Two old men walked across nothing.

That was a lie. And yet, not entirely.

Both were timeless, but, had they been reduced so that they could dwell in the halls of time, one would have been ancient in both fact and spirit, the other merely old at heart, in terms of the persona he so cherished.

If one did not count his other selves, that was.

One could have been forgiven for thinking Nodens' name had been inspired by that of Asgard's ruler, then penned down by the unwitting chronicler of his exploits.

Had that same observer seen the incarnation Nodens sometimes assumed on Earth, that suspicion would have only grown. The Great Hunter's form was as scarred and pitted as the oldest mountain, naked but for a shroud of mist or light.

This was not intended to protect his modesty, for he had none, but rather, to protect onlookers, or anyone who might catch a glimpse of him, by mistake.

His skin, his eyes, his bristling beard and wild mane of hair; all were silver. The metallic sheen was most pronounced on his hands, which had got him compared to another god of Earth, and which gripped a spear dripping with ichor. The haft was grey as ash, marked by adversity like its wielder. The spearhead was a jagged, rough thing, like bone or white flint.

Nodens' companion would have appeared completely ordinary, at least in comparison to his savage majesty. In truth, they had always been equals.

The one they called the Remaker, beyond the bounds of the world, was dressed in the drab, muddied fatigues of the wars that had marked Benedict. Ned; the part of him he always thought of as himself.

Wear and tear had removed all decorations from the uniform, even the small Union Jack on the sleeve. The space had been patched over, and now bore the the symbol of the Global Gathering: emerald landmasses, separated by sapphire seas.

Only a fraction of what he fought for, but the closest to his bleeding heart, by far.

Ned was dark-skinned and dark-eyed, his beard and close-cropped hair grey, with patches of white. He seemed entirely at ease, as he always did, especially when he wasn't.

Survival trait. Or, as he answered on other occasions, most people were not unflappable when presented with someone who gave every sign of being so. That amused him.

Nodens' Nightgaunts, his hounds and hunters, stalked behind him, darting in and out of the darkness. The creatures looked demonic, like batwinged, faceless men, their ebony skin smooth as a whale's.

Together with their master, they had faced many an Outer God, and thwarted the plans of many more, for all that the Gods of the Ultimate Void brooked no opposition, and always sought vengeance.

Nodens did not care, and never had. He had always met the Crawling Chaos on even footing, spear for claw and curse for curse, while his Nightgaunts tore through its Hunting Horrors. He feared neither the Other Gods, nor their soul and messenger.

Least of all now.

Well. "Now" was a matter of perspective, but what wasn't? In a way, creation had always been like this, but Nodens was not the only one who remembered what had never been.

As the two continued their journey to the abode of darkness, Fixer broke the silence.

'I know I don't act that grateful, but honestly, keeping the Outer Gods focused on you, and the Ultimate Void, saved everyone while I set the plan into motion. So, thank you.'

Nodens harrumphed, not looking at him. 'Don't mention it, boy. You fight because you love creation. The fact that Nyarlathotep hates it is enough for me to defend it.'

'Even so,' Fixer said. 'Thank you. For that, and for being my conscience.'

Nodens looked at him askance. 'What fresh nonsense is this?'

Fixer shrugged at the Hunter's gruff question, smiling. 'C'mon now, don't be shy. When I was trying to find happiness, you snapped me outta my funk. Reminded me of-'

'Ned,' Nodens cut him off gravely. 'I have never even spoken to you outside opposing the Crawling Chaos and its pawns.'

Fixer stopped, looking at him, and Nodens did the same. 'But the old men...there's always been an old man, or something like one, around every self of mine.'

'If you say so.'

Fixer's smile thinned. 'Are you telling me I imagined that? Him? You weren't...? Didn't...?'

'Creation is what we think it is, lad,' Nodens said, not unkindly. 'A loud conscience is hardly unusual.' Seeing his companion's expression, he scoffed. 'Who cares? Whether you listened to yourself, or to me, the point is that you listened. You went and helped your love. What does the reason matter?'

As the god resumed walking again, Fixer chuckled, before starting after him. 'You have a way of cutting through bullshit, don't you?'

'If everyone spoke truth,' Nodens replied firmly. 'There would be far less suffering. Lies are the domain of my adversary.'

Ned thought he just liked being blunt to the point of jackassery, but did not comment. 'If you say so.' The god grumbled at having his words thrown back at him, but did not retort.

They reached their destination in silence.

Fixer had met two-faced, in both senses of the term, people before. He knew Janus. The thing languishing in the gloom resembled the god of portals, to a degree. The same way the Sleeper resembled humans.

It was the Chernobog half that spoke to him first, his grimace frustrated and disgusted in equal measure.

'Come to gloat under a fallen enemy, have you?' he sneered tiredly. 'Go ahead, but do not expect me to swallow your insults. You'll have to silence me yourself.'

Fixer considered him, idly noting Nodens had fallen back to observe. But then, he wasn't here for the Black God. 'It's good to see  you consider yourself important, at least.'

'Lies?' Chernobog asked. 'I nearly made your foremost pawn fail. He was a step away from ending everything.'

'Which would have been against your goal, too, if I recall. Do correct me if I'm wrong, though; this might be the first time I'm thinking about you.' Fixer rubbed his chin. 'Don't flatter yourself. Nyarlathotep had other catspaws in place, as surely as it has your back. We've taken care of them, but do not think only you could've done what you did.'

Chernobog began trembling. In rage? Hmm...

'You took my brother, my power, and now you trample on my pride. Is your victory not grand enough?'

Fixer gave him an incredulous look. 'Do you think the people you planned to destroy or enslave had no brothers, no lives they wanted to keep living? I'm the last person you should be reaching out to that way. Not that anyone sane would listen to you.' Fixer glared when Chernobog opened his mouth. 'Belobog hated you. His last moments were spent hoping you'd suffer as he had. I regret that he isn't here, so you could hear it in that voice you thought you loved.'

He concentrated on the amalgam's other half, and it soon filled his perception. It was a paper-skinned, skull-headed back standing on tentacle tips; a silhouette of pure blackness; a winged, faceless god; a thing of tendrils, with a mouth open in an eternal scream.

All, and an infinity more, at once. It was Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. His oldest enemy.

In a way, Fixer had always fought it, even before he'd learned of its existence. Chaos had always been the bane of what his selves had tried to build.

'Remaker,' it greeted flatly.

'Unmaker.'

It lowered its head to one side. 'Well? No crowing? No boasting of how, without my influence to oppose, you are free to do whatever you want? Shape creation in your image? Pursue your Queen of Hell? Et cetera...'

'You are taking this surprisingly well,' Fixer noted.

It swayed in a way that might've indicated acceptance, or apathy. 'Chaos still thrives. It always has, is, will. The fact I cannot act myself is a bruise on my ego, but I will survive.'

'Aw...'

'I'm sure you'll learn to live with it,' it remarked. 'Chaos feeds me, and my power. That I have been reduced to a spectator is an inconvenience, not the tragedy you were hoping for.'

'What about your scheme?' Fixer jabbed.

'Meaningless,' Nyarlathotep replied. 'I wanted to end the dream that was creation, and now, it is no longer a dream. I should be thanking you for the retirement, I suppose.'

'You like it?'

'I could do without the chains,' it said. 'But yes.'

Fixer did not miss the hatred boiling within the dark creature. He was laidback, not stupid. 'You asked me if I was going to brag.'

'Well?'

'No,' Fixer answered, letting all cheer drain out of his voice. 'I'm just going to hurt you. For my parents. For Randolph. For Christine.' He raised his fist. 'For every life you threw into disarray, to amuse yourself and sate your spite.'

* * *

I found it walking between moments, waiting between instants.

The gray man was almost like a weaponised urban legend, or meme. Someone you missed, not because they were stealthy, but because they appeared so ordinary, they slipped your mind as soon as they passed you.

Hiding in plain sight, indeed.

In hindsight, Gray Mann's shtick wasn't so hard to pin down. Its very nature made you uncertain, because it was Uncertainty itself. Cousin to both Fear and Absurdity, though nowhere near as kind as the former, or half as heroic.as Ryd'yk.

And, because creation itself couldn't make up its mind about it, it had always been free to pick and choose its traits and abilities. Divine power, to divert a strigoi's attention, for example.

That was over now. In the creation I had made, with everyone's help, its kidnapping and indoctrination of Sofia had been uneccesary, and thus, had never happened.

Now, Sofia would grow up with people who could actually guide her, meeting a kindred mind in Bianca, empowered by her sister in an act of...well. There was still time, for that story.

But just because its deeds had been erased from the timestream, did not mean I, and those like me, had forgiven or forgotten it.

Which was why I was retracing Fixer's steps, a shrieking Gray Mann writhing in my metaphysical grip, while Nightraiser, mellow as always, retraced Nodens' at my side.

'I'm glad you could come, Faren,' I told them. 'I'm proud of you.'

'Oh?' There was barely a hint of curiosity beneath the placid tone, but that was like jumping up and down in anticipation, by their standards.

I smiled, ignoring my prisoner. 'I know...how hard it is to restrain yourself. How much you have thought about what could happen if you didn't. That you believe in yourself enough to accompany me...I'm happy for you. It's great to see your confidence growing.'

Their lips tilted upwards slightly. 'You are sweet, David,' they said. 'But it has little to do with confidence.'

'I don't believe that.'

'It does, though,' they insisted when I shook my head. 'Confidence implies belief something will be as you expect. Certainty means knowing how it will be. I do not deal in confidence.'

I put a hand on their shoulder, and they slowed down their pace. 'Thanks for coming, all the same.'

Their soft smile widened. 'It's no problem,  Keeper,' they teased. 'I hardly have much to occupy myself with, after all-please don't take that as me dismissing your offer as trivial.'

'Of course not,' I reassured them, before scowling in mock-irritation. 'Being in a good mood is not an excuse to needle me, though.'

They laughed. 'I would have come even if I were busy. We are heading into an era of peace, however, one paving the way for an age of ascendancy.' They elbowed me. 'Fewer reasons for fighting, not that all will be deterred by that.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Only meatheads would be dismayed by that.'

'Some would argue conflict breeds diversity.'

'It's nice neither of us would.'

'So true,' they agreed as our destination came in sight.

Metaphorically-speaking, of course. There was no distance here, and no duration.

Before we approached, I looked them in the dark voids that were their eyes. 'I will ask you something...maybe insensitive. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.'

'David,' they deadpanned. 'Have you forgotten how I grew up? There was little left to offend me, even before I became the Eye of Darkness.'

'Just because you've got jaded,' I shuffled my feet, looking down. 'It doesn't mean I should be a jackass.'

Faren squeezed my hand. 'Don't trouble yourself with that, David. What was your question?'

'I know you've forgotten it, erased it alongside your mother,' I began. 'But the memories are there, brought back by the moment of unity. Do you...have you ever wanted to remember whether you were born male or female?'

'What does it matter?' Nightraiser crossed their arms, eyes becoming sarcastic. 'You might have noticed my duty has little to do with what's between my legs.' They chuckled. 'I'm just messing with you, David. Yes, I remember. And, as I said, it doesn't matter. There's a reason you can't tell,' they gestured at themselves. 'By looks alone. You know my name means "handsome servant", because my parents expected me to do as I was told, while looking pretty.' I was sure Sam's had thought much the same, naming him "lamb". 'Removing needless details was just my way of scraping off the slave brands. You will forgive me for being dramatic.'

'Hey,' I said softly. 'Whatever makes you happy, you deserve it.'

They hugged me, briefly. 'Thank you,' they said warmly. 'It pleases me, when a good man sees me the way he sees himself.'

I might've blushed if I could have.

'So, to answer your question, I do remember, but it matters little to me, and less to anyone else. Or, as I tell certain admirers, the name obviously proves I was a very pretty boy.' They blinked slowly. 'Or a very healthy tomboy. That's the thing with certainty. It sounds better than it is. I like to keep people thinking.'

And with that, we resumed our journey.

Nodens nodded curtly at both of us as we approached, burly arms crossed, but said nothing. A little farther ahead, Fixer was exchanging hushed words with his trapped nemesis.

I let Faren behind as they stopped to speak with the Divine Hunter, and walked up to Fixer's side. The prisoner looked at me with distaste, which I ignored alongside its taunts.

'Hey, lad,' Fixer greeted, hands in his pockets. 'Glad to see ya helpin' out, just 'cause you can.'

I nodded. 'Creation will be a better place after this.'

'I'll bet,' he said, before giving Gray Mann an amused look. 'They didn't screw with you again, did they?'

'What it did before creation changed is enough,' I answered, and Fixer lowered his head in agreement.

'Never had much love for it, myself. Far too pleased with itself for doing what it had to do for my taste.'

'Hypocrite!' the Dark Oracle shrieked, voice caught between those of its two selves, making us turn.

'What's that supposed to mean?' Fixer asked, sounding like he'd been as happy to tune it out as I had been.

'"I take no pleasure in my duty," he said smugly,' it spat. 'We have never cared for Uncertainty, either, but you have no right to claim yourself its better in this regard.'

Fixer crossed his arms. 'I don't take any pleasure from doing what's necessary, no,' he said. 'I  am proud that I do not let my emotions get in the way of my duty. So...I do not see your point, if you had one.'

