Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“There will come a day when your heart will lay shattered, when all that you are falls apart. Your darkest hour, if I may, though it won’t necessarily last an hour. It could be days, weeks, months, even years. At the end of it all, you will have a decision to make: how will you put yourself back together? This choice will likely be the most important of your entire life.

I hope you make the right one.”

- Sir Obi-Wan the Wise addressing his squire, Lord Anakin the Butcher

It was a cold, cloudless night. The full moon shone brightly in the sky, its light unblocked by anything but the slightest wisps of strata. A nightclub on a street corner blared dance music into the otherwise silent night, and red light flashed out the windows to join the light of the moon.

In another world, the moon might have been shattered, and the roaring of a motorcycle might have been heard, followed by the screaming of dozens of patrons, and finally finishing with the sound of glass breaking. But that is another world, and this is this one.

It would’ve taken state-of-the-art security systems or an extraordinarily acute sense of hearing to notice the soft brush of feet on the ground as the person to whom they belonged ceased their flight and landed on the sidewalk.

She stomped towards the doors of the club. This too went largely unnoticed. The patrons of the club tended to party quite loudly, and it was nearly impossible to hear the girl’s footsteps on the ground even though she put enough force into each step to crack the concrete.

When she got to the entrance of the club, she tested the metal doors. They were heavy, but still manageable for someone of normal strength. There were probably hydraulics making them easier to open, not that she needed them.

Grasping the handles, she flew upwards, hovering about a foot off the ground. Her golden-blonde hair suddenly flew backward, along with the rest of her. The doors screeched with the sound of tearing metal, and then they came right off. She let them go then, and they loudly clanged on the ground.

Everybody noticed that. The entire club went silent from shock, and even the loud dance music seemed to be in suspense.

The girl landed back on the ground, then spoke loudly and clearly. “Everybody out. I don’t want to have to beat up more people than I have to.”

A second passed, then, as one, the dancers and drinkers and all the other attendees rushed out the door, making sure to give the person standing in the middle of the doorway a wide berth. Even some of the staff ran out, cowed by the otherworldly show of strength.

Half a dozen people remained. Well-dressed men with red-tinted sunglasses and black suits wielding pistols and axes, glancing between themselves and the teenage girl standing in the doorway. Gangsters. The bright flashing lights inside the club had changed to fluorescent lights one might see in an office building, properly illuminating the foe that had just ripped the heavy steel doors off the building like they were paper.

Frankly, she didn’t look like much. She wore a black leather jacket and a short green skirt. Her blonde hair was let down and it fell down to her waist. She looked like some random, if rather attractive, girl one might meet on the street, or run into at the mall.

Some of the thugs were emboldened by the relatively normal appearance of their aggressor and advanced on her. One even made a misogynistic comment. Most stayed back, however, not willing to get ripped in half or pounded into a fine paste by the young parahuman.

They were the smart ones.

The first guy to get near her was a tall fellow wielding an ax. He wasn’t the most experienced fighter, but he was strong and figured he could overpower the pipsqueak of a girl in front of him. He raised his ax overhead and brought it down with a shout, and felt the blade slam into her shoulder… and bounce off. She didn’t react, taking advantage of his stunned state by simply rearing back for a punch that slammed into the unfortunate fellow’s chest, sending him flying into the back wall.

Another goon aimed and fired his pistol at the girl, but she was already moving, and she slammed into the man, only letting him get a single shot off and sending him sprawling to the ground. Another bone-shattering punch and he fell unconscious. She picked something up off the ground, throwing it at one of the nearby gangsters. He dropped his ax to catch it, then gulped when he realized that it was a flattened, still hot bullet. A bullet he could’ve sworn had just hit their foe.

The entire group suddenly felt much less willing to fight.

She spoke up again. “I’m pretty sure you know who I’m here for.”

A couple of the goons shared glances, then one who was deemed to have been unlucky enough to be chosen to respond replied nervously, “Actually, um, no, we don’t. Sorry; could you, er, elaborate for us… miss?”, he corrected as one of his fellow goons elbowed him in the side.

The blonde blinked once or twice, then grimaced. “Ah, sorry. I’m looking for your boss. Xander Waxon, Jack Candlestick, Will Naxle. Any of those ring a bell?” She looked almost embarrassed. It would’ve been funny, had the gangsters not been so scared.

“Uh, yeah, that second one does,” a different goon spoke up. “He’s not here now, actually. He doesn’t come ‘round here often. Sorry?” A couple of his companions looked at him oddly.

She sighed exasperatedly. Before she could respond, the loud screech of tires on asphalt came from outside. She turned around, and some of the gangsters contemplated shooting her in the back while she was distracted, but quickly decided otherwise. What if it ticked her off? She seemed pretty calm and composed for someone who could probably slaughter the lot of them without breaking a sweat, but who knew? Maybe she was concealing a roiling inferno beneath that calm exterior just waiting for an excuse to let loose, like an attempted murder attempt.

Also, it would have been mildly unsporting.

The car that had just pulled up outside was a fancy black Mercedes, and the blonde could just make out the number on the vanity plate: GAM8LR. The passenger side door opened up, and another teenage girl popped out and skated over to the discarded doors. On roller blades, no less.

Both girls looked about the same age and both girls wore a skirt, but that’s where the similarities ended. While one girl was conservatively dressed, the other was dressed colorfully, skimpily, even outlandishly in pink, red, and blue. The first girl’s hair was long and blonde, while the other girl’s hair was short, a shocking pink, and tied up in two almost-adorable pigtails. Her skin was an almost comically pale white. Her face was just as pale as the rest of her, save for her eyes, which shone like the rainbow, her nose, which was bright red and round, and her mouth, which seemed to be filled with razor-sharp shark teeth, grinning widely. She looked like a sexy creepy clown, and wasn’t that a sentence nobody ever wanted to think?

The clown finished her inspection of the jagged steel and turned to face the girl who was tensing her shoulders and preparing for a fight, then let out a disarmingly loud cackle, causing the other girl to fly up in shock. “Ha! Gotcha! Anyway, d’you mind me asking why ya trashed Mista J’s club? It’s gonna be pretty expensive to replace those doors!”

The other girl’s face had a hint of red in the cheeks as she replied, “Well… I wanted to get all the civilians out and I was expecting a fight. Thought that making them panic and run would work best.”

The clown girl chuckled and twirled around, eventually falling to the ground as her chuckles grew into a full belly-laugh. “Ha! ‘Preciate it, but really, you can kill the poor innocent civvies all you like, darling. No one cares about them! ‘Cept their families, their friends, and prolly loads of other people, but otherwise, no one cares!”

She shot to her feet and sped over to where the blonde was uncomfortably hovering over the ground. “You got yourself Name, sweetheart?”. She grinned.

“Uh, it’s Tori Co- “

She somehow leaped up ten feet in the air and booped the blonde on the nose with her finger, and Tori recoiled back. “No no no, silly! Not yer real name, yer Name ! I don’t got one, but you can call me Harlequin anyway!” Her grin grew slightly less wide. “Actually, ya know what. You seem the heroic sort. Dang. Prolly shoulda guessed, really.”

Harlequin skated aimlessly in circles on the ground, conversation seemingly forgotten. Tori waited for her to continue, and visibly grew more and more irritated when she didn’t. “Look, I’m looking for Jack Candlestick, and you aren’t him, so - “

The clown girl stopped skating and screamed, “WOOHOO!”, startling Tori yet again and causing her to float even higher in the air. “Just realized something! Let’s fight! Right here right now! I finally get a good fight, and you get to test yer hero skills! Win-win! Let’s go!” She paused for a second, then, in a voice almost a whisper, continued, “You don’t mind, do you?”

The floating blonde’s face flipped between shock, confusion, and anger before finally settling back on irritation. “You’re joking,” she tried.

Harlequin replied. “Nope!” She smiled conspiratorially. “That’s the other Mista J’s job, and he’s better at it! Let’s get on with this, and then maybe I’ll take ya to see the man yer looking for, mkay?” Then, she reached her arm behind her back and grabbed her weapon, which turned out to be a giant silver-colored hammer that couldn’t have possibly fit behind her - just the head was wider than the clown was tall, yet she somehow pulled the whole thing out from behind her anyway.

She twirled it with one hand like a cheerleader’s baton then slammed the thing onto the ground, and the impact cracked the concrete.

Tori’s eyes widened, but she readied for a fight regardless, shoulders tensing and hands clenched. “Look, I’m really not looking for a fight, can we just talk -”

The answer seemed to be a very large and vehement “NO” as Harlequin, cackling loudly, leaped straight at the blonde flier almost faster than the eye could see, swinging her hammer wildly. Tori barely had time to dodge out of the way of the gargantuan weapon, and it slammed into the club behind her. The whole building shook from the impact, and the men remaining inside the club decided that, no, they were not getting paid enough to deal with superpowered teenagers, and made their rapid exit through the back door.

Harlequin spun around with her hammer, catching the blonde flier with her backswing and sending her soaring higher into the air. It didn’t seem to affect her at all, but she was quite worried nonetheless, her brow furrowed and her frown deepened. She took a moment to straighten herself, then charged straight at her opponent, fist forward. Harlequin barely had time to swing her hammer in the way, and the whole street shook from the impact between the unstoppable force and the… hammer.

The clown remained largely unharmed, but the sheer force sent her tumbling head over heels backward. She somehow managed to turn it into a cartwheel and eventually ended up in a handstand, hammer vanished into the wherever it went when she wasn’t using it.

She flipped into the air and landed back on her feet, a cocky grin still on her face. “Ohh, I like you! We’re going to have so much fun together!” She reached behind her back again and pulled out a different weapon: a rainbow-colored assault rifle, this time of reasonable (if still impossible) proportions. Tori’s eyes widened in panic, and she quickly flew down to street level behind a different building, out of sight.

Harlequin giggled loudly and then dropped her voice into a faux-whisper. “Come out, come out, wherever you are… I have cookies!” As she said this, she somehow pulled out a tray of chocolate chip cookies from behind her back.

They smelled delicious, but Tori didn’t show herself. The clown waited a couple more moments, then sighed. The cookies vanished back into the ether, and a thought visibly went across her face, causing her to perk up again, smiling evilly. “Welp. If you don’t wanna play with me, then I’m gonna go off and play with some civvies now, and you know how I feel ‘bout those!”

She skated down the street, looking for targets, but she didn’t get more than a couple yards when the parahuman, previously hiding under a car, charged into her before she could react, sending Harlequin flying back into the club. Glass shattered as the clown girl smashed through the window, and the club rumbled again as she impacted the back wall.

Tori, hoping to incapacitate her foe at least temporarily, grabbed the discarded steel doors on the street and hurled them after her foe. She expected them to keep her down for a couple seconds at most; she had clearly displayed superhuman strength in their fight, and that hammer was likely much heavier than a mere set of steel doors.

She did not expect the girl to scream loudly and painfully as soon as the steel impacted her body. Screaming and cursing rang through the night as the clown girl disappeared below the metal, and then the noise stopped abruptly. Tori winced, then flew into the club to throw the doors aside. Confusedly, she stared at the location where she had last seen Harlequin.

