The first volley makes the flaws in my decision making very, very apparent, as three of the Greenjackets fall to a squadron of waiting gendarmes. Pasche, who I am still relying on to carry me around, quickly pulls me behind a supporting pillar of the grand gallery to shield me from any gunfire. It seems a strange thing to do. The bullets are already past us after all, and those gendarmes look terrified.

And can't reload before the Greenjackets catch them. "Rush them! Save your shots for any of them who aren't on the ground floor!"

... A slightly cruel command, one which puts the Greenjackets in the most possible peril... But also a completely superfluous one, it seems that they are entirely prepared to engage the gendarmes in melee of their own accord. I suppose it’s ridiculous to expect them to see anything other than a slashing solution to their fleshy problems. What I didn't expect is for one of the shot Greenjackets to pull herself to her feet, joining the charge, limping with her bayonet at the ready. They really are zealous folk... And brutally effective, despite Pasche's best efforts I manage to peek around the corner to see what becomes of these gendarmes.

That the Greenjackets can slash through flesh and joints so quickly is a horrifying miracle. Already our path is paved with strewn limbs and a carpet of brilliant crimson, all produced with a butcher's precision... Are they going to come back for these limbs? As much as I don't like the idea of turning the National Art Gallery into another meat commissary, this is for the good of the capital, for everyone. One butcher's yard to prevent another…

I tap Pasche with my hand, willing her onwards. "The path is clear. Advance!"

We make our way to the door out of the vestibule into the gallery proper, where one particularly... 'Cheeky' Greenjacket decides to announce our presence to any gendarmes on the other side of the door, opening it just wide enough to throw the head of one of their former comrades among them. This provokes some panicked musket shots, but those are soon drowned out by the screaming.

Katarina decides to take point, following this bit of 'good fun and cheer' by kicking down the door, sending it flying off its hinges and into a poor, unfortunate gendarme.Both the door and the gendarme break on impact. Katarina steps in slowly, with a ballerina’s grace, and for a second she might be the only thing in the world, as everything freezes to make room for her sheer presence... She’s smiling.

She roars; an utterly inhuman utterance that makes me want to throw up just hearing it. And then the laughing begins.

Katarina's Greenjackets are utterly enraptured by whatever noise their commander just made, eagerly pouring into the room, firing upon sharpshooters on higher floors and carving apart any gendarmes in reach. Their civilian clothes are utterly saturated in blood already, producing a scene out of hell as our enemies scream and flee, or are cut to pieces where they stand. I have unleashed a monster upon them... But isn't that my job? To be the head of a monster?

"Pasche. We should advance with the Greenjackets."

The look she gives me is not as wrathful as it normally is. It’s more pleading, silently begging me to reconsider without a word. I draw my pistol from where I hid it on my person, I can still be helpful! And Pasche relents, pulling me into the heart of the fighting. As she drags me into the fight, we pass by the victims of my actions. Some of them are still writhing and crying where they fell, missing arms and legs, but not yet dead. And where they had fallen they whispered their regrets to themselves.

"He... Rivauld said no one would be stupid enough to come here with the distraction in the square. He said we'd be safe..."

"What are these creatures? We fought beasts with those insane bayonets in Triumph Square, I thought we'd killed them all!"

"Why did I believe him? He was just a stranger with a conspiracy theory, why did we come here?"

"... These aren't humanist terrorists, there's nothing human about this."

I’m tempted to spend the only bullet I have on trying to ease the suffering of at least one of them, but then my eyes catch another of the sharpshooters, aiming right at me. Which can only mean one thing. They’re going to shoot Pasche, since she’s going to get herself shot again protecting me! And I will not give either the sharpshooter, or Pasche, the satisfaction. I fire, and while my injured, pained form can’t hit a target with a handgun at almost 100 yards, my efforts are enough to send them scrambling for cover. Pasche is safe, for the moment.

Katarina, having carved her way through the gendarmes on the ground, throws her halberd at one of the men above, skewering him into a painting with extreme violence. I’m shocked that she would ever relinquish her weapon, she seemed so attached to it… I see her begin to climb one of the hall's pillars, creating her own handholds as she goes by slamming her hand against the stone with such force that it causes cracks. She soon makes it to the second floor, reclaims her halberd, and watches as one of the gendarmes jumps the railing onto the ground floor just to escape her, hitting the ground with a sickening crunch. He survives... Just long enough for Greenjackets to get him. I have to hand it to Katarina's mercenaries, they’re a lot less sadistic than The Wolfman's. They don't play with their food, they simply cut it apart and bleed it dry.

