“What if every living soul could be upright and strong? Well then I do imagine, there would be, sorrow, no more.” - Bad Religion, Sorrow -

_____

The first word James attempted to say upon cracking his eyes open was “Ow.” It didn’t really work, and instead came out as a sticky rasp, his throat dry and his mouth in pain. He poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue and tasted stale blood along with the shot of pain from the tip of his tongue itself. Then he tried to roll over and grab the bottle of water he kept on his nightstand, moving to maneuver around Anesh if he was still sleeping, and it was at this point that James remembered that he wasn’t in his own bed.

“Shit.” Was the second word he tried to say. It came out close to sounding like actual language. Close, but not quite.

“You’re awake!” A girl’s voice near him whispered. James looked up to see a thin kid, face covered by freckles and dirt, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. She’d dropped the book she was reading in surprise with a thud onto the wooden floor, and James tried to get his vision to focus as the girl bolted out the door of the room.

He’d *wanted* to ask for some water. But his head was still in a fog, and he hadn’t been quite fast enough. Also, actually saying words sounded like quite a lot more effort than he was willing to put in right now.

So instead, he looked around where he’d been dumped. He was on a mattress with a pile of blankets that was otherwise bare. The room didn’t have any other furniture in it, except for the chair and lamp. A bare wooden floor led into a closet empty of everything but a few cardboard boxes, and walls with nothing on them but a few stray holes from long gone screws. James had seen low budget porn sets with more effort put into them.

He was still dressed, but someone had cut away one of his pant legs and wrapped a heavy dressing around his calf. He didn’t remember anything cutting him there, but then, he didn’t remember much of anything. His sock on that side was crusted with dried blood, enough that he was willing to believe he’d been hurt pretty bad. His shoes were on the floor next to him, but James didn’t move to put them on just yet.

Instead, he hauled himself up, braced his back against the wall, and thought.

Someone had just tried to kill him. Someone, James thought with an amount of relish, or some *thing*.

But no, seriously. He’d just been attacked by at least one thing that could manipulate asphalt the same way both he, and Route Predation could. The list of suspects in this, the crime of the century, was vanishingly small. Either the dungeon had gotten sick of his shit and just tried the world’s most pitiful alpha strike, or the cult of property magnate Scooby-Doo villains had panicked, and made a move. James had a thought as to which was more likely.

And if weren’t for what the attack had caused as a side effect, he would be *pissed*.

He was still pissed, honestly. But also, Alanna.

James was reasonably sure that he hadn’t been hallucinating. He had, and it pained him incredibly to say this, been hit in the head a lot in the last couple years. He’d become something of a connoisseur of blunt force trauma. And so far, none of it had actually made him hallucinate. The only times he’d seen a person who wasn’t there had been in a few scattered dreams and nightmares.

Which meant Alanna had just saved his life. Which meant Alanna was *here*. It was likely that the girl who’d bolted out of the room when he’d woken up had gone to get her, in fact. And James suddenly realized he didn’t know what the upcoming conversation was going to look like.

Alanna had been gone for *months*. Whether she had a good reason or not, she’d never even tried to contact them, as far as they could tell. And that really, really hurt. What was he even supposed to say to her?

James didn’t have an answer. He just had a bundle of anxieties. And he still hadn’t resolved them when Alanna walked into the room, the smaller girl tailing behind her and hiding around the doorframe to peek at James.

“Hey.” Was his brilliant opening conversational gambit.

Alanna eyed him suspiciously. “You healed up way too fast.” She said in a kind of flat tone. The look she gave James was appraising, but weirdly distant. After a moment of him being confused, then worried about her, she stuck her hand out. “I’m Alanna. You seem alright, welcome to our hideout. You’re confused, I’ll explain in a minute.”

James took her hand and gave it a slow shake. “I… know.” He said, narrowing his eyes in further confusion.

“You know what?”

“Your name. Obviously. Or did…” James trailed off, seeing Alanna take a halting step back, her eyes going wide. “Oh. Oh!” His own eyes widened in a mirror of hers. “You don’t remember! Oh holy shit, *that’s* why you never came back! Oh this is so much less anxiety!” He threw himself backward on the bed, and instantly regretted it, coughing hard as his back protested and his throat ached.

“Who are you?” Alanna demanded softly.

“Sorry, sorry…” James rolled over and sat up, coughing. He slid to the side of the bed, letting his feet touch the cool floor. He was dizzy, but upright, and planning to stay that way. “I’m James. We’ve… I’ve been looking for you for a while now. Thought you might have been dead. Then I saw you earlier, and I’ve been worrying about what to say, and figuring out why you left. Amnesia, though? Oh my *god* is that a relief! This is just a mild obstacle! I was worried something had gone seriously wrong.”

Alanna stared at the stranger she’d saved only hours previously, trying to figure out what the game was. Her emotion sense power was telling her that he *wasn’t kidding*, which was weird on its own. Most people didn’t just say how they felt, especially not to her. But when he said he was worried, and then relieved, he legitimately meant it. He felt those things deeply and personally, and it left Alanna more concerned than before.

He said he knew her. He was looking for her. And he’d been worried about her. And in the back of her mind, in the part that itched like a scab she couldn’t pick, she *knew* he was telling the truth. But she couldn’t see the details.

“Are you… like me?” Alanna asked.

“I’m guessing you mean the superpowers?” James raised an eyebrow. “Not the same as yours, but yes. Also can I have some water? Dehydration resistance isn’t something I’ve picked up yet.”

