across endless realities, or even being retconned from the timeline, just like strigoi could, unless harmed by holy power. However, Thundertail's breath attack meant the nuckelavee regenerated in midair, only to be blasted to steam once more. Grinning with satisfaction while his belly healed, Thundertail looked ready to keep this up all night.

I was almost close enough to touch the Fae by the time I processed all of this, but it was not to be. Instead of the grey-armoured female I had expected to clash with, a black gauntlet smashed into my nose from somewhere, sending me through the sparring room's ceiling, as well as every other floor between it and Omu base's hollow mountain peak, then the rock itself, and into the air, where my passage dispersed the thick clouds filling the night sky for tens of kilometres around.

And, dammit, my nose wasn't healing. It actually hurt, too. The fu-

The gauntlet smashed into my back this time, sending me flying faster than my dead eyes could process. By the time the blurs left my sight, I realised I wasn't on Earth anymore, given the thick, yellowish clouds I split with my passage, before smashing through several volcanoes, the force turning them to clouds of dark smoke.

This was not how I wanted to get acquainted with Venus. The planet was infinitely uglier than the goddess it was most commonly associated with, (not that I used to have a crush on her...oh, shut up. Everyone did, especially since she stopped being a vain, vengeful hellion) and my impromptu, unasked-for makeup session didn't do it any favour.

The bruises my head got from vapourising the volcanoes healed instantly, but the pain between my shoulder blades didn't vanish. The reason for it quickly appeared to stand a few metres before me.

'David Dravich?' the Fae asked in a melodic voice, a smile quirking his lips in such a way I could barely wait to rip his tongue out and swap it with his junk. So tall I barely reached the bottom of his broad, black-armoured chest, the Fae's long, silver hair was pulled back by a simple obsidian circlet, framing his grey, angular face. His voice was as beautiful as any human singer's, despite the fact Venus' atmosphere, not to mention the roaring volcanoes in the background, should have made it inaudible.

'Who the fuck told you to call me that?'

'Ah. It is true, then. The truth angers you.'

'Your mom, I see. Tell her only she's allowed to taunt me, and that's if she asks my girlfriend first. Don't worry, they'll have time to talk while Mia pegs her-'

The punch broke my arm, and almost tore my shoulder out of its socket, so I forced myself smile up at pretty boy. "Aww, jealous? Calm your tits, I'm sure you and mommy will get to maintain the family wreath when my zmeu is done fisting you-"

A spiked knee broke my jaw, so my laugh was decidedly uglier than usual. 'It's fine! I don't kinkshame, bro...'

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

'You know I could kill you any moment.' The Fae sniffed. 'Have you heard of me, Dravich?'

'Didn't I see you behind that gloryhole at-'

His slap sent half my fangs flying, along with flecks of congealed blood. I landed on all fours. 'Man, you sucked, and not in a good way. I thought maybe I liked guys too, but you convinced me I don't. Guess you scared me straight!'

'Quiet,' he snapped, one moment looking down at me from several steps away, the next hefting me above him with one gauntleted hand. Its touch burned me, the jagged symbols carved into it so dark light was drained into them, but it was nothing compared to the pain of my ruined face. Not that I'd let this bitch see it. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of beating me mentally, too, fucking dammit.

And where the hell were Szabo and Diego, anyway? They were our heaviest hitters.

As it turned out, while the vamp would only tell us what he went through after the Fright, while we were counting casualties, the strigoi wasn't far away.

'I've never been able to stand creatures like you.' The Fae closed his eyes with a weary sigh. 'Acting defiant when they can't achieve anything...what are you hoping to do?'

'Certainly not you, but can I ask for your name?' I wiggled bloodied eyebrows, and my half-toothless grin widened when one of his eyes twitched.

'In the crude language of the Island of Tin, I would be Coldhold, Count of Greyreach. A county, I suppose, in our realm.' Coldhold snickered to himself. 'Speaking to a dead man, who's about to die again...I swear, I am turning as stupid as you, Dravich. Would you prefer to die like a worm, or on your feet? But remember: whatever your answer, I can kill you with my hands behind my back.'

Coldhold only gripped my throat for a fraction of a microsecond longer, before I was sent flying from his grasp, and he turned, staggering, arms severed and gauntlets shattered at the elbows. They had been turned to red mist, but healed even faster than mine would have.

'What a coincidence~' a lilting voice said, and I couldn't believe I was thankful to hear it. 'I can kill you with your hands behind my back, too!'

And, as a demonstration, Szabo leaned to one side, giving Coldhold a good look at his severed appendages. The Fae stared at him with disgust for a moment, before his face became a mask of disbelieving hatred.

'How?' he asked. 'The shadow should have killed you!'

'Oh? The Bleeding Edge is taking care of it. They don't call him that because he's new, you know?' Szabo dropped me a wink, shifting from one leather-booted foot to the other. Snarling, Coldhold poured his will into the world around us, while leaping at Szabo with clenched fists.