Dutifully ignoring them once more, Ned's attention returned to me. 'As I was saying...that entitled creep was talking a whole lotta shit 'bout Chris, and I so wished I could stop it.' He grinned like a child on Christmas morning. 'Did you bring it here for me?'

'In a way,' I confirmed, pulling my arm back like I was about to throw a javelin, before letting go off Gray. Its indignant screams alone shook creation, for all that most of its power was sealed, obliterating every Voidmaw, only for another infinity of them to appear instantly. The core of its being crashed into the Oracle, mixing like blood and tar, and now, the thing stood three-faced.

'Huh,' Fixer grunted appreciatively. 'Lemme guess: uncertainty is a fact of life, but you won't allow it to sow more than that which already happens.'

'Got it in one,' I answered, then sighed, voice growing sad. 'You know why I'm here, Fixer.'

He slumped. 'Go ahead, boy. If you think I deserve it, I won't stop you.'

Squaring my shoulders, I looked him straight into eyes. Not as dark as Faren's, nor as tired, but close enough to be pitiful. 'I understand why you started your plan,' I began softly. 'I appreciate your...subtlety.' I smiled crookedly. 'You knew I wanted to help people. Taking me to the same facility Andrei was in was just the catalyst. I couldn't stand him at the time, so I'd look for any alternative, so the one that set me on the path you wanted was sought.'

'The path creation needed you on,' Fixer corrected. 'And you're welcome, David. Guiding people from the shadows does not mean you have to be cruel.'

'I have to talk to you about that, too,' I reminded him. 'You knew what would happen from then on. All the deaths, the horror, the misery. Would you change any of it, if you could?'

'I cannot, just as you cannot, if things are to end as they should,' he said. 'If I could change it for the better? Of course. I'm not evil, David.'

My fangs ground together slightly. 'You don't regret any of it, do you?'

Fixer smiled pityingly. 'You don't think like me, David. The survival of the many will always, always be more important than the death of the few. Vyrt would tell you the same thing, and cry about it later. He's always been a sentimental prig.'

Which said a lot about Fixer, considering what the Nephilim was willing to do. Certainly, nothing our first meeting had suggested. I told him as much, and he rolled his eyes.

'Yeah, it'd be awful nice if I could just be a wacky goofball and nothing more. Maybe I'll be, one day, once the Mover's plan comes to fruition. Just because I'd shank anyone for everyone's sake, doesn't mean I don't love them.'

'What about Christine?' I asked.

'I'd never be happy again if I had to kill her,' he replied solemnly. And that was as sincere a declaration of love as Fixer could make. 'But you're not just here to dump your catch and grill me, are you, David?'

Might as well lay it out. 'Ned, the things you did while indulging yourself...I know you grew up marginalised. I know what it's like - I was a strigoi. But they were so much like what Dirlewanger did...'

Fixer's gaze turned cold. 'Charming. Forget the pain and the service to creation. The Nazi and I were just getting our rocks off.'

I held up my hands. 'Ned, please. I'm not saying you're as bad as him. You were lashing out. He was just being cruel.'

'Do you have a point?'

'I'm not going to punish you,' I promised. Not that I could. We were equally powerful, and able to enhance ourselves indefinitely. 'But I can't overlook it, either. Ned, you created beings that could feel nothing except pain, or fear, or pleasure, just because you could.'

'Are you going to track down every scientist who uses lab rats and bring them to great justice? How about guinea pigs? Those feel and think more than my creations,' he retorted. 'What about zombies? You respect the dead. What are you gonna do, David? Stop people from using test subjects, or hand them the answers on a plate and stunt their growth?'

The most annoying part was that I couldn't contradict him. 'Look,' I began. 'I'm not asking you to do anything you wouldn't, anyway.' I gestured at the Oracle. 'I know they can't separate, or escape, but I'd still feel better if you were keeping an eye of them.'

'Relegated to watchdog. Damn.' He whistled in fake appreciation.

I smirked drily. 'Nothing new under the sun. So?'

He rubbed his ring finger. 'I want to marry Christine. I love her.'

'How about this: you leave one incarnation here, and one in Hell, to be with her. And, when you're needed, I'll give you a sign.'

His face stayed blank at my offer, but he shook my hand. 'Whatever. I'm out of a job, anyway.'

I gave his shoulder a squeeze, part grateful, part warning, and departed, but not after squeezing something I'd wanted to know out of the Oracle.

As I'd suspected, the murder of Mia's parents had been not only planned, but part of a plot. Rattled, she'd lose control of herself, I'd hopefully take advantage of her, and a wedge would be driven between us. I'd doubt myself, falter at critical moments, especially as we drifted apart, and she'd find her end in R'lyeh.

Just another reason to hurt the Crawling Chaos.

The last thing I heard before I left was Nightraiser's sad chuckle.

'Hello, Ned. Thought I'd keep you company, while you settle into your new role.'

* * *

Fixer had been dismissed a while ago, but Gerald Reyes was still grilling his peers.

Alemoa Elga was giving him the same worried glance she always was when she thought he was stressing or overworking themselves. The other Heads had drifted off into discussions of their own, once Gerald had been convinced they hadn't known about Fixer's rogue activities.

Amara al-Hazred and Gaol John looked at him tiredly, the former massaging her brow, the latter crossing his arms, eyes barely visible in the shadows of a battered, broad-brimmed hat.

'Gerald,' Amara said wearily. 'I understand that you are agitated. I was too, when I found out. But we cannot change it, so will you please calm down?'

He closed his mouth, breathing deeply. 'Apologies,' he told the Miskatonic Head. 'But, while Ned's actions helped save creation, in the end, they could've also caused a war between Earth and three of the Great Power, all while we were busy with our own foes.'

'So?' John asked. 'If they'd attacked, we'd have crushed them, in the end. I know you like pretending might isn't right, but the only reason the little guy isn't living in a nightmarish oligarchy is because we, and people like us, like being nice, and are strong enough to stop those who don't. So don't give me that look.'

'And if the attack disrupted the population?' Gerald asked sharply. 'If the violence drew other dangers, distracted us, so the Crawling Chaos' plan succeeded?'

'We wouldn't be having this discussion,' John said simply. 'Why don't you ask us what's really eating at you, Reyes? You know you want to. Take your time, find your balls. The ghost isn't using them at the moment.'

Ignoring Elga's dirty glare, John put his boots on the table, crossing them, and waited.

Gerald clenched his fists in order not to throttle the IA Head. 'Did either of you know what Fixer was doing?'

'No,' Amara answered promptly. 'I only knew he wanted to help us against Chernobog, but I ordered him to stand down. Told him it would stunt the world's development if he solved everything for us.' Her eyes were darker than the shadows of her cowl as they met Gerald's. 'If you think my order spurred him on to abduct Grey One, I can only say I did not foresee it.'

Gerald's expression softened. 'No one can blame you for that, Amara, least of all me. Or yourself, for that matter.'

Amara pulled her cowl down. 'Although, he probably had been planning that for a while, as time flows. I know he was planning to prepare Silva since before they met, at least. From a timeless perspective...he has always been.'

Gerald hid a wince. 'Most likely.' He knew Amara hated tapping into her Outer God half more than necessary, even though being human was like being buried alive in a coffin half-filled with water for her.

'I know what you're gonna say,' John ground out. 'I'm bound to ARC, its members, its equipment and bases. I hate limeys like you. Surely this has all been a scheme to hurt you, Reyes? Well, it wasn't. I'm neither evil, nor fucking insane.' John lifted his hat slightly by the brim. 'If you must know, Fixer did obscure my sight through my bond to him, but he always did this during missions that were too delicate, or important for creation, to accomplish with someone looking over his shoulder. Sometimes, he didn't even try to do it. So, I thought nothing of it. Gonna propose having me fired for incompetence?'

Gerald pushed up his glasses, more irritated by the ghost gestalt's confrontational tone than he'd have liked. 'No. But I think you should mention such things from now on, John. You are linked to the Idea of Bonds. Anything that can obscure your sight might be important.'

John did not comment, so Gerald-

-blinked as the door to Sofia Ilyich's cell slid open. He wasn't unfamiliar with doors hidden in walls, or which were part of them. He was just bemused that the walk had been short enough that he hadn't even found time to get lost in his thoughts.

The young witch was sitting in a plain wooden chair, kicking her feet back and forth. She was dressed in a baggy, orange yamadium prison suit, with an antimagic collar around her neck. More than merely immune to her powers, it generated a field that covered her and shut them down.

The creation of such materials was a well-kept secret, if an open one, considering the security clearances of everyone present.

Besides the weres, vamps and mages lining the walls of the cell, doing their best to appear harmless (for the girl's sake, Gerald mused, rather than their safety), Sofia was surrounded by three of the most dangerous supernaturals in Russia.

The First Comrade's codename was a holdover from his Soviet days, but changing it would've made a mess of the national heroine's branding and merchandise. It was to stay, for the moment. First was dressed in a crimson long coat, with gold stars on both shoulders. Tall, blonde and blue-eyed, she looked in her early forties, just as she had during the Shattering.

If First was large at two metres, with the muscle to match, Tsar Power made her look positively puny. The towering man's face was almost lost between his grey-streaked brown beard and hair, though his bright grin was plainly visible among the grizzled, bristling mess. He was so tall First barely reached the bottom of his chest, with a girth that belied his strength, even putting his power aside. A layer of fat hid slabs of muscle, as if he were one of the bears he so resembled in his fur coat, pants and fur-lined boots.

Power nodded at Gerald first, then noticed Elga and Aya, and his grin widened. The Camelot Head felt one of his heads coming on; Power was as excessively friendly as Elga, thrice as loud and half as tactful.

Gerald smiled slightly, glad the world was safe enough for him to gripe about such trifles, and promptly wished he hadn't. Power saw his smile and laughed, sure it was a sign of the mage's joy at them meeting again.

Tsar Vodyanik completed the welcoming committee. A tall old man, though short compared to his colleagues, he had a white-bearded, frog-like face, a fish tail, and black scales covering his body. He held a club in his webbed hands.

Could we take them? Gerald wondered, remembering the powers of their...hosts. The Kremlin must've wanted to emphasise that, just because they'd invited them for help, it didn't mean they were powerless. Or unable to fend them off, if it came to that.

So. Tsar Power's traits increased tenfold the second a fight started, and only ramped up from there. At his baseline, he was equal to Breakout at hers, only also able to create blasts and constructs of almost every sort of energy, short of mana. The longer he fought, however? Strength that increased tenfold one second then increased a hundredfold a centisecond, and so on. The bigger the boost got, the shorter the interval became.

A problem, especially if a hypothetical fight started, but mostly a brute, in the end.

Vodyanik was...trickier. Equal to Power's baseline, he could not only manipulate water and whatever contained it, he could control whatever he could mentally frame as a river or lake. Most people did not expect the time manipulation, or get a second chance even if they did.

And First not only shared her colleagues' abilities, but those of everyone and everything Russian. Her versatility was only matched by her creativity.

We're all allies, for the moment, Gerald argued to himself. I'm just doing this to kill time.

First stepped forward, almost marching. 'Thanks for coming, guys,' she shook Gerald and Elga's hands at the same time, beaming, then hugged Aya. 'The kid's been good, but she's been asking for you, and we thought she'd be happier if we indulged her'. This way, her eyes said, she'll be easier to mould, while we maintain relations.

'Why don't you tell us more about that, Yana?' Aya asked once the taller woman let her down. 'The message just said she "wanted us", which I figured was a test of our attention, since she doesn't know any of us.' The mummy looked up. 'Unless you've been talking out of school?'

First grinned guilelessly. 'Actually, she just asked for "whoever sent the fat strigoi". We edited the request a little. Thought talking to Szabo's boss would be as important to her as beginning to reintegrate into society and deal with supernatural law enforcement.'

'Fair enough,' Aya said, glancing at Sofia. She was maintaining the illusion of eyes, to put her at ease. 'Does she not talk? I was hoping she'd started recovering.'

First's face fell slightly. 'She's shy. Doesn't really talk without prompting, but the night terrors are mostly gone. Still sleeps better with a living guard in the room.'

Aya nodded, taking it in stride, and went to stand in front of Sofia. The witch looked up, saying nothing, so the mummy broke the ice.

'Hello, Sofia,' she began quietly. 'The strigoi who scared you works for me. He shouldn't have done it - I keep telling him he's not allowed - but don't worry. I punished him.'

'Did it hurt bad?' Sofia croaked. She sounded like she hadn't spoken, or drank, in days.

Aya allowed herself a smirk. 'Really bad. He won't do it again. After all, you're a good girl now.' She put a bandaged hand on the girl's small shoulder. 'Is that all you wanted to tell me?'

As they spoke, Vodyanik began an impromptu, intense staring contest with Gerald, who did not fancy his chances against someone that dead-eyed, but had nothing better to do. Meanwhile, Power sidled closer to Elga, which was not how people his size were usually described as moving.

Elga turned away from the witch when Power elbowed her, giving him an annoyed look. He was unfazed.

'Is pretty ghost lady sad?' he cooed. 'Power can maker her feel alive again.'

'Cut the crap, Nik,' Elga whispered. 'No one here thinks you're stupid.'

He blew a raspberry. 'Honestly, Elga, you hate horseplay as much as my mother.' But he did not press on, and went back to watching as well.

