If you really understood war, if you really understood death, if you really understood hate and horror and pain and fear then how far would you go stop it? And what would that knowledge do to you? Who would you become if the suffering of untold billions weighed on you in a tangible, visceral way and wasn't some theoretical abstraction? And if that crushing weight refused to give you a single moment of peace for thousands of years and if you somehow managed to stand your ground throughout all that, what would you do if you were betrayed? How far would you fall? What would be left of you? And what kind of monster would look out through your eyes and wear your face after it was all said and done?
I'd had similar fears in the past. I knew when we went to Redmond together that Theo would face opposition from those who didn't trust his motives. I knew that the very people he had come to help might show their ingratitude through violence and murder and even attempts on his life. It had been a pleasant surprise when he'd gracefully danced around a sizeable portion of those problems with charisma, intellect, and forethought. I never thought he'd become a
monster but I worried that he'd become embittered, lose his heart for helping those less fortunate, and turn inward.
It wasn't Theo I should have been worried about.
We'd taken a t-bird from Squatter's Mall to the Bellevue estate, for the sake of speed. The staff was mostly still there - Theo wasn't about to put any of his
family out of a job - so almost half of them met us at the landing pad. We stopped for a short breakfast while we waited for Theo's private jet to pick us up. Theo and I spent some time marveling over the strange sensation of being in a place so familiar and yet so different. Our life in Bellevue seemed like a dream sometimes, and as much as we'd done to improve conditions at Squatter's Mall, it still didn't compare to this.
"Hot damn, kid," Thug began, as usual saying what others wouldn't, "What the frag made you want to come to Redmond after growing up like this?"
We were in one of the smaller dining rooms, not the huge ones that rarely saw use, but the more intimate variety that we'd actually felt comfortable in. No chandeliers or sculptures or century-old paintings, just a few relatively inexpensive furnishings making up a middle-class island in a sea of opulence. Not that Thug had been talking about this room in particular. We'd had to cross the sea to get here, but Robin's team had been fairly quiet during the voyage. They weren't yet in their security armor, but they'd made enough money to dress themselves appropriately for the world outside Redmond. Even then I'm sure they felt like imposters. I still remembered my first few months here and how long it took me to even begin getting comfortable. And that was with young Theo going very far out of his way every day to assist me in that.
Theo smiled but I could see the melancholy in his eyes, "You guys did...and Robin...and well, Miho of course. Really the more I learned about Redmond the more I developed the unshakeable conviction that it deserved to be saved. And I don't mean to sound like some places are unworthy of help it's just...the more I read about it, the more people I talked to, and the more I learned in general the more I began to see just how amazing the place was when you looked at it the right way. And yeah, I know what you guys will say, but there's a lot of ingenuity and raw will and just plain brilliance that I just kept seeing. So many people still trying to help, still trying to make things better. I would never have been able to recruit so many Agents if there weren't so many people who wanted to do real good,"
But his words smelled like cheap cologne, not that I needed my Adept powers to recognize that
particular half-truth, but now probably wasn't the time to get into Theo's history of mental illness.
Fabio sighed as the food was finally delivered, "You know, I still remember the days when I would try to worm my way into a place like this, pretend to be your best friend, and live high on the hog until the day you wised up and kicked me out,"
Theo smirked, "Yes, because
that never got you into
any trouble,"
We all shared a chuckle for a moment, then Theo continued, "So...what do you guys want to do after this is all over?"
A round of shrugs. Then Thug answered first, "I dunno. I was thinking maybe Aztlanner food?"
Thug rarely made jokes like that unless he was either playing the part of a stupid troll or among friends who knew him well. Because what he was
really getting at is that Tabitha's McWellan's death didn't or at least
shouldn't register as any kind of important event. She didn't deserve that honor. But coming from a troll, most people wouldn't look for too much depth in those words.
Theo smirked, "Sounds good to me. But I was just wondering if you'd all like to become fantastically wealthy?"
Opticon got to it first, "Uh...you know I still haven't been able to alter your mother's will, right? Or even figure out who this 'Serena McWellan' is?"
"Let's pretend for a second that's not an issue. And for the record, Squatter's Mall and Redmond and Lucifer's operations...that's all still going to continue. But if you want a permanent luxurious vacation for the rest of your lives...well you've earned it. Or you will have," Theo explained.
