Luna

My aunt’s screaming echoed loudly down the gargantuan passage leading to the center of the power plant. Rushing as fast as we could on foot, my little legs ached, and I wished we could’ve dragged Ruby along with us, but alas, the strider was far too large to fit through the airlock and decontamination room we had to pass through. As the ramp tapered off and smoothed out as we reached the base of the floor, both my mother and I were nearly blinded by the blueish-white light that shone from the central reactor at the far end.

We could see faint silhouettes of people between us and those at the entrance to the reactor room. I could hear my aunt’s screams clearly now as those between us and her turned in my direction. My mother held a hand out to me to stop and having been running at full speed, I quickly turned, planted my feet into the ground, and skidded to a stop across the smooth metal floor.

Blinking out the splotches of color caused by the blinding light, I focused on those in front of me, now only about a dozen feet ahead, and my eyes widened. Standing in front of me were Mr. Reynolds and three unknown Yanky soldiers.

“Oscar?” I said as I shook my head and blinked with confusion. What the hell was he doing here? He was at the airport with Anne, hopefully taking shelter. How the hell did he get across the city to here?

“Luna…” The old elf said with a pained expression, and my eyes widened when I noticed the severe burn wounds on his back. All four of them were banged up. Oscar’s finely tailored shirt and pants were torn and scuffed, and the fabric on his upper back and shoulders was utterly burned away, exposing charred and red flesh. How the guy was even walking with such an injury was beyond me.

“Luna,” my mother said. “Tend to these four; I’m going after Saria.”

I nodded, not wanting to argue with my mother, and she ran ahead. Turning to face Oscar, my mind was yet again blown by a familiar monotone voice I hadn’t heard in ages, sounding tired as if he had woken up from a nap– “My, my, you’ve finally decided to follow my instructions–”

Wh-where the fuck have you been? Y’know what? Never mind that. I have to take care of these people. We’ll talk soon.

“Yes, yes,” the Master muttered nonchalantly. “Fixing these four is exactly what I need you to do. They’ll be of use here shortly.”

I bit my lip as I walked towards Oscar and the banged-up soldiers. Part of me wanted to argue with the Master about his nonchalant attitude. Nothing about what’s happening is nonchalant at all, and it was irritating. Also, what the hell did he mean these four would be useful?

One of the yanky soldiers, a human woman, looked to Oscar and said something with a confused expression as her eyes darted from me to him. Oscar grimaced as he dropped to one knee before me and grunted something in the language before looking at me. “Hurt, we are. Automatons attacked.”

My heart nearly skipped a beat, and Oscar hastily added, noticing my fearful expression. “Not Rusivites. Far Reacher did this… no time to explain. Luna, please, we need—”

I shook my head. “No need to ask for help. Just hold still,” I ordered as I closed my eyes and began to mutter the incantation for a mass rejuvenation. My core surged with pleasurable tingles and warmth as a powerful wave of ether I had not expected coursed through me. My eyes glow brightly as shining green orbs of arcane energy coalesce into a swirling bubble above me. Within seconds, that energy bubble popped into dozens of small orbs that shot out towards the Oscar and the three Yanks. The soldiers gasped with shock and flinched when each magical orb struck them right in the chest, and immediately scrapes, bruises, and other injuries began to mend themselves back together.

Oscar visibly groaned with relief as the severe burns and cuts on his body began to gradually heal, though not entirely. Even my magic seemed to struggle with horrible burns on his back, which had now hardened into scar tissue.

I blinked with surprise and immediately got an answer from the Master, who yawned in my head and said, “Even magic has its limits, Luna. Give the injury some time, or another use of the spell, and it’ll fully heal over. However, I recommend you leave this one be. The scar tissue will heal over in only a few weeks.”

Thanks, doctor, man. I sighed internally.

“Doctor man?” The Master mused, and I couldn’t help but notice the slightly less monotonous tone of his voice. Is he developing a sense of humor? “I like that,” he said, resuming the deadpan voice.

“This is the best I can do right now,” I said, half lying. I could do more, though the Master was right. I should leave it be, as I didn’t know if more trouble would reveal itself. “Can you walk?” I asked Oscar.

Oscar nodded. “I can move; sore I am.” He looked to the other three yanks and spoke to them. After a few moments of feeling like a third wheel, he looked back at me. “The others are thankful. But done we are not. We must.” He pointed shakily towards the reactor room. “Uh…” He started, but then his face scrunched, and I watched as the artificer struggled to form the right words in his head. “Blow reactor.”