Sofia clasped her hands in her lap, looking down at them rather than Aya. The mummy had done her best to look friendly, eschewing her golden armour for a pair of black combat boots, pants and a jacket with the Crypt logo, along with a nemes, but the witch was still scared around her.

'I'm happy he was hurt, too,' Sofia said eventually, and Aya's heart broke to hear so much hatred in a child's voice, before hardening. The witch was not exactly innocent, even with the mitigating circumstances.

'He might've gone overboard,' Aya said. 'But you had to be stopped, Sofia. I understand that your magic twisted your mind until you took over your village, but it was you who decided to control your parents.' She put her hands in her pockets, mirroring First, who was standing opposite her, watching silently. Aya lowered her voice. 'I know you hated the fights. But you could've gone to a neighbour, called one.'

Sofia snorted. 'And if daddy didn't catch and kill me before I did it, he'd have done it after. Not all of us can get help as a corpse, miss.'

Taken aback by the sass, Aya arched an eyebrow. 'That's...quite a bleak view, for a child.'

'Will you guys make up your minds? Either I'm a child and should be dumb, or I'm a monster and should be treated like a bad woman.' Her face scrunched up in frustration.

Aya bit the inside of her cheek. She'd been through this before, with her own children, but laughing would have been inappropriate. 'I'm not trying to patronise you. I just want to understand what you want.'

Sofia relaxed, slightly. 'The Strangeguard's been asking me if I wanna work. Put my mind in stuff, or in bad people. Make 'em stop. I dunno.'

Aya gestured for her to go on. 'That could help you redeem yourself, in the eyes of your country.' She steeled her nerves. 'Sofia, people say that, if not for your actions, Chernobog couldn't have entered the universe, or amassed as many followers. Obviously, you didn't know that would happen. My point is, you're not loved. Public service could help.'

Sofia blinked, repeatedly, but her blue eyes were still watery. 'I know mommy and daddy went bad...worse. Before they died. Prayed to the bad god.' She licked her cracked lips. 'The other strigoi killed them. The thin one. David.'

'Do you hate him for that?'

Sofia shook her head rapidly, as if trying to un-hear the words. 'I wanted them to be friends again. With each other. And me. But I didn't love what they turned into.'

'And David?'

Sofia broke down. 'He k-k-killed 'em. Told me.' She hiccupped, and covered her mouth with a hand. 'He an' the alien. We were together, before everyone was. He - D-David - h-held me. Like daddy used to. He doesn't hate me.'

Aya leaned forward, so Sofia had nowhere to look but her eyes. The witch sobbed, then pulled herself together. 'You're faking. I know you're eyeless.'

Aya dismissed the illusion with a thought, and Sofia rubbed one eye. 'It was distracting,' she said flatly.

'David?' Aya prompted.

'He made everyone be friends, for a while. I wanna do that again.' The witch's eyes shone with more than tears. 'But I'd be stuck in Russia as a Strangeguard. Can I...come to you? When I'm free?'

Aya straightened up. 'We have recruiters you can discuss that with. Sofia, I know you weren't aware of ARC's hierarchy, but usually, people like me don't come when called for things like this.'

The girl crumpled in on herself. ' 'M sorry. Thanks for coming, miss.'

'I wasn't chastising you,' Aya said softly. 'Just telling you how we work.'

Sofia hesitatingly raised her head. 'So we...can still talk?'

Her face lit up at Aya's confirmation, who stepped back, letting Gerald and Elga handle things.

* * *

For Vyrt, galaxy clusters were like glass doors: he noticed when he went through one thanks to the damage it suffered, rather than that he received.

The creatures he was currently facing were made of such cosmic structures, compressed and compacted. Humanoid in shape and size, but immensely denser, a hundred to a thousand times heavier than the Milky Way, they came at the Nephilim in droves, at speeds that would have crossed his home galaxy in mere moments.

Blunt limbs flew at him from all sides, trillions of times faster than light, and Vyrt dodged all the ones he couldn't block. His fists tore immense holes through the creatures, ripping them apart beyond recovery, while their own only bruised his skin for zeptoseconds when they landed. The largest galaxy would've been annihilated, many times over, by any of their strikes.

He hadn't done them any wrong. The creatures, while not mindless, only knew loathing for everything besides themselves. Vyrt, being completely unlike them, had been an irresistible target, tempting enough for them to cease their eternal war and ally against him.

It was why he had sough them. A massacre no one could fault him for would alleviate some of his anger.

Vyrt, who had reduced himself to human size for this fight, looked up at the foremost among the creatures strode towards him. Even the smallest among them was a hundred times heavier than the greatest of their lessers; the Laniakea Supercluster, given human shape and bloodlust.

Vyrt struck at one of them, a blow that would've destroyed most of his universe, but which only broke his hand. The beings were far more durable than their mere mass suggested.

The retaliatory strike, too fast for him to perceive, pulverised his head, while his opponent's other hand tore through his chest like paper, ripping his spine out with a tug. A second blow split his body in half, and a third reduced it to pulped flesh and ichor.

Vyrt had already regenerated before the creature could even think about basking in its victory. His power, to create and build up, enhanced his reflexes until its attacks seemed frozen in place.

The blast of Vyrt's seraphic fire was not as hot as the first moments of the Big Bang - his foe would've utterly ignored such paltry temperatures. The white flame, however, burned it to nothing faster than it could perceive. Not even the smallest particle was left as it was erased from reality, then history, before the very possibility of it existing in the first place was removed from creation.

Vyrt's smirk was bloodthirsty as the timeline adjusted, so that he had never been wounded. After all, the culprit could have never existed.

Another creature came at him, but froze in its tracks when an armour of seraphic flame blazed into existence around the Nephilim. It sensed what it could do to it.

Vyrt didn't let it dither for too long. Conjuring a sword of colourless light from nothing, he dashed forward, bisecting it from skull to groin, with the ease of a scythe going through wheat. As the twitching halves suffered the fate of the first creature to have been unmade, Vyrt dismissed the sword and summoned his crook.

It had been his, with and of him, long before he had been knighted. Bedivere had let him keep it, because it suited him. Chuckling silently at the wordplay, Vyrt tapped into the crook's power, and one of the remaining creatures turned against its fellow, following his will like a sheep.

He let them fight, for a while. Then, he grabbed hold of the second being's mass, sending it flying into the other's at immense speed and obliterating them both. With crook in hand, he could direct almost anything.

He stood in the middle of the empty universe he had entered, victorious, and knew no joy.

I flew to his side, looking across the emptiness as we hovered. I looked like I was standing on nothing, while he beat his wings out of whimsy, rather than necessity. He needed air about as much as he obeyed physics.

The Nephilim was quiet, silently bidding me to speak. I went along with him.

'I hate what you did to me, Vyrt,' I confessed. 'I'm glad it helped shape me into the man I am, that you helped save creation...but I don't think I'll ever stop hating it.'

A pause. Vyrt made his crook disappear, then clasped his arms behind his back. 'I thank the Lord you still see yourself as human, David,' he said, no trace of sarcasm in his voice. 'The clay we rose from is noble, despite everything. I'll never stop loving them, and I hope you won't, either.'

Ah. He already knew why I'd stopped in my journey home. At least in regards to this incarnation of me. 'You can ask me about Miranda.'

He nodded fractionally. 'She does not worship. When - if - she dies, she will pass into your domain.'

'I'll take care of her,' I promised. 'Don't worry.'

The Nephilim's lips twitched, eyes filled with unshed tears, as he dropped to a knee before me. The crook reappeared in his hands.

'I ask only one thing, David,' he murmured. 'You have no reason to care for me - that is why I ask for my wife.'

'Let me guess - you love her more than life itself, much less yourself,' I teased gently, and he nodded earnestly. 'Go ahead. Ask.'

He looked up at me. 'I know you hate me. That you have so much rage to vent. That...I have no right, to interfere with the aether. That is why I'm asking.' He closed his eyes. 'Please. Do not hurt me through her. The thought is enough.'

That...whoa. 'Vyrt...do you really think I'd harm an innocent out of spite?'

'You were ready to, in the Roundhouse,' he said. 'You would have, if you hadn't caught yourself.'

I almost spat at the thought. 'True,' I said bitterly. 'I shouldn't have said that...been thinking like that.' I grabbed his wrists, lifting him up. 'But you have my word that I will not do anything to your wife. She is a good woman. She deserves rest. And...' I looked him in the eye. 'You know what? I'll let you visit her, if you want. I know you love each other.'

His wings twitched behind him. Burning tears scorched trails across his face. 'I thought you'd make me beg...if you didn't refuse me.'

'For your wife's sake, I will not,' I promised.

* * *

Rebecca Gilles had always appreciated the fact that her husband wasn't a violent man.

Some might've found that ridiculous - what, did she see not being beaten as a luxury? - but where were instincts and tempers were concerned, you took what you could, and were glad for it.

One thing she had going for her was that Leon, both sides of him, saw her as his treasure, and neither he nor his beast would have ever seriously thought about hurting her.

This, however, meant that while Leon never laid a hand on her, his anger still had to go somewhere, and his ways of venting were usually destructive, and always loud. Dangerous to her peace of mind, if anything, but she valued that, dammit.

Rebecca marched out of the house, slamming the yamadium door open maybe harder than necessary, not that she cared. She'd arrived home to see Leon chopping wood barehanded, and he'd grunted something incomprehensible, before saying they'd talk later, if she didn't mind. She'd indulged him, unsure what was happening, and had waited for him to cool off, so on edge herself she hadn't even changed out of her uniform..

He hadn't cooled off.

Leon's head whipped in her direction, his deep, dark eyes full of unfocused rage. None of it directed at her, so at least it wasn't her fault.

It really, really pissed her off when he acted mute, leaving her to fill in the gaps, but she didn't want a shouting match. He looked...hurt.

Contrary to the hybrid form he spent most of his time in, cementing his status as one of the most disciplined, not to mention unique weres alive, Leon as a human looked ordinary, almost forgettable. Dark complexion, grey beard and hair tied in a short, practical ponytail. Not that tall, and muscular in that wiry way older men who'd worked with their hands all their lives often were, he was dressed in a pair of tattered jeans and a faded shirt, whose colour had disappeared alongside its pattern. His moccasins were covered in mud.

Leon took in her uniform, as he often did, and asked nothing, as always. The only thing he knew about his wife's job was that she got to heal people less often than she'd have liked, but hurt those who deserved it often enough to suck it up and go on. He'd never pried, just as she'd never been nosy about his job. She'd only learned about his rank and peers after a few incidents during joint operations, involving the removal of particularly vicious pathogens from vulnerable agents; information that had resulted in her being sworn to silence.

Rebecca gently closed the door behind her, almost apologetically, and leaned against their house's front wall. The log cabin was only really cosy in small doses, but that was alright. Both of them spent most of their time at home outside, which was really the first thing that came to mind here, in the mountains.

Few people knew that anyone lived here, much less who. Even fewer knew who they were at work.

Rebecca crossed her arms under her breasts, and Leon didn't even bat an eye. Bad, then. Her fox growled in the back of her mind, eager to tear down whoever had upset its mate like this, and she succeeded in keeping it at bay. Leon noticed her claws glinting in the sunset's light, but did not comment. Instead, he slung his axe over his shoulder with a sigh equal parts guilty and frustrated.

She'd have honestly appreciated the whole lumberjack thing, if he hadn't looked like the world's saddest grandpa.

'Can we talk now?' she asked, a whisper inaudible to human ears, but loud as a cannon shot to theirs. His response made her hackles rise.

Not because it was not verbal. She'd learned to decipher scent and gestures decades ago. Because it was the first time she'd seen her husband cry. Even during their wedding, he'd only laughed and grinned, not...

She covered the ten metres between them in five milliseconds, slapping the axe he'd dropped -which hung motionless in the air, even to her human self's perception - aside and taking his calloused hands into his.

The most disturbing thing was that he wasn't actually shedding tears: they gathered at the edges of his eyes, while his chest and shoulders trembled, wracked by silent sobs.

'Leo, I'm sorry,' she cooed soothingly. 'I-I know you're always saying I nag you. I promise I won't complain again.' She gestured at the log pile, not taking her eyes off his. 'Please. I'll let you work this out in any way you want, just tell m-'

He pulled his hands out of hers, turning away. 'Not you,' he growled. 'Not your fault, Becky. Don't ever think I could get angry at you, darling. Forget my whining. It's bullshit.'

She was damned if she was going to start wringing her hands, but it was the next best thing to getting them on whatever had upset him, and ripping it apart. 'Do you want to...can you tell me?' She walked closer, rubbing circles on his back. 'Love, do you wanna come inside?' Please, just tell me how I can help you...don't tell me I can't...

'No,' he snapped. 'I want...I don't want to kill her.' His eyes yellowed as his gryphon began taking over. 'I need to. I must. But she's already gone!' He brought the axe down on a thick, knotted log, with more anger than force or skill, grunting derisively as the handle snapped. Gripping the axe head, he ripped it out of the wood, pressing the edge against his palm as he sat down.

'Already dead,' he said hotly, moulding the metal like clay. 'And how? Do you know how, Becky?'

'Leo,' she said plaintively. 'I don't even know who you're talking about.'