Alanna folded her arms across her chest, nodding at the girl behind her to grab a cup of water for their guest. “Is that a thing?” She asked.

“Huh? Oh. No. I’m just being a wiseass.”

“Do you do that a lot?” She asked him, already knowing the answer as soon as she said it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever considered not doing that.” James smiled at her. Then blinked when she didn’t smile back. “Right.” He trailed off, a spike of pain in his heart. “Right… this again.”

Suddenly, he felt like crying. Hot tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, the feeling of suddenly losing someone all over again flooding back in. He noticed Alanna blink, and glance away from him, clearly having been reading him as strongly as she could, but he didn’t comment on it.

“Well fuck.” He said, hunching forward and burying his face in his hands. “Now I know what Sarah felt like, I guess.” James took the offered cup from the blonde girl who’d come running back into the room to offer it to him, ducking past Alanna to do so. She bolted again as soon as James had said “Thank you”, and it gave him a little bit of joy to see her antics, countering the sorrow in his chest.

“Who’s Sarah?” Alanna asked. “A partner?”

“No, that’s you and Anesh.” James told her with a sigh. “Sorry, I don’t know what you don’t know, so this is gonna be awkward at least once.”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m a fed, like you?” Alanna snorted. “Pick a better story.”

James blinked and looked up at her, abandoning his attempts to itch at his bandaged leg. “Sorry, what? A fed… oh! No, sorry, the FBI ID card is fake! I can see why that would be confusing. I meant, like, *partners* partners. Um… holy shit, this is beyond awkward. Can I ask, do you remember anything?”

Alanna didn’t mind answering. “I remember my name. A few other small things. A lot of really bizarre information, but none of it personal. Pretty much nothing else before I woke up in Florida. And then I get… eh, not sure what to call ‘em. Hunches? Instincts, maybe?”

“Why the fuck were you in Florida?” James couldn’t help but ponder. “Anesh… okay, so to catch you up; we’re the founders of an organization that wants to make the world better. Some people took offense to that, and tried to kill us all. Anesh teleported you out, then came back, and died, so we didn’t know where he *sent* you. That’s why we haven’t come to find you, if you were worried.”

“That’s not the part of that sentence I’m worried about.” Alanna said dryly, making a disbelieving noise in her throat. Behind her, her friend let out a soft giggle, and James heard a couple more laughs from the hallway. They’d been joined by a few other people, it would seem.

“See, this is why I love you. You’re as much a wiseass as I am.” James couldn’t help but smile at her, just a goofy little grin on his face. “Anyway. Where did you wake up? Like, where in Florida.”

“Across the street from the city hall in a shitty little town called Safety Harbor.” Alanna shrugged. “It seemed more or less random, so-“

“Are you fucking kidding me.” James rubbed at his forehead. “Anesh just wrote ‘safety’ on the telepad, and assumed it would work. I’m gonna kill him.” He looked off toward the window with eyes peeled open. “I should call him, actually. Where’s my phone?”

“Nightstand. Phones are still down. Though yours survived somehow. And you said he died.” Alanna told him matter of factly.

James shrugged. “He has backups. Look, are you really surprised? You’re a human lie detector, and judging by your choice of hobbies, you *probably* know you’re bulletproof. And I’m in the process of walking off a car crash, so come on. Extra bodies isn’t that weird.”

“It’s kind of that weird.” Alanna shook her head at him. “Whatever. So, you know who I am. And I’m supposed to know you. Why don’t… why don’t I feel anything?” She asked, staring at an open hand. “I get that you think you’re feeling certain stuff, unless you’re a phenomenally good liar. But there’s no breakthrough or anything. Just… this. I thought this would be more dramatic.”

“Maybe it’ll come back to you.” James said quietly. “Maybe we can help with the skulljacks. Maybe it never comes back, and we’ll just have to move on. Doesn’t matter. You’re here, and you’re alive, and I’m happy.” His smile slipped a little, but held. “You can come back with us if you want. It today was any indication, you went right back to saving people anyway, so you’ll fit in at least.”

“Sad, but determined.” Alanna whispered to herself, reading the ripples of emotion coming off of James. “Hey, how come you’re in this town anyway?” She asked out loud.

“Oh. Um… either we’re here to help a friend save the city, or we’re here because a living idea has been screaming for help in our dreams and we followed the voice. I’m not sure which one yet, honestly? But they’re kind of the same.” James sighed, the heavy breath bringing with it a fresh wave of dizziness. “Ugh. Oh, right. And now we’re here to deal with the plot to an episode of Scooby-Doo, and I am so mad I almost died to that.”

“Most people wouldn’t be mad about *how* they almost died.” Alanna pointed out.

“Eh.” James flapped a hand. “Why are you here, actually?”

“The second thing you said.” Alanna told him. “I think. Something’s been pulling me here. And this town is in trouble.”

“No kidding.” James grimaced. “Okay.” He held out a hand, and looked up at Alanna’s stern face, her eyes still appraising him with every moment.

“What?” She said, raising her eyebrows.

James let his hand fall back to the mattress, and did his best to shove down how much that hurt. Instead, he pushed himself up to his feet. “Let’s get to work.” He told her, taking a step forward and immediately regretting it as a searing pain shot up his leg. James winced, and tried to hide how bad that had been as he bent down to recover his shoes.