“Blow?!” I exclaimed and stepped back. “Like explode it–”

“No, no!” Oscar shook his head and waved his hands. “Dammit,” he cursed. “Words, I don’t know. Trust.” He tapped his chest. “Trust me. Explain I can’t. Too dumb.”

I sighed and nodded. “I trust you, and you aren’t dumb. I get it. Language barriers suck.” I gulped, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit anxious. I had no idea what the four of them were planning.

Oscar motioned for me to follow him. “Come,” he said, “we save the city now.” He gestured once again exaggeratedly as the three Yanky soldiers began to move toward where my mother and Saria were, as well as a third individual I couldn’t quite make out in the light.

Master guy, you have some explaining to do. I thought.

“Explain what?” He said, and before I could snap back a reply, he added, “I am just as confused as you are. Quite frankly, all of this is amusing–”

Amusing?! I couldn’t contain my frustration; I had to bite my tongue to not say that out loud.

“Indeed. It isn’t often I am caught off guard; it’s honestly refreshing.”

What the hell are you on about? Nothing about this is good.

“Yes,” The Master sighed. “You are correct. I am sorry, but I speak the truth, Luna. I do not know what’s going on. Since we last spoke when I urged you to find the heart. I had been in a trance reworking my well. In a sense, you could say I was resting or sleeping. Parts of me were conscious and observing, but passively.”

What about that dream then the other night?

“What dream?” The Master asked, and I halted right before reaching my aunt and mother.

You know… the one where you blew me up and said to find the heart?

The Master didn’t respond right away, and I felt my heart beginning to race. Outloud, I asked, “That was you, right–”

“Bollocks.” The Master swore his tone, taking on that of frustration. “So that’s the sensation that’s been bothering me–”

Taking the conversation back into my head. What the hell are you talking about?

“I think I knew who that was.”

I blinked. So, wait… you mean… Oh, for the love of god, please don’t tell me there’s a third party. I already have you in my head, and that Charity lady, I don’t–

“Bong sang!” A heavily accented voice cursed in a language that, while I didn’t understand, I was familiar with. French. In accented Maurich, the voice continued, “We do not have time to argue who or what did what, Madame.”

Slowly, I turned back towards the reactor entrance. I could see my mother consoling my aunt, who was bending over the corpse of the archbishop, or should I say arch-dipshit. Yet, stepping around them was the source of the voice.

“You’re…” I muttered as I watched the Frenchman step out of the light.

“Lucien About.” The man took his kepi and bowed. “Apologies for the–”

I snarled and jabbed a finger. “You! You were with—”

"Indeed, I was—” He interrupted

“Why should we–” I cut him off.

“Because I can–” he continued.

“I don’t–” I began.

Lucien held a finger up, and his eyes narrowed. “Either you can keep interrupting me, or perhaps I can explain. No?” I clenched my fists and bit my tongue as I felt a fury rage within me as Lucien straightened up and turned to the corpse of the archbishop. He was lying face down on the floor, a massive puddle of blood pooling beneath it as a single, small hole could be seen on the back of his bald head.

“As you can see, Madame,” Lucien said calmly as he gestured with one hand at the dead body. “I am no longer employed.” As he said, my aunt wailed as my mother shot daggers at the man and then me before shaking her head and turning to my aunt.

“You betrayed him?” I glanced at the corpse once again; the sight was uneasy. Not because of the gore; by this point, I had seen so many corpses that I was, unfortunately, becoming numb. Unfortunately, someone like myself, or anyone for that matter, should never become numb to such a sight. What was making me uneasy, however, was that same feeling I had felt back when I had first seen him the other day.

“Luna,” The Master's voice said as my eyes met with Lucien. “Trust me in that you’ll hear out this man and follow his instructions.”

But he was working with that archbishop? You know the All-Father people you said are super scary?!

“I understand; all will be explained. Trust me, please,” The master urged.

“Listen to him,” Lucien said as if he had heard my thoughts. “Garlan speaks the truth.”

I blinked. “Wh-who? Y-You can hear him?” I asked as Lucien held a finger to his lips.

“I’ll explain shortly, Luna Ashflow.”