Xena finally catches up with us, having done what I should have done and hung back, waiting for the violence to end. Pasche gives her a look, Xena is caked in blood despite being far from the bloodletting... She must've been trying to administer care for the two fallen Greenjackets. The look in her eyes tells me there wasn't much she could do.

Pasche meanwhile lets her eyes drift to the second floor, from which limbs or heads occasionally fall, or even whole gendarmes as they jump to try to escape her... And then Pasche’s eyes return to Xena. "... How are you sweet on this woman anyway?"

Xena covers her mouth, apparently Pasche's comment threatened to give her a genuine expression. "What? We're not... I’m not ‘sweet’ on her! We're just... Associates. And she's a fascinating research topic-"

"I think you ought to tell her that some time then, if you believe it."

Katarina jumps off the second floor, the last of the gendarmes in her arms, him screaming all the while. The stone floor cracks and crumbles where she lands, and she places the terrified gendarme in the new crater at my feet. Satisfied that she has delivered me an appropriate present she makes her way to Xena, talking to her in excited German. And Xena... Does smile a little, even as she is very clearly still flustered by Xena standards.

I spend a moment confused as to why she brought me a gendarme, before realizing that she’s spared one for me to interrogate. It's honestly considerate of her. I've never been to the National Art Gallery after all, and this man might be able to lead us around... As soon as he stops screaming.

I throw my magic upon him and feel my wounds ache as my heart takes on the strain of a horrified soul. "... Where is the blonde woman?"

The magic manages to bring him some bravery, but he's still clearly unsettled... And confused. "Blonde woman? A young man named Rivauld told us to guard this place from humanist terrorists. He didn't mention a blonde woman!"

"So Rivauld is the ringleader here... Alright then, where is he? He'll lead us right to our prey, I'm sure of it."

"He's... He's in the east wing, in the archives. He asked to be left unobserved so there aren't any of us in there, just a few milling about outside. Whatever he was doing, he had to do it alone... It was something about a painting?"

East wing archive... And barely any resistance? Odd... "Okay. You can go. Run out the front door and tell your comrades not to follow us in here."

He gives an even more confused noise, and my power wanes enough that he becomes a mess of screams again. But he does run, that he can at least do. At least one person will get out of this mess un-mauled. Now it’s time to regroup, reform, and take the east wing archive... There isn't much to reform, despite our whirlwind sweep of this grand hall we are down four Greenjackets, there are only four left... And Katarina seems utterly littered with bullets, which she seems to ignore.

If only I could ignore the many bullets my comrade is riddled with. "Katarina! You've been shot!"

She looks down on her body, noticing the bullet holes, and nods her agreement. She has indeed been shot; she now knows this. She picks at one of the holes with her fingers, pulling a bullet out of her flesh and letting it fall upon the floor.

Xena gets up on her tippy toes and reaches up, just barely able to flick the giant Katarina on the forehead. "No. Bad."

Katarina looks down; it seems Xena's scolding is more discouragement than over a dozen bullets... And Xena relents, and gives the poor killing machine a hug, giving her some reassurance in German. A reassurance that makes even Pasche blush, which leaves me wondering just how 'not sweet' the two of them really are with one another.

The Greenjackets seem to be giggling and tittering among themselves, apparently seeing their boss with her ‘associate’ gets a smile out of them, even with their reduced numbers.

Reduced numbers... If that gendarme was lying, and if there are more guards than we think, then we really can't take another stand-up fight. "... Let's try to keep a lower profile this time. I don't know what Katarina's opinion is, but I'd really prefer that she remain as un-shot as possible."

"And the rest of us, of course." Pasche is glaring at me as she adds that little addendum, but her eyes quickly soften.

Xena relays my orders in German to the non-Avernians amongst us, and while they seem rather disappointed, they also comply. We make our way to the door of the east wing rather more subtly... They'd probably be guarding the door, this stealth plan already isn't going well.

"We... We can't take the door, they'll see us."