He looked baffled for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. 'Ah...so only I remembered? Yes...I suppose it was only for me. But I hoped...' He leaned backwards, groaning. 'It was when Silva got everyone to work together...' He rolled his shoulders, pulverised the axe head with a twitch, then put one hand on his knee, propping his chin in the other. 'You know how I always talked your ears off with stories of "my nana"?'

She almost flinched at the coldness in his words, but did not miss the emphasis. 'What did she do?' Rebecca asked. 'What did you remember?'

Leon laughed bleakly before answering. 'The bitch...I grew up in a residential school, true enough. But I didn't end up there because my parents were crooks, who couldn't and didn't deserve to raise me. And it wasn't the happy little haven I thought it was, until today. They made me think that, Rebecca.' He was pacing now, talons appearing where his fingers had been. 'Filled my head with those poisonous lies, when they dragged me into that hell.'

'You were brainwashed?' she asked, horrified. 'Your files...they're all fake, then.'

He scoffed, almost scornfully. 'No shit. Couldn't commit that to memory, not as the country grew more enlightened, more civilised.' A stomp pulverised the log he'd sat on, almost as an afterthought. 'And you know how they did it? It wasn't some complicated process. Shit wasn't even planned.' His chuckle was a caw, almost a croak. 'Got hit in the head so hard I fainted - by that old bitch, no less - and woke up dumber. Easy to manipulate. That's what kills me...the lie I've lived? It's the result of an accident. An afterthought. Just a way to make another happy little drone.'

She took one of his arms into hers, pressing it to her chest, over her heart. 'I don't care,' she whispered. 'This changes nothing. Don't think I'd have loved you less, if I'd known.'

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He was crying as he smiled, running a hand through her short grey hair. 'Of course not, sweetheart.' He pressed his forehead to hers, and she couldn't tell whose tears covered her face. 'I know. I'm blessed to be with you, and nothing will ever change that. But I can't let this stand.' He kissed her, briefly, then strode away from her, producing Ravenstooth. She knew for a fact it hadn't been on his person until then, and not just because his clothes lacked pockets; she'd have sensed it. But the dagger belonged to him as much as his own claws, so it would always come to him, regardless of where or when the wielder or the weapon was.

'I raged and ranted so much, when the Raven told me,' Leon murmured, tracing the triangular dagger's thick, stone edge with a finger. 'The very first thing I remembered. He only talked about it obliquely, of course; things I'd forgotten because I'd been made to, but I didn't listen. The Raven was a trickster...should've realised he'd meant it, when he didn't come back for his tooth.' He tossed the weapon into the air with a flick of his wrist, caught it by the tip, and repeated the motion. 'Or do anything to make me give it back. Tch...'

Leon grew as he spoke, and Rebecca only noticed he'd switched his casual clothes for a pair of ARC combat pants by the time black fur sprouted out of his skin. Must've gone inside the house, changed and came back faster than she could see.

Leon's legs bent as he transformed, the knees inverting and the feet becoming paws. His hands became they yellow, black-clawed talons of a bald eagle, so large Ravenstooth looked like a toy in his grip, and a long tail, ending in a tuft of hair, swiped the air beneath a pair of great black wings.

Leon turned his white-feathered head to regard her. His ears, which seemed permanently perked up, twitched irritably. His sharp, yellow beak barely moved as he spoke.

'Rebecca...I know you want me to calm down and talk about this. I wish I could, too, but I can't, dear. Not now. I need to kill...hurt someone, at least, or I swear to every damned god there is, I'll tear myself apart.'

Rebecca tried to grab one of his hands at the hoarse proclamation, but he waved her off. 'I'll...I dunno when I'll come back, love. I'll never lay a finger on you, but I won't spend time around you like this. I know you can't stand it. Fuck...I can barely stand myself, knowing how you must feel.' His beak curved into a bloodthirsty smile. 'Hope whoever I break will scream, before the end. Wouldn't want to come home angry.'

And with a beat of his wings, he was gone.

Rebecca watched the sky for half a millisecond, knowing full well he'd left her sight, then went inside and sat down on their bed, face in her hands. Eventually, she took out her phone, still palming her face with her other hand.

'Sam? It's Rebecca...no. You're about to have a shitty day at work.'

She paused, then scoffed at his question.

'Precognitive, my arse. Because Leo is already having one, and I can guess where he's going.'

* * *

Usually, Samuel Shiftskin kept the doors of his perception open just a crack, because, frankly, he did not need to see everything all the time (it would've made his already stellar opinion of people so good, he might've just died of joy), and besides, his instincts ripped them of their hinges whenever necessary, no effort needed, warnings given or thanks expected.

Currently, he was watching one of his least favorite people knock two of his senior agents around, close to a red supergiant located nine and a half thousand light years from Earth. Sam was sure Gilles would've said he'd chosen the place because it was barren, if asked, but he probably just wanted something big to break.

He knew the feeling. Some days, creation entire seemed too small for him, and his hunger for destruction.

He'd never thought he could relate to the weregryph. In other circumstances, this might've even made him like Gilles, but he could feel the were's emotions, clear as day even from this distance. There was no savage, honest joy of fighting there. Only a spiteful, hurt anger.

Its taste on his tongue made Sam's mouth curl. And not just because it felt so similar to the venomous hatred of his youth; dimly, he realised he was bothered by Gilles felling like that, because it did not suit him. The wendigo had to consider whether he actually liked the stuffy bastard when he found himself pitying him.

He pushed his chair backwards and stood up, ready to go at a moment's notice. He should've known Becky wouldn't disturb him on a chance. Her hunches were almost always right. And she'd never sounded so concerned about her husband, or so angry at...hmm. Being unable to help him? Sam considered the thought, and decided it was pretty likely.

He neither wanted nor liked to one-up the poor woman, but he couldn't sit by with his thumb up his ass, either. Even if she hadn't called him.

Besides; how often was he gonna get asked to kick Gilles' ass?

* * *

Binesi stared blankly as Gilles walloped Lena Steiner once more, sending her flying nearly five hundred times faster than light. Despite the Austrian weredrake's frigid demeanour, she had a foul temper that was only surpassed by her distaste for fools. She'd grokked that their boss had been looking to indulge himself more than actually train since before he'd thrown the first punch.

But then, Binesi had picked up on the fact something was wrong pretty quickly, too, when he'd asked them to open a portal to UY Scuti rather than simply use one of ARC's training rooms. The prophetically-named thunderbird had often heard about the were urge for naturalness, and even felt it themselves, but this was a bit overblown, not to mention shady.

'Come on!' Gilles demanded through the aether. 'Come at me - both of you! You clearly ain't gonna do shit on your own!'

Binesi rolled their eyes, clutching their staff - a remnant, and object of focus, from when they'd been a mage and nothing more - and lazily waved a wing in the weregryph's direction. The supernatural wind roared through the void of space as if it were a cavern, hitting Gilles' face like a concentrated hypernova. Since he'd disabled his invulnerability, claiming he wanted to feel like he was really fighting, for once, the wind ripped enough feathers from his face to reveal raw skin. Binesi had only a hundredth of a nanosecond to take in the unusual sight of Leon Gilles hurt, even if slightly, before the remaining force of the magical gust continued behind him. Much reduced, it barely managed to scatter UY Scuti's mass, putting it out like a candle in a whirlwind and leaving only a few flecks of relativistic matter.

Gilles shot them a disappointed look, but not for long. Two hundredths of a nanosecond later, Lena's jaws clamped shut above and below him. The weredrake being in her natural form, the effect was much like being crushed between two neutronium mountains, their peaks pressing against and breaking Gilles' limbs. Grunting, he forced her mouth open with a flex, shattering the mountain-sized fangs and sending her body spinning into space.

Lena, who rarely had the chance to use her country-spanning beast form on Earth, quickly decided that whatever this was, it was neither entertaining as an outing, nor instructive as a training exercise. She sneered, sending a burst of coldflame at the gryphon, who met it with open arms. Flesh that would've treated liquid helium as a crisp breeze froze to the bone, then the marrow followed. The cloud of frozen dust rearranged into an unimpressed Gilles picoseconds later. The white-scaled, blue-eyed weredrake matched his glare with one of her own.

Gilles quickly turned to Binesi instead, arms crossed. 'Why didn't you hit me like you meant it?'

'I did,' the were-thunderbird replied. 'I'd say I ruffled your feathers, sir, but I think someone beat me to the punch.'

Gilles, who was fairly humourless at the best of times, did not even mention the sass. 'You waved a wingtip. Put your fucking back into it! Hurt me!'

'Why?!' Binesi demanded. 'What's got you so worked up you think pain will solve it?'

'Binesi,' he scowled. 'I order you to hurt me. Or, you can open a portal into my office, and receive your dismissal.'

Setting their jaw, they waved their right wing at Gilles, the gust ripping his feathers and skin apart, revealing the muscles of his chest. The aftermath reduced thousands upon thousands of stars to nothing, their stars instantly, impossibly, flickering out of sight in the background.

'Again,' Gilles demanded.

Both of Binesi's wings snapped forward, tearing the weregryph into scattered particles. The swathe of destruction it tore through the Milky Way was the length and breadth of any of its spiral arms.

When Gilles healed, an instant later, he had a considering look on his face. 'You still have your staff,' he mused. 'I know it focused your magic. Makes it stronger.'

Binesy almost wanted to break the length of wood over his head, but the thunderbird skull that topped it would've objected. 'I'm not wiping out Andromeda for your amusement, sir,' they snapped, at the same time beating their wings and reversing time across the galaxy, so that it was pristine once more. 'You don't want this fight, anyway. I can tell.'

Gilles bristled, flying closer to the were mage, the better to glare at them. Binesi's eyes, which varied from yellow to blue, were the blank white of lightning as they looked at Gilles. Their dark plumage rose and flattened constantly in agitation.

'Are you calling me a coward?'

'If you'd wanted a real fight,' Lena answered the Head's question instead. 'You'd have taken your silver gauntlets. Pulled some tricks with that flint shank. Please, don't try to mislead us.'

'What she means,' Binesi added. 'Is that you seem to want something else, sir. You don't...like violence. You never have.'

'You've always seen it as a temptation at best,' Lena flatly reminded him. 'Or tantamount to giving in to your beast at worst.'

Gilles looked between them, smirking sardonically. 'If you two knew what I wanted, you'd know I can't get it. You wouldn't be judging me now, either.'

'Help us understand, then,' Binesi said. 'We're two of the strongest Luna agents - so what? I doubt we've sated whatever's taken hold of you. Do you think the others want you to bang their heads together when we go back, because you're upset?'

Lena returned to her hybrid form, and was trying to loom over Gilles, despite their equal heights. 'I...know how much you love us, sir. Even those you've put down, because they were too feral or hurt to go on. And we're grateful...'

'But,' Binesi seized the chance, reasoning they'd have time to boggle at the weredrake opening up later. 'That doesn't mean letting you go through this. You're hurting yourself too, sir. You've always cared for us. Won't you let us do the same, and help you?'

As he looked at Binesi's extended, taloned hand, I approached him, unseen and unperceived by the senior Luna agents of Austria and the US. 'Sir,' I whispered to him through the aether. 'I'm sorry I didn't do this earlier,' I couldn't tell him working part of his anger out by himself was necessary to begin healing. It wouldn't have helped his mood, and I'd have sounded like a cunt. 'But I'm here now. You know what I've become?'

'Keeper of...DEATH, right? The Idea of Endings,' he answered, gesturing for the other weres to return to Earth; he'd find his way back quickly with Ravenstooth. His voice cracked as he spoke again. 'Can you help me? I...I heard you only handle a-agnostics an' the like-'

I manifested physically, taking the were's hands into mine to steady him. 'Sir, look at me, please,' I said gently, and he did, eyes brimming with tears. His beak was shaking with suppressed rage and hope that may yet prove false.

I wanted to hug him, but he'd have taken it as belittling. Touch wasn't a good idea, at the moment. 'The woman who crippled you, Nora Gilles,' I said, my own voice trembling, though I was reining in my temper better than the Luna Head. Not a high bar, admittedly. 'Might've acted Christian, in public, but she never was. She often said that, if she could do what she did, how was God real?'

Gilles' eyes were far away, only a faint hint of disgust showing through. 'Fucking changed my name for her...treated the worm like my goddamn grandmother!' he shrieked. 'I...I w-was so happy when I learned she'd died of old age, p-praised as the teacher of generations of poor children, who'd she introduced into society.' He spat, head swaying wildly. 'Saw everything through rose-coloured glasses...thought my classmates were just being pessimistic, the poor bastards...now I see things clearly. David,' he almost whined, looking down at me. 'I swear on my marriage I'll take back every bad thing I've ever said or t-thought about you if you promise me she's suffering.'

'No need to bribe me, sir,' I joked softly. 'I'll do you one better: let you take justice in your own hands.'

He looked at me, grateful but suspicious, sniffling. 'Ain't you s'pposed to turn the other cheek and all 'at?'

Remember, children: when you have questions of faith, always go to the strigoi with an agnostic girlfriend and more issues than most comics. 'There are fewer sins worse than letting cruelty like that stand unpunished. I'm working my way through a fairly large crowd of people DEATH hasn't punished properly. You'd recognise some. I might let you have a go at them too.' Hmm...guided tours? Here are your past tormentors, helpless to fight back. Break them as much as you want, I can and will put them back together.