"Yeah, no," Fabio replied
"Frag that, " Thug came next.
"A temporary vacation might be called for, but the work everyone at this table is engaging in is too important to abandon," said Gregor.
"Yeah...being able to buy all the toys doesn't mean anything if you don't have anything to
do with them," Opticon explained.
Theo drummed his fingers on the table in a tell I'd learned to decode over the years. He was nervous. Which meant he was building up to something.
"What if I asked you guys to take over as Lucifer on a permanent basis?" Theo said, finally.
Thug stopped eating, a spoonful of food hovering in the air. He turned to face Theo, "You going somewhere, kid?"
Theo shrugged, "Maybe a lot of places. There are even places in the world worse off than Redmond. Chicago for starters. Lagos. Bogata."
Everyone got quiet. Eventually, it was Gregor who asked the obvious question, "Is there something you're not telling us? Or are these the demands of your new dragon overlord?"
Theo nodded, "If things go well, by the end of the day I might very well be able to explain some things to you that, currently, I don't feel I can. For now, let's just say that options have opened up for me that I didn't have before. And if I'm busy with other things, I want to make sure I leave Redmond in good hands,"
And now they were looking at me.
"Where Theo goes, I go," I told them, earning an especially irritating smirk from Fabio.
Gregor nodded, "It would be an honor to serve the people of Redmond in such a fashion. And I assume Anna's new position will be permanent as well? But who will take over as Program Manager?"
"It depends on how today goes, really. But I have someone in mind," Theo replied.
James poked his head in the door, "Excuse me, Mr. McWellan? The courier is here,"
Theo jumped up from his chair in obvious excitement, "Ah! Gimme a few minutes, guys. Be right back,"
The moment he was out of the room, they were on me like sharks. Gregor went first, "So what do we need to do to get him out from under whatever he owes this dragon?"
I sighed and shook my head, "I can't talk about any of that,"
"Oh come on!" Fabio replied, "You know we've got his back. Let us know how we can help him!"
I sighed again, and made sure to do it louder this time, "I am a Samurai. He's my Lord. And for now, he doesn't want you to know. But..."
The tension in the room skyrocketed in anticipation of even the slightest drop of a secret from me.
"...the dragon owes him something," I finished.
They all started searching each other's faces for signs of understanding, but with none to be found.
I smirked, "He's Lucifer, remember? Favors are his
thing,"
And technically none of that was a lie.
Theo reentered the room with a small box in his hand, "So uh...I got you this. It's for the mission," and he placed it on the table just to the left of my plate.
I opened the box and found a moonsilver amulet with a seven-point star pentacle on it. A Heptagram. And I could feel its active presence in the manasphere without even needing to actively assense it. And there were half-a-dozen other similar pieces of jewelry in the box with it. All moonsilver.
"They're Qi foci," Theo explained, although I felt a slight whiff of sulfur which told me that while
most of them probably were, one certainly wasn't.
<There's a Power Focus in there too. It's the simple moonsilver band> Theo informed me telepathically.
I'd long gotten over my residual self-image as a Barren's Rat, but this was still quite a lot. Still, I managed to accept it all gracefully.
"Thank you, Theo. I know that this is probably mostly for our mission, but still, I really appreciate all this,"
"Hey, where're
my shinies?" Fabio joked earning an immediate elbow from Opticon sitting next to him.
"I should probably go figure out which of these I should bond to before the mission gets underway," and I exited the room as gracefully as I could.
Normally it could take hours to bond to a single focus depending on how powerful it was, for a mortal anyway. These, I bonded to as I put them on and slowly came to the understanding that they really had nothing to do with our mission at all. Which made sense in a way as I already had pretty much every combat-related Adept power I knew existed and would do me any good. The Analytics power was one I'd always been curious about but never felt I could justify. It mostly just made you smarter but in the classic book-smart sense, and as I bonded to it I could feel my mind becoming sharper in a way that made me understand why the word 'sharp' was used for intelligence in the first place. My thoughts actually felt, in a way, more blade-like. Like I could cut through problems with ease that before would have stumped me.
But things got really curious when I discovered a Qi focus for Improved Business Skill and Improved Academics. Oh sure, the ones for Visual Magnification and Eidetic Sense Memory made a kind of sense, but improved book learning and business skills? If I hadn't bonded to the focus with the Analytics power first I might have shrugged those off but now they worried me. Because I could guess what they were for.