But, without his holy gauntlets, it seemed he had no other means to damage the strigoi. Punches that would have shattered my skull only resulted in broken arms for the Fae, while spikes of rock, shaped from a country's worth of stone and shaped to an impossibly sharp and fine point, smashed against Szabo's eyes so fast they glowed white from the heat, only to shatter, not even piercing them. Space bent to reveal portals into churches, mosques and sites of worship so alien or unholy I had to avert my gaze, while Coldhold grasped the air inside them with his will, sending holy objects flying at Szabo, who laughed, disappearing and reappearing faster than I could see, hand buried into the Fae's neck to smash his face into the holy projectiles instead. Cursing in outrage, the Fae tried to bend time and make himself faster, only for Szabo to punch him to mist every time, shattering his concentration. Attempts to erase the strigoi from existence only left him standing, naked and laughing, in huge, unnaturally-smooth pits that extended past the horizon, his nature making Szabo a fact of existence.

Finally, Szabo reached into the hole left in his chest by his suicide, grabbing something I hadn't seen until then, something that gleamed dully. Smiling, Szabo flashed around Coldhold several times, smashing my cross over his face, flattening it until it was uglier than mine. Then, he cut the Count's legs in half at the knees.

'No need to have you bleed out. You have answers I just know you are eager to share,' Szabo muttered, looking down at the mutilated Fae, who spat at him. Coldhold spat up at the strigoi, who, laughing, used his wind manipulation to send it back the Count's throat. Before Coldhold could even grimace in disgust, Szabo smiled widely, grabbing his tongue.

'You want to swap fluids~?' the strigoi asked, before ripping his tongue out and shoving it down Coldhold's throat. Then, not giving him time to spit it out, Szabo did it again, and again, until the Count's bloated throat burst, allowing a mass of bloodied grey tongues to fall onto his chest. 'Should I kiss you again, darling?'

Not waiting for Coldhold to regenerate his throat and answer, Szabo grabbed the Fae's silver hair, ripping more and more out each time it healed, and wrapping the clumps around the Count's leg stumps, to slow his bleeding.

'I know it's a hair-thin excuse...for bandages. But...' Szabo shrugged. 'Dare I hope you will tell me how and why you attacked Omu base? I know the Unseelie can ignore any defences or means of detection created by civilisation, for you are bringers of chaos. But the wards? The spells?'

'Why don't you ask your toy over there?' Coldhold jerked his head at me, causing the strigoi to laugh. 'He seems to have an answer for everyone, and a need to talk and talk.'

'Oh, my...' Szabo giggled, eyes closed, smacking my bloodied cross against one palm. 'You think I see David as a source of amusement because I try to make him stop pretending he's a hairless monkey? Can you, truly, be as stupid as you look? Have I found the missing link between dense and misinformed fools?'

'Mock me all you want. In the end, you will die as you fear, skinthief-unremembered by history, let alone anyone worthwhile.'

Szabo laughed even louder now. 'Look at you! You can only attempt to hurt me with words, and are failing even at that. Now...my question again. Will you tell us why and how you assaulted us? We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the haaaaard way~'

'Go to the hell you claim not to fear.'

'And here I thought you had that dog in you, like me. But I was wrong. You're a bitch.'

And, with a swipe of one arm, Szabo shattered Coldhold's remaining armour, leaving him defenceless but for a gambeson-like garment. That didn't last long, either, Szabo quickly shredding it into dust.

Shifting shape into something that made my eyes cross whenever I tried to look at or away from it, Szabo grabbed hold of the bare Fae, my cross held in an appendage the likes of which I'd never seen on Earth.

Coldhold didn't stop screaming for a long, long time.

***

The shadow, Diego decided, was much like common supernaturals: a law unto itself, telling the universe how it worked. While ordinary matter was erased when it passed through it, Diego's vampiric nature and sword let him touch and knock it around as if it was made of flesh, even though each touch left burns that did not heal.

Kind of like that song about skin. It was far less cheerful than the music Diego usually listened to, which was just a sign of how badly things were going, if he was thinking about it.

Though the shadow shifted mass constantly, Diego currently estimated it at about twelve trillion tons, given how it had quickly turned a mountain and the land around it into gravel by dropping onto it after he tackled it out of Omu base.

As if such weight mattered to any monster worth their salt...

With a cheerful grin, Diego rushed the shadow, kicking it off Earth before it could attempt to erase him. Then, when it was close to the moon, Diego intercepted and tackled it into the sun, for all that it weighed more than a hundred mountains, so fast light would take more than an hour to catch up to them.

Sunlight sealed away his esoteric powers, but he needed somewhere he could cut loose against this unbeing. Besides...he had some tricks up his veins.

Diego's healing, much like his senses and physical prowess, was always at his disposal. So, when he cut his gut open, the cloud of gore hanging in the void, it closed up instantly, just in time for him to repeat.