All she could see was a puddle of some kind of green slime.

Her face contorted with guilt, but the sound of a car door slamming outside drew Tori’s attention. As she looked outside, she only felt a sense of exasperation at the sight greeting her. “You’re kidding me. Did you just wait in the car that whole time?”

A young man in a white suit and black bowler hat stood next to the driver’s side door of the car that had pulled up next to the club not long ago. A red ribbon wrapped around his bowler cap to match his obnoxious orange hair, of which a good bit fell down onto his face, covering one of his eyes. One of his black-gloved hands loosely held a still-smoking cigar and the other one held a fancy black iPhone, which his lone visible eye, a dark gray one with dark eyeliner beneath, looked down at amusedly.

He hmmed briefly, still looking at the phone, then shoved it into a pocket on his coat. He looked up at Tori, taking in her appearance and facial expressions, and hmmed again. She growled.

“Did you hear my question?” she bit out. Her emotions were wavering between exasperated and furious now, and the man noticed. He smirked condescendingly.

“Ah, yes. I was distracted. Apologies for not paying you the attention you clearly deserve.” His voice was so saturated with sarcasm Tori thought it might drip out onto the street.

“I go by many names, but you probably already know that.” He grabbed a cane leaning against the side of the black car and started trekking forward, expertly twirling it in his free hand. “I suppose you could call me Jack. Jack Candlestick. Professional thief, crime lord, and ladies’ man.” He took an elaborate and theatrical bow, sweeping his bowler hat to the side.

“Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and I expect you to answer it honestly.” His voice grew menacing and cold as he re-doffed his hat and resumed walking. He gave off the vibe that he would shoot you dead without hesitation if he didn’t like your answer.

“Why did you wreck my club?” He positioned himself in the entranceway of the club, where the blonde had been floating less than a minute earlier. He leaned on his cane casually with one hand and took a deep drag of his cigar with his other. Exhaling smoke, he locked his one eye with Tori’s two and stared.

She took a deep breath and attempted to appear confident, though internally she was starting to wonder if pissing off the second or third biggest stick in Chicago was the great idea she’d previously thought it was. “Well, considering it’s a front for your criminal activity, I didn’t think anyone but you and a couple other people would miss it. Also, I really wanted to talk to you. I want your help in finding my sister.”

The crime lord appeared to take in her answer for a couple moments, enough to make the other girl slightly uncomfortable, then smirked. “Okay. Sure. What’s her name? And yours, ideally.”

She started to answer, then paused, taken aback. “Wait, seriously? You’re just going to help me, just like that? After I wrecked your club and did… something… to your… henchwoman? Who was she, anyway?”

Jack chuckled. “Yeah, I’m going to help you. I’m pretty sure I know both who you and your sister are, and I’m inclined to help given how she’s been screwing with my people. Also, don’t worry about Harlequin. She’ll probably hate you forever now, but she’s fine.” Seeing Tori’s befuddled expression, he continued. “She’s one of the Fair Folk. Mercenary, specifically. She, in particular, is easy to hire, fairly professional, and has a cripplingly painful weakness to cold iron. She's fine though, just sent back to the NeverNever. I’m surprised you don’t know who she is; didn’t you hear about the WayneTech train heist a couple weeks ago?”

Tori’s face entered one of concentration, then realization. “With the Joker, right?”

The other man flashed a grin. “That’s the ticket. Figured a smart girl like you would pick that up.”

Tori scowled, then sighed in resignation.

Jack tossed his cigar in a nearby undamaged trash can and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s see… Name, please? Again, I’m pretty sure - you’re a blonde bombshell with flying brick powers, pretty hard to miss - but I’d like to make sure.”

“My name is Tori College.”

He hmmed again. “Alright, here’s what I got. Tori College, twin sister of Molly College. Raised in a good Christian household, age 17, sister went missing about two weeks ago. Sound right?”

Tori nodded.

Jack continued, “Good news for you. I know exactly where she is. You won’t like it though. She’s running with the Mad Prin - I mean, the Joker’s gang of bozos. You got an email address, Goldie?”

She rattled off a list of characters and after a couple seconds of him putting in keystrokes, he nodded and put his phone back in his pocket. “You’ll find her in the general area of that address I sent you, give or take a couple blocks.”

Tori flashed a real, genuine smile at the other man. It was an attractive smile, she clearly took good care of her pearly whites. “Thank you so much! When I catch up with my sister, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind…” she trailed off as Jack held his hand up, palm facing her.

“I’m sure you will, but I wouldn’t thank me yet if I were you.” He took several steps further into the club, and his face darkened. “I’m going to tell you a story, Goldie.” His deftly twirling cane suddenly seemed a lot less playful and a lot more menacing.

“Once, there were these kids. Smart fellows, worked hard, maybe weren’t the most talented, but they were loyal to their employer and more than made up for their flaws with their effort.” He glanced at the two unconscious bodies still lying around, almost forgotten.

“Then, some random person with superpowers busts in and threatens them, they defend themselves and end up beaten black and blue for their trouble, unlike the rest of the guys who fled as soon as things started looking bad.” He raised his voice during that last part, and Tori flinched, realizing where this was going.

“Now, I honestly had nothing against the poor guy. Actually sympathized with him, if you can believe it. But. When it comes to this kind of thing, it’s not about whether you sympathize with or dislike someone. If someone comes in and beats up your guys simply because they were there, just to send a message…” he locked eyes with the blonde, “...it stops being a trivial thing you can just ignore and move on from, and it starts being a matter of a little thing called disrespect . Frankly, I liked the guy. But he disrespected me by beating up my men, so I returned the favor. Put him six feet under.”

“I actually know these fellows you got laid out on the floor here.” He pointed at the ax-wielding one with his cane. “That’s Terry. Single father with two kids to look after. Planned to run the Chicago Marathon in a month or two. Looks like you broke his ribs and gave him a concussion.” He pointed towards the other one. “Manny. He’s kind of a jerk, but his girlfriend likes him and vice versa. You broke his arm, probably more ribs and another concussion.”

Jack smirked lazily. “I sympathize with you, I really do. But. You still crushed my men like tin foil. To me, this is a matter of... Well. You’re a smart girl. You’ve probably figured it out.”

Tori nodded warily, looking closely at the crime lord for any signs of rapid movement, waiting for him to make the first move. He didn’t miss her attempts at analysis, and he smirked.

“Brave of you to try and fight, but you’re a little out of your league here, Goldie.”

And as he pronounced the final syllable, he moved, leaping backward towards the exit. Tori, caught off guard, put her hands up in front of her face to defend against a vicious attack from his cane, seemingly his only weapon. When it didn’t come, she peeked out between her fingers, just in time to see a flaming red flare explode in her face.

She was knocked back into the wall, and smoke obscured everything in the club. It didn’t stop Jack from immediately leaping forwards into the smoke and landing a lightning-fast blow on Tori’s outstretched arm. Instead of bouncing off like all the other attacks on the girl, a meaty thud rang out, and she cried out in pain.

When the smoke cleared, Jack was standing back in the middle of the club, leaning forward with both hands on his cane. Tori was near the wall, pain etched across her features as she caressed her left arm.

Taking advantage of the brief pause in the action, she bit out, “How… how did you -,” hoping to draw her opponent into a monologue. He did not disappoint.

“Well, it’s fairly obvious, honestly. You can take one big hit, then you’re vulnerable until your invincibility comes back up. I was watching your fight with Harlequin, and I noticed you tried to pause after every time she hit you with that oversized hammer of hers. If you were truly invincible, you would’ve just bull-rushed her and taken her out instantly; she’s not that tough. You also -”

She interrupted him as she accelerated a fist towards him at a furious pace, but his reflexes were good enough to deflect her punch with his cane. Tori sent a flurry of punches and kicks propelled by supernatural strength towards the crime lord, but he dodged, deflected, or blocked each one with seemingly contemptuous ease.

It was almost as if he was toying with her.

Eventually, he jumped back and fired another flare at her, but she was ready for it this time and managed to dodge. It exploded as it impacted one of the three still-standing pillars of the club, and the pillar crumbled.

Tori saw this, and then looked at the other two pillars, the only things holding up the ceiling, out of the corner of her eye, and quickly formulated a plan while the smoke cleared again. Fortunately, Candlestick either hadn’t noticed the club’s lack of structural integrity or didn’t care and continued blasting away at her with his cane.

The blonde estimated Jack’s current position and lined herself up with one of the remaining pillars accordingly. Sure enough, another flare blasted out of the smoke. She dodged it fairly easily, and it impacted the other pillar, destroying it as well.

The crime lord leaped out of the smoke while Tori was watching the pillar and silently rejoicing and struck her with a series of lightning-quick blows. The first couple did nothing, but eventually, her invincibility went down and she started feeling the hits. And wow did Jack Candlestick hit hard. A series of jabs hit her in the stomach, leaving bruises that she was sure would last for days before an arcing swing slammed her to the side, and she felt a rib crack.

She flew up unsteadily and watched Jack slowly approach her, cane tapping on the ground. Tori glanced to her left, and saw the last pillar standing right there, chipped and slightly damaged from the night’s… festivities, but unbroken. She considered just smashing it as soon as her invincibility came back, but decided against the idea - that would alert her foe as to what her plan was, and give him plenty of time to simply dash outside, something his tremendous speed would easily allow him to do.

She’d have to be subtle about this.

She looked Jack in the eye and tried to speak confidently, even as the pain in her… almost everything, really lanced up and down her skin like a million bee stings.

“Aren’t you a little young to be beating a girl like you are now? For that matter, aren’t you a bit young to be running a criminal empire? Did your parents raise you right?” she asked, with what she hoped was a cocky, annoying tone of voice.

Candlestick frowned, as one of the insults apparently struck home. He slammed his cane into Tori again, knocking her into the last pillar. She slumped down, pretending exhaustion. Her invincibility went down from the massive impact, and her opponent spoke.

“End of the line, Goldie. It was nice meeting you.”

He raised his cane and pointed it directly at her forehead, allowing her to get a closer look. It shared many similarities with a rifle, with a long barrel and a red pop-up scope centered directly on her. She watched his finger pull the trigger.

Just before the flare hit her, she frantically pulled away towards the exit to the club, and yet she still felt the powerful explosion of the flare as it struck the pillar, scorching her backside and her hair. Like a sunburn, but a thousand times worse. Fortunately, the force of the detonation launched her closer to the exit, and as she reached the threshold, she couldn’t help but make one last quip.

Turning back to the figure of Jack Candlestick standing back in the middle of the club in the smoke, she retorted, “Sure about that? Seems like it’s more of the end of the line for you, Jack.”

A word, spoken with nearly otherworldly power. “Wreck.”

Jack confusedly protested, “What?” before he heard cracking sounds from directly above him. He looked up and saw the spider web of cracks slowly spreading across the ceiling. A piece of plaster fell right in front of him, and then he understood. “Oh,” was all he could say.