“How do you know–”

He sliced the air with an arm. “As I said, soon. Truly, I wish we could’ve met someplace more pleasant, but work calls.” He turned to Oscar and the Yanks. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me so far, but our work is not finished.” The Frenchman gestured towards a set of metal stairs leading up to what looked to be a control room. “Up there are the controls. Mr. Reynolds, if you could, Ben will guide you on what you need to do. Ah! Ah!” He held a finger up to stop Oscar from speaking. “We do not have time–”

“Bullshit,” my mother snapped as she held my aunt tightly. “What the hell is going on here?”

Lucien cursed heavily in French, or at least I thought it was French. “Madame, please…” The look on my mother's face made him close his eyes and sigh. “Alright. I’ll give you the cliff notes. This man, and her.” He gestured to the corpse of the archbishop and then at my aunt. “We’re coming here to overload the reactor; before you ask, no, they are not Rusivite collaborators. These two work with the Cult of the All-Father.”

“Th-that’s not true!” My aunt sobbed. “I-I was bringing him here to–”

“Quiet,” Lucien said bluntly as he held a palm out to her, and if my mother could shoot lasers from her eyes, the Frenchman would’ve been dead. “You may think you were merely bringing him here as a form of religious inspection, or whatever you fanaticals do. I don’t care. What I do know is that you were under a charm, dominated against your will. That is why when I killed him, you…” He snapped his finger. “Returned to your senses.”

“You lie!” My aunt snapped between sobs. “I-I wouldn’t do any of that.”

“Indeed,” Lucien nodded. “You probably didn’t, hence why I said you were charmed.” The Frenchman looked to my mother. “If you do not believe me, you can check.”

Without a word, my mother began to whisper to my aunt as she held a hand up, her eyes beginning to glow as she started muttering. Lucien turned to me. “To finish my brief summary if you still don’t trust me. When I say they came to overload the reactor, not only would that have destroyed a vast portion of this city, but also it would’ve torn a hole through into the upper layers of space-time, allowing other nasty beings that do not belong in this portion of reality to come and play.”

It was Oscar’s turn to speak up. “But Ben said nothing of this. Rusivite machines would’ve woken.”

Lucien nodded. “And they will. Ben, or Ami,” he said, gesturing to me. “Only told you what you needed to know. Believe me, it’s a long story, and it's one that isn’t finished.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a pocket watch, and checked it. “We have minutes now. We must act. Do you all understand? Or should I keep answering questions?”

There was a loud crash suddenly coming back from where we had come around one of the many side corridors connecting to the main passage. Echoing shouts and thundering feet slamming against the metallic floor could be heard.

“It seems the cavalry has arrived,” Lucien said with a flat expression and turned. “Come. Mr. Reynolds, if you may, please go up to the control center. Ben will explain everything you’ll need to do.”

My mind was swimming, and my eyes glanced towards the corpse of the archbishop. Master man… What the hell is going on?

“The most I can say right now is that that man, Lucien, and I know each other. He can be trusted. I’ll explain more once you’ve completed his task.”

Is he another person you reincarnated like me? I asked, and for some odd reason, I felt kind of down despite everything happening. I don’t know why.

“Again, I can’t say much just yet.” The Master said, sounding annoyed. “Yes and no. That is all.”

That’s not a legitimate answer. I huffed and rolled my eyes, though the Master didn’t respond. There was no use arguing anyway.

Things began to move swiftly. Lucien turned away from me and motioned for Oscar and the Yanks to follow him toward the control center beside the central reactor unit. I should clarify something, the reactor itself. Not what I expected it to look like. Whenever I heard the words “power plant” or "reactor,” my brain immediately went to what I knew. Nuclear reactors. I kept picturing it to look like those spooky chambers with those large devices that fuel rods were slotted into. Nope. It actually resembled what the Rusivites had at the prison. That bright light that saturated the room and would blind you like the sun when looking at it was a sizeable magrite pillar mounted into a roaring machine with dangerously visible cogs and gears that spoon and cranked at an alarming pace as it hummed intensely. The pillar itself had bindings and cables wrapped around it, and I assumed a series of braces kept it upright. In layman's terms, the thing looked like shit. Everything else about this facility seemed graceful and clean, almost futuristic; however, the magrite pillar looked like it had a bunch of cobbled-together scrap metal and gears bolted onto it and appeared out of place.

Honestly, it probably was, if I had to guess.