Xena relays my comment in German, and Katarina nods her approval... Before kicking down the wall right next to the door. The guards in the East wing immediately see us... And subsequently throw down their muskets and surrender. There are only a handful of them, and only around the entrance, which they must have quickly realized is in convenient 'Katarina' range. She appears to be the limit of Gendarme discipline.

"... So much for stealth... Where is the Archive?!"

One of the troops weakly points to an unimpressive looking door, almost like an afterthought in the building's design, before giving a nervous gulp. "Can... Can we go?"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I nod, and the dam breaks on the gendarmes’ sheer, unbridled terror as they run past us, through the hole Katarina made, not even bothering with the door. One of them in their haste trips over a comrade's lopped off arm, finding himself face down in a puddle of his dead friends. He quickly gets back up and joins the rest of his friends in their flight... Am I the villain of a horror novel?

Let's hope this 'Rivauld' will be as scared of me as I am. I gesture for Pasche to walk me to the archive door, deciding to open it with my own hand... The Archive is a rather small circular room compared to the vastness of the open gallery wings and its central space, but it fits us all well enough. It also seems to fit hundreds, maybe even thousands of paintings, all slid into metal shelves built into the walls. A warehouse of old and forgotten art that no one cares to see...

And at the end of the room, on a raised platform where another shelf stood, was... The blonde woman from before. Not some man named Rivauld... Did... Did the gendarmes simply believe she was a man? Was she like Pasche? ... Was she like Pasche in reverse? …

"Ah! Mademoiselle Pollineux! If I were a lesser schemer then I’d be upset to see you!" She... They? They give a theatrical bow. In their hands is a carved-out painting. "But that's the way of plans going awry, isn't it? When the gods close a door, open your very own window."

... Of course they have to be a thespian. "... Who are you?!"

"Ah! Forgive me for not introducing myself in our last two meetings. I am Rivauld, criminal mastermind and author of your misfortune! Don't worry about introducing yourself however, I happen to know more about you than I had ever planned, Mademoiselle Pollineux."

"You don't seem to know that my name is Serena!"

"Don't you just love it when your little Queen Katje calls you that?"

I feel like I've just heard something profane, Her Majesty's actual name... I didn't even know her name before this, I had to be told by this pretentious ham... Who is insulting me! And insulting Her Majesty! Well, we’ll see how smug they are with lead in them! I gesture for the troops to shoot. Four muskets fire, the lead flies…

And the bullets stop in mid-air, hanging in the middle of nothing between Rivauld and I. Which gives them an opportunity to cackle as they playfully flick the bullets out of the air, taking their time having fun with the lead shot. "Hehehahaha! They said personal kinetic dampeners were still a technology in their infancy, but this child seems to be an overachiever!"

... Personal... What? What in the hell is this person talking about?! I pull out my own gun and... It clicks uselessly. I spent my one shot on protecting Pasche, didn't I.

And I'd do it again, but I'm still unbelievably furious. "What the hell YOU?! ... Why are you willing to kill so many just to steal some old paintings that nobody wants?! How can you just stop bullets in mid-air, and what is going on?!"

They give a smile, and just to infuriate me further they begin to strut up and down their raised platform, treating it like their very own stage.

"You know, it's funny. I thought when I retrieved Malmo from the Battle of Canstatt, allowed him to give testimony against you to The Convention, and got you removed from command of The Army of The East, that you would be a spent force. That you would simply go home, and that the world would be rid of one of the Queen's pawns. Turns out I simply pushed you to the very edge of the board, and made a pawn into a knight. One which simply will not stop causing problems for me. I must confess, you protecting the Queen and keeping her own Velvet Painting from my grasp did mess with my plans somewhat. It’s kept The Heart from my grasp for just that little while longer.”

The Heart again… No, more importantly! "You... You tried to harm Her Majesty?!"

"The plan, if you're really so interested in hearing it, was to get her good and drugged, beat her till she gave the location of her painting, then dump her bullet-riddled carcass on the doorstep of The Convention of Humanity's meeting hall with a little note saying 'You're welcome!'. Just imagine the headlines, Serena. Just imagine the chaos!"

"You... You sadistic fucking monster!"