Then he was bolting for the entrance as the ceiling collapsed on top of him. It almost seemed like he would make it out before the metal and wood and plaster and stone would crush him - the club was large, but his speed was that great - and he just managed to make it to the threshold before his eyes widened and he managed, in disbelief, to spit out three final words.

“Son of a -”

His sleek black Mercedes slammed into him, front impacting his middle, and he was hurled back into the collapsing building. Rubble fell from above, burying him, the car, and just about everything else, forming a tomb for Jack Candlestick like the graves of the emperors of old.

Tori watched the rubble and dust settle, watching and listening for any signs of the infamous crime lord. After a couple minutes had passed and she’d decided he wasn’t coming back, she sat down on the street and sighed, wincing in pain from the injuries he’d inflicted on her as well as the strain on her muscles caused by lifting and throwing the Mercedes - cars were heavy! A couple minutes later, she heard sirens, and, not wanting to get involved with the police, flew off to recover some more.

When the police arrived, they managed to drag out two bodies, unidentified, one fancy car with an unregistered license plate, and one set of damaged steel doors.

***

Elsewhere, a young man sat at a table and brushed the dust off his white suit and black pants. He held his phone - slightly cracked - to his ear while he tried to light a cigar with the only hand he had available. Eventually giving up, he sighed and stood up, putting his cane aside as he waited for someone to pick up their damned cell phone.

Eventually, she did.

“Hello, Alex. How’d the fight go?"

He shrugged, not caring that the gesture wouldn’t be picked up by the phone. “As well as can be expected. The club is wrecked, she revealed an Aspect, and I’m not dead. Nor did I reveal my Aspects. Pretty sure we’ve just set up a Pattern of Three, so we’ll have a guaranteed win against Ms. College in the future.”

“Ms. College? ”

“Ah, she’s the new Hero in town. Her Aspect is Wreck. Not sure if she had it before the fight or if she unlocked it during. Pretty sure it was her only Aspect though. Something to do with, well, wrecking things. More of a large-scale demolition aspect than, say, Shatter though. Also, I got a pretty good sense of what her Name is. Something like Golden Girl.” He cut himself off when he realized he might have been rambling a bit.

There was a short pause. “Can I speak to Roman, please?”

The man sighed. “Sure.” His eyes flashed green, and his demeanor changed slightly - not a lot, but a little. His smirk was slightly meaner, his eyes slightly colder.

“Hey, Cat. How’s it going on your end? Anything to share?”

His voice was different too. More abrasive.

“Nothing much going on with me, but there’s some bad news. I’m pretty sure the White Knight is coming to Chicago soon, but we don’t need to worry about that right now. What I want to know is how powerful and skilled this new ‘Golden Girl’ is. Also, some measure of her emotional stuff and things. You know how this goes.”

He grimaced when he heard the news about the White Knight. “Yeah, that murderous lady is going to be a problem. As for our less murderous lady, she’s… unskilled, but strong. Leave her alone too long, and she’ll be a major problem. Actually, come to think of it, that’s true of basically all heroes, right?”

“Yeah.”

The man continued. “As for her abilities, she’s like one of those annoying video game bosses - seemingly invincible at first glance, but fairly easy to take out if you know what you’re doing. Also, I don’t think she knows anything about Namelore, as she didn’t try to look for me after the club caved in. She’s fairly clever and reserved, but also has a major emotional weak point in the form of her sister. If we can get our hands on her, we could probably make her dance to our tune.”

“You know what I think about kidnapping, Roman.”

“Yes, you and your morals. I get the point. Also, it’d probably be pretty hard, considering she’s running with the Mad Prince.”

“Can we get the Black Knight on him? We may not have the best relations, but…”

He paused, thinking heavily. “Maybe. I don’t think we’re up to it right now.”

“Alright. I have a meeting with Janet soon, so I’ve got to hang up. See you later, Vandal.”

“Goodbye, Black Queen.”

Chapter Text

“Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest.”

- Excerpt from ‘Red Like Roses Part I’, a famous Remnan pop tune

A hill, covered in freshly fallen snow. The full moon in the sky was obscured by thick clouds, which, for a moment, had decided to cease releasing their frozen white burden. The branches on the trees, barren of leaves, rustled in the strong wind.

In another world, the hill might have had a gray headstone, devoted to the last Rose of Summer. There might’ve been a young girl, cloaked in red, mourning the loss of someone precious to her, followed by the howling of wolves at a shattered moon, and finally finishing with the sounds of gunfire and more howling, but in pain instead of… whatever it is that weird darkness wolves howl about. But that is another world, and this is this one.

The pure white snow was disturbed by a young girl and her mother, both with black hair and pale skin. The younger one skipped through the snow without a care in the world, smiling widely, cheeks red from the cold. The elder watched her, tread with a more reasonable pace, and had a smile just as wide as her daughter’s, but powered by love instead of innocent joy.

The girl shouted something back, causing her mother to laugh loudly. She accelerated her pace to catch up to her daughter, who flopped back into the snow, waving her arms back and forth wildly. Her fluffy red coat and black snow pants protected her from the chill of the night pretty well, though not perfectly; a bit of snow snuck past her warm defenses through that tiny gap between her neck and her shirt.

She didn’t notice it at all as her mother sat down beside her. The girl said something, and her mother responded, causing the daughter to pout, only to frown cutely once her mother broke out into giggles, indicating she was joking. 

All in all, it was a beautiful night. A touching scene. 

Naturally, it couldn’t last. This is a story, after all, and where would we be without any delicious conflict?

Less than a mile away from where the two family members were playing, something pushed against the fabric of reality. Stretched it, pulled on it, distended it - the world typically didn’t like it when things tried to enter from Outside and resisted any and all attempts for things to do so, but this particular intrusion was too far too strong to stop. and thus reality did the only thing it could do to avoid shattering altogether: it allowed the whatever was pushing in from the other side to poke a tiny, almost-insignificantly small hole in it.

This might not seem too bad. Only small things can fit through small holes, one might think, and if the hole is small enough nothing can get through at all. However, when the hole scales to the size of the entire world…

You get a perfectly round rift the size of a house, angled 45 degrees to the horizontal and seemingly filled with roiling dark liquid the texture and colour of pitch. 

The woman and her child both felt a sudden sense of unease as the dark portal opened, a sense of wrongness. The mother stood up, shaking off the snow, and the child frowned concernedly. Her brain hadn’t really processed what the most recent surge of negative emotion meant, and she still wanted to play outside in the snow with her mother under the full moon.

The pair exchanged words, the mother suggesting they return to warm up and perhaps get some cocoa or warm themselves by the fire, while the child wanted to continue playing outside, maybe even build a snowman. The gentle talking grew into a small argument, eventually culminating in the child trying to storm off in a huff while the mother sighed exasperatedly.

Suddenly, the otherworldly sound of wolves howling shattered the peaceful night. The sound made the younger girl stop in her tracks and the older’s blood run cold. Before the first terrible howl was over, a second one joined it, then a third, and then the howls of an entire pack of wolves filled the silence.

The woman ran fearfully, scooping up her daughter in her arms and heading frantically away from the direction of the ghastly yowling. The young girl didn’t protest; she’d seen enough movies to know that you didn’t just stand around when you heard the howling of wolves. She did curl up in her mother’s arms, trusting her to take care of her.

As if on cue, the snow started falling, first just the occasional snowflake and a bit of powder, then a denser, fuller snowfall that tinted the background white, then finally an all-encompassing blank white blizzard that limited visibility and prevented the woman from seeing more than a couple yards in any direction.

She was exhausted at this point, still running from the wolves which bayed and shrieked after her. Still, she kept running. She had to protect her child, and, to a significantly lesser extent, herself.

She tried to ignore the fact that howling of the beasts was getting louder, which meant they were getting closer. Her daughter cried worriedly.

Suddenly, she noticed a tiny dark rectangular shape in the whiteness - a building. She recognized it as an old shed located on the edge of the family farm used for holding old tools and various maintenance equipment. She adjusted her course slightly for the only source of salvation in sight, and it almost seemed like she might make it before the wolves caught her, and they were even-more-frighteningly close now. The woman could almost feel their breath on her heels, and the noise of their snarling was almost deafening.

Then she tripped.

It was almost comical. Her face plowed forward into the snow, filling her mouth, nose, and eyes with the frozen substance. Her child flew out of her arms towards, and she could see her daughter’s eyes widening in surprise, the tears streaming down her face, her mouth about to open - and then she hit the ground, tumbled several meters, then slowed to a stop, the impact cushioned by thick snow.

She frantically made to get up, but something leaped on her, pinning her face to the ground. She screamed and kicked at the black and furry thing on top of her and it earned her a little slack, but still continued pinning her to the ground. Still struggling, she craned her neck upward and screamed a command at her daughter, who lay there, unmoving, watching the beast currently slavering over her mother. She screamed it again, and the girl finally, though slowly, started for the shed.

Meanwhile, the woman had finally impacted the beast enough to make it roll off over her, and she stood shakily to her feet, glaring at the beast who dared threaten her child. It didn’t really notice nor care, and then she took a mental step backwards and tried to determine what she was dealing with.

It was a beast the height of a grown man, with black fur that almost seemed made of shadows. It resembled a wolf, but clearly was not; the creature had almost bipedal hind legs and a muscular upper body, not the quadrupedal body structure of a true wolf. White bone spikes extruded from its arms, legs, and spine, and a white mask with red markings on it covered its angular head, still leaving slits for its glowing yellow eyes. Its mouth, slightly ajar, was filled with sharp white teeth. It was most decidedly not natural, normal, or good, and its very presence seemed wrong, something that was but should not have, an aberration by any sense of the word.

The woman gulped, then gulped again as the rest of the pack of wolf-beasts became visible in the thick snow. She snuck a glance backwards at her daughter and saw that she was hesitating in front of the shed’s door.

She started speaking again, but the closest creature pounced on her, catching her by surprise. The child watched as her mother fought the wolf, and for a brief moment, it almost seemed she would win - adrenaline and motherly love fought the creature of darkness and evil and she managed to turn it around and get it into a headlock, the snapping jaws just barely held at bay - but then the rest of the wolf creatures pounced, and she was quickly overwhelmed. Blood splattered across the snow, and a young girl watched as her mother was torn to pieces in front of her very eyes.

She watched, in horror, and then the grief hit her. She was young, for sure, but she still understood that she had loved her mother, that she was now gone, and she wished she had spent more time with her. She’d had her flaws (she was horrible at getting up in the mornings, and the girl occasionally had to literally pull her out of bed), but they were vastly outweighed by the good, happy memories they’d formed together. 

At some point during the… slaughter seemed like an apt word, her body had worked on autopilot, entering the shed, closing and deadbolting the door behind her (she almost couldn’t reach it, and had to stand up on her tippy toes), and curling up in a corner with several old-fashioned farming tools.

Howling came from outside that made the young girl want to bolt from her hiding spot, but her rational mind prevailed, reasoning that those horrible wolves would kill her easily if she left the shed. Then, the walls started shaking as the black beasts outside attacked the shed to bring it down, their new target chosen.