My eyes wandered back down to the corpse of the archbishop. It was a gruesome sight, but I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to fight him. The last time I had fought a mage was back in prison, and it was fast and rough. Thinking back on it, I was honestly lucky I had even won in the first place. If that woman had been even just a bit faster and hadn’t missed when she shot me, I’d be a goner.

In times like this, I’m glad things were rather anti-climatic.

Yet, I couldn’t shake a feeling. A bad feeling. For example, when I met the archbishop when he visited my aunt’s home the other day, I couldn’t help but feel scared. My fight-or-flight instincts were going nuts. Maybe I was just on edge.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to my mother and aunt, who were still beside the corpse. My aunt was leaning into my mother and babbling as she awkwardly held Saria. “So…” I started to say, and my mother simply nodded.

“Lucien was right,” my mother said with a solemn expression. “I sensed traces of foreign ether within her. Enchantment magic specifically. That…” She gritted her teeth and glared at the corpse. “That fiend was manipulating her.” She scowled.

“Hands up where we can see them!” A booming voice echoed down from the central passage. My mother and I jerked as we turned to see a group of heavily armed Heinmarran soldiers. About twelve of them had their rifles aimed and trained on us.

Without a second thought, I raised my hands as high as possible. “Don’t shoot!” I shouted as my mother did the same, urging my aunt to do so as well.

Standing at the group's center, a burly-looking man raised a thick hand in the air, palm facing down as he lowered it. “Steady, these aren’t the intruders.” His eyes flicked between my mother, aunt, and me before drifting down to the archbishop's corpse.

“Steiner, take the others and fan out. Make sure there’s no other intruders,” The burly man ordered.

“Yes, Sergeant,” A young elf said, her hand gesturing towards the other soldiers. “On me.” She motioned for them to move past us into the reactor room, leaving us and only the sergeant.

The man’s eyes were focused on me briefly as curiosity slipped through his hardened expression before his eyes shifted to my mother. “Would you mind explaining to me what is going on?” He asked as his weapon lowered to aim at the floor, but still in a ready posture if he needed to shoot.

Before I could say anything, my mother spoke, “We were on our way to stop this man.” She motioned with her head towards the corpse. “He was killed by a stranger we encountered just as we arrived. There are others down here; they went up into the control room.” She nodded towards the large, protruding room immediately to the left when entering the room up the stairs.

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“Why?” The soldier asked.

“I don’t know,” She said, “It was a bunch of Yanks. They were talking about stopping something. A rip in space-time, I think—”

Before I knew it, my mind was overtaken by a sensation I had never felt. Have you ever been in a conversation, and your thoughts fizzled out in mid-sentence? Like your mind had just short-circuited and needed to reboot? It was sort of like that. One second, I was listening to my mother hastily explain the situation while I was being polite and kept my mouth shut. The next thing, everything just went out, like the lights shut off, but not really.

I had lost control, or really, control was taken from me. Not like the time the Master demonstrated that ability to my parents; that was gradual. This time. It was instant and wrong. After my mind blanked out and my vision came back, I felt nauseous; my stomach was doing flip-flops while my brain was overcome by a severe migraine. Worst of all, my body was moving on its own, and all I could do was see through the eyes that were mine, yet at the same time weren’t.

Everything began to happen so fast. So much so that I could hardly keep up; this is what I remember happening. Just before my body was hijacked beside the corpse was a thick book, the same book I had seen the archbishop use to cast his spells. Ever since I arrived, the book had laid motionless a couple of feet away on the floor. Closed and latched shut. What I hadn’t noticed, or any of us really, was that the book was slowly moving, shifting on its own.

As my mother was briefing the soldier instantly, the book unlatched itself and flung open. Its pages fluttered wildly before, abruptly, the world contorted. Everything around us violently shifted. My vision went negative as all colors reversed, and my mind went blank.

The next thing I knew, I was in the air. My arms were windmilling, and my legs kicking. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I wanted to scream out loud, yet I couldn’t.

“Cease your panicking now!” I heard the Master say in my voice, like my physical voice, not a thought. He was speaking through my body. “I’ll handle this!” My tiny body twisted without my input, and in mid-air, I turned to face the wall I was hurling towards.

Controlling my arms, the Master held out my hands and silently channeled ether through my body before blasting a powerful gust of air at the wall, rocketing us back toward the ground. In a split second, he violently contorted me once more before repeating the same action, though this time with less power as he bled our velocity.