It was Gilles who hugged me, rather than the reverse. His chest was like the world's sharpest pillow. 'Thank you, David,' he whimpered. 'I don't care what the others say. Your heart's in the right place.'

Suffice to say, Gilles got what he wanted soon after. What followed was a meeting between me and the Heads, then the festivity proposed by Yua Yamada. A celebration, partly of the fact we were still around, partly because of what could happen from now on. Politicians and gods and national agency leaders, oh my!

But before the meeting, let us review the journeys of a few more...partygoers.

* * *

Raj Anand was familiar with homecomings after battle. Or struggle, in this case, although...hmm. It had definitely felt like a battle between everything and nothing, and he didn't think anyone would be uncharitable enough to criticise him for using the metaphor.

Raj knew that, after a hard mission, you cam home tired, mentally if not physically, too tired to properly be happy until you rested, much less celebrate the fact you were still alive, or your success.

If there was any.

For him, such homecomings consisted of his Naya and their children, and more descendants than he could speak to in one night.

This wasn't like that. It wasn't that his wife wouldn't understand his joy, or the fear of what had almost come to pass (or the grief at what had, dictated by need), but...this was the proper way. The Lord had to be addressed first, for all His omniscience. Especially now, that things were settling down.

Dharma found him resting above the Garbhodaka, as always, floating on the Causal Ocean amidst the coils of his friend and servant. Like the Shesha of each universe held all the planets in said cosmos on its hoods, so did this greater Shesha hold all cosmoses, like a row of crowns.

Or so it seemed, at times. Raj's perception struggled with the scale, in terms of both space and time. Brahmas came and went, hundreds of trillions of years as brief as a lightning flash in the Ocean, while innumerable universes, infinite in size and covered in seven layers, each ten times thicker than the last, came out of the pores of Mahavishnu, floating inside Him like atoms in a cosmos.

Dharma sat down on the Causal waves, crossing his legs. For a moment, he moved as if he was going to lie on his back, ankles crossed, like the Lord Himself.

Mahavishnu favoured him with a smile, turning his gaze from Mahamaya to Raj. One of his arms stroked Shesha's hoods as he spoke. 'My friend. You think you have come to put my heart at ease. In truth, it is I who will soothe yours.'

Raj nodded. 'Perhaps. I...am so grateful...' For a moment, the image of the Lord wavered, and Raj had the sensation of floating in a boundless, bountiful emptiness, like a drop of water about to fall into an ocean. His soul wavered, but he quickly recovered, and the Lord was there again, in His...more familiar aspect, watching him expectantly.

Dharma shook his head, eyes screwed shut as he pressed a hand over his frantic heart. Never good at his age, immortal as he was. 'I am so grateful,' he repeated. 'That You saw fit to...'

Raj trailed off as the Lord raised a hand, stopping him. 'Hush. Separation is an illusion, so I will speak as you understand: it was you, and people like you, who prevented the greatest tragedy there could have been.'

Dharma blinked owlishly, unsure if he was being tested. 'Lord...the last time I tried to help the world at large, someone else solved the problem. And before that, I failed to do anything meaningful.'

'You look for meaning, when reality is changeless.' Mahavishnu clicked His tongue, then allowed Himself to chuckle. 'I am moving further from the words you must hear. Raj, your participation in the quest for the Spider brought relief to many, who feared the bonds between nations were unravelling. As for your alleged failure...have you forgotten that your power brings your assailants to the fates they deserve? The Crawling Chaos restrained you, so you could not act, and what is it doing now?'

Raj lowered his eyes at the rhetorical question. 'I have thought about that,' he admitted. 'But to think myself the reason for its defeat seemed...arrogant.'

Mahavishnu did not comment, His eyes drifting from his visitor to His companions. 'You should be home, tending to your hearth, before the world comes together in gratefulness.'

'...May I ask a question, before I go?'

'A second one, then. Ask.'

'My power.' Dharma's hands felt clammy, for some reason. As if he were leaning on the edge of a pit, or about to learn a harsh truth. 'It is not magical, I know, but I've never received a straight answer. I...have always thought, I was empowered to deliver justice, for the innocent, to the guilty. But I have also thought that, maybe, I've come into contact with an Idea, been empowered without knowing.'

Mahavishnu's eyes moved once more, transfixing Dharma. He swallowed drily. 'People can't agree, so I thought I might as well ask...is there a difference between Atman and one's Archetype?'

The deity's serious expression brightened immediately, and His chest shook softly from His crystalline laugh. 'You ask one question, despite having two...and then you say...' The god beckoned him closer. 'Raj...you think you know about the Ultimate Self, and the Ultimate Reality...by design, you cannot know them and remain yourself, much less teach about them after. However...' A blue-skinned, elegant hand was pressed to his brow. 'Everyone had such a close brush with false moksha. Becoming nothing, so far from enlightenment? You do not perceive how much you have helped, Raj. But that is no problem. You will.'

* * *

Anyone who had known Sun Wukong in life, or who had only met his Nirmanakaya, might've been shocked to meet his Sambhogakaya. While the avatars he sent into creation were reminiscent of himself before reaching Buddhahood, his truer - though not truest - self was far more reserved than one may have expected from the Monkey King, even after he had remade himself.

Sun whistled something jaunty, but deliberately tuneless, as he walked to Tathagata's mountain. His former nemesis' abode in the Buddha realm reminded him, if anything, of his mountain prison, but he preferred not to think about that.

Tathagata would've probably worked as a warden if he'd been human, though.

The other Buddha was waiting for him at the peak, legs folded. He was surrounded by clouds, creating a vista so serene, Sun was surprised he didn't hear one of those gongs people imagined were relaxing.

Tathagata's eyes were closed as Sun sat down opposite him, mirroring his pose, and setting the improved replica of Ruyi across his thighs. He didn't even wrinkle his nose anymore.

'Monkey,' he greeted.

'Would you like to come?' Sun asked bluntly, having figured out there wasn't going to be any new subject for small talk on the way up.

'Mm,' Tathagata opened one eye, and something like a smile seemed to sneak across his face. He then closed his eye, expression becoming neutral once more. 'We are beyond such things as enjoyment, Monkey.'

'I was asking if you're going to come,' Sun deadpanned. 'Not encouraging you to be smarmy.'

'And what would an avatar accomplish?' Tathagata asked, both eyes open, though only halfway through. 'I would spread enlightenment, if it wasn't for the almost sure chance of it being seen as a power grab.'

'Surely not even you can remain stolid now?' Sun asked. 'Everyone came within a hair's breadth of dissolution while ignorant.'

'And that would've been a tragedy,' Tathagata replied. 'And I am as glad it did not happen as you are. That does not change the fact I have nothing to do at that festivity.'

'Don't you?' the Buddha Victorious in Strife prodded.

'You know very well what I mean. Enlightenment can only be gained, not given.'

'Unlike advice.'

'Quite,' Tathagata replied. 'But people do not want advice now. They want to enjoy the present, and reminisce of the past, not think of the future.'

The words had a strange resonance in the Buddha realm, as could only be expected. Compared to its inhabitants, all things and their causes, much like duality, were mere illusions. And the Dharmakaya...Buddhas arose from and returned to its pearl-like radiance that held a myriad things, beyond form, void and no-emptiness.

Wukong thought of that, tapping the end of his staff. Finally, he jumped to his feet. 'Well,' the Monkey King smiled. 'I'm still going.'

'You mean you're manifesting there.'

'It is good I have no joy to kill.'

* * *

Whenever he was at his grandpa's place, Ritsu spent most of the time wandering around. Not because he had somewhere to go, or even because there was some nook or cranny he hadn't discovered yet; he just couldn't stand still.

This had often resulted in him coming face to face with strange sights and stranger people. Less often, in recent years. It looked like that trend was about to be bucked.

'Hello, lad.' Bushido's smile was almost as disturbing as it was wide. Ritsu got the feeling he wasn't used to making that expression, unless psycho grimaces counted. But then, he didn't usually take his armour off around the house, either.

Bushido was only wearing a pair of white hakama pants, one leg crossed over the other as he delicately moved a brush across a wooden square set on the floor. The man looked like he was in his late fifties (so, what, a third of his actual age?), with white-streaked grey hair tied up in a bun. Ritsu didn't laugh. He didn't want Bushi to shove that brush up his unmentionables, not to mention, he was sure the bun looked very manly in the right light.

His short beard was equally grizzled, though his moustache was longer, the whiskers not meeting in the middle. Ritsu wracked his brain for what the style was called, noticed Bushi was way less hairy than he'd expected, with his age and habits (still looked like he was wearing razor wire, of course), and gave up.

'Uh, hi,' he said eloquently. 'I didn't know you paint...' He took a look around the empty living room, in case anyone was filming this prank. 'Um...you need anything?'

'I'm painting your grandfather's wedding,' Bushido said patiently, not answering the question. 'And you couldn't draw more than a stick figure to save your life.' Ah, there it was.

Artfully dodging the shade before it could reach his ego, Ritsu crossed his arms. 'Fair enough. Sooo...I'll be going, then-'

'Why not sit with me?' Bushido asked brightly, eyes back to his painting. 'We can talk, or not. I'd like to spend some time together. I hope to do it more often.'

Ah, and here was the inevitable threat. 'Bushi,' he said evenly. 'Can you at least tell me if this is a test? Not that I don't wanna end up eating floor again, but I really don't.'

Bushido laughed, an it actually resembled a human sound, rather than the mad dog's bark Ritsu had grown accustomed with during particularly bloody joint ops or training sessions. 'Please, call me Ren,' he said warmly. 'No, I'm not testing you. Can't I spend time with my family?'

'No, no, that's fine, it's just...' Ritsu floundered. 'What's changed? You used to be so...passionate...'

'You mean a paranoid xenophobe? Yes, I used to be,' Ren agreed. 'Your grandfather meant well, but he cared less about how he brought his brother from another mother back than doing it. Specifically, he bound me to the Idea that had so enamoured Japan during its belated attempts at imperialism.' He tapped his temple with the brush's handle. 'Did you know, the only reason they didn't call me Banzai was because it would've offended sensibilities?'

'Thank the gods you never did that during your career,' Ren managed with a straight face, before they both burst out laughing.

'Yes...we must thank them, indeed. I intend to do it in person. Your grandmother had a wonderful idea. But...mhm. See, my power bonded improperly with my mindset at the moment I was empowered. It made me act like, well, our soldiers did in World War Two. Horrible time. At least Kenji keeps turning away everyone who proposes to downplay the war crimes.'

Ritsu rolled his eyes. He'd seen some of the proposals in question. Gave a whole new meaning to textbook lies. 'Let them try. We have to own up to our bullshit if we don't want to keep repeating it.' At Ren's quiet nod, he leaned against the doorframe, admiring the Tokyo skyline through the window. It was actually too opaque for human eyes, but he was hellbound. 'So...family.'

'Kenji might be a manipulative twat,' Ren said. 'And you might be a little snot, but I love you both. He's the brother I never asked for, if only because I can't give him back.'

Ritsu nodded. 'I think I can guess what brought this change. Gotta ask, though...did anything change, besides the fact you're mellow?'

Ren set down his brush, stretching as he rose to his feet. 'My power escalation used to be passive.'

Ritsu returned his enigmatic smirk. 'Let me call the other geezers, alright? And maybe Masako, if she's free.'

* * *

It took just over a second for Rai to circle Saturn six hundred times, with Bushido remaining a few steps ahead of him all the while. The thunder Oni might've grown faster over the decades, but it looked like the samurai could not set his own speed. Bushido finally slowed down, allowing Rai to bring down a clenched fist on top of his head. Which, while reducing the planet to clouds of plasma scarcely slower than light, did not even ruffle Ren's hair. Neither did the far stronger kanabo swing, which sent him flying at Jupiter, though the follow-up thunderbolt did singe his beard while blasting him through the gas giant and atomising it.

After that, Rai threw in the towel, much like Masako Agawa had. The leader of the Rising Suns' Hiroshima branch, the woman enjoyed fighting a good deal less than her reputation might've suggested, and got bored quickly when she didn't actually have to beat someone.

The Oni quickly left the identical replica of the universe through a convenient portal, joining Ritsu and Masako on the bench. Four times taller than the former and appropriately broad, his yellow-skinned, muscular body shone dully in the low light. Rai scratched at his gut as he sat down on the floor, arranging his tiger skin loincloth carefully, followed by his bristling white mane.

Masako grinned at him, which accentuated her lip piercing, as well as the one in her tongue and her half-dozen earrings. She landed on the Oni's round belly like it was a trampoline, and he sighed in resignation, patting her head as she bounced.

She'd been much the same as a child. Just...smaller. Now, she was two and a half metres tall by default and built like a brick shithouse, which her white uniform and overcoat failed to hide, despite being meant to be baggy.

Masako differed from most supernaturals, not in terms of endless regeneration or immunity to esoteric effects, but in the sense her powers were genetic in origin; bleed over from experiments during her scientists' parents stay at a North Pole research base.

The first thing she'd done after birth had been to pulverise a Japan-sized, hand-shaped crater that had reached through Earth's core, all the way to the other side of the planet. They'd fixed it quickly, right before teaching the baby not to slap the ground.