Thoughts flashed through the girl’s mind; memories, plans for escape, self-pity and regrets. Her life flashed before her eyes, as cliche as the phrase may be, and she nearly gave up hope, but, suddenly, two promises shot through her head. 

The first powered by simple self-preservation.

I may fall, but not like this, and it won’t be thanks to some stupid wolves!

The second, by her small and honest soul, by stories of heroes and monsters, by sheer selflessness. She was afraid for her life before, but now her eyes burned with fury, with intensity.

I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this! If I can save anyone else from a fate like this, I will!

And with that, a Story was formed, and a Name was born.

Golden eyes turned silver, and those silver eyes flashed.

The young girl, who now moved with newfound confidence, searched the small shed for a weapon, and quickly found one in the form of an old farming scythe that had fallen to the floor. She picked it up with both hands, stared at the door, then unlatched the deadbolt. 

She kicked the door open hard enough to send the wolf on the other side flying, then leapt outwards after it, burying the scythe into its chest and drawing it to the side, leaving the corpse of the black beast to dissolve, erasing all traces of it from the white snow.

She backflipped away from the rest of the wolves, still surrounding the shed, stuck the landing and planted her scythe in the ground. She roared out a challenge at them and they responded in kind with more of that horrible howling and charged.

And the fight was on. Twenty demon wolves, each the size of a large cow with mouths full of razor sharp teeth versus one young girl with a glorified farming tool. The fight was as one-sided as it got.

They should’ve brought more wolves.

The area around the young girl became a whirling sphere of steel and death, her scythe moving faster than the eye could follow. Like lambs to the slaughter, the wolves charged at the young girl and were cut down like wheat. Severed black limbs and decapitated heads filled the air and fell to the ground, and the triumphant howling turned into a sound more akin to whimpering as each and every wolf that approached the young girl died.

After barely a minute had passed, the area was filled only with the smoking remains of two dozen wolves, and soon even those were gone.

The battle concluded, the girl’s eyes flashed again, and she collapsed, scythe falling to the ground. She simply lay there, next to the remains of her mother, filled with grief, but also a steely resolve.

This will not happen again. I swear it.

She got up on her knees, hands shaking, and slowly, gently, removed her mother’s cloak from her blood-spattered corpse. The formerly white cloth had been completely stained red with blood. It would stay that way.

She looked down at her mother’s face, her golden eyes, and sighed. Cried, a bit. She pushed the eyelids down.

The young girl reentered the old shed, and came back out with a shovel.

There was work to be done.

***

About a month had passed, but the scene remained much the same.

Picture a hill, covered in freshly fallen snow. The full moon in the sky is obscured by thick clouds, which, for a moment, decide to cease releasing their frozen white burden. The branches on the trees, barren of leaves, rustle in the strong wind.

The hill has a gray headstone, devoted to the Blossom of Spring. There is a young girl, cloaked in red, mourning the loss of someone precious. 

The voice in her head, known only to her, speaks.

I’m really sorry for your loss.

She is silent for several moments. Eventually, she replies aloud, “Thanks.”

What will you do now? The voice belongs to someone exactly two years older than her, as it turns out.

The girl ponders this for a moment, then comes up with an answer. At the same time, she pivots her feet and moves down the hill, back towards civilization.

“Well, I’ll try to get more information. See if I can help anyone. Honestly, there’s not a lot of people out here, and I was thinking of going to, like, Chicago or something. It’s only about an hour’s drive away, I think. I’ll probably need a weapon too; didn’t you have this scythe or something, Ruby?”

Oooh, of course! I’m not sure how I’ll do it without Dust, but I’m sure I can make something! Our baby will be beautiful and deadly and - wait a second, Crescent Rose isn’t just a scythe! She’s an awesome masterpiece of a weapon! She…

The voice rambled on for almost a minute, and the young girl cracked a smile at her antics. She looked to the moon. It was full again, shining pure white light down on the forest. Just like that other night.

Ruby’s voice eventually trailed off. You gonna be okay, Cherry?

She thought the question over for a second, then smiled.

“Yes, I think I will be.”

Chapter Text

“I just can’t stand people that look judgmental.”

- Maria Funkhouser, President of the United States of America

A courtroom, packed with men and women of all ages attentively watching the front of the room. Murmurs filled the large space as people discussed the outcome of the trial soon to be had, the innocence of the person soon to be judged.

In another world, the room might have been an even larger concert hall, with an announcer declaring the name of the person soon to sing her heart out to the crowd. A shattered moon would have shone brightly through the glass ceiling while the singer reminisced about her past and worried about her future. But that is a different world, and this is this one.

The judge slammed his gavel onto his stand and the sound echoed throughout the chamber, quieting the raucous crowd. His face was stern and uncompromising, his thick grey eyebrows and beard accentuating the complete lack of hair on his head.

“The court is now in session for the trial of Mr. Alan Vasil.”

His voice was deep and grave. The young man, upon hearing his name and seeing the crowd’s eyes on him, gulped nervously and fidgeted with the cuffs of his borrowed brown suit.

A man on the side of the room stood. He was impeccably dressed in a well-fitting red overcoat and trousers, white frills on his chest covering up his gray vest. When he spoke, his voice had a tone similar to that of the judge’s. “The prosecution is ready, Your Honor.”

Another person on the other side of the room stayed sitting down. In contrast with his opponent, he was stressed and disheveled, his dark blue suit wrinkled and darkened near his armpits. His blue eyes were a million miles away. Several seconds passed after the first person made his declaration, yet he didn’t seem to notice. It took the judge coughing loudly and intentionally to draw him back to reality, causing him to jump up in a state of almost-panic, knocking his chair over in the process. “The defense is ready, um, Your Honor.”

The prosecutor suppressed a snicker as the judge raised an eyebrow. “Ahem. Mr. Wright? You seem troubled.”

The attorney ran a hand through his spiky black hair and tried to affect a more confident tone. “Y-yes, I’m a bit worried, um, Your Honor. Shouldn’t be a problem though, um, I think.”

The judge replied, “Alright then. Mr. Edgeworth, please give the court your opening statement.”

The man in the red overcoat took a deep breath and began, “Thank you, Your Honor. As we established yesterday, the defendant, Mr. Alan Vasil, was found near the victim’s corpse holding a knife, covered in the victim’s blood. He even admitted to committing the crime! The prosecution sees no reason to doubt the facts of this case, Your Honor.” He paused. 

“However, we do have a new witness for today’s investigation. He wrote the report we used as evidence for the defendant’s crime yesterday.”

Wright blinked, then yelled out, “ Objection! ”, startling the crowd and drawing the full attention of both the judge and the prosecutor. He spoke quickly, “Mr. Edgeworth, you owe an explanation to the court! Why couldn’t the witness testify in person during the trial yesterday?”

Edgeworth frowned. “I apologize but…” his frown grew into a full grimace, “the witness apparently didn’t want to miss a ‘really important baseball game’.” Both the judge and Mr. Wright raised their eyebrows at the lame excuse, but didn't interrupt. 

Edgeworth smoothed over his features before continuing, “Additionally, at the time, I thought that only his written report, along with testimony from Detective Gumshoe, of course, would be needed. Again, my sincerest apologies.”

Wright frowned, worried, while the judge nodded grimly. “I see. Let us begin then. You may call your witness, Mr. Edgeworth.”

Edgeworth looked down at a pile of papers, then spoke. “The prosecution calls the witness to the crime, Mr. Archie Slim!”

Upon hearing his name being called, a young man in a black suit stood and swaggered over to the witness stand. His formal look was ruined by the red mesh cap on his head and the baseball he tossed up and down. Regardless, he wore a confident smirk on his face as he stopped behind the stand and awaited the prosecutor’s instructions.

“Witness, please state your name and occupation to the court,” Edgeworth recited.

He gave the crowd a cocky glance and said, “My name’s Archie Slim. I’m a college student attending UCLA.” 

“Did you know the victim, Jessica Mathers?”

Archie shrugged, remarking, “I probably saw him/her once or twice, but I didn’t know them that well.”

“Did you know the defendant, Alan Vasil?” Edgeworth questioned.

“Yeah, he was in my organic chemistry class last semester. I even copied his notes this one time.” His voice grew dark and dramatic. “Though I never would’ve done it if I’d known he was a murderer!”

Alan flinched at the accusation, then put his bandaged head in his hands.

Edgeworth nodded calmly. “Were you at the Orthopedic Hospital Research Center on December 10th?”

“Yes, I was. Well, close enough.”

“And you witnessed the murder?”

Archie seemed almost bored. “Yes. Can we get on with the testimony part, please?” He looked to the judge, ignoring Edgeworth’s scandalized expression.

The judge contemplated it for a second or two, then affirmed, “Very well, Mr. Slim. You may begin your testimony.”

Archie smiled, seeming to relax, and said, “Great. Well, it was about 10:00 PM, and I was walking by the OHRC on the way back to my dorm when I suddenly felt the call of nature, if you know what I mean. Figuring as there was this convenient building with a bathroom right there, I went inside and looked for it.” He paused for dramatic effect.

“All of a sudden, the still of the night was broken by the loudest screaming I ever heard. Being the good heroic citizen that I am,” he winked at the crowd, “I rushed towards the sound, which turned out to be coming from one of the upstairs classrooms. There, I saw Alan standing over the corpse of the victim with a bloody knife in his hand!”

“He stood there, all blood-spattered and snarling ferociously, and then he looked at me and started ranting like a madman!” He spoke his testimony as if he’d rehearsed it. “He was yelling all sorts of things, none of which I paid much attention to as I was scared for my very life! I picked up one of those metal physics stands and swung it at his head, knocking him out cold. Then I dialed 911 and waited for the police to show up. That’s it.”

Archie then glared at Alan. “Now do tell, why is this murderer still in the courtroom and not locked up in a jail cell?”

The defendant shrank back and looked to Mr. Wright for help, but the attorney shook his head dejectedly, his face painted in shades of guilt.

The judge looked at both of them, hesitated for a moment, then let his shoulders fall by the tiniest amount. He lifted up his gavel. “Well. In that case, if you have nothing to add, this court finds the defendant, Alan Vasil, Guil-

HOLD 1T!

The doors of the courtroom slammed open, the sound echoing throughout the courtroom. The crowd twisted their necks to look back at the entranceway, and more than one person gasped. 

The judge’s verdict went unfinished.

The blue-clad lawyer let out a surprised, “Maya?” but then looked more closely, realizing he didn’t actually know this person. Eventually, his expression settled on confused as the judge voiced the collective opinion of most of the people in the room by exclaiming, “What in the blazes?”

A woman entered the room. Her skin-tight bodysuit was patterned in shades of red and teal, with two teal Libra symbols adorning her shoulders and one on her chest covering her heart. Her red-gloved hand held a red handled cane which became whiter and narrower as the eye followed it from the grip to the pointed tip.

She tapped it on the ground in front of her, swept it from side to side. Her face was directed straight towards the front of the room, shiny red glasses glaring at everyone in sight. Her mouth was slightly open, showing her teeth.