“You’re not going anywhere. I’m not even sure I believe you. And even if I did, you shouldn’t even be up right now.” Alanna still hadn’t moved from her position by the door. “Get some rest.” She said. “Whatever’s going on can wait a day or two.”

“I’m really not sure it can.” James said. “Everything’s been going pear shaped in the last couple days. And it’s absolutely not a coincidence that the phones are down *now*. I need to get in touch with Anesh or El at least.” He paused for a second, then added, “Also if you don’t believe me, we can seriously just solve that with the skulljacks. I don’t know if you’ve got a chunk of Ethernet cable around here, but…” He shrugged, tapping the back of his neck.

Alanna’s hand defensively went to her own skulljack, eyes narrowing. “No.” She said, voice hard. “Absolutely not.”

“I mean, fair. I said that a lot too.” James told her. “It’s not the kind of thing you wanna share with a stranger. But let me tell you, it solves problems like this *fast*, so the offer’s still there. No pressure though.”

Frowning, Alanna tried to figure out the man she’d hauled out of the overturned car. There it was again from him; that spike of a deep, intense sorrow, that he almost reflexively tried to muffle with some stupid joke or a simple shrug.

He was more earnest than most people she’d met. And yeah, she wouldn’t say it out loud, but there was something almost painfully familiar about him. Like there were a set of reflexive actions just on the edge of her mind.

But the last few months had taught Alanna to be suspicious, to be cautious around anyone offering easy answers.

So instead of what she was thinking, she just shot a single nod at James. “Get some rest.” She said. “I’ll get a message to your friends.”

As much as he hated to admit it, James was having trouble getting a single shoe on, and just passing out sounded pretty good right now. He wasn’t quite prepared to just take a nap while the world ended though. But… “Alright.” He said. “I’ve got El’s address saved in my phone. If they aren’t there, Anesh and I are staying at the one open motel in the city.”

“Yeah, so was I.” Alanna rolled her eyes. “That place sucks.” She turned to go, and over her shoulder, reminded James that “We’ll talk later. I’ve still got a lot of questions for you.”

“No kidding.” James muttered, crawling back up onto the mattress, and letting himself just sink into its soft-enough surface.

The thing was, he *wanted* to be out there. He burned to get back to the fight, to not leave Anesh high and dry, to make sure the little girl and her infomorph and everyone else in this stupid city were safe.

But he needed a nap. And, he realized, he felt totally okay taking one.

Alanna was on it. And he trusted her, even now.

_____

“What are we supposed to do?” Jeanne said, panic in her voice. It was not the first time she’d said it, it would not be the last. She was trying, really, really trying, to set a good example for her daughter. But there was only so much she could focus on before fear crept in and her questions stopped being logical and started being rambling.

They were about three blocks away from the wreckage that was distinctly absent a James-shaped corpse. Anesh had sent Jeanne running back to the motel to grab her own car, and had rapidly pilfered the crash site of the guns, armor, magic items, and trunk full of orbs before any first responders had shown up. It had been over an hour now, and none of them had, which said a lot about the state of the city. The unconscious forms on the street in front of the car had gotten up at some point, helped each other stumble away. They’d be missing the guns they had on them, as well as their wallets; Anesh had taken those too, and recognized one of them as one of the realtors James had gone to speak with. He didn’t feel bad stealing their shit.

Right now, Anesh was wondering the same thing Jeanne was. “What now, indeed.” He said softly, sitting in her back seat alongside Ava, an arm on the pair of long cases he’d set in the middle of the car. Rufus and Ganesh had the front seat, and the young girl next to him was clearly trying her hardest to be on an adventure and not scared for her life.

“Where did he go? Why did he crash in the first place? I thought… I thought…”

“The car had strike marks.” Anesh said, drawing on a vehicle repair skill orb. “Something hit it, hard, from below. Someone tried to kill him. Car’s still running though, so it’ll heal over time - sorry, yes, that’s a thing our car does, please don’t ask. I don’t know what we *do* though.”

“I have to get my daughter out of here.” Jeanne stated, conviction in her tone. Her hands were gripping the wheel so tight it hurt, even though they were currently parked on the side of the road. Despite the sunshine and thin clouds outside, it was a grim atmosphere within the car.

“Yes.” Anesh agreed. “Okay. James is alive. He has to be. We stick to the plan; teleport out, get help, come back.” He pulled out the telepad, writing the specific syntax that would land them in the Lair’s teleport receiving platform. “Link up. Hold this.” He awkwardly maneuvered the box of orbs into Jeanne’s arms, while he took an uncomfortable overcommitted grip on the gun cases. “Ava, we need your help here. Think you can get us out of here?” He offered the girl what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and the nearly empty telepad.

Her eyes brightened. “Yes!” She said, gripping it in her teeth, one hand held out to her mom, the other used to pull the page. With a gleeful grin, she gave it a tug.

The telepad didn’t move.

“Uh…” Anesh looked at the magical artifact. “Pull harder.” He said.

Ava’s face scrunched up as she adjusted her grip, her hand sweaty against her mom’s grip. She wanted to growl at the telepad, but she *knew* that wouldn’t make it work. So instead she just pulled harder. It still didn’t move. So she braced her legs on the chair, put the telepad between her knees, and *pulled* as hard as she could.

“Um…!” Anesh stared to say, just before the telepad tore.

The whole thing tore. Folded in half just a little too much, the cardboard backing ripped under the force, and it instantly dissolved into a blue orb, that dropped into Ava’s lap.