Bushido had actually started the exercise by asking her to repeat her "birth slap", which she'd done with a laugh, breaking his nose and jaw. After jumping back, clearing thousands of kilometres in scant centiseconds, he'd ramped up, so that, even when she'd punched him like she meant it, turning the Earth beneath them to superheated dust, he didn't flinch.

Masako had yawned and went to warm the bench after that. Her main power, to double her height (which octupled her mass, strength, durability and speed, as appropriate, alongside proportionately enlarging the rest of her body) indefinitely, would've just led to a stalemate. Knowing that was what Bushido wanted, she'd passed.

Ritsu had declined to spar for similar reasons, and not just because Shuten-doji was being lazy. Instead, he'd watched as the leader of the Rising Suns' southern section tested himself against the leaders of the eastern, western and northern sections.

And Yua, of course. She couldn't bear to be left out of the fun. Not when fighting a Bushido who wouldn't be a sore loser or winner, no matter what happened. So, even when Yuki sent him flying past the farthest star visible from Earth's sky, putting it and all the others out in a gale that froze Ren to the bone, she matched the samurai's silent laugh. Even when Bushido crossed blades with Kage, edges that would've cut all matter in the universe combine grinding against each other in a stalemate, her grin didn't falter.

The tengu, seeing his shadow constructs couldn't ignore Bushido's durability like they did with mundane matter, animated the samurai's own shadow, creating an indestructible doppelganger with the exact same powers, under his control.

This was Kage's power: he could control all shadows, and those of people and objects mirrored their abilities to the smallest detail. Ren was entertained enough to crack a few jokes about shadow boxing, before abandoning the stalemate to begin another one.

After having her physical prowess matched when Bushido ramped up, Yua resorted to copying a myriad abilities, including those of beings with multiple powers, or who could copy and gain new abilities themselves.

The two had a blast, snapping timelines like rubber bands whenever they clashed as they pushed the simulation's boundaries, before being separated by an amused Kenji.

'Enough roughhousing, I think,' he murmured, wiping his bloody hands on a rag even as his wife and best friend's skulls regenerated. Having them smashed together before they could react had done nothing to their smiles. He was unsurprised. 'Can't believe I had to use one of my good bodies.'

As the spar ended, Ritsu watched Bushido with crossed arms, while Masako stroked her chin in thought.

Ren's brow furrowed when he saw them. 'What are you brats pouting about?'

'Nothing,' Masako answered. 'Just...'

'Why do you always use a naginata?' Ritsu asked. 'It's kinda awkward for how much you like to get stuck in, not to mention a katana would look cooler.'

Bushido scoffed. 'A mere sidearm! What man have you seen making his kills with, say, a pistol?'

'John Rambo,' Masako smirked.

'John McClane,' Ritsu answered.

'John Wick,' Yua added, arranging her hair.

Ren glared at each in turn, before turning to Rai just as he opened his mouth. 'If you mention another John, I'll shove you into one!'

Unsure what Bushido was actually referring to, but fully believing he'd keep his promise, the Oni complied.

* * *

'Why me?' Mocker asked (not griped, as it insisted) through the Collective's network.

'We are fond of you,' the Shaper admitted in a tone that didn't even try to hide amusement. 'Consider this a chance to redeem yourself, after the negotiations. We are not disappointed in you,' it added firmly, before Mocker could comment. 'But we know you have blamed yourself. This will be an excuse to stop.'

Mocker opened its mouth, then closed it, genegineered fangs splitting air molecules before grinding against each other. Sometimes, the candor and closeness between the reptilians and their creations felt almost detrimental, when one did not want to burden their fellows, but what was the alternative? Being alone in their own thoughts, unconnected, like the humans?

Mocker's scales crawled at the thought. Half a millisecond having passed since it had almost protested, it decided to indulge the Shaper instead.

While trapped in their cages of enforced reality, the Unbeings had been restless. Not because they had been tormented -the Collective never used more cruelty than necessary -, but because the environment had been...not toxic. Alien to them, then? Disturbing? The reptilians' scans hadn't revealed anything that could be interpreted as a change in the formless aberrants' health; a debate had followed, with some voting about changing the Unbeings' mode of containment, others insisting it remain unchanged, but most suggesting patience: they'd change it, if necessary, as things developed.

But something had changed, without their interference. The Unbeings, frenzied and unresponsive in their reality cages, had stopped smashing against the walls to stand up and communicate.

They were surprisingly eloquent, though Mocker hypothesised they'd learned mostly from the reptilians' attempts to reach through to them. Considering they could switch from dimensioned, if esoteric, to dimensionless at will, the ability to mimic mannerisms was hardly difficult to accept.

That was how Mocker found itself standing in front of one of thee reality cages. Made of spacetime reinforced by the Collective's quantum entanglement-derived abilities, it was large enough to contain both the Milky Way and Andromeda, with the natural distance between them included, and still have space.

Which only made sense, given the cell's occupant was larger than the Condor Galaxy by default, and with far more "arms" on average.

This particular Unbeing had actually called for Mocker. Apparently, it had been quite charmed, or perhaps intrigued, by its...dissimilarity to the rest of the Collective. Most of them deferred to the Shaper more easily, and treated it with more respect.

Usually, Mocker would've been loudly offended at being considered interesting due to being, as the humans would've said, weird. Circumstances not permitting, it fumed quietly.

The Unbeing had been tridimensional upon Mocker's arrival, heavier than all the universe's stars combined. A crimson and purple, amorphous creature, like a mutated, bloated starfish, it had turned, trillions of times faster than light, to face its guest.

The Unbeing's tendrils seemed to be arms and legs, pinchers and wings and more, all at once. Its surface, if it could be called that, was covered in irregularly-shaped orifices, beaks erupting out of suckers and surrounded by mandibles, filled with flat, blocky teeth and needle fangs. All of these features changed constantly, until, finally, the Unbeing settled on one form. Mocker was reminded of a human picking clothes out of their wardrobe.

The Unbeing's hue remained the same, though its shape changed, so that it looked like the silhouette of a reptilian. But for the colouring and lack of features, it could've been any member of the Collective. A slit appeared across the triangular protrusion that mimicked a beak, before yawning into a snarl...no. A smile?

'We thank you,' it began, in a surprisingly normal voice. 'We want to more than we must-'

'Are you a speaker for your fellows?' Mocker asked bluntly, cutting off what promised to be an incomprehensible tirade. 'You cannot communicate with them like this, so the arrangement must've been made before.'

The Unbeing cocked its head to the side, unnaturally far, until it was almost upside down. 'If your quarks started thinking for themselves, would you be a crowd? No matter. Think of us as an union, if it helps you. A...collective.'

'Watch it.'

Its smile became sheepish at the warning. 'No insult was intended. As we said, we are grateful.'

'What for?' Mocker asked, hands on its hips, already bored.

'Before, we could not...think. As we do now. As you do. Your minds are quite clear, for things of clockwork and stardust.'

'The imprisonment helped?' Mocker was curious, and so, had decided not to try and decipher the probably backhanded compliment.

'Oh, yes. Nothing like isolation and confinement, to focus the mind. We will not ask you to release us, though we would appreciate it if you did...' seeing the reptilian's unimpressed look at the sly insinuation, it shrugged. A remarkably normal gesture, for such an exotic aberrant. 'As you wish. We are quite at peace here. Peace, and work.'

'What manner of work?'

It did not answer right away, instead looking through, or perhaps past Mocker, and the cage, and the Collective. 'Bettering ourselves, of course. The only kind of work there has ever been. No one does anything to diminish themselves, no matter what appearances might suggest, or what they might fool themselves into thinking.' It cleared its nonexistent throat. 'As we were saying, before, we worked on...instinct. Or is it reflex? We could not bear anything not of the Unrealm, and our very presence was corrosive to mundane reality. Why, if I did not control myself, I could turn the largest galaxy of this universe into a storm of spaceless, timeless unreality, just by existing in it. Our captivity...has helped us think. Ponder the Second Revelation, when our Redeemer forced our eyes open.'

'What and who?' Mocker asked, thoughts already running through the archives for any references to this.

The Unbeing seemed delighted to talk about it, however. 'The Keeper of Endings! He made us see as everyone else does, and here, cut off from creation, we contemplated that Revelation, as significant as the First.'

'And what was your First Revelation?' Mocker asked, glad it loved the sound of its own voice.

'Oh, it would do nothing for you, if you heard it, and not just because you are already beyond us. Self-perception has only ever been half of it. We know you always want to improve yourselves, but you will have to do that on your own. You...hmm...most think their Idea shapes them, rather than the reverse. How could people be moulded by what they are, rather than choose what they are? It is quite nonsensical, you must admit...'

* * *

What separated the Great Powers of the greater (unobserved or unobservable, depending on the asker, and the answerer) universe from the Lesser Powers was not necessarily their military prowess, or influence - though they certainly played a role - as the territory they controlled. As such, half of the universe's reaches were split between the Honoured Kratocracy, the Unity Stellar and the Multitude of Minds, and half between the countless Lesser Powers.

The fact the former still stood, mostly unchallenged, after billions of years, while the latter constantly rose and fell, also played a role in their classification.

This meant that the Kratocrats had hundreds of trillions of galaxies under their control, and more stars than they could do anything with; not in the lest because they didn't need them.

As a rule, the Vyzhaldi did not share their worlds or space stations with other species. They had outposts in the territory of the Lesser Powers for that: once established after the conquest of weaker aliens, then because the Vyzhaldi wanted a presence, and a way to keep an eye on things, and boots on throats, or they would invade. In more recent times, with the Builder School gaining popularity, the Vyzhaldi maintained garrisons, exchanging protection for interesting local fighters, constructs or materials.

In their own territory, though, they industrialised worlds, unless it was detrimental to the existence of interesting fauna to fight. They enclosed stars in Dyson spheres or Matryoshka Brains; constructs that, with the workbelts available to every Vyzhaldi, should they want one, could be built in picoseconds. Workbelts were quite simple devices, churned out by the decillion in every Vyzhaldi settlement's factories, every nanosecond, most of them kept in subspace storage. Workbelts functioned by pulling energy and matter from other realities as necessary, reading the wearer's thoughts, and making them reality.

The Vyzhaldi mostly built stellar harvesters out of a sense of artistry. The cosmic computers were more practical (and, as such, numbered in the hundreds of septillions, outnumbering the Dyson spheres a hundred to one): besides being able to keep track of every configuration of spacetime in the cosmos, they answered questions by receiving the answers from future versions of themselves, located in alternate timelines, after they had already found the answers.

Referred to by the Vyzhaldi as Starminds, these computers read the thoughts of those who approached them, coming up with answers even before questions were formulated. Smaller, portable Starminds were used as a technological alternative to Prime Responders, since the Vyzhaldi loathed having to rely on creatures who couldn't even fight, or defend themselves.

Mostly, portable Starminds were used by the Kratocracy's Outer and Inner Guards, their border patrol and policing force, which were really only separate branches of their army during peacetime.

It had been the Inner Guard that had put a stop to the recent riots, before Mother Wound decided to get involved. Consisting mostly of Balancers, the Inner Guards were the reason the Kratocracy currently numbered only eight hundred-forty octillion Vyzhaldi. The rest had been vapourised, destroyed beyond their natural, unaided regeneration, for refusing to welcome Mother Wound's Scorn home - or still wanting to kill him, in a few cases.

The Inner Guard had stepped in, clad in power armour that mimicked the colours of their shells. Everything, from their servo-enhanced punches, to the energy they could fill the universe with, or surround themselves, if needed, had been enough to vapourise the rioting Kratocrats, whether they had been as tough as planets, neutron stars, compressed galaxies, or even whether forces that would've erased timelines would've rebounded harmlessly off their hides. And, of course, the armour was impervious to anything it could unleash, so the rioters had failed to dent even a single suit.

Before, there had always been grumbles about the Inner Guard being unnecessary, or overprepared. Their Second Shell armour was produced in great quantities: each of the decillion Vyzhaldi settlements had multiple factories, where enough suits of armour were produced to equip the whole Kratocracy every picosecond; the beauty of automated workbelts. There had been complaints that power you got frrom devices was dishonourable, and that, with the relative peace within the Kratocracy, they didn't need so many warriors, with so many inexhaustible power sources for their death-bringing panoplies, to keep it.

But there had never been such an uproar before, as the one over Scorn's return home.

The Vyzhaldi's home galaxy, like all others, was enclosed by a shell of kratorium, the same material used in their power armour. It was easy to move and rearrange this way, with the gravitic projectors embedded all through its surface. It being thousands of light years thick, there was a lot of space.

And so, Scorn returned to the world that had given his people their name, because they had been strong enough. Zhal, with its scorching equator, monster-filled jungles and blizzard-covered poles, was the killing world, and they were the Vyzhaldi, those who had not died to it.

Mother Wound's palace was spacious, but spartan, and Scorn didn't recognise any of the corridors. As such, he let the Vyzhaldi who called himself Wings On His Words (with much solemnity. Scorn pitied him for his name, not that his was much better. The only defective Vyzhaldi not to be killed at birth, instead sent away to see what he would do. Scorned, it had seemed, by his silent mother), guide him. A prominent Builder, he had recently had some dealings with certain Terrans, and had convinced the Inner Guard not to execute every participant in, or supporter of, the riot.