All in just a few seconds, I was now hovering in the center of the reactor room. About a dozen feet below me, at the entrance, was the corpse of the archbishop, still dead. Yet above the body was the black book, which was now hovering. As I had been, my mother and aunt had been thrown away from whatever spell the damned thing had cast. Unlike me, they were not so lucky; about thirty feet away, they had been blasted into the room, and both were slumped against a wall, unconscious.

I couldn’t see the sergeant, as he had most likely been blasted out into the central passage. The other soldiers who had gone in ahead were still standing, though their hands were clutching at their ears and shouting questions as to what the hell had happened.

To our right, we heard a loud bang as the door of the control room flew open, and out came Lucien. He leaned over the metal railing as he stared directly up at me. “Sacré bleu! Garl, if you’re going to do something, do it now!”

Who? I asked myself.

“He’s referring to me…” The Master muttered to themselves. God, it was weird hearing him using my voice.

That’s your name? I asked unhelpfully. I was panicking, and asking stupid questions was a great way for me to forget about the real problem.

“Not exactly, please, be quiet and let me handle this, Luna,” The Master mumbled in his usual monotonous manner. “Lucien, I’ll handle this. Stick to whatever plan you were doing.” The Frenchman gave us a thumbs-up and dipped back into the control room.

You don’t know what they’re doing?! I shrilled; not having control stinks. Oh, I hated this so much.

“I have a hunch; now again, be quiet.” We turned back towards the hovering book. It was open again, its pages flittering back and forth as if an invisible hand was sifting through them, looking for something. Finally, it slowed and then stopped.

On a blank page.

Without my control. We lifted our right arm and–

Agony. All I felt was agony. A mind-searing pain I had never thought I’d feel. I wanted to die. Red, hot pain shot up from my right arm. Yet nothing was happening. My arm was fine. Yet, why did I feel pain?

“Gaah!” I heard my voice cry, yet I knew it was the Master's, as he, too, could feel what I felt.

I felt like I was burning. I was on fire. Yet there was none. I was being cooked, but by what? What?!

As abruptly as the pain came, it vanished when the sound of rifle fire flooded the reactor room. Volley after volley of arcane bolts of energy were flung at the hovering inanimate object, and as my consciousness returned, I saw the soldiers from earlier in a loose line formation, firing and chambering round after round.

“Suppress the target!” The woman I recalled was Steiner shouting. “Traegar dispel the damned thing!” She shouted to one of the men beside her.

The man named Traegar reached into a pouch on his side and fumbled with something inside before finally pulling out a softball-sized object—a bronze, ornate-looking ball—which he pressed into with his thumb. Suddenly, the ball began to fracture, and through the cracks, a pinkish glow began to emit from within before he threw it at the book.

But it was too late.

The world between the soldiers and the book began to contort. Light started to bend in unnatural ways as reality began to warp. Then, everything snapped back to how it was just as an arc of energy lashed out from the book’s pages, the glowing bronze ball vanished, and the soldier known as Traegar was no more. Like, gone. No flashy explosion or gore spray. Just gone except for a pair of boots and a steaming rifle on the floor.

“Dammit…” The Master groaned as he shook my head.

What was that? I asked my brain, still feeling the aftershocks of whatever the hell happened. We need to stop–

“I know!” The Master growled as the soldiers below panicked and began to scatter, taking cover behind whatever they could find.

Though it was pointless as around them, the fabric of reality began to shift once more, and like Treagar. One after the other began to simply vanish. I wanted to scream at the Master to do something, yet I held myself back. I had to trust him. He was the one in control; I couldn’t do anything, and I hated it. But I knew if I was in control, I most likely would be dead. No way could I have reacted fast enough after the initial attack and saved myself. Like my mother and aunt, I’d be unconscious or, worse, dead.

Taking a breath, the Master held a hand up and out as he focused. Once again, I could feel ether surging through me, more so than I had felt before, as he brought the hand up to my face and briefly obscured our vision. I wanted to scream out in protest at the ridiculous action but didn’t when I felt an odd tingling sensation around my eyeballs. It wasn't a lousy sensation either; there was no pain or irritation. It… well, I can’t really describe it. All I can say is that it felt odd, and when the hand shielding my eyes moved, I was stunned.