“What happened?” Jeanne asked, eyes going wide.

“I’m sorry!” Ava yelled, holding out the orb for someone to take away. “I didn’t mean to!”

Anesh let his hands drop, setting the rifles back on the seat with a sigh. “Okay, this is bad.” He said. And then, seeing Ava’s almost crying expression, he clarified. “It’s not your fault, Ava. That has literally never happened before. And we’ve used these things thousands of times by now. They don’t break like that just from trying to use them normally. That was… that was different. Something is wrong.”

“So why didn’t it work? Is it because of the… idea?” Jeanne only barely stopped herself from saying something rude about Ava’s non-imaginary friend.

“No, no. It worked fine the first time, remember? Something’s changed.” Anesh frowned. “No communication. No teleportation. The town’s getting cut off. Deliberately. This is an outside force, and now we’re really on the back foot. Damn. Damn and damn!” Anesh looked out the window at the cluster of pigeons winging by through the parking lot across the street from them. “Okay… okay. I have one idea.” He said. “First off, you two need to get somewhere out of the way.”

“Where are we supposed to *go*?” Jeanne asked, bitterly.

“El’s place. Her mom is nice, it’s away from the motel that’s probably compromised at this point, and we know we can meet up there later.” Anesh nodded. “Yeah. And if my plan doesn’t work, James can find you there.”

“What *is* your plan?” Ava’s mom demanded.

“You got an invitation, right?” Anesh said, his heart hammering in his chest. “I’m going to go say hi.” He turned and met her eyes in the rear view mirror. “And after that, I’m going to drive as fast as I can for the next town that has a cell tower, and call in someone who can shoot fireballs at the problem.”

“How many wizards do you know?” Jeanne couldn’t help but give a weak smile, seeing her daughter perk up at the mention.

“The better question,” Anesh stated, as he loaded up the saved map on his phone and passed it up to their driver, “is how many wizards do we *employ*.”

______

“You’re back!” Reed greeted Momo as she kicked in the door to the supply closet he was trying to use as a private office. He’d tried to make the place seem comfortable, but it felt like his desk was mostly just a laptop, too many random notes, and the only personal touch was a Newton’s Cradle made of yellow orbs that his friends had made for him. “How was Australia?”

“Well, it turns out, accidentally skipping quarantine procedures *is* a problem, and at least two of us are officially no longer allowed in the country.” Momo started, tossing her jacket onto the back of a chair that only barely fit in the room. “I’m gonna have to teleport back in a week to fly out so they think I’m gone.”

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“*You* were bragging that you’d found a dungeon.”

“Yeah.” Momo glared at him. “We did. It sucks. Half of us nearly died. That’s not important, we’ve got a problem.”

“Uh… no, that’s *super* important.” Reed corrected her. “You found the first dungeon from another part of the *world*. That’s wild. Does it work differently? What’s the wildlife like? Did you get any powers from it? I have so many questions.” He stopped, then sucked in a breath. “What kind of problem?” Reed asked, reaching under the desk to a series of mounting hooks on the inside right panel, unclipping a series of Status Quo items that he started slipping on, before opening a drawer, popping open a hidden panel, and pulling out the dart gun that shot plasma balls.

“Not that kind of problem, *probably*.” Momo informed him. “Holy shit dude, you just have that here?”

“Where else would we have it?” Reed asked, tiredly. “Is anything on fire, or does anything need to be on fire?”

“Maybe. I’ve got a few other people meeting up in a couple minutes upstairs. Come on. I’ll fill you in there.” Momo ducked out into the concrete hall, propping the door open for him as he slid around his desk and followed her.

“So, Australia?” Reed asked as he moved to catch up to Momo, long legs eating up the gap quickly.

“Oh. It’s a mountain.” Momo grimaced. “Actually, I’m not even sure you’ll remember this! Seeing it, even in a picture, you won’t remember unless you’re looking right at it. Until you’ve been inside at least once.” She shivered, cold despite the comfortable temperature in this basement.

Reed gave her a sympathetic look. “I was going to say there aren’t any mountains around where you went, but I guess that answered that question.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s sorta like the Sewer. You go in, and the exit isn’t where you started. Except there isn’t an exit, exactly. The exit will just show up, after a certain amount of time. Somewhere. That’s it.” Momo rubbed at her arms. “If you live.” She added. “It’s *cold*, dude. So cold. And we saw these massive spider things. And parts of the stone go in the wrong directions. It’s… fuck, it’s bad. Like, it’s *trying* to kill you, from minute one.”

“Is everyone okay?” Reed asked quietly as he hit the button for the elevator, glancing up at the strings of colored lights hung around the weird balcony that had appeared in this pseudo-lobby one day.

“Barely. Chevoy’s in the hospital, Color-Of-Dawn lost a chunk of his tail. Liz almost got gutted, and I’m not planning to tell her mom that.” The two of them stepped onto the elevator together, leaving the open area. “I’m fine. I was barely there. They were in for a lot longer than I was, I just came in at the end when I figured it out, to help them, then teleported out.”

“Oof.” Reed didn’t know what to say. So, instead of staying quiet, he decided to put his foot in his mouth. “Guess now we know the AI’s lethality rating is accurate.”

Momo punched him just under the ribcage, a pulled strike that still elicited a yelp of pain. “Shut up.” She said, angry.

“Yeah, sorry.” Reed said, flushing red. “I heard it as soon as I said it. So what are we doing about the mountain? Oh, did you name it?”