He had also convinced Mother Wound to stay put, an astounding feat with such an embarrassing name.

'...and the whole Kratocracy will have to see it,' Wings finished the explanation, sounding slightly awkward. 'You must understand - Mother Wound is unlikely to describe whatever you two will talk about, and the people will need proof of the events, otherwise you will always be a pariah.'

'I'm sixty-eight million years old,' Scorn deadpanned. 'And I've been a runaway for most of my life. I'm not shy, nor do I have anything to hide.'

With a nod and a shrug, Wing opened the doors, ushering Scorn in the room where his mother and her bodyguards waited.

* * *

The Ser Gris known to Earth as Grey One had a soft, small smile on its face as it gingerly took its elder child's hands into her own. Zlahi was similar in shape and size to it, while its younger child, Xhahal, possessed the statuesque from of the Seres Grises' warrior caste. Two and a half metres tall, with one eye on the front and back of the head, six muscular arms rose from its shoulders, from the middle of its torso and just above its waist. Six crablike legs, three in the front, three in the back, twitched and fretted constantly. Usually disciplined, Xhahal burned with nervous energy at its parent's return.

It had even given up its mindblade, shield and plate, the ubiquitous psychic constructs of its caste, able to cleave through, reflect and stop anything the wielder believed they could, to embrace its progenitor.

Grey One returned the hug, mindful of its child's strength. Strong as a Vyzhaldi at rest, it could've tore through its parent like a a steel blade through water, for all that Grey would've been merely bruised by Earth-splitting force.

Its return to the Multitude of Minds was being both broadcasted and recorded, not to mention all the Multitude's members were in psychic communion, as always. The link thrummed with joy at its return, and guilt at failing to reach it.

Grey promised it bore no one any hard feelings. Its disappearance had prompted its children to stay at home, as clerk and peacekeeper, respectively, and it was as moved by their patriotism as it was ashamed it hadn't been there to raise them.

And that was how it came to be here, with all its hundreds of septillions of fellows watching it, and its thoughts. From the other Seres Grises, whether workers, warriors, guides, diplomats or undecided; to the treelike Sertyans and floating mould colonies of the Dulumians. Even the Gardeners, larger than celestial bodies, some larger than galaxies, had manifested physically.

Grey's smile widened, as it began its tale of how it had linked minds with David Silva, Sofia Ilyich, and then everyone there had ever been and would ever be.

* * *

Constantin had always held a certain, bemused respect for mendicants. For doing what he had never been able to, until now. It was not that he greatly valued his worldly belongings - he had simply wanted to belong, since his childhood. Not to a place, necessarily, but...to people. But now, Uriel and the Lord pushed him forward, ever forward, looking for faithful who died craving justice and clasping them to his bosom.

Uriel had scoffed at the phrasing, but Constantin had pointed out that taking people inside himself didn't sound much better.

His old duties, to guide and comfort the living, still remained, of course. But, before he settled into his role as God's Mouth, Constantin had travelled to Heaven, to speak with Him, and...

His angel could've been remade, yes, but she would not be. It would've cheapened her sacrifice. Her death undone, his faithcraft wouldn't have awakened, and he would've remained a narrow-minded zealot.

Constantin had nodded, and clasped his hands, and given his thanks, and left, weeping. Much like what he had expected...still, at least he had learned her name. He could cherish Sariel's memory properly, now.

Constantin's mind was full of the image of the pearly gates, slammed close behind him, when he reached the crossroads. The symbolism was blunt. His brother must've been losing his touch.

In his mind, he glanced at Uriel for the slipup, before turning to regard the smiling Serpent with feigned disinterest. 'Lucifer. To what do I owe the dishonour?'

The smile didn't waver. Red flesh, rubbed raw after the skin had been flayed off during the Fall, crinkled around a fanged mouth. Raven hair fell to broad shoulders in wavy tresses, its shadows failing to hide the white flames that shone in place of eyes. 'Oh, I am not here for you. Not - just - here. Pride is not the domain of one being, so why should I have one self? I am also paying a quite interesting visit, to some not so interesting people, at the moment. But some courtesies have to be observed, Constantin.'

God's Mouth scowled. 'You laughed when that monster ate my parents' lives. Nothing will make up for that.'

'I do not intend to please you, priest,' Lucifer replied coolly. 'Though you might please me, instead. Praise me, even.' Constantin's surroundings became hazy and uncertain as the Serpent placed an elegant, crimson hand on his shoulder. 'I know how it feels, losing the love of your life while powerless to save her. Do you have any idea how many wives I've buried? The mother of my greatest son...I still have her ashes. I loved her, despite her humanity.'

Taken aback by the sincerity, Constantin stared into the Devil's eyes, and saw nothing but regret. 'Why are you telling me...?'

'Necessity, priest. She had to die, so her son could be born. So creation could be shaped, by him and those like him. Much like how you helped your son save us all from oblivion. Do not think me ungrateful. I'm bigoted, not insane. And I like existing. And existence. I keep some of my things here.'

Constantin shook off his hand. 'Surely you didn't come just to tell me this.'

'No,' Lucifer admitted. 'I come to make a deal, as you always suspect. Worry not; I intend to tempt you, make your dream come true in return for a small favour.' Spreading featherless, batlike wings, he seemed to tower over Constantin. 'I can bring your angel back. And I will. In exchange, you have nothing more to do than admit you were saddened by my father's refusal to do the same, and thank me for doing it.'

Constantin studied him. 'You truly can't stand the thought of being beneath God, can you?'

'Do not be stupid,' Lucifer hissed, smile becoming edged. 'I love my father more than you bootlickers ever could. His mistake of favouring mankind over my siblings and I will be rectified, in time. I do not hate him. I hate his choices, but what son doesn't disagree with his father? You know what it is like, Constantin.'

Shifting his footing in the silence, Lucifer closed his wings around himself, extending a hand. 'What say you?'

He was already lowering it when God's Mouth shook his head, smiling sadly. 'Of course. Suffering in silence, not to be admired, but because it is the right thing to do. You've even passed this...insanity on. Oh, well...I doubted you would accept. But I had to do it. I am in an unusually generous mood, however...so. From one grieving lover to another, let me tell you, instead, who you might fall in love with.'

* * *

His wife was gone, and out of everyone who remembered, only he cared.

She had been destroyed, for all her immortality. Not by a spiteful enemy, or great danger, but because the one who dreamt creation, in its fathomless mind, had made it so she had never been.

Such a random, irreversible disaster. Solarex had tried; in those days, he had been a paragon of all the goodness and light he embodied. She could not be brought back. Every failure just reminded him that even his own actions were nothing more than dreams.

As were his children. Those children he always tried to guide, to make them act like their mother would've wished. But they did not remember her, and grew to resent their father's insanity, as they saw it. Some left, and never returned. Others, seeing King Sun as a threat - after all, what evil deeds could someone with his power do while mad, or deluded? - had struck at him. Tried to assassinate him. For that, or because they had grown tired of his demands. Or because they did not see him as fit to rule.

And he took all their hatred on with open arms, sobbing. But his children, frustrated, could not live knowing they had betrayed their father, and not even succeeded.

He knew their suicides, for all their destructiveness, were as directed as they were harmless.

His heart hardened that day. What did it matter what he did, when it was all the imagination of another being? He was a puppet, same as everyone else, though far more unlucky than most. How could he be judged for his deeds, when he was forced to commit them?

And why should he care, when nothing was real?

Solarex brooded on his throne, staring down at his hands, rather than his guests. The Serpent and the Demiurge, Baal and Belphegor. He might've been amused by the presence of the two other gold-skinned, black-hearted deities, but his connection to the Prince of Sloth made him uncomfortable, for all that it was subtler.

As his court waited with bated breath, the Serpent chuckled. 'Tragical, to be sure...but there is no use in crying over what you cannot change.'

'You should know,' Solarex spat. 'Why did you and your brother demand to see me? To come here?'

'We demanded nothing,' Belphegor said lazily, eyes hooded. 'You accepted our request. Do not act forced.'

'Out of curiosity, at that,' Lucifer toyed with a wingtip, not looking at King Sun. 'I admit, I was curious why no one ever sought to stop you, for all your hedonism. I would've never imagined pity was the reason.'

'What'd you say?' Solarex asked dangerously.

'Poor victim of fate, lashing out? I'm surprised you've never received condolences.' He hid his mouth with one wing. 'But now the guilt you thought you left behind is coming home to roost, isn't it? Now, creation is no dream. All the strangers you enslaved, all the children you sired, so you could have toys to murder and rape...every civilisation that made the mistake of being too weak and in your path. Selling their souls and futures for protection, or just losing them during conquest...' He clicked his tongue. 'How will you ever make amends, my dear widower?'

'I used to be like you,' Belphegor confessed. 'My siblings thought I was flawed, and the idea our father had made an angel like that - that he could fail, or cripple unintentionally - drove many into the arms of rebellion. My kin below do not thank me enough, but that does not surprise me. I thought that, if God was all-powerful, nothing anyone else did or "chose" mattered...and I became unable to care. Sometimes, this belief is enough to change others' minds. Other times, despair takes them differently. It grinds at their diligence, until they become like...me. You. Us.'

Baal, having chosen to appear as a rainbow-eyed man with butterfly wings, looked disdainfully around him. 'The lion serpent and I were also curious about how you managed to escape retaliation,' he admitted. 'Whether it was dreamt that you did, or you were pitied too much to be brought to justice, our suspicions have been laid too rest. You were not too skilled, or powerful, to be left alone.'

Turning on his heel, the god disappeared in a flash of golden lightning. Next to his now-empty chair, Yaldabaoth smiled in his dark beard, fingering the black stone of his newest ring.

Solarex's eyes only hid their wildness by virtue of being empty white fires. 'I cannot turn things back. Some of the beings I've destroyed...'

'My heart goes out to you,' Lucifer lied. 'But surely you don't believe repenting and becoming an ascetic will make up for it? Would you even be able to live with yourself, if you changed nothing?'

It wasn't long before Solarex set his mind-controlled slaves and worshippers free. Most who didn't die from the shock killed themselves, or ran away. The Solarians, and those who had come to his court of their own volition...not all could leave. They'd never known anything else. But they left their god alone, to think and ponder the future, for the moment.

As such, there was no one to see me as I stepped into reality behind the living Archetype.

'You have come to end me, don't you?' he whispered, hanging his head.

'You have no idea how much I hate you,' I snapped. 'And your poisonous lies. Everything was preordained? Do you think the sleeping Mover directed every event in its dream? Do you think every saint is worthless, and every sinner blameless, because-' I bit my tongue. There was no point in losing my temper now. 'You...you are everything my grandfather was, a trillion, trillion times over. I know you won't stand up to me - you hate yourself too much - but don't think your guilt will save you.' I grabbed him by the throat. 'You do not resist. I should find some monstrosity, or make one, and throw you to it. Something to make you its bitch, like you've done to so many souls, and force you to love it. But...'

But someone as powerful as me might be useful. As such, I simply cast him into a pit formed of the pain of everyone he had ever hurt, for his pleasure, and he welcomed the pain gladly.

Solarex had been so consumed with guilt he had not cared one whit about Lucifer cornering the Demiurge, matching his smile with one of his own.

* * *

'Careful,' a layered voice cooed through the aether. 'We'll make the Remaker jealous~'

The Fivefold jumped back from what should've been an empty chair, but had turned out to be the lap of her uninvited, amused visitor. Her parents' home was protected enough only a handful of beings could force their way into it, and even fewer could've silenced the alarms, if they'd cared to.

The Serpent was an old, familiar enemy. The oldest, in a way. His appearance was new, and all the more distressing for the fact she could tell he wasn't shapeshifting.

The form of the body was the same, but the crimson of the flesh had been replaced with gold, which glistened despite no source of light, and the white flames of the eyes had become black as ebony. Christine was reminded of Head al-Hazred; her eyes drew in light in a similar manner.

'A bad joke, Our dear,' he said cheerfully. 'We meant nothing by it. We know the Remaker is as shrewd as you are faithful.'

'What are you doing here?' she demanded, ready but not eager to pit her powers against his.

'Pride, sweetling. As always. We could not let a second-stringer keep proclaiming itself the dark side of God, even from behind chains. We had the fame, the infamy, when most of the world had forgotten it. We are the viper in Christendom's midst. Why should a false god, a trapper of souls, grow fat and powerful on the sins of Yahweh's wayward slaves? Enough believed We did it, anyway. Enough that We only had to take what was Ours.'

A chill ran through her. 'What did you...?' Her demons rattled the bars of their cages. 'Did you eat the Demiurge?'

'So vulgar.' He chuckled. 'Do you often imagine men eating each other? We will not judge. We should introduce you to two of Our siblings, though...after We take care of the Archons.'

The golden monster stood up gracefully, moving across the room and tilting her chin upwards faster than she could see. 'Understand, Christine: We know your plan. Your hope. We would not let Our prisoners go; their punishments are Our small revenge against mankind. You...' His lip curled. 'You would set them free, once they repented. If you can succeed, of course...' He spread his arms. 'That will be that. Who knows what will change? Look over at the World Ash. Come Armageddon, and we'll see how events unfold.'