<Please don't go off on your own,> I sent him over the Mindnet spell he'd clearly cast.
<I don't intend to. But with Isis's warnings, I figured we could use a backup plan,> he sent back.
<Which is?> I asked.
<I don't actually remember. I think that must have been on purpose. It's probably better that way>
I'd slipped the Power Focus on while he was talking and it made my head swim. Instinctively I began to worry about Focus Addiction, that nasty and pernicious dependence the Awaken could develop when using a focus that, frankly, was probably too powerful for them to begin with. Suddenly though, it occurred to me that, like with Drain from spellcasting, we might not be entirely immune but it seemed likely we'd be just as resistant. Oh, wow. Analytics was
nice. Hopefully, Theo had already done the math because this focus felt
significant.
<You get anything for yourself?> I asked him
<Similar Power Focus, some Qi foci here and there. Nothing particularly special. Analytics is nice though>
Oh
god. As sharp as I now was, I didn't even want to
think about what he was now capable of.
<Masaru's here> he told me.
Well...it was time to see how
this part would go. I rendezvoused with our coterie atop the modern castle and stood before the opulence that was Theodore's personal flying chariot. Okay, I'll stop. I promise. In any case, Masaru was already on board and had clearly used magic to give himself the appearance of a mid-40s caucasian male with a decidedly bulkier frame than he'd had when last I saw him. It didn't take Gregor long to guess who this newcomer was.
"I don't know what you hope to gain from this, dragon, but understand this. Theodore McWellan is our friend and ally. He's earned our loyalty and you should think twice and thrice again before doing him any great harm. Not even your kind are invincible," Gregor said, although if he'd known he was addressing a
Great Dragon, rather than the more common variety, he might not have.
Masaru smiled, and his now gravelly voice reminded me vaguely of Delucca's, "Your loyalty to Mr. McWellan does you credit. I will think more highly of you for it in the future. And I certainly take no insult. For he has my loyalty as well,"
None of them quite knew what to make of that, so they said nothing. We'd included some accommodations for Thug, mostly seating sized appropriately for him so in his typical phlegmatic manner, he slumped lazily into his seat and, as usual, cut through the conversational gordian knot and said what no one else dared say.
"Welp,
this is gonna be a long flight,"
He wasn't wrong. Theo certainly tried to keep things from getting too awkward, and I did what I could to help him, but Robin's team just wasn't comfortable making casual conversation with a dragon. Even if they thought Theo was a Drake, which was more or less half-dragon in a social context, he was Lucifer
first, Robin's boyfriend second, probably a bunch of other things, and a dracoform dead last.
We couldn't even move the conversation towards strategy, because we'd beaten that horse to death, raised its corpse, and beaten it to death again before ever setting foot on Theo's private jet. At least Opticon got an excuse to not be involved since he was flying the damned thing. Finally though, after what felt like several days even if, in reality, it was less than 2 hours, the Mojave Desert came into view. I wouldn't have felt this nervous if it hadn't been for Isis. Hell, we might not even have bothered bringing Masaru. The only reason Robin's team was here was that they had a stake in seeing justice done for Robin's killer.
"Uh...Theo," Opticon's voice came over the intercom, "There's uh...there's no traffic control messages coming in. I've got the coordinates, but no one's giving me instructions on how to land or any warnings about shooting us down if we deviate from our flight plan. Is that...is that normal?"
"I've uh," Theo began, "I've never actually been to this particular estate of hers. Just proceed to the landing coordinates but keep your eyes open,"
As if things weren't tense enough. And they got worse after we landed.
"What the
frag?" Opticon said.
"Yeah I feel it too, " Theo responded.
"Feel what?" I asked him.
"There's no wireless. At all," he explained, "And I have no idea why,"
Masaru looked around, and by his expression, he didn't seem to know why this bothered any of us so eventually, he decided to take point deploying the airstair and descending it.
"Wait what do you mean
feel?" Opticon asked as Theo followed Masaru's lead, but he never got an answer.
There was no one there to meet us. No servants. No drones. The limestone spackled ranch house, done up in imitation of an old Mexican mission, was similarly empty. It also had no electric lights or any other modern convenience we could find. Opticon had deployed several surveillance drones the moment we'd exited the jet, mostly to keep an eye out for missile strikes. It could very well have been the case that Tabitha never intended to show up and instead planned to blow us all up. But while they didn't find any sign of inbound attack, they did eventually find Tabitha.