“The first ones in get to name it.” Momo said. “It’d be fuckin’ unfair otherwise. And I dunno what we’re doing. I’m not good at the long term planning thing.” The elevator doors slid open thirty stories above LA, and the two of them stepped off into another city.

The conference table behind a low wall on the left side of the office floor space, next to the big windows overlooking the sunset, was already occupied by a handful of other people.

Karen was here, viciously ignoring Momo. Harvey was also present, looking like he’d finally gotten a good night’s sleep for once. Nate sat on the other side of the table, next to a chair awkwardly occupied by Texture-Of-Barkdust. The end of the table had a webcam and microphone setup on it, allowing the still nameless machine intelligence in the basement to listen in and participate. And rounding out their emergency council, looking uncertain about being included at the grownups table, Alex sat nervously drumming her fingers on the treated wood surface.

“Alright. Fill me in.” Reed said to Momo as the two of them took seats. He gave polite nods to the table, but all of them had broken the habit of making small talk at meetings like this. They were here to *solve problems*. If they wanted to be friends, they had the whole rest of their lives together, and they’d have *more* time in the rest of their lives if they didn’t fuck around once they sat down to chart a course forward.

“Okay. So.” Momo took a breath, and arranged her thoughts. “Got back with everyone early yesterday.” She shot a look toward Alex who had come back with her. “Had to take care of some stuff, but at a certain point, things were mostly stabilized. So I needed to check in with James about what to do about Mount Doom.”

“We are not-“ Alex started to say, but a couple head shakes from the other people at the table quieted her.

“No, we’re not naming it that.” Momo confirmed. “So I shot him a message. And didn’t get an answer. Which isn’t weird, he’s on vacation. But I kinda thought it was important, so I called.” She took a breath. “And got an out of service message.” Momo looked around at the faces that had gone from interested to *concerned* very quickly. “So I did the obvious next step, grabbed a couple camracondas and Dave, and tried to teleport to their motel.”

“*Tried*?” Harvey stretched the word out into a singular note of concern.

“Tried.” Momo said, face grim. “And it didn’t do anything.” She rapped the knuckles of a clenched fist on the table, resisting the urge to get up and pace around. “So we started testing. Took about ten minutes to figure it out. We can teleport anywhere we want, as long as it’s *not* within fifty miles of Townton, Tennessee. As far as I can tell, it’s just a circle drawn around where James and Anesh are.”

“An attack?” Nate put forward.

“Or something gone wrong with the dungeon.” Alex suggested. “Is there a dungeon there?”

“Confirmed Relevant Space. Low lethality. Strange conditions.” The AI spoke up.

Texture-Of-Barkdust hissed. “Both. Attack, from the dungeon.”

“I’m concerned about the fact that the telepads aren’t foolproof.” Harvey said. “I know that’s not the point here, but we *need* those, to do what we do.”

“I agree. And the good news is, solving that problem also solves the other problem.” Momo told him. “We need to get in there, and help. Back them up, whatever’s going on.”

“We can’t go in blind. And teleporting to the outskirts then heading into the exclusion zone is just going to put a target on us from whatever’s doing it. It’s a small town in the middle of nowhere. There’s what, two highways that even come close?” Nate shook his head. “We don’t want to get caught out by whatever can do *this*.”

“I’ve got a suggestion for that.” Reed spoke up. He was leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. Everyone looked over at him, a situation he still wasn’t quite used to. He cleared his throat, and asked. “Dave’s still in the Lair, right?”

“I’m on it.” Nate said, rising out of his seat.

“I’ll get a crew together.” Harvey also stood. “Who here is going?”

“Me.” Alex and Momo said together

“We’ve got combat effectiveness packages for the armory in the basement. I’ll grab those for whoever’s going.” Reed said. “You two were gone when we found most of those, so it’ll be a nice surprise.”

Karen folded her hands under her chin, leaning on her hands as she watched them stand and start to move. She hadn’t really been needed here, but her implicit support was important. So, she added her voice in the one way that mattered now. “Good luck.” The grim faced woman told them. “It feels like you’re going to need it.”

Reed paused, halfway through pushing his chair in. “Sanity check. You don’t think we’re overreacting here, yeah?”

“Hm?” Karen looked up. “Oh. Almost certainly not. Being out of contact is one thing. Something interfering with our magic is entirely another. This is a problem, and we should respond, especially since we have people inside the zone.” She paused, then tapped the table. “I’m going to go file a flight plan.” Karen decided.

“With who?” Reed gave her a puzzled look.

“With the FAA, of course.” Karen replied. “There’s two people there who take my calls now. James authorized me to use the anti-cancer orbs to establish a network of contacts, so they’ll cooperate. It’s important, if you’re going to be taking a dragon through used airspace, that you don’t crash into a traffic helicopter or something like that.”

“I… had not thought of that.” Reed paused. “Should you really be bribing government officials?” He asked.

“If we don’t, someone else will. In fact, many people already have. And I think it’s telling that instead of bribing congressmen, I’m simply incentivizing the people who keep our airspace safe to ignore the word ‘dragon’ and file the flight plan properly.” Karen replied.

Reed nodded. “Okay. I feel like I have more questions for everyone I’ve talked to today. But I’m going to go get the stuff I need together now, and worry about that later.”

“Good luck.” Karen repeated. “Oh, and if you see Momo, do let her know I want to talk to her.”