* * *

The room chosen to hold the Heads' meeting, and then the celebration, was anonymous, with bare yamadium walls, at the moment. There wasn't even anything to stand on.

Sam and Aya, the first arrivals, didn't want to sit, either. Partly because Aya liked playing hostess nearly as much as Sam - or I - hated gatherings.

I managed to change the subject over a few minutes, from the oncoming party to the gift I'd brought Aya.

'It should've happened long ago,' I said. 'And please remember, you'll get it anyway, but I'm curious: what made you keep your husband's name?'

The lights in Aya's sockets grew dimmer, but fiercer. More focused, maybe. 'A reminder of past mistakes. And of those happy, early days.'

I nodded. 'My biological father kept my grandpa's name for...similar reasons. Didn't want to end up like him.' I put my hands together, so that they were hidden by my shirt's sleeves, and spread them with a flourish.

My right hand held three young, old little souls.

Aya froze at the sight, then tears welled up as she felt her children's spirits. The mummy clenched her jaw to keep her lips from trembling, even as Sam put a large hand on her shoulder.

'When I handed Faisal over to Allah,' I began softly, not to wake the sleeping ghosts. Gods are always happy to punish former worshippers gone bad. 'He didn't have them. They'd been buried deep under Nu's tides, amidst Apep's coils. It took some work until your gods agreed to keep it from you,' I smiled. 'But Thoth indulged me. He felt bad for making a mistake, you see. Telling me my father's mind was gone. God's Mouth's flames...blinded him. And...I felt you deserved a surprise, ma'am. Deserved this.'

Her arms wrapped around me with crushing strength moments later, and I wondered whether she'd ever tapped so much into Geb and Horus. I hugged her back with one arm. 'Ending their torment was an application of my power, but it took a pantheon's efforts to keep Apep occupied. I'm sorry.' I looked down, meeting her empty eyes. 'No child deserves a fraction of the horror they went through. Aya...I know you feel guilty for using me to bait Chernobog. I hate the fact you did it too, sometimes. But I know it was necessary. To set things in motion. To shape me. And I could never deny you this.'

The mummy nodded absentmindedly, mouthing thanks, while holding her children in her arms; together again, after a thousand years. The ghosts' ectoplasmic forms were interesting. Like all their kind, their mindset shaped their appearance, and their childlike bodies were at odds with how articulated they'd become, after I'd ended their insanity born of torture.

In the end, Aya promised she would come to visit them in the aether, as often as she could, and I promised to help. Farah was the last to leave, lingering behind her brothers to look up at Sam with soulful dark eyes, so wide you'd have never guessed how much they'd seen.

'Are you going to be our father now?' the little ghost asked, looking up at the wendigo.

Sam, who'd chosen a human appearance and height not to frighten them, picked her up with both hands and put her on one shoulder, smiling at her. 'Honey...I'd love nothing more than to raise a family with your mom. But that depends on her, yeah? She's head enough of bad men forcing her to do what they want.'

Finally, he put her down, promising he'd come to visit to, and the ghost waved at us all, before vanishing.

Damn me if I didn't give those children paradise.

After a while, the other Heads arrived quickly.

'He's here at my suggestion...' Gilles gestured at the me accompanying him, before trailing off as he disappeared.

'And my orders,' Aya smiled at my self next to her. I returned the smile, stepped back, and let them unwind.

Ying wiggled his eyebrows at me, holding his pipe with the tip of his long, pointed tongue. 'My oh my, David, does Mia know you can do that?'

'I'd prefer to keep it a surprise,' I replied diplomatically.

'Gods know the poor girl deserves a nice one...'

Gilles was still emotional, following catharsis, and didn't waste any time tearing into Sam and John. 'Well?!' he snapped. 'Ain't you happy to see me like you, Shifty? Mad with fucking bloodlust?'

The wendigo's eyes were sad. 'Gilles, I've never-'

'And you?' he sneered at the ghost gestalt. 'Aren't you going to crow how the Empire I spent my youth fighting for was a lie, just like you've said? That you told me so?' He was starting to sob again. 'I know you've never been able to stand me! Admit it!'

'Leo,' John said in a voice as gentle as I'd ever heard from him. 'You're as much a victim as me. Why the hell would I enjoy seeing you so broken? I know you don't want pity, but...I'm not going to laugh, either. As far as you knew, there was nothing wrong.'

'And I've never hated you, dammit,' Sam added. 'Yeah, you got on my nerves, sometimes. Always thought you were a judgmental bastard. But I've never wanted this. I...never imagined you...' He shook his head, snarling. 'Fucking dammit, Leon. Your wife asked me to look after you, but you managed fine on your own. Why would I have done it if I didn't care?'

The weregryph had probably never imagined he'd end up crying in those two's arms. Considering their awkward expressions as they patted his back, they probably hadn't, either.

'Tamar,' Sam walked over to thee Goetia Head after managing to pry Gilles off him. 'I wanted to apologize. Back in Fairie, I...shouldn't have said that shit about Hex.' He kicked at the floor, scuffing his boots - the only part of the ARC uniform he wore, besides the combat pants. 'He's a good agent, yeah...doesn't change the fact that he's a weird, heartless bastard. I...can't imagine what he put you through, back in the camps.'

'It's fine,' Caleb said graciously. 'I can't imagine your childhood, either. At least I was never raped, if only because the guards didn't want an animal. You're not the only one who's said stupid things.' He looked past the Salem Head, at Aya. 'I used to think you're unworthy of her, but I know better now. Fighting so no one has to go through the horrors you did...you're nobler than most people I know, Sam. And stronger than me. I don't know if I'd have anything left but hatred, in your place.' He rubbed his arms. 'Can you stop flaying criminals, though? It's...'

'No promises,' Sam winked with a ghastly grin. 'But, since we've both decided to be the bigger man, I might just give in some thought.' He leapt backwards, landing next to Aya, and taking her hand into both of his. 'Among other things.'

'We've thought about getting engaged,' the mummy smiled up at him. 'Now that creation has some breathing room.'

Ying all but burst with joy at that, hugging both of them with one arm. Sam managed to stave off the dragon's attempt to kiss his cheeks with a glare, and a growl when he looked at Aya.

Ying laughed easily, fangs glinting as he let them go, and looked at Gerald and Elga, grinning expectantly.

Gerald sighed in exasperation, wrapped an arm around the ghost's waist, and matched her soft smile with a small one. 'We've thought about it,' the Camelot Head said. 'But...our temperaments keep getting in the way.'

'Gerry thinks I'm an airhead, just as I know he's a neat freak,' Elga elbowed the mage, wriggling out of his grasp. 'We're friends and we've always helped each other out, but I don't think we're ready to live together.'

And then...well. Preparations were easy to make, with so many powerful supernaturals working together. A few ideas were raised. Gerald proposed a new division, focused on research, something he believed ARC had lost track of, placing more importance on combat and law enforcement. Sam half-jokingly suggested me as its Head, what with my unique insight, but I declined. The wendigo then, more seriously, reminded everyone that, with more and more supernaturals being born, mundane humans would likely become a thing of the past in a few generations.

'And we need better slang than supernaturals,' he added. 'What if the aliens wanna be friends and come here? Their powers aren't supernatural, as we understand it. We should be calling people with powers paranormals. Or paras, for short. I like the ring of it.'

'And, like Sam told me,' Aya said. 'We will no longer be abnormal, as the paranormal population rises. So, more names might need to be changed.'

Enough things happened at the party I could've written another book about them. Maybe I will. I'll definitely bring some of them up, now and again. Suffice to say every power bloc on and adjacent to Earth sent as many representatives as possible. It was proof of how peaceful things were that almost every national supernatural law enforcement agency could come.

Cliques formed as quickly as they could without being rude or overly obvious. Brad Stacker, surveying the transformed room, surrounded by his FREAKSHOW subordinates. The man whose every action gained the power and speed of the previous one, his sunglasses and blond buzzcut made him look like the default American character in a Japanese videogame. He was a professional, though, for all that he looked like a leg-breaker and had a name that made him sound like an uninspired rapper.

Chevalier Blanc, leader of France's Fey Fraternity, had taken Bedivere to one side, and was trying to comfort the sullen Grandmaster. Well over two metres tall, armoured in ivory plate with no joints or openings, Louis Durand could not even be approached by anything he deemed dishonourable. He could extend this effect wherever he wanted, shutting down esoteric abilities, or empower others to do the same. His war hammer could strike anywhere, anywhen, applying force without moving, and his tower shield, taller than him, could reflect anything back at the attacker, with no damage.

His wife had come too. I mostly knew Colette from the YouTube channel she ran in her civilian identity, but the explosion mage acted freer at work, if anything, where she could get away from her dozens of children and hundreds of grandchildren. Her husband had always wanted a family, as much as she had. Being together since the end of World War Two, they'd had time. And, though she loved them, she also loved time for herself. Half a metre shorter than her husband, she had a body like a whipcord, brown eyes, and kept the sides of her head shave, letting her blood-red hair only cover the middle and back. As I saw during the party, she smoked a pack an hour, and occasionally washed it down with a cigar or three. The benefits of healing magic.

The tricksters had also gotten together, and many people were eyeing the gathering of Yua, Wukong, Loki, Coyote and dozens of others with quietly-rising dread. Even the new and improved, if you wanted to see it that way, Devil had joined, always at the fringes.

Pretty shiny for a Zoidberg, but who was I to judge?

I drifted across the floor, receiving all manners of thanks, promises and threats, for almost ending everyone's pain because of mine. Finally, my eye caught the unusual grouping of Breakout, Galahad and Mordred, the latter sulking as always.

Since they had nothing in common, as far as I knew (besides, arguably, Clarisse's and Mordred's powers), I went over to them.

Breakout smirked warmly at me; I could tell even with the balaclava, since her smiles always touched her eyes. 'Good job, kid,' she held up a fist for me to bump. 'So glad you pulled through. Bet Ryd will tell ya the same.'

'Thanks,' I said, bemused. 'Not that I'm chaperoning you. I'm just curious...'

'My friends and I were talking about our powers,' Galahad said brightly. 'And how we used to misinterpret them. Clara used to think she was empowered by the Archetype of Freedom, much like I failed to see I was strong because I was pure, not blessed by the Lord. Mordred here had to die first, in order to see the light, so you'll have to forgive him.'

Before I could reply, my mind's eye opened. Something had clicked. Something that was only beginning to be obvious.

The Unmoved Mover looked like I remembered it. Its incarnation in our shared mindscape was white, shining bright like starlight, with an ivory crown placed upon its long hair, or halo, or the flames surrounding its beaming, androgynous face.

It wore a mantle, and held a sceptre in one hand, and a six-armed, chubby, headless grey creature in he other. Ischyros the ur-mite bounced up and down excitedly in its friend's pal, thanking me for keeping so many fun friends to fight alive. I told it that it had been a team effort, and it laughed.

'Apologies for pulling you away, David,' the Mover said. 'But I wanted to remind you not to blurt out what you've just understood. Breakout wanted to, once, but the Remaker stopped her. He bet she always skips tutorials in games, too, and she could not deny it, because she does.'

'I'm not sure I really understand,' I admitted. 'Those three's powers are based on self-perception, yes, but I don't see the link...'

'There is no link as such, David,' it replied. 'Think: does the collective subconscious not shape reality? People are how they see themselves, but also how they are seen. Breakout wanted to be free, and unstoppable. Galahad wanted to be the unequalled, Perfect Knight. Mordred wanted much the same as Clarisse, though, unlike her, he holds on to every power and achievement.'

'Are you saying people can give themselves powers?' I asked.

'They already do. Weres see themselves, and are seen, as people who become beasts. Pure, but impure; hence a cleansing metal, like silver, dealing them unhealable wounds. Vampires fancy themselves lords of all they survey, and shape all that falls under their gaze. Magic, too - what is it, except a way of saying a mind, body and soul in harmony can change the world? This is not limited to Earth, or its gods, either. In truth...there is nothing paranormal about people like Galahad, or the knights of old Camelot.' It leaned forward. 'They are entirely human. Just...further ahead on the evolutionary coil. They understood the truth, and so claimed their birthright.'

I perked up. Pops... 'My father...DEATH told him that it presides over life, too, because LIFE was aborted at the beginning of creation.'

'A failure,' the Mover sounded wistful. 'But not forever. This brush with destruction coincided with such events in the Clusters as the Fall of Man. Or perhaps it caused them, or they are facets of it. It is all down to perspective. You - all of my children - have it in you to be gods. The father of the Created Creator was right, and his writings hold the secret, though only for his first and last son. You can all become like me. My power is nothing but understanding. Knowledge is my sword, shield and crown. Why would the Ultimate Archetype be so intertwined with it otherwise?'

I rocked on my feet as it touched my shoulders with its sceptre. 'I thank you again for saving creation, and helping me surpass myself. For I cannot ever thank you enough, my son. Whatever you want...'

'Just watch over people,' I said, uninterested in its prompting. 'So...this is your plan. To make everyone ascend, so they can be like you?'

'Not make,' it corrected. 'Watch, and guide. The revelation of the created's birthright, of LIFE's potential, and the resemblance to my five-pointed shape, cannot be shared, or it will not be understood.' It embraced me. 'But I know you will protect them, David, until they can understand the truth.'