The world I had previously been looking at was still there, except there was more. While the feeling itself around my eyeballs did not do anything wrong for me, what it made me see, gods… it made me sick. Like motion sick. What I, or we since the Master is controlling me, saw were what I could only describe as afterimages. Or before images?

I could see multiple versions of the soldiers below moving and dying. I saw one man taking cover behind a structural support for the magrite pillar. Yet, phasing out of him, I could see multiple ghostly versions of him stepping out, running away, and fighting, many of which resulted in the man disappearing from existence after an attack. I could see my mother leaning against the wall, and like the man, I could see ethereal versions of her shifting and moving. Some of which resulted in her stirring awake, others were her slumping further over, and of course, there was that damned book.

What am I seeing here? I asked while trying not to panic and keep conscious, as I was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of insane shit happening around us.

“First off. Please try not to panic; while I have control of your will, not all of it is actually sealed,” The master said, his tone serious, and I could tell he was focusing hard. “Which means your instincts can interfere with me.”

I was stunned. Yeah, sure, my body is a puppet now, and a fucking book is trying to kill us. I’ll try my best to calm the hell down! I snapped, as I indeed did not try to calm down.

The Master sighed before he could respond. I noticed movement. Of course, I could see everything and multiple images of stuff, but I saw something specific. The book. One of its afterimages showed it flaring with blinding energy.

Move left now! My thoughts screamed. Without question, the Master jerked my body to the left, and we dodged something. The air around where we just were swirled and distorted before suddenly, a blinding flash of light caused me to see stars as a searing beam coming from the book shot forth, slashing the ceiling and turning metal into slag.

“Good catch,” The Master muttered, and the next thing I knew, we were dive bombing towards the book. And I’ll say that I was a good little girl the entire time, and I kept myself calm and collected—who the hell am I kidding?

If I had control of myself, I would’ve pissed my pants. I was so scared. When I encountered the commissar and his mech in the prison, I was in control. I was frightened, yes, but I had control. Up until I was knocked unconscious and nearly died if it wasn’t for my ring of protection. This time, I didn’t. I was a passenger in my own body.

It was very much like riding as a passenger in your brother’s car, and the asshole was a daredevil on the highway. Except, replace all the semi-trucks and soccer moms with an evil book. Oh, and we were still going a hundred miles per hour, or so it felt.

We dove towards the inanimate object. The wind roared in our ears for the brief microsecond it took for us to get within arm's reach of it. Once again, we both saw an afterimage of the book orienting itself in a way that struck us, as if it literally rammed itself into our faces. Before we could say anything, the Master shifted my head out of the way as the book rammed forward with its hard binding. What we didn’t expect to happen was that on its outer binding was a gemstone, a deep, black gem that flashed, blinding the two of us.

The Master cursed and aggressively pulled us back, the force on my chest nearly crushing me as our velocity came to an unnatural halt. My body then levitated into the air as we both tried to blink the stars from our vision. Since we were blinded, we had both failed to react to the thing gripping me by my leg. The sound of something, or someone hissing, caught my ears as a sharp pain erupted from where my leg met my hip as I was violently yanked back down to the ground.

The wind was knocked from my lungs as my back slammed into the metal-plated floor. My head cracked against the hardened surface, and my vision exploded with stars once again and the migraine I felt already surged, now worse than what it was.

Once again, this would’ve been the end if I was in control. No way I could make myself move after a fall like that. However, I wasn’t in control and didn’t know how the Master could keep going. Indeed, he felt what I felt; maybe he was stronger than me.

The Master immediately pushed us up onto my elbows and tried to kick away. As my eyes focused, I wanted to scream but couldn’t. Clutching my leg in an iron grip was the Archbishop, Puntinov. Or what was left of him. Half of the upper right-hand side of his face was nothing but a golfball-sized hole filled with gore and bone. To my horror, I could see the spongy mass of flesh in his skull pulsating and reshaping, spider-like webbing of skin reconnected itself as hardened bone began to twist and mend.

I wanted to vomit. “Keep it together!” The Master hissed internally. Putinov’s face twisted into a sneering smile, and it reconstructed itself.

“Now, now…” The archbishop purred as his lanky hand crushed my ankle with inhuman strength. My brain exploded once again when I heard the small bone snap with agony as hot pain surged upwards, but immediately, it ceased.

“I’m doing my best to numb the pain, Luna.” The Master reassured me.