I slip free of Pasche and attempt to charge down this odious thing, this utter moral vacuum who would dare raise a hand against Her Majesty! ... And I immediately fall, my feet are simply not up to the task of carrying me even four steps, let alone up a staircase and all the way to this beast. I’m certain I feel my chest wound begin to bleed again…

Pasche rushes over to my side, picking me up from the floor as best she can... But her eyes find Rivauld, and she stares upon them with pure hatred. "So, what, you thought that was going to provoke a civil war or something?"

"It was the first step. I had so many other things to do after, all with surgical precision. If everything had gone according to plan, this nation would burn and the entirety of La'an would follow."

"... And where do paintings fit into this?! Because your flunkies shot my fucking girl, and I will get an explanation out of you before I beat you to death!"

"Hehe, if you don't know even the secrets of the Velvet paintings, then I don't think it's worth explaining things to you... But it matters naught now, my plan has been ruined. Even if I could simply take the Queen and her painting some other day, it'd still be ruined. After all, I can hardly keep my old plan now that Mademoiselle Pollineux has presented me with a much better one!"

Pasche draws her saber, she’s ready to abandon me to the floor and rush up the stairs, to try a charge of her very own. "Serena will not be a pawn in your twisted bullshit!"

"Oh, I know that now. I am not looking at a pawn... I am looking at a knight, one that does not obey my schemes. One that can be trusted in fact, relied upon, to not obey."

I am racked with coughs as Pasche manages to get my useless form to its feet again, but I will not let this contemptuous creature laugh at her! "I will not be manipulated by the likes of you! Soldiers! Take this one prisoner!"

Xena relays my orders, and the Greenjackets start to make their way up the stairs... Only to be stopped as Rivauld reaches into their cloak and produces a grenade. A bizarre-looking grenade, one which seems to change the air in the room around it. Whatever it is, it’s preternaturally terrifying.

"You people would not know the story of Prometheus. It was part of the mythology of a land named Greece, a place that existed over four million years ago. Before the cradle of life itself was melted into an eternal flood of gore and viscera and set ablaze in the name of a dead child... Prometheus stole fire from the gods, shared it with the mortals of that world, and for that was eternally punished, having his organs torn out by a giant bird for all eternity." Rivauld had stopped pacing, had stopped laughing, had stopped smiling... "I thought once that the moral of the tale was to keep your secrets close to your chest, that showing generosity was a way to make yourself open to reprisal. But I think it might be time to do as Prometheus did. And show the mortals the power of God's Fire…"

They throw the grenade down at us, in the center of the room to catch as many of us in the blast as possible. One brave, heroic Greenjacket throws herself upon the grenade as the others go to chase Rivauld, who pulls out a strange-looking pistol... And fires at a window, high up in the circular room, suddenly being pulled towards it as if by magic. They punch through the glass and jump... No one can survive a fall of that height... And now we were left alone in a room with a grenade. One that doesn't explode. A decoy? I look down on the Greenjacket who so bravely sacrificed herself to save us all... And she is very clearly dead somehow. I’m confused…

And then she begins to burn. Rapidly. A fire burns right through her core and now smoke pours out from her back, smoke that quickly fills the room and instantly ignites any painting it touches... And begins to melt the stone walls of the Archive.

We are frozen for a moment until the heat of the flame goes from utterly negligible to nearly lethal in a single moment, and as the nightmare smoke permeates more of the room I scream. "Run!”

Pasche drags me back through the door out of the room, the Greenjackets try their absolute hardest to slip to the other side of the fire... One of them even makes it through alive, if not entirely intact, missing some of her hair and some of the skin on her face and hands. Katarina is the last to move, staring at her melting comrades with utter horror. I try to reach out to her with my magic, to try and give her the strength and bravery to deal with this... But I can't.

Katarina has no living heart to beat with my own, and my magic slips off her mind like... Like melting stone off the walls. Like flesh melting off bones. She’s frozen, and far beyond my influence-

"Katarina, please!"

... I don't even know if she understands my words, but she clearly gets the meaning of my scream. And she finally returns to our present world of violence, finding Xena pulling on her hand, trying to drag her away from the fire... And finding me, screaming at her from the other side of the door. She picks up Xena and gets running. She and Xena practically fly out the door, and not a second too soon, as the walls of the Archive begin to warp and sag, and the door catches fire, burning to nothing in an instant. Not even ash remains.