The words came out probably about as cold as the mountain that Momo and the others had been trapped on. Reed shivered slightly, and gave an affirmative, before hurrying back to his side of the basement.

Good luck, indeed.

_____

Anesh was not ready for this. He was driving nervously, taking advantage of the mostly empty roads to not really focus on what he was doing. Hands on the wheel of Jeanne’s car, the unfamiliar pedals beneath his feet just jarring enough to make him even more uncomfortable.

Something was *wrong* in this fucking town. Someone was trying to take it over, the dungeon was spewing out creatures into the world, communications were down, *teleportation didn’t work*, and James was missing.

Also Alanna was in town. He knew this for an absolute certainty, since his Map had updated him on it. That Map had started to go dormant since then, and Anesh knew that he’d need to make a choice soon, to either let it fade away as a simple object, or to try to uplift it to personhood, ask it to stay, and give it a piece of his mind.

Anesh wasn’t ready. He wasn’t an action movie hero. He wasn’t the person you called for dramatic confrontations - James - or knock down fights - Alanna - he was just there to help. He was always there to help, he was their friend, their partner. A member of the Order. No, more than that; he was a Knight, dammit.

But he wasn’t ready.

He was going to meet with someone. Someone he didn’t know, but he had an almost oppressively bad feeling about. The winding road to the western highway out of town eating up time on his way to figure out where the hell he was supposed to stop and talk to whoever had found them.

If he was very, very lucky? They’d be a friend. Or even just an ally would be nice. But if not, Anesh wasn’t taking chances.

He was fully armored, armed, running through his list of magical options in his head. Prepared to fight, if and when it came to that. Which he had a sinking suspicion it would. But he didn’t feel ready for this.

Maybe it was because he was on his own.

Every time Anesh had faced the unknown, he’d done so alongside his partners, or other members of the Order. He wasn’t *good* on his own.

But right now, there weren’t a lot of other options.

He saw the meeting point before it was actually in view, and instantly, it reinforced his feeling that this was getting out of hand. As the main road out of town approached the highway, Anesh started to see a red glow in the distance, through the trees. It flickered lightly, even from this distance, like hell itself was waiting just around the next corner.

Then he took the next bend in the road, and had to slow down rapidly. Because he’s found all the other cars that should have been on the road. A line of vehicles, stretching so far forward that it went around another heavily forested curve to where the on ramp to the highway was. All of them parked.

They weren’t abandoned, which was good. That would have been a little too creepy. But they’d clearly been stopped for a while, because there were a few people milling around on the side of the road.

Anesh took a deep breath, and cracked his door, pulling himself up to see over the roof of his vehicle without needing to get out of the car. Which was convenient, because he really didn’t want to walk up to a bunch of civilians with a rifle on. “What’s going on?” He called to one of the small clusters of people over on the shoulder.

They looked up at his shout, and a couple of the men looked away. Anesh didn’t need enhanced hearing to notice the mean looks and muttered slurs that he’d been getting a lot of around here. But the last guy just gave him a straight answer, which was always appreciated. “On ramp’s closed. Some kinda crash!” He called back.

“Thanks!” Anesh called to him, and shifted back into the car. He thought for a second, and then made a decision. If the highway access was closed off, then no one was gonna be using the left lane anyway. He shifted back into drive, and pulled left, moving into the empty half of the road, and getting a few amused or accusatory points from the people who’d been waiting for who knew how long.

Anesh ignored them. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to know what they were up against.

Three minutes of low speed passing a seemingly endless line of cars and one instance of having to get out of someone’s way, he made it to the turn to the on ramp.

‘A crash’ didn’t even start to describe it. Every emergency vehicle in town, and a few other city maintenance trucks besides, formed a semi circle barrier around the inferno. The shillouette of the jagged remains of a fuel tanker shown against the night sky; gas fires scattered across the road and nearby vegetation keeping a shouting army of responders busy as they scrambled to keep what was already a disaster from getting worse.

The on ramp itself was gone. And Anesh knew, in that moment, that it hadn’t happened because of a fuel truck going up in flames.

He stopped his car at the outer edge of the caravan of emergency vehicles, and got out. No one challenged him, no one even noticed that he was walking through their trucks and scoping out their operation.

Anesh looked around himself. This couldn’t be a coincidence, he already knew that. So all he had to do now was pay attention, and figure out who here was, like himself, not a part of the civilian mass.

Firefighters jogged by, a sheriff barked commands, someone maneuvered a bucket lift to secure a power line, and all around, the flash of dozens of emergency lights, flares, and small fires filled the night. And among it all, Anesh spotted someone leaning on the side of a police car, sipping out of a battered tin cup.

“Excuse me!” Anesh called out, both hands on his rifle, but the gun still pointed at the ground. “I think we’re looking for each other!” His voice shook when he said it; James would be so disappointed in him.

But all the same, the man turned toward him, and gave a small frown.

He had eyes that glowed green against the firelight, a military cut to his hair, and a goatee that any aspiring super villain would have killed for. But nothing about him screamed of malevolence. Instead, he projected kind of feeling of stubbornness, of a refusal to bend. Anesh didn’t know why he got that impression, but judging by how it got stronger and stronger without reason as he took steps forward, it couldn’t be normal.

The man was wearing armor. A flak vest, chainmail, a brigandine, modern body armor, a police vest…

Anesh blinked. The man was wearing armor.

“Oh dear.” He whispered.

“You got my daughter’s message. Good.” The man said. “I appreciate your presence here tonight.”