As Putinov’s head fully resealed itself, the archbishop smiled wickedly as he rolled his neck and cracked it in multiple areas. “I knew I was right,” he said as he straightened up, one hand still holding my ruined leg. He yanked me up off the ground and held me out.

Whatever you’re planning, I thought. Do it now, like do it.

“I’m working on it,” the Master responded in my head.

“I knew the moment I went into Saria’s house you were something special,” Putinov said softly. “For years I searched for the anomaly...” He sighed. “Instead, all I had to do was wait for you to come to me.” He snickered.

What the hell is he talking about?

“We can discuss later. For now. Hold your breath.”

Excuse me? I didn’t have time to do whatever he said, nor could I; I wasn’t in control of my breathing. At the moment, we were being held upside down by the archbishop’s iron grip. The most I could do was see whatever the Master wanted me to see through my own eyes. We were still receiving those after images, and all the versions of Putinov I saw were horrifying. Images of him pulling out a knife ready to gut me; others had him drawing a gun; others were him mutilating me with magic.

Yet one showed him with us gone. Or, well, I was gone.

Then I was.

In a wave of nausea that caused my mind to go blank for a few seconds. I was no longer upside down. Instead, I was sideways, my arms frantically gripping onto a large metal pipe that was freezing to the touch while my ruined leg dangled below me, and the other frantically looped itself into some sort of support strut.

Fuck, fuck, that’s cold cold! I panicked, and the sensation faded as the Master did some sort of magic to numb the sensation.

“Apologies…” He sighed, sounding tired. “I didn’t know if that would work or not.”

What happened? I asked.

“You know it as teleportation. At least, that’s the simplest way I can explain it. I replaced our presence with something else, and now we’re here.”

What?

“As said, thinking of it as teleporting is much easier for you. For now, we have a moment to think.” The Master turned my head downwards, and I realized where we were.

We were still in the power plant; in fact, we were still in the reactor room, except on the ceiling, clinging to a pipe between two supporting struts. Down below, the formerly dead Putinov stood alone with the book hovering beside him. His hand was still in the position it was in when he held us, his head swiveling left and right as he tried to figure out where we were.

You could always do that?! I asked, shocked. The Master had never used such a trick before.

“I have once before; it was how I was able to save your family.” He went silent for a second as he let that settle in.

Oh, duh. I thought.

The master sighed. “At the time your consciousness was dormant, hence your memory. If you recall, it’s why I had to disappear for a bit to trance and regain my power, and well. Now we’re at the source.” He shifted my eyes towards the glowing magrite pillar, which I recall he said was a place of power.

Okay, that makes sense. You get sleepy when doing this, so it’s best to use it sparingly.

“I don’t get sleepy,” he snipped. “But yes, I’m still imprisoned; therefore, my power is limited. Controlling you alone is draining my reserves rapidly; teleporting is just expediting that.”

Before I could ask another question, Putinov cleared his throat. “Running away are we, Garlan?” Putinov called out. “Already?” He sighed and kicked the floor as he turned to face the reactor. “Perhaps having the anomaly as a child is rather inconvenient for the two of you. I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting down such a wretched abomination… I lie. Putting such a thing to rest would make me sleep wonderfully at night.”

“Don’t listen to him.” The Master urged me. “He’s merely trying to goad us into doing something stupid. For now, watch.”

Alright, in that case… what are all these afterimages? Why does everything look weird? I asked as I observed the multiple images of Putinov; one of them looked in our direction, and my heart dropped. I nearly called but stopped when The Master sighed nonchalantly.

“They’re probabilities. Each “afterimage,” as you call it, is a potential future action. I’ll repeat that it is not the future, but a possible outcome. I am assisting your mind in calculating the probabilities in which what actions individuals could take, and I’m working off of the most likely scenario. Hence why we’re up here. I’m observing what that asshole Putinov will do next; once I’m certain, I’ll act.”

Huh… Asshole?

“Yes. That’s what I called him.”

Oh, I’m not disagreeing. I’m just shocked that you said asshole.

“Really, that’s what you’re focusing on?”

It’s either that, or I’m freaking the fuck out.

“Neither of us want that…” The Master sighed.

Wait a second. I thought, just realizing. You're using me to predict the future?

“I’m not making you predict the future. I’m assisting your mind–”

That’s just semantics. You’re doing weird things with my brain to predict the future. Can’t we just set up a scenario in which we just win?