A bead of perspiration went down Archie’s forehead and he frantically looked around for the exits, only to find that the only exit was right in front of him, but blocked by the woman tapping her cane and walking towards the witness stand. His face was white, all confidence gone. 

The crowd broke out into whispers, but were quickly silenced as the woman raised her hand.

Eventually, she made her way to the front of the room, right in front of Archie, who, at this point, was sweating profusely. She grinned, and her smile was sharp. Angular. Sharklike.

“You smell like fear.”

It was at this point that Wright decided to ask a question. “Who are you?” to which the woman replied offhandedly, “Terezi Pyrope, best damn legislacerator in the world. And the White Knight.”

Her voice was loud, a bit off, and more than a bit obnoxious. 

The judge slammed his gavel into the stand and thundered, “What are you doing in this courtroom? There is a trial going on!”

She shrugged. “That’s why I’m here, you know.” 

Terezi turned away from the baseball cap-wearing teenager, who let out a sigh of relief, and turned to the defendant, whose face was white as snow, though besides that he did a pretty good job of hiding his nervousness.

“Alan Vasil. Son of Charity Vasil and Darrow Vasil.”

The White Knight reached into a pocket and withdrew a silver coin. A Roman denarius with the head of Emperor Augustus on both sides. One side was shiny and pristine while the other was dull and had a single scratch across it.

A quiet clink , resulting from her fingernails colliding with the metal as the coin flew through the air, directly upwards. She caught it on the way down and laid it out on her opposite hand. The shiny side faced upwards. Alan looked at it quizzically and the White Knight chuckled. “Seems like you dodged a high-velocity metal dingus there. Hehehehehe.” 

She flipped her cane in the air and grabbed it again, this time with the point facing towards the man she’d just judged. “Live well, Alan Vasil. I’ll kill you next time. Maybe.” Alan, on his part, remained remarkably composed, if incredibly confused.

Edgeworth filled the silence this time, shouting, “What are you doing?”

Terezi replied, “I’m judging sins. Shush.”

“What - but - all you did was flip a coin and - “

She walked over to the prosecutor, brought up the tip of her cane, and poked his mouth a couple times until he finally went quiet, realizing the cane was also a very sharp sword and that the pointy part was right in his face. “Shuush.”

She lazily brought the cane away from Edgeworth’s face, turning away - and then she suddenly hurled the weapon towards the exit, impaling the invisibly fleeing Archie through the shoulder, who screamed out in shock and pain, falling flat on the floor, illusion falling away. Blood spurted out from his wound, and several people in the crowd screamed. The judge even fainted.

The White Knight slowly walked towards the whimpering boy on the ground, ignoring the shouts and cries of the people around her. Coming to a stop less than a foot from the boy’s body, she reached down to grab her cane and wrenched it out of him, eliciting another round of screams and exacerbating the rate of blood loss significantly. 

She leaned there on her cane for a couple seconds, taking in the sounds of anguish and pain, then drew back a leg and viciously kicked Archie in the ribs, flipping him over. She smiled, enjoying the spectacle. “Naughty warlock. Bad boy.”

Terezi lifted her bloody cane back up and drew her finger along it, then put her finger in her mouth, tasting the blood. It seemed to be to her satisfaction, as she then lifted her blade up, stuck her tongue out, and licked it from grip to handle, cleaning it. “Coppery!”, she remarked happily.

The White Knight then seemed to remember the bleeding screaming boy at her feet. Shrugging, she raised the tip of her sword right above the shoulder opposite to the bleeding one and said, casually, as if addressing the weather, “So. How and why did you kill Ms. Jessica Mathers?” 

Archie either didn’t hear or didn’t care, as he simply continued screaming incoherently, drawing out a sigh from the woman standing above him. “Look, I haven’t got all day here. I’m already sick of dealing with your loud twitching ass, and while I’d love to make it a silent headless corpse, Mr. Vasil over there doesn’t deserve to be drubbed in his ass repeatedly with prison dicks. So do me a favor and clear his name for me.” She waited for a response other than more screaming, but didn’t receive one.

Eventually, she decided, “Fuck this.” She brought the cane down, piercing his flesh, making another puncture wound to mirror the first one. He started to renew his screaming, but was interrupted by the White Knight’s snarling. “L1ST3N UP!” She bent down, leaving her cane impaled in the floorboards (and Archie’s shoulder), and planted her black boot directly on his chest, looking him directly in the eyes.

“DO YOU KNOW WHO 1 4M?” Her voice had turned odd, like a very emotional, angry, sarcastic, loud, computer. It was actually painful to hear.

Archie tried to swallow his cries, tears streaming down his face. “Y-y-you’re the Wh-White Kn-knight?”

“CORR3CT! YOUR3 NOT COMPL3T3LY 4N 1LL1T3R4T3 1D1OT! CONGR4TUL4T1ONS! NOW 4NSW3R TH3 FUCK1NG QU3ST1ON: J3SS1C4 M4TH3RS. D34D. HOW 4ND WHY?”

“I-I-I planted th-the suggestion in A-Alan’s brain! She t-turned me down f-f-for the d-dance! Please stop st-stabbing me!”

Terezi ignored his final request and turned back to the prosecution and defense, who were watching the spectacle in horror. “4ND TH3-” She cut herself off, realizing she was still yelling. She took several deep breaths, then continued, at a more reasonable volume, “And there you have it. I don’t have the slightest clue how you do your legal bullshit here in Los Angeles, but I think that should be good enough.”

She turned back to Archie and retrieved the coin from her pocket. She flipped it for the final time that day. Augustus faced the ceiling once more, but this time he was unable to see.

“Archibald Slim, son of Miranda Slim and Corey Spade,” the White Knight said, tone eerily calm. “The Choir of Judgement has looked upon the sum of your existence, and found you wanting.”

Her hand went to pull the cane out of the floorboards, and for once, Archie did not scream. His panicked expression had changed to one of simple resignation. The end was about to come.

“The verdict is removal from Creation.”

And with a single smooth stroke, the cane swung downwards and Archibald Slim’s head was parted from his body.

Her work finished, she saluted the still-unconscious judge and walked out of the courtroom, leaving the stunned, silent crowd behind her.

Just as she crossed the threshold between the courtroom and the hall outside, she paused and turned around. She studied the attorney and the prosecutor, then nodded, something in their demeanor or expression apparently meriting her approval. 

“Mr. Phoenix Wright. Mr. Miles Edgeworth.”

The men in question still stood shocked at the casual murder that had just occurred, barely hearing her words.

“If I had not been here today, you would have locked up an innocent man. You might be feeling pretty guilty about this, you both seem like that type.” She paused and smiled. “Or you might be thinking, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ Eh. Either way.”

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just,” the White Knight quoted. “Abraham Lincoln.” She paused again, seemingly reminiscing.

“You guys will be great lawyers, I can tell. Feels really weird saying that, but it is undeniably true; you both have an intense need for justice. A desire, a craving even.

“Don’t ever forget that. Good hunting, kids.”

And with that, Terezi Pyrope, the best damn legislacerator in the world, and the White Knight, walked away from the scene of her latest execution, muttering to herself, “Goddammit, that was so awkward.”

Simultaneously, Phoenix Wright muttered to himself, “Kid? She’s younger than me…”

Chapter Text

“So, you win again. It's a shame that while you've been fighting, I've had everyone you love brutally murdered. Only joking!”

- The Joker, Mad Prince of Chicago

A train made its way through a valley filled with leafy green trees during the dead of night. It chugged along, following the rails the way trains tend to do, not meandering, not going off to the side to explore the world. Just chugging along.

In another world, the rising moon might have been shattered, the train might have been powered and filled with a strange thing called Dust, and it might have been owned by a tyrannical corporation selling the same. The back cars would eventually be decoupled, left to explode while the front cars with the crew members survived unscathed. But that is another world, and this is this one.

The train tracks passed close to the side of the valley at one particular point to avoid a natural lake in the middle of the forest, and it was here that a couple of rather… unsavory people made their move.

As soon as the front of the train reached that specific point, two individuals quickly ran their way down the slope of the valley, one after the other. After a certain point, they started moving too quickly to stay upright and reacted accordingly. One pulled out a giant hammer from out of nowhere and slammed it into the soil, the added friction and weight helping her decelerate.

The other one simply allowed himself to fall and tumble towards, not caring about the added speed nor the pain, laughing all the way down.

When they got close enough to the train, he leaped off the slope, pulled out a crowbar, and gouged it into the side of a train car, leaving a noticeable furrow in the tempered steel. His companion simply flipped through the air and made a perfect three-point landing on the roof, hammer held out to the side. Then she winced and pulled her hand off of the steel roof of the train car, slipping on a pair of gloves.

The man eventually climbed his way to the top of the car, then made sure he was ready for what was to come and looked the part. He adjusted his bright yellow tie, ran a pale hand through his shocking green hair, made sure the flower in his jacket pocket was properly positioned.

Check, check, check. His ever-present smile grew wider, and he rubbed his hands together eagerly. His companion had located the hatch that blocked the way down into the train car, and with a single swing of her hammer, it suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

The man finally spoke. His voice was hoarse and raspy but also held an odd rhythm and tone that some people would describe as maliciously amused, others batshit insane, but almost everybody would agree that they wanted the owner of that voice to be on the other side of the continent from them.

“Showtime.”

And with that, he grabbed his crowbar and jumped down the hatch, his companion quickly following.

When he saw what was inside, he laughed out loud. Which was a bit of an odd reaction to seeing a dozen robots built and placed to protect the car’s cargo that you were there to rob, but he was a bit of an odd person.

They stood upright against the side of the train car, protecting the cargo to their sides. While some would criticize the inefficiency of building robots to be similar to people, the robots were designed to be friendly-looking. They had the defining humanoid features in the proper proportions: head, arms, chest, legs, but at the same time, they were clearly not human. A large elaborate ‘A’ symbol adorned their chests, a slight glowing blue. Their arms were slightly mismatched; one appeared to be similar to a rifle in shape and size, while the other held a silver sword. Their heads resembled motorcycle helmets, the front a black, blank, smooth surface with the rest being the same silver that coated the rest of them.

They noticed the two intruders, quickly examined and identified them, and determined that, no, they definitely should not have been here. Twelve harsh robotic monotones blared out of hidden speakers.

“INTRUDERS. SET DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER PEACEFULLY.”

The man laughed, quipping, “Does that ever actually work?’ The girl simply smiled.

Recognizing the man’s tone and words, the robots set their weapons’ sights on the pair and fired blue blasts of energy, meant to hurt and maim, not kill. The man charged forwards, ducking and weaving between shots and occasionally blocking one with his crowbar. 

Reaching the closest robot, he pounded its black, smooth face in with the pointy end of his crowbar, causing sparks to fly as the internal wiring and components of the robot were revealed. He then wrenched it to the side, freeing his weapon and letting the damaged robot fall to the floor. Ducking under another blast, he quickly smashed up two more robots with surprising grace and finesse, parrying their sword strikes and crushing them with overwhelming force.