The smoke follows us out of the archive room, catching the displayed paintings of the gallery, spreading throughout the East Wing of the building... And growing faster. Faster than Pasche and I, limping together away from this absurd horror, this fire that does not seem to understand the rules of fire.

"Pasche... We aren't going to make it!" I cough, and for a second I am terrified I’ve caught a lungful of whatever that smoke is, before realizing it’s simply my wound making its presence known. "... I'm slowing you down!"

"Then I just have to go faster!" Pasche tries to speed up, but she’s already going as fast as she can and that simply is not good enough…

She is going to die. Not for me, but with me. In that moment I finally understand her at least a little bit, as she drags my useless form across the gallery. I understand her... And I am afraid.

I try to shake myself free, I am not going to let her throw her life away for someone useless, it wouldn't be right for her to die with me here…

It’s a wasted effort on my part, Katarina grabs both Pasche and I as she runs past, carrying all three of us in her arms and still sprinting full tilt. She can outrun the smoke, even as wounded as she is, even as terrified. We slip into the hole she had left in the wall back into the main gallery, and I make the idiot mistake of looking behind me.

The gallery is collapsing behind us, the walls are nothing but slurry and the whole structure is falling apart. Anything that can burn burns completely, and anything that can’t becomes liquid and weak. The gallery is becoming a puddle. A molten, impossible puddle. Katarina isn't breathing as she carries us away from this hell, her panicked footfalls crack the ground beneath her, much like The Wolfman had at a full sprint... We approach the front door, and Katarina turns herself around, using her back as a battering ram to shield us from having to bear the brunt of bashing the door open... We are in the open air again... We are in a place that makes sense again... A place with only a handful of dead civilians, Greenjackets, and gendarmes... Are there any other gendarmes in the gallery, waiting to ambush us in other wings, in other rooms?

Watching as the building finally collapses entirely, its final blaze reaching far into the sky, masonry seeping along the ground and pouring into the street, I have my answer. There certainly are no gendarmes in that building anymore... Still, the fire starts to die down, and the molten stone soup it left in its wake cools rapidly. The old wisdom is true, the hottest blazes are the most short-lived…

Katarina finally, gently, lays the three of us onto the ground, before falling to the ground herself in a heap, weeping loudly. It hurts, it physically hurts to listen to it... But if anyone has earned the right to cry, it’s Katarina. She had led ten of her priests into the gallery and only one returned, disfigured and maimed. She babbles in her German nonsense between sobs, and I take a moment to look into her eyes... There are no tears. But her cries are undeniably real. Perhaps I have been too harsh on her, thinking of her as an inhuman thing. She absolutely is not human... But she also undeniably is.

"... Just like Her Majesty..."

Pasche slowly crawls over to me and holds me, shaking. It seems she's reached the limit of her devotion, and now that the chance to die in my name has gone up in literal smoke, she wants to be comforted. I hold her back, albeit a little awkwardly, with the one arm that would still obey me…

And then she begins to whisper, and I realize she’s translating for Katarina. "There's not a trace of them left, not a scrap, not a morsel. How can they rejoin the circle of life if there is nothing left of them to eat? How could a fire burn hot enough to erase a soul?"

Looking past Pasche, trying to ignore the apparent Leather sentiments she’s translating, my eyes catch Xena. Xena is conflicted, looking between Katarina, and the still-warm remnants of the gallery. Her curiosity and her affection tear her in two different directions... She gives Pasche a look before making her way to the ruins, studying them closely. As she examines the damage the King's Own Fire Patrol arrives with their pumping engine, albeit far too late to actually fight the fire. Uselessly, they spray the remnants of the gallery with their hose, perhaps worried about potential cinders or still smoldering parts of the ruins under the rock slurry.

And upon contact with the water, the ruins burst into flames again, forcing Xena to jump backward to avoid the resurgent heat. Whatever this fire was, whatever Rivauld inflicted upon us, it seems to set even water alight on contact. A huge plume of smoke follows, mercifully going straight upwards rather than blowing into any nearby buildings, and the fire patrol turns off the hose as the fire attempts to follow the water, its new source of fuel, to its source... This stuff... This stuff belongs in hell. Whatever we just witnessed is a glimpse of something that can only exist in hell.

"God's fire, Rivauld called it... What god would allow this stuff to exist?"