Anesh wanted to ask which one he was. If he was more like the Old Gun, or the Right Person At The Right Time. But fear gripped his throat, and he couldn’t get the words out. Suddenly, a gun and a spell didn’t seem like enough of an edge. “No problem.” He said out loud, instead. In his head, though, his mind was spinning. Daughter? That didn’t bode well, no matter what it meant. “You wanted to talk?”

“I wished to pass on a warning.” The man said. “This place is now quarantined. I will not be letting you leave, no matter how much of a special case you believe yourself to be.”

“Wait, what?” Anesh snapped out. “No, no. We need *reinforcements*. Do you know what’s going on here?” He demanded. “This city-!”

“This city is forfeit.” The man said it with sadness, but he said it all the same, in that precisely confident voice. “It’s people already lost. All that is to be done is to cut out the corruption, and starve the demon of its prey.”

“Excuse me?!” Anesh shouted, stepping back and adjusting his hands on his gun, on the edge of knowing he was going to have to use it, and *soon*. “You’re just going to… rope it off? You could be *helping us*!”

“I could not.” The man shook his head, a blast of tired melancholy flowing out of him. “I cannot set foot within Her territory, and that city is a minefield of pockets that She has claimed.” He sighed deeply, taking in a breath of the ashen night air. “My purpose is clear. I will hold the walls. The city will be forgotten. And my daughters will go forth, to destroy, until the demon withers and retreats. And only after it is starved to a bitter death will I allow the survivors escape.”

Anesh took another halting step backward. This thing was, without a spark of doubt, absolutely insane. It was talking about erasing the lives of five thousand people, like it was *nothing*. And being a little mopey about it wasn’t going to forgive *anything*.

“Why did you want to talk to me, then?” Anesh demanded. “If I’m just supposed to die along with everyone else?”

The thing sighed. “The world gets more and more messy, as the years pass.” It said. From anyone else, the words might have sounded exhausted, but it just sounded like it was playing at having emotions. “You know, in every generation, there are those like you. Beacons shining in the night, glittering heroes approaching the barrier, prepared to step into something grander and greater than any mortal has ever known. You take bold risks, you build great wonders, you elevate those around you and you shatter your enemies as if they were spun sugar instead of men of conviction. Champions, exalted by the gods, by fate, by truth itself, making your own path toward the divine. And none of you, not a single one of those like you, ever make it past those like me.” He looked at Anesh with glowing eyes, appraising the young man in front of him. “Perhaps I simply wished to see what this generation had to offer.”

And suddenly, Anesh realized it. What James felt, every time someone in power talked to him. “Who the bloody fuck,” he demanded with a snarl, “do you think you are?”

The armored figure cocked an eyebrow in a gesture that was as perfect as it was hollow. “I am the Last Line Of Defense.” He said. “And you are on the unfortunately less survivable side. It is a sad thing, but the more stable a civilization becomes, the higher a price it takes to keep it safe from the demons.”

The really, really sad thing was, this thing didn’t even sound that hostile to him. Anesh got the impression, suddenly, that if he took a shot at it, it wouldn’t even pay attention. It certainly wouldn’t change its opinion, or its course of action. And he knew, *knew*, he didn’t have a hope in hell of killing it. Which left exactly one option left.

Anesh slung his gun down to his side. “You’re here to make sure the dungeon doesn’t escape, right?” He called across the stretch of road between them. “To contain the spread?”

“Correct.” The Last Line Of Defense replied with a sharp nod.

“Okay.” Anesh nodded at him. “We’re on it. No need to burn the city down. We know how to take out their outside territory! Will that be good enough for you? Push it back to its own space? Stop it from expanding?”

The Last Line of Defense paused, actually took the effort to raise *both* eyebrows. “Interesting. Most of you attack at this point.” He said. “This is different. You beg for your life?”

“I’m telling you what we were *already here to do* you worthless wanker.” Anesh yelled at him. “I’m just telling you so you won’t *kill thousands of people*!”

The armored figure gave him a respectful nod. “Perhaps. But this requires something more than simple desperation. Show me your conviction. Camille! Test him.” He called out into the night.

Anesh was a lot of things. And in the list of things he was, he absolutely wouldn’t put the words ‘a good fighter’. But before the Last Line of Defense had finished talking, he already knew what was happening, and he’d called on two skill orbs, a hundred hours of skirmish training, and the memories of a half dozen fights in the Office.

His knees hit the ground at an angle as he pitched himself forward in a roll that he’d be able to easily come up to a crouch from. As he did so, he called up the powers from the earring he was wearing and burned one of his valuable charges of invisibility, leaving only four left until the two month cooldown expired. As he did *that*, he pulled on the blue that let him manipulate asphalt, and shoved the road into a moving spiral around himself, trying to throw off whatever was coming.

He didn’t *know* what was coming, but he wasn’t prepared to give it the first hit.

Which was good. Because in the second it took for him to do all of this, *something* flew out of the night, heading straight for him. Anesh had just hit the ground when the strike aimed for his head whistled not even an inch over his scalp. If his brain had time to think about it, he would have realized someone had just tried to kill him with a bladed mace.

Instead, he mostly just had time to register that a vaguely humanoid figure had slammed into the fire truck immediately behind him so hard that it caved in the side of the vehicle. The scream of metal and the hissing bang of a pressurized tank being breached filled the night, followed shortly by the screams and shouts of the first responders nearby.