Diego leapt, legs crossed under him, allowing a tendril of shadow to pass harmlessly, erasing hundreds of thousands of kilometres of solar plasma.

What a dim fellow...

Diego cut himself open again and again, until he was surrounded by a sphere of gore that shielded him from the sunlight. Then, his powers returned, Diego grasped hold of all his blood at once, drawing it out only for it to refill instantly. Then, again.

And again.

And again...

Vampires gained power by drinking blood. However, even when losing it, they regenerated just as powerful as before being harmed. It was not the liquid's presence in their veins, but the act of consuming, that increased their powers.

Which meant that, when Diego was done bleeding enough to cover the sun, turning it red, he didn't lose anything, and gained much.

The shadow tried to erase him or his sea of blood, but Diego, using his weather manipulation, grabbed hold of the solar winds. It didn't matter that they were hardly a real weather phenomenon. It was all about symbolism.

Spinning the star's surface like a disc, Diego mixed the plasma with his blood, beginning to shape his weapon.

The shadow lunged at him, thousands of times faster than light, and the vampire raised his sword, grasping it in both hands.

Then, he dispersed he blood he had shaped to look like himself, and struck the shadow from behind.

The force of the strike was such that its shockwave split the sun, sending the halves millions of kilometres away. The sun gods would be mad, but...he was saving the world. They'd understand, or kill him, thus freeing him from worries.

While the shadow spun in the void, reeling from the strike, Diego grasped the blood sea he had shed, spinning it into a spear that glowed with veins of plasma. The blood would allow it to touch the shadow, and the plasma...would add a little power.

Diego's projectile smashed into the shadow's 'head', splitting it like a rotten melon. But, before the creature dispersed, it flung a part of itself at Diego, faster than it had ever moved before (had it worked itself into a rage?), cutting him in half at the waist.

As he spun in place, drifting towards nothing and bleeding out, Diego laughed drily to himself.

This was like back when he'd been left stranded on that nameless island off the coast of South America, before his sire had turned him to save him from dying of thirst, instead giving him an endless one.

But, really, the vampiress just hadn't wanted to entertain herself with a dead man. She liked them lively, as she had told him.

His sire had never asked for his consent, especially once his pleas and prayers, followed by curses, had made it clear he hadn't given it.

It had taken him decades to feel human again, let alone like a man.

"Smile and wave, nino," his mother used to tell him. "You are not smart, or strong, or brave. But you make others laugh. Do not let them see your tears. No one likes a sad jester."

Sometimes, Diego wondered what had become of his sire.

Now, he just hoped he wouldn't be found by another monster.

***

'Gerald Reyes, you say? And Sir Ronald, too?'

'The Dragonlayer, yes.' The old, captive mage's wrinkled face twisted into a smile. 'Grandfather bless him and his wife.'

'For giving you research subjects? I mean, unofficial grandchildren?'

'I love all my Knights, and their children, too, uncle.'

'And why were they here? Both ARC and New Camelot, I mean. Talk about rivalry...' Especially when the UK's supernatural defence agency had been founded at roughly the same time as ARC's Camelot division, exacerbating the problem caused by similar names, chosen in ignorance of each other.

'The aim is actually collaboration, I think. They plan to break Nimue's prison, so I may walk the world once more.' The mage's human mask slipped, his true features casting no shadow, for even the darkness was afraid of some things, even when-especially when-they had turned away from it to serve the light.

'That would be something to see. Maybe you can get rid of the ghostwriter, and finish the Hero's Handbook yourself! It's hilarious, really. I'm sure the Roundhouse would agree.'

New Camelot was nicknamed thus both because of how their headquarters looked, and to differentiate between them and the ARC division meant to integrate supernaturals into society, like Arthur's knights had once done.

The mage chuckled. 'Perhaps. But tell me more about your new favourite, uncle. I see all there was, is and might be, and your eye is always on him.'

'My mark, too.'

'Indeed. So...?'

'So. He is interesting. Makes me laugh almost as much as little Faust did, when I sent him Mephistopheles as a poisoned gift.'

'Are you planning to paint a bedroom's walls with this one's remains, too?'

'Why, do you want him?'

'...Hmm.'

'And you say he should be worried about me...' A great, horned head shook fondly, before its owner squeezed his nephew's scarred hand with something a human might have perceived as affection. 'Goodbye, Merlin.'

'For now,' the greatest cambion mage to ever live agreed, knowing his father was seething at his son's closeness to his lord.

'Interesting, indeed...' The mage smiled to himself, morningstar eyes twinkling. Almost as interesting as when his uncle had taken the name of an old, petty king no one remembered anymore, save as his.

There was a lesson to be learned there. He just hoped David Silva wouldn't become a stepping stone for someone greater before he truly opened and learned to see with his old friend's eyes.