The Master snorted. “No, and I won’t waste my time going into the details as to why. All I’ll say is that what we’re seeing is the most likely actions, but even then, with four or five images, we see. Those are still odds not in our favor.”

Five likely outcomes—that’s like a twenty percent chance, right?

The Master sighed once again. “No, because again, those are the most likely ones presented. There are still millions of other less likely outcomes.”

Is that why I have a severe migraine?

“That and because your head got whacked. For that, I apologize. I am doing my best to numb the pain and use what I need. It’s best you not focus on it.”

I remained quiet as I watched through my eyes as the Master closely followed Putinov’s moves. As described, we could see five other transparent visages of him, all doing separate things. It was so disorienting; part of me struggled to keep up, though I had to trust the Master knew what he was doing.

From what I could follow, Putinov’s attention was drawn toward the control room, where we could faintly see the others frantically working inside through the window. The hovering book came over to Putinov, levitating beside him as the man reached out and plucked the book from midair.

“Lucien,” The archbishop called out, his voice fluttering with a slight musical twang at the end. “Please step out. I would like to discuss what happened earlier.”

“Désolé monsieur!” The Frenchman called out from the open door. “Lucien cannot be reached at this time–” Putinov viciously dragged a finger across an open page of the book and flicked it towards the control room door. An arcane bolt of energy shot forth from the page and followed the direction of his gesture as it slammed into the wall beside the door. Incinerating the metal plating.

“Oi, that wasn’t very nice!” The Frenchman shouted.

“Neither was shooting me in the head!” Putinov snarled as his calm demeanor faltered.

“That was the past, Putinov!” Lucien responded, not daring to stick his head out. “The first step to healing is to let it go!”

“Enough!” Putinov roared as his grimoire levitated from his grasp and hovered over his head as the pages rapidly turned. “I should’ve known you were working with the traitors!”

Following what I saw from the afterimages, I could see a handful of probabilities, all of which resulted in what I feared: The entire control center would be crushed into the size of a walnut.

Except that wasn’t entirely true, as there was one vision. I see an option, I said.

“On it.” was the Master’s response before abruptly letting go of the pipe.

With my leg hooked into the strut, my guts flopped heavily inside me as my vision spun, and I began to fall but then stopped as the entire weight of my body yanked on my leg. Flexing the hooked limb, the Master made it come loose, and we began to plummet straight toward the ground head first.

Internally, I was screaming and sobbing, but it was justified as I thought we were just about to die. At the last second, however, the Master blew a torrent of wind downwards as, once again, the gust spell saved us from being splattered. We were blown into the air like a bottle rocket, and I don’t know if he was showing off or my body was just flailing about, but he did a flip, and as we spun, I felt my guts wanting to ralph up my lunch.

Mid-flip, he angled my body around and blew a torrent of air behind us, allowing the force to propel us towards not Putinov, but his book. Within seconds of us falling from the ceiling opposite the room, I was wrapping my arms around the book mid-flight as Putinov turned to look at me. For a split second, our eyes locked together before I vanished again.

My shoulder slammed into the ground, and I rolled head over heels as I clutched the book tightly against my chest. Or really, I should say the Master was, as he was in control. "No, you don’t!” The Master snarled at the book as my eyes flashed, and he slammed my right palm into the book and said something in a language I did not understand.

By this point, the book was frantically trying to free itself like a trapped bird, shifted and stopped moving as inky black tendrils shot out from my palm and wrapped around it. “That was close,” he said monotonously. “A second less, and we would’ve been vaporized. Or at least, you would’ve. I’d be back home.”

I didn’t say anything right away. How the hell does that provide me with any comfort? I asked.

The Master pursed my lips and frowned. “I guess it doesn’t. Point is. The grimoire is sealed.” He patted the book gently.

Where the hell are we? I asked, unable to look around since Mr. Hijacker was too busy ogling the book. Straightening up, the Master looked around finally, and I could see we were in the freaking passageway just outside the reactor room. Why are we right here? Isn’t Putinov behind us? We need to move, or else–

“Luna.”

–he’s going to get us from behind. We need to fight–

“Luna!” The Master said more firmly. “I told you the grimoire is sealed.” He patted the book before flipping it over to the other cover and tapping the gem. “Putinov cannot hurt us. Not right now.” I could feel him smiling as the black gem pulsed a dark, angry purple.

You have some explaining to do.