Anesh finished his roll, came up to a kneeling position, propped his gun up, and unloaded toward his target.

There was a weird interaction with the Status Quo gun bracers burst fire power, and guns that actually had a burst fire mode. They stacked. Mostly, this just gave you a slightly higher rate of fire, but because of how the burst fire power put all the bullets in the same place in a way that defied physics, it was exceptionally good for cutting through things that maybe should have been able to deflect a hit.

And Anesh was reasonably sure the figure, yanking a meter long bar of metal out of the side of a destroyed truck, could take a hit.

The first stacked burst took it in the shoulder, the second across the torso. Anesh couldn’t get a third off before it spun, kicked off the pavement hard enough to leave a blast crater, and closed in on his position.

He stopped firing, and shifted sideways, praying that the invisibility was good enough when he wasn’t giving away his position. And it was, but only barely. The mace came down on the road where he’d been sitting, hitting the tarmac so hard that shards of it were blown backward into the car the Last Line Of Defense was still leaning against, shattering supposedly bulletproof windows and setting off a screaming alarm.

The man just sipped out of his tin cup again, making a ‘go on’ motion.

So Anesh obliged, grabbing for Shape Asphalt again to wrap the road around the impact site of his enemy’s weapon. Then, as they tried to yank it up with so much strength he could feel it even through the magic, he compacted the asphalt down into as dense a material as he could, and then piled more on. He kept pulling, and pulling, from the road around them, until he’d left the entire road within thirty feet noticeably reduced, and an ultra-dense spike where the mace was now stuck in the road.

Then he shot the wielder of that weapon again, aiming for center mass and landing dozens of shots that jerked his target around, but didn’t seem capable of doing any real damage.

He stopped shooting when they dropped the handle of their weapon, and lunged for his firing spot. He considered rolling, but instead just set his shield bracer for ‘punch’, and raised his gun to prepare to take them in the face when they bounced off.

Then they hit, and the flare of light turned the night around them to day for a brief second.

The shouts around them escalated, and Anesh was aware of people running toward the site of his battle, but he didn’t have the attention to spare. He just hoped they could get away unharmed. Because he wasn’t sure he could anymore.

That single punch, dropped on him from overhead, had just taken thirty charges off his shield. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

His adversary looked similarly stunned, and as he blinked the spots out of his eyes, Anesh realized that the person who’d been trying to kill him this whole time was a young woman with a scarred face, and the strange silhouette she left was because of the sharp lines of the platemail and cloak she was wearing.

Anesh processed this, and then pulled the trigger, sending three clusters of five bullets, layered on top of each other, into her stunned face. Flesh warped, as if in slow motion. Bone vibrated, before stilling the impact. Skin breached, if only barely.

“Hold.” The word came from the inhuman man who had now decided he was done with his drink.

Anesh froze against his will, and it looked like the girl he’d just shot did the same. She was midway through tensing up her muscles to lash a kick at Anesh’s head, but her stopping wasn’t magical in nature; it was just blind obedience to the Last Line Of Defense.

A single drop of blood rolled off her cheek and hit the ground.

“Very good.” The Last Line Of Defense said, lowering his hand. “Better than the last generation, so far.” The words were approving, and empty, all at once. He pretended to think for a minute, while Anesh staggered to his feet, tripping on the cracked asphalt around where he’d been punched into the ground. “Very well.” The man said.

“Very well what?” Anesh rasped out in a dry voice, adrenaline having stolen all the moisture from his mouth.

“You have one day.” He said. “And after that, the city burns. And no, you may not leave.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Anesh glared at him, taking a step back and bumping into a firefighter who’d come running at the sound of gunfire. “Alright. Well. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

“Mm.” The Last Line Of Defense made a noncommittal noise. “I find you interesting. My daughter will go with you.”

“Nope.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

“Neither was mine.” The two of them stared at each other, Anesh somehow finding the manic strength of will to glare down the god-thing across the street from him. But he didn’t hold it long. “Fine. Whatever.” He relented. “I’m on a clock.” Anesh turned to leave, ignoring the woman that fell in behind him like a wraith.

“Sir? Are you hurt?” The firefighter who he’d bumped into asked, addressing him amongst the chaos. “Did any of the shrapnel get you?”

“Probably.” Anesh said. “Sorry, I don’t have time for this right now. Good luck explaining the truck.” He said sympathetically.

“The… *what*?!” The firefighter turned and strode away, yelling into his radio, while Anesh just moved on, striding out of the line of vehicles and back into the darker part of the night.

Nervous people clustered around their cars or the shoulder of the road. Muttered concerns about more explosions, or how that sounded like gunfire. Some of them noticed Anesh. None of them stopped him, as he and the woman who’d just been trying to kill him, silently got into his car.

“Fuck.” Anesh slammed his forehead into the steering wheel, waiting for his hands to stop shaking. “Okay. Okay. I’ve got this.” He sat back up, and glanced at his unwanted passenger. “If you try to kill me again, I’m drowning you in the road.” He said.

“If I try to kill you for the first time, you won’t have the chance.” Her voice was rough, and Anesh got the feeling her words were more bravado than real indication of ability.

“Sure.” He said. “Well, thanks for holding back I suppose.” Anesh put the pedal down, and pulled a tight U-turn, before accelerating down the empty lane of the road.

Back toward the city in chaos. Back to find James, find Alanna, stop the dungeon, and escape certain doom.

He was, he decided, absolutely, positively, not ready for this.