His companion simply slammed her massive hammer into clusters of robots, smashing them to pieces. One impact actually ripped open the side of the train car, and her partner took advantage of this, kicking several of the robots off the train to crash into the trees and rocks outside.

All in all, the fight was very one-sided.

By the end of it, all that remained in the cargo car was the sparking wrecks of a couple robots, some cargo and the two pale-faced combatants, who didn’t even seem winded. The man laughed and stretched his arms out, leaning back.

“Set the charges!” he commanded faux-imperiously as he walked over to the door leading to the next train car, prying it open with his crowbar. His companion gave a mock-salute as she pulled out comically large sticks of dynamite from wherever she kept her stuff and started tossing it around the car randomly.

Meanwhile, the man in the purple suit walked carefully across the connector between the two train cars - the vehicle was still moving, and he didn’t want to fall off - and pried open the door to the next car. He peered inside, but it was extremely dark and even though his night vision was pretty good, it was not perfect.

He went inside anyway. What was life without a bit of foolish risk taking?

He walked for a couple seconds inside the train car, his feet making muffled clanging sounds on the floor of the train car. He tried to peer around, but the darkness still obscured his vision quite effectively. 

All of a sudden, he heard a squeaking noise from right behind him, and he spun around, listening for more sounds and still valiantly trying to peer into the pitch black. He heard another creaking noise, again from right behind him, and this time he smiled. 

“Well, well, well. Look who it is.”

The man reached into his purple suit and pulled out a large and colorful pistol. Crowbar in one hand, pistol in the other, he shouted out his challenge.

“Come on out, Batsy!”, the Joker cackled. “You’re just in time for the show!”

***

Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, most eligible bachelor in America, and secretly Batman put down his (water-filled) martini glass and frowned.

One of the silent alarms had gone off.

He quickly checked where the alarm was coming from. When he found out that it was the compartment with the advanced military-grade androids from Stark Industries along with several crates containing high-powered explosives and dangerous chemicals, his confusion grew into worry.

When he checked the camera feeds of said androids, he immediately cursed and went to change into his Batsuit. Loading himself up with gadgets and weaponry, he went out to confront his archnemesis and his new clown henchwoman.

Climbing on top of the passenger cars, he ran towards the back of the train, where all of the cargo was stored. Coming to the car where the androids were destroyed, he noticed that the door of the neighboring car was open and, quickly and silently, he climbed inside, hiding atop a large box. Slowly following the sound of the clown’s footsteps, he eventually managed to set eyes on his foe. However, he must not have been as quiet as he’d thought as the Joker spoke. He nearly cursed out loud.

Almost all of his previous confrontations with the monster had been extremely even, perhaps even in favour of the Joker, and only extremely lucky divine providence combined with quick thinking had saved him from death most of the time. This time around, he was hoping to catch the murderous clown off-guard and take him out quickly. Unfortunately, it clearly wasn’t meant to be. 

The Batman quickly ran through several sets of plans for dealing with his foe, discarding most of them. Like it or not, the Joker was stronger than him in any physical confrontation, and he wasn’t afraid to flat out murder him (stupid morals). The fights Bruce had won against the Joker were almost always due to trickery and misdirection, which normally would be fine. He was pretty good at tricking and misdirecting. The problem was that the Mad Prince was just as wily, if not moreso, than the Caped Crusader, and he’d almost certainly have several tricks of his own up his sleeve. Not to mention that he was literally insanely unpredictable, meaning his well-developed deductive skills would be almost useless in the upcoming confrontation.

Sighing silently, he carefully retrieved an electrically charged batarang and aimed it at his target carefully, his night-vision goggles allowing him to clearly make out the form of his foe, then threw it expertly so that it would lodge itself right in the Joker’s spine and disable him, at least temporarily.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, something - call it intuition, luck, or something else entirely - alerted the Joker to the projectile whirling towards him at 90 miles per hour, and he managed to dodge it by the skin of his teeth. In return, the clown quickly aimed his pistol towards where the batarang came from and fired three shots in rapid succession. Batman had already moved, of course, but the Joker’s speed and reaction time were still absurdly fast. Had he been half a second slower, he might have had a bullet or two in him.

“Come on, Batman. Why so flighty? Let me put a smile on your face!” The Joker cackled madly, then suddenly went silent as he stepped out of sight of the Batman.

Is he flirting with me?

Bruce banished the horrifying thought to the deepest darkest corners of his mind; he did not want to get into any kind of relationship with that homicidal clown. 

What was more concerning at the moment was that the Joker had completely vanished from sight, and he had no idea where the bastard was. Batman narrowed his eyes and scanned the train car for his long time enemy, not finding him. He’d gone completely silent, and that set Batman’s hackles up. Joker loved taunting and cracking darkly comedic jokes, and the fact that he wasn’t doing so meant there was some strategic reason for it.

And that was when it hit him. Just because I don’t see him… doesn’t mean he can’t see me.

Right on cue, a crowbar came flying out of nowhere, aimed at the small of his back. Bruce managed to dodge by the skin of his teeth by twisting to the side. Turning around, he saw the Joker standing right there, aiming his pistol straight at him, laughing. Quickly knocking the firearm aside just as the Joker fired, Batman went on the defensive as he tried to come up with a plan of attack. He dodged a crowbar to the face, blocked a pistol round with his gauntlets, ducked under an attempted pistol whip, then finally felt like he’d bought enough time to launch his own assault.

Batman reared back for a massive punch, which the Joker easily dodged, leaving him open for the swing of his other arm, which caught him in the forearm. A loud crack filled the air, and the Joker’s maniacal laughter became louder. He stumbled back, leaning against the train car door, and dropping his pistol. Clutching his dislocated arm, he slammed it against the door, and a loud crack filled the small car as it was pushed back into place.

The Joker reached back down to retrieve his weapon, dodging Batman’s punch almost by accident. His elbow jerked up, catching Batman’s chin and sending him reeling. The Joker then proceeded to kick the train car door open, leaping outside and climbing the ladder by the side. Batman, not wanting to let his quarry escape, quickly followed.

And there the two stood, mad clown standing with his back to the dark knight, still laughing without a care in the world, in contrast to the Batman’s stoicism. The train whistled onwards, none of the passengers noticing their duel. 

And then the Joker was slugged in the back of the head, paralyzed by an electrically charged batarang, and forced to the floor, face smushed against the steel train car. Still, he spoke, “So, you know, there’s something about good comedy that most amateurs just don’t get.”

“Shut up,” Batman grunted.

Joker ignored him. “They use all these dreadfully boring jokes, ones for which you can see the conclusions to a mile away. They’re awful. They’re predictable. They aren’t funny .”

The clown giggled. “You see, the best kind of punchline…”

Batman tensed.

“... is the one you don’t see coming!”

And then a giant hammer weighing more than a small car whooshed through the air and slammed into Bruce Wayne with more than enough force to crush a small car, sending him hurtling through the air towards the front of the train.

He skidded twice on the tops of train cars at ridiculous speeds, eventually coming to a stop back where he started, on top of his own private passenger car. He groaned in pain, the left side of his body feeling like a single giant bruise. 

Meanwhile, the Joker quickly climbed to his feet, bowed elaborately towards Harlequin as thanks for her assistance (she responded with a single rude gesture), reclaimed his weaponry, and jumped down towards the end of the train car, landing right in front of the coupler. 

Batman shakily stood to his feet, looking back towards the rear of the train. His eyes widened and he quickly brought his cape up to cover his face as paintballs slammed into it, courtesy of the clown girl’s colorful assault rifle. 

Joker took a good look at the coupler, then slammed his crowbar into it with all his might, damaging it. Simultaneously, he fired shot after shot into the mechanism. Slowly but surely, the train cars began to detach.

The man dressed like a bat rushed forwards, ignoring the indignity of having his cape completely covered in multicolored paint, jumping over the gaps between cars. 

Suddenly, he was forced to come to a halt, as there was a gap between his and the next train car that was several yards too far to bridge with a single jump. He looked down, and realized it was because the coupler had completely severed, letting the back half of the train with all the cargo drift away. Harlequin had finally stopped shooting and the Joker waved mockingly from his position next to the sparking half coupler. “Au revoir, Batsy!”

Growling, Batman pulled out a grappling gun from his utility belt and fired. The claw soared through the air and attached itself on top of the fleeing cargo car, the tether tightened, and Batman prepared to jump for it.

The Joker smiled. He brought his hand up to the cable, touching it with a single finger, and then he said a word.

“ Unravel .”

Just as Batman jumped off his train car, the cable snapped - something that had never happened before; bat-cables were almost unreasonably strong and durable - and Batman simply fell on the tracks below. His momentum carried him forward, scraping and grinding himself against the rocks and rails as his quarry fell further and further away, laughing all the while.

Chapter Text

Prologue

“So you may prepare your guardians, build your monuments to a so-called ‘free world’, but take heed... There will be no victory in strength.”

- Salem, Queen of the Grimm

“You know, for a so-called ‘professional wizard’, you really aren’t particularly professional.”

“What?”

“I mean, I walk into your office, all calm and friendly, and what do you do? You point a gun at me and insult me to my face. I’m hurt.”

“Well, it’s not like you haven’t done the same. I honestly can’t even count the number of times your friend has threatened me with that axe of his.”

“Leave Quinn out of this, would you? It’s not like I tell him to do that.”

“He nearly ate my soul. Thrice.”

“Can we drop this? It’s not important right now.”

“Alright. Putting aside the argument about how important my immortal soul is - for the record, I find it very important - why did you call me here? What do you want?”

“...”

“Well?”

“Mister Dresden, what is your favorite fairy tale?”

***

“There is an evil on these seas that even the most staunch and bloodthirsty Named have come to fear. Would you like to know his name?”

“M’lady, you’re assuming I don’t already. I know of whom you speak. Pass the rum, would you?”

“Ah yes, of course. You would. And sure, but be careful; it’s vodka.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, I heard a certain boy describe you as ‘a hero and a good man’. Well, I’m looking straight at you, and I just don’t see it. Good men don’t make deals with devils, after all. And according to Wikipedia, Gods bless it, vodka is ‘a clear distilled alcoholic beverage with different varieties originating in Poland and Russia’.”

“If you’re talking about who I think you’re talking about, that boy is hopelessly naive. He’d try to find goodness in a gorgon. Also, this stuff is absolutely foul. Russians are mad.”

“Well, I’m warning you. You’re on your last chance, ‘Captain’. You may have cheated and swindled your way back to life once now, but I will not allow it to happen again. If you try to pull what you almost pulled a second time? You will rue the day. Can I have my flask back? Thanks.”

“Wait! I…”

“...”

“Oh, bugger.”

***

“ ...! ”

“ JILL!”

“I don’t care what you say or what reasons you have! You’re a monster, and I will take you down! I won’t let you hurt any more people!”

“...You’ve just made a grave mistake, little lady.”

“Ah!”

“You want to be a hero? You can try! You want to take down the big bad Romeo? Give it your best shot!”