Several hundred meters from the house, there sat a truly enormous Zen rock garden, easily 50 meters on a side, and some kind of deck or topless gazebo in the center. She was just sitting out there, in the heat of the day lounging around while wearing a man's business suit and stiletto heels - all white of course - as if the temperature didn't bother her in the slightest, which probably meant some kind of outdoor air conditioning because she was just that rich. Her blonde hair was uncharacteristically free which made her look oddly relaxed. So we made our way out there.
The heat was oppressive, and as much as I would have expected the tension to override that, it didn't. I could feel beads of sweat falling down my skin in various places until I felt Theo cast a spell that cooled the air around us.
"What was
that?" Gregor asked.
"Oh yeah, I uh...found an air conditioning spell. Seemed like something worth having," Theo explained and to my surprise, it was entirely true.
And then we were standing before Her. She was just as the drones had told us, her arms spread wide along the back of the wooden bench, but with her legs crossed.
"Hello, Theodore. Since I haven't had the opportunity to say it before, congratulations. The Squatter's Mall Project was a resounding success. You should be proud,"
Theo's flat affect spoke volumes, "Thank you, Mother."
"But I believe it's time for you to step back. A conventional education is important and not merely for the prestige. So I have enrolled you at MIT&T for the upcoming fall semester. And you will have to take a step back from the Redmond Program, though I will allow you to remain on as Program Sponsor,"
A moment of silence.
"You brought me all the way out here, just to tell me something you could have said over a commlink?" his anger was beginning to show through and I knew we were getting close.
Tabitha smiled but her eyes were hard enough to crush diamonds, "I thought privacy was in order in case you decided to do something regrettable. After all, you certainly demonstrated your newfound resolve against those filly dwarf gang members you crucified. I have to say I was impressed. I knew you had the ability to contact the Order of Aurelius, but I didn't think you'd do such a thing so soon,"
A wave of nausea hit me, and it wasn't any magic.
"The Order of Aurelius?" I said without thinking or even paying any attention to the circumstance we found ourselves in, "My
god Theo, what were you
thinking?"
The Order was a group of shockingly powerful vampire mercenaries. And while most mercenaries were flexible in their morality to say the least, the Order was who you called when cruelty and horror were
the point. Frankly, crucifixion was
uninspired by their standards, but then I was just now realizing that Lucifer had to stay on brand.
Thanks a lot, Analytics.
"Dude," Thug spoke up next, "What the frag, man?"
Theo turned to regard us both with an annoyed distaste, "Now?
Really? We're doing this now?"
"Did it truly not surprise any of you how quickly that transpired?" Tabitha asked sounding even more superior than normal, "Clearly young Theodore had them stationed nearby in preparation. I wonder how he fed them?"
All eyes were on Theo now, except Masaru who didn't seem to understand why any of us were bothered by this. Theo for his part wasn't defending his actions.
"Later, alright?
Please!" he begged.
Masaru's jaw clenched visibly as he addressed Tabitha, "You're words are of no consequence,"
And then he turned to Theo, "I ask that you make me your executioner,"
Theo and I had long since agreed, even before Robin's death, that even if we were ever to do something like this, he would
not be the one to strike the final blow. I'd been prepared to do it myself but I was just as happy to pass that off to Masaru at least there in that moment.
Theo shook his head and I could feel him pour his True Power into the manasphere, conjuring a Powerblade that my favorite new Adept power was telling me could probably cut through a tank. He stepped forward.
"Are you sure this is how you want this to go, Theodore?" Tabitha asked as she stood, "Did you really think I made no preparations for this? What plans do you suppose my death will put into motion? What consequences for those you love? This isn't something you can take back, boy,"
Theo stared her down for a long moment and said, "I'm sure it'll hurt. But in the end? I'll live with it," .
Theo rushed forward bringing the blade down in an overhead strike...
...only for it to be blocked by the largest sword I'd ever seen. The blade compared favorably in size to the average surfboard and both hilt and blade were covered in Old Realm runes. And the entire thing had just materialized into position to block Theo's strike. It just floated there.
Tabitha smiled.
At once she was engulted in a bonfire of divine flame.
And a symbol of light appeared on her forehead, which I recognized immediately as the symbol of the Zenith caste.
But they were green.