“Grrr…”

You know why you’ll fail? I’m better than you! Stronger, faster, smarter! You don’t stand a chance! You! Cannot! Succee - “

SNICKER-SNACK!

“Oh my God, I just did that.”

“...What happened? Wait… there’s Blue, and there’s… my head. Oh… Drat. I’m… dead.”

“You’re taking this a lot better than one might expect.”

“Woah! Who are you, miss?”

“I’m Death.”

“...Oh. You look… different than what I expected.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So, you here to take me to the afterlife or something?”

“Or something.”

“Okay.”

“...”

“Before I go, can you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Is Jill okay?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. An unlucky fisherman is going to pick her up in an hour or two, and I’ll have to take care of him. She’ll be able to get to shore using his boat and after that? Who knows?”

“Heh. Poor guy.”

“...”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

***

“Who the Hades are you?

“Me? I’m nobody. You though… I’ve been looking for you.”

“Answer the question! Who are you? How did you get here?”

“I think I’ll hold off on that first one. Names have power after all. Mine in particular has a lot attached to it. As for how I got here… I got here the exact same way you did.”

“What does that mean? Stop being so cryptic!”

“Isn’t it obvious, Nico?”

“...You’re a half-blood. A daughter of Hades?”

“I can’t just tell you, can I?”

“Then it’s true. What do you want?”

“Hmm… You see, I’ve been looking for individuals with… specific talents. Important people. People with the ability to change the world. You are one of them. Consider this a recruitment pitch.”

“What for?”

“I’d rather keep that a secret, if you don’t mind. The shadows have ears, and I don’t have the power to keep this conversation between just us.”

“In that case, why should I even listen to you?”

“Well, first, we might as well be siblings, Nico. Didn't you use to - “

“Don’t.”

“Oh, I’m sorry if that was a sensitive subject for you, I didn’t mean to offend. And second, this could be personally beneficial for you. I heard you had a thing for a certain black-haired green-eyed demigod…”

“Wh-what? No I don’t! What are you -”

“Nico, you’re gay for Percy Jackson. And that’s fine, I couldn’t care less. But if you - “

“No. We’re done here. Get out, or I will make you get out.”

“Look, it’s - woah, calm down there! Let’s not - Agh! Ah well, third time’s the charm.“

“Huh?”

“ Impel . Forget the last 5 minutes. Sit back down and put your swords away.”

“...”

“Okay, that was close.”

“Who the Hades are you?”

***

“...So… hello!”

“Hello. How are you doing?”

“I’m good. You have a heavy French accent; do you speak French?”

“Non, je ne peux pas parler.”

“Huh? Wait, that means… ”

“Yes, I do. I come from France. Sorry!”

“Oh, it’s okay. That’s pretty cool. Why are you here in the States?”

“I am going to work as a French teacher; there is great need for them in America. My friends say that my English is very good. That is why I am here.”

“Well, I can’t disagree. For a native French speaker, your English is very good.”

“Thank you. Why are you here?”

“Oh, I’m visiting family. Apparently, I have a long-lost cousin, and my brother advised me to go meet him.”

“How is your brother?”

“Oh, he’s great. He’s often busy with work, but he’s great when he’s around. We have a good relationship.”

“Cool. I have no siblings.”

“Ugh, I forgot to tell you my name. Mine’s Dale.”

“My name is Cherie.”

“It’s been a pleasure - oh, this is my stop.”

“Thank you for the conversation.”

“No problem!”

Chapter Text

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” I said quietly.

I was standing in an antiques shop looking at a small, black, and sharp piece of metal. The place was called From Dust to Gold. A small antiques store tucked away in the back corner of the almost-empty mall. I was kinda surprised that it hadn’t gone out of business years ago, but some odd combination of the owner’s natural charisma, exceptional word of mouth advertising, and the fact that it occasionally actually had things of value to purchase for reasonable prices kept the place open. In fact, if I had to guess, the owner, Mick, was probably doing alright out here.

“Yeah… you’re right. We’ll ask him.” The voice which only I could hear was both frustrated and ashamed at the same time, and I completely understood why.

Ruby Rose. Savior of my life. A year ago, during what I could safely say was my darkest hour - there hadn’t been that much competition for the title - she’d somehow showed up inside my skull and took control, puppeting my body to expertly cleave through those… ‘Creatures of Grimm’, she called them. Also, that sounded really weird now that I thought about it and I probably should’ve paid attention because she was speaking again.

“Still, I mean, what if he says no? We are low on money, and it’s only a couple pieces of steel…” She seemed to trail off at the end. “Ugh, it’s just that I want Crescent Rose 2.0 to be combat ready as soon as possible!”

My hand gripped the tubular metal object strapped to my back, hidden by my red cloak. 

Ruby Rose. Official monster-hunter from a different world. She’d said that it was called Remnant, which seemed like kind of a weird name, though she’d also said the same about Earth so… cultural standards, I guess? Anyway, her world was really really weird, but it also sounded pretty awesome. Huntsmen and Huntresses that defended the innocent from the evil black beastly Grimm, led by their evil queen, Salem? It was like something out of a fantasy book, if fantasy books had swords and staves that were also rifles and rocket launchers.

Ruby confused my silent thinking for irritation and verbally backpedaled. “ Oh! Um, I’m sorry; I hope you didn’t mind that I named your weapon the same as mine! Did you have a name in mind? I just realized that was so rude! Ugh, stupid Ruby… ”

Ruby Rose. 16-year old (now 17, I guess maybe?) cookie-lover and somewhat-socially-awkward weapons nerd. I’ll admit that I always found guns and swords and stuff really cool and I occasionally spent hours reading about them on the Internet, but my soul-ghost-roommate took the words ‘weapon fascination’ to a whole new level, which, I figured, was at least partially due to her significant quantities of firsthand experience with them. She’d spent most of her time during the past year or so doing her equivalent of sleeping, occasionally perking up at interesting things that reminded her of home or chatting with me, but whenever we encountered something that could be reasonably construed as a weapon, she tended to go way overboard, taking control over our shared body and gushing over it. And that one time we visited a shooting range…well I’ll just say we weren’t allowed back.

I’ll admit that those kinds of behaviors worried me a bit. I was pretty sure that even before she’d… died… that she wasn’t this obsessed with weaponry, and that she was only going so overboard because she was extremely bored. However, every time I’d tried to bring it up with her, she’d always assured me that she was fine or changed the subject and I wasn’t sure how to really address the issue without offending her.

Annnd I should probably have responded earlier because now she was going into a ramble about how sorry she was and now she was frantically coming up with weapon names. It was honestly kinda cute. I smiled, and she trailed off.

“Look, Ruby, it’s totally okay. If I ever make a weapon for myself - and I’m not sure I would, yours is great - then maybe I’ll name it. But, this is your weapon, and I’m fine with naming it Crescent Rose.”

There was silence for a moment. I picked up the sharp piece of metal, careful not to cut myself on the jagged edges, and put it in my pocket, then fished about for the money to pay for it.

“ Well, I feel a little better now, I guess ,” Ruby said. 

I grinned. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“...Yeah.”

My grin turned into a slight frown as I turned towards the counter… well, where I thought the counter was. The antiques shop was pretty cluttered and large, and the shelves were more than a foot taller than me, even when I stood up on my tippy toes. 

I turned a corner and immediately ran into some guy in white holding a gun - a nine millimeter Ruger, if I had to guess. I spent a short moment just looking at him, feeling as if he should be familiar somehow which gave him time to bring the pistol up to my face. And then it clicked. In my head, not the gun, thank God.

White suit, red sunglasses - this man was a member of the Droogs, a group of thieves and grunts that was prominent in most of Chicago. What they were doing in an out-of-the-way antiques shop was beyond me, but it couldn’t have been any good. I prepared to knock this guy out the nearby window, but Ruby stopped me.

“Wait, I know this guy looks like a Droog, but he could be, I dunno, getting married, and maybe he’s just super paranoid? Ugh. Maybe ask him what he’s doing here first?”

I let out a tiny shrug, too small for the gangster to see but large enough for Ruby to perceive, and opened my mouth to ask a question, but he beat me to it.

“H-hands in the air! Now!” he shouted. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. I looked him over again. Wet spots under his armpits, hands shaking slightly and gripping the gun too tightly - that decided it. This man had no idea what he was doing. Ruby chimed in to agree, saying, “ That gun isn’t even loaded. Dummy should take better care of his weapons.”

“I said, hands in the air! You got a death wish or something?” 

I eventually decided to confirm what we were thinking. “Are you… robbing me?”

The man’s frustrated, “Yes!” could barely be heard over the sound of Ruby’s laughter (what was up with that?). I smiled.

“Ooohhh...”

I simply stepped backwards several steps, ignoring the Droog’s demands to “Stop! Stop that!”, then accelerated, activating my Aura and leaping into the air, tackling the goon. Our combined weight lent us enough force to smash our way through the window, as well as enough to knock the man out as his head hit the ground. 

He wasn’t the only Droog in the store, unfortunately. When I turned around, three more came rushing out the front door, having been attracted by the loud sound of the shattering brown-tinted glass. Two of them wielded simple hand axes, and the last held another pistol, and none of them looked particularly happy.

Seeing as how all of my foes had weapons, I figured I’d show them mine, and I quickly reached behind my back to retrieve it. While it was admittedly incomplete, I figured it’d still be more than good enough to take out this group of unskilled henchmen.

In compact form, it was a red metal tube about two feet tall. However, when I activated a certain mechanism, it telescoped out into a long black metal staff six feet long which also doubled as a barrel for the sniper rifle part, of which the trigger was located three and a half feet from one end.

In time, I planned to add the giant scythe head to one end but for now I had to make do with just a sniper-staff. 

The Droogs didn’t look surprised enough, so I decided to show off a bit. I twirled it about easily, likely faster than their eyes could see, and finished by planting one end into the ground, embedding it into the asphalt, and sending bits of black rock flying everywhere. Oops , I thought.

Ruby was still laughing. What in the world was she laughing about?

One of the Droogs screamed, “Get her!” and with that, the two axe-wielding goons charged, the one with the pistol staying back and preparing to shoot me.

Well, that wouldn’t do. I flipped my staff around and pulled the trigger, letting the recoil launch me over the first two Droogs and landing directly in front of the pistol-wielder. He panicked and fired, and surprisingly a bullet actually came out, which I blocked with my staff. I spun it around in front of me, catching his gun arm and his jaw, cracking them both and causing the Droog to scream in pain.

Ruby had finally stopped laughing, and quickly warned, “ Uh, I think you just broke his jaw. And his arm. ” Taking a brief moment to look at them, I realized that they both looked really bad; human arms weren’t meant to bend that way and I doubted the man would be talking anytime soon.

“Whoops,” I muttered under my breath. 

Ruby continued, “ Try to keep in mind that the moves we practiced were mostly for fighting Grimm and people with Aura. These guys won’t stand a chance, so try to use less force.”

“Got it,” I said as I turned back to face the other two Droogs. They were almost upon me, and with surprising coordination they both swung their axes at the same time, forcing me to block by bringing my staff up in front of me. We all stood there in a stalemate for a brief moment, then I dropped down, bringing my weapon with me. The two goons were still pushing forwards and were briefly knocked off-balance, and I capitalized on this by sweeping my staff across their legs, knocking both of them down.

I took a moment to think, and realized that fighting those goons was really easy. I honestly figured I could have been blindfolded and I still probably would have won. “Well, that was easy.” I muttered under my breath.

All of a sudden, as in in response to my comment, something screamed at me to dodge immediately. Trusting my instincts, I quickly angled my staff’s barrel at 45 degrees to the horizontal and pulled the trigger again as I jumped backwards, using the recoil to increase my speed, allowing me to just barely dodge the massive fiery explosion that engulfed the front of the store.

“What the hell was that?” I asked under my breath, waiting for the smoke to clear.

Ruby’s answer was hesitant and confused. “ It can’t be… but it kinda looks like…”

A figure strode through the smoke.

“ Oh. It’s… okay, this is just getting weird. First it was pretty funny, but now I think there’s more at play somehow.”  

“What?”, I said. 

Before Ruby could respond, the figure spoke, fully emerging from the smoke cloud.

“Well, well, well. Hey there, little lady. Don’t you think it’s a little bit past your bedtime?” 

He wore an immaculate white suit with black pants, black gloves, and black shoes. He carried a cane in his right hand, which was still smoking at the end of the barrel. And when my silver eyes met his lone dark gray one, I felt a strange sense of deja vu, as if I’d seen this man before.

“He looks like Roman Torchwick! I mean, his face is different and he doesn’t have the scarf, but, like, everything else is the same! He even has the stupid cane! This can’t be a coincidence.”

While I knew who Roman Torchwick was, thanks to Ruby, I knew of this man in a completely different way. He had a lot of different names, but one of his most well-known ones was Jack Candlestick, one of the kings of the Chicago underworld, leader of the Droogs. Why he was here in a random antiques shop I didn’t know, but it probably wasn’t for charity.

“I’m going to stop you! You’re clearly up to no good, and I’m going to knock you out and take you to jail!”

I didn’t like the whiny and childish way that came out. I was trying to threaten him, darn it!

Jack chuckled, then smirked. “If I had a dollar for every time some bratty kid told me that, I’d be retired by now.”

The way he just casually dismissed me was really annoying, and I couldn’t help but respond, “I am not a kid!”

“ You do realize that makes you sound even more like a child, right?”

“Not helping,” I muttered under my breath. Jack raised his eyebrow - well, he could have been raising both of them, I wouldn’t know - and asked, “Who’re talking to, Red?”

“None of your business,” I growled back.

He shrugged, pulling out a cigar from his pocket and lighting it, leaving his cane leaning against his side. Once it was lit, he took a long huff, exhaling smoke.

I fidgeted with Crescent Rose, and he kept his eyes trained on me. I honestly wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me to make the first move or if he had a plan in mind.

As the seconds passed, the awkwardness grew larger and larger, like some horrible monster preparing to eat us both. Eventually, Jack decided to raise his cane, flip up the targeting reticle, and shoot it.

And by it, I mean me.

Almost simultaneously, I rapidly spun my staff around to deflect the incoming projectile, but it exploded on contact, sending me flying back and depleting my Aura by a good chunk. Ruby groaned, saying, “ Ugh, I made that mistake once. Explosives are really hard to deflect.”

Flipping my staff back around, I pulled the trigger, arresting my backward momentum and allowing me to land back on the ground. I could barely see through the smoke, but I heard Jack yelling at his subordinates to ‘Hurry up and run you idiots!” I rushed in, bringing my staff down and colliding it with his… cane with a thundering clang. 

I gawked. Nobody had been able to just block one of my attacks before! With only one hand, too! Just how strong was this man?

And then the fight was really on. Jack retreated to the side, and I pursued, swinging Crescent Rose at his chest, then changing my grip and trying to smash his leg with the other end. Both swings were easily blocked, and Jack then swung his cane at my head, forcing me on the defensive as my staff just barely blocked his crushing swing. More swings quickly followed and I barely managed to dodge or block all of them. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the four Droogs quickly making their getaway, the less-injured two carrying the still-unconscious ones away. 

Meanwhile, the Jack situation was quickly going south. My arms and legs were quickly growing tired from withstanding his stupid cane slamming into my staff again and again, and I couldn’t find any openings to attack that wouldn’t immediately leave me open to be punished. The only thing I could think of that I could do was shoot him, but I didn’t know enough about human anatomy to shoot him in a non-vital spot, and even then I was worried that he would actually dodge the bullets even if I did shoot!

While my staff was blocking yet another one of his cane strikes, all of a sudden his other hand, previously barely doing anything, clenched into a fist and slammed into my face, sending me tumbling backwards. My Aura absorbed the actual damage of the blow, but it still hurt. I managed to recover my balance, but I was still unprepared for the blow from his cane slamming into my arm, making me lose my grip on Crescent Rose. His next blow caught the weapon out of the air and sent it flying down the street and I jumped backwards, trying to escape his reach.

Ruby quickly spoke up, “ This guy is going to kill you! He’s way too strong for you; can I take control?” I jumped back, dodging another vicious cane strike, and tried to nod inconspicuously. I turned to run for Crescent Rose, and then my eyes flashed and Ruby and I switched places; she became the controller, I the observer. 

It was kinda disorienting, watching and feeling yourself move and do things without you actually doing them, but I tried to ignore that feeling and help in anyway I could. I did this by keeping an eye on Jack, who was - “Dodge right!” shooting another explosive flare towards us. Ruby did so, and the flare blew up the side of a building, sending brick chunks flying everywhere. 

Ruby rushed towards the ensuing smoke cloud, staying in it for a brief moment as she searched for Crescent Rose. The smoke was a bit of a double-edged sword; it made it harder for the crime lord to shoot or swing at us, but it made it much harder for us to find what we were looking for. Well, it would’ve if it hadn’t happened to be right next to us. Ruby picked her staff up, then checked the ammunition, which was almost full; I hadn’t used much during my part of the fight with Jack.

Ruby ran towards the wall where the flare impacted and started muttering under her breath, words clearly directed at me. “Alright, so I’m pretty sure what’s going on here. You know how we’ve got our situation? Ozma soul bond thing, one Aura, all that stuff?”

“Yeah? ”

She propped the sniper-staff against the wall behind us, barrel facing where we last saw Jack. “I’m pretty sure he’s got the same thing going for him, except he got Roman Torchwick instead of, well, me. There are just too many coincidences.”

I thought about it. “ It makes sense, I guess. I don’t really know that much about Roman Torchwick, so I’ll take your word for it.”

Ruby strained our eyes looking for the bright white coat and bowler hat of Jack Candlestick. “That means he has Aura. It explains why he’s so much stronger than everybody else. And it also means...”

She caught sight of a human figure through the smoke, turned the staff slightly, and fired.

His cry of pain was oddly loud and long for someone that had just been shot in the head by a .50 caliber sniper bullet.

“... that we have to break it.”

She flipped the staff around again and fired, boosting her forward velocity with the recoil much the way I had. However, my recoil boosts were kinda sloppy compared to hers. I tended to just put my staff with the barrel facing the opposite of where I wanted to go and pull the trigger, which worked, I suppose; occasional over and undershooting hadn’t been a real problem before now. 

Ruby, I could tell, was much more precise than that. Her years of training and experience allowed her to determine the exact angle she needed to fire at to produce the exact arc she needed to travel that ended with our boots slamming into Jack’s head, knocking him aside and sending his bowler hat soaring through the air like a crashing UFO.

He brought his cane to bear and swung, but Ruby was faster. She spun around, staff twirling, and repeatedly slammed it against Jack’s weapon with what I imagined was enough force to kill an ordinary man. Jack bore the assault admirably, but he had undeniably been forced onto the defensive; he still occasionally swung at us when Ruby was in between attacks but they were fairly weak most of the time, unable to penetrate her own defense.

Ruby had told me she’d fought Roman Torchwick before once, atop a Atlassian giant airship, and she’d gotten absolutely trounced, saved only by a random Grimm that had decided the crime lord looked tasty thanks to all the negativity he was throwing off. If Ruby was right about Jack being host to Roman’s soul, then it seemed like the tables had… maybe ‘turned’ was too harsh a word; skewed seemed more appropriate. She definitely wasn’t losing, and I figured that over time, she would have managed to overtake the opposing crime boss.

Unfortunately, that’s when I realized something: Ruby was quickly growing exhausted. 

We’d tested her ability to control my body several times before, and she could only really exert herself for about four minutes at a time before knocking us both unconscious. She didn’t know why this was - though she had mentioned that her friend, Oscar, had a similar problem - but it was quickly becoming relevant here.

I wanted to say something or help somehow, but I couldn’t think of a single way to do so. Speaking would probably just distract her, and if I took control I doubted I could survive as well as Ruby was right now; Jack had taken his game to a whole new level - his cane swings were almost blurs to me now - and both he and Ruby were both fighting quickly enough that I didn’t think I could keep up anymore.

It hurt to know that all I could do was (figuratively) sit back and watch.

Jack sent another flurry of cane strikes towards Ruby, each and every one of which she deflected by spinning her staff. She followed up by using the built up momentum to hit Jack’s cane hard enough to send him flying to the side. This bought her time to shoot him several times in the head, though without something to anchor her the recoil sent Ruby flying backwards away from the crime lord, who roared in pain.

He quickly brought his cane up and fired another flare at her, and she defended herself by throwing Crescent Rose straight towards it. The two projectiles met in the middle, causing another smoke cloud to erupt as the explosion sent the staff flying right back into Ruby’s hands.

Ruby estimated Jack’s likely positions through the smoke, twirled her staff some more, and threw it at an angle towards the ground where it kept spinning like a coin in its edge, going through all those likely positions and into Jack, knocking him off-balance. Ruby leapt through the smoke to retrieve her weapon, dodging another swing from the crime lord in the process.

Jack probably couldn’t tell, but Ruby was really straining now. She moved in aggressively holding one end of the staff like a baseball bat and trying to land hits on Jack, but he managed to avoid or block the vast majority of them, only letting two through on his arms. Slowly but surely, Ruby grew more and more tired and was forced to go on the defensive while Jack grew more and more emboldened and started taking more risks, leaving more openings, that Ruby couldn’t capitalize on.

“Ruby! You need to retreat; you’re tiring out!” She ignored me and kept fighting, letting go of Crescent Rose and firing in the direction opposite her foe, launching the staff directly at him. It knocked his cane aside and hit his chest, probably hitting his Aura pretty hard. Ruby leapt forwards to grab it back out of the air, but Jack, seeing her ploy, fired a flare at the street, causing an explosion that launched both Ruby, Crescent Rose, and himself in different directions.

“Ugh... “ she groaned, and then she passed out, returning control to me just as her Aura broke. Quickly looking around, I made for Crescent Rose, but something snagged my cloak and dragged me backwards. Turning around, I saw that the something in question was the crook of Jack’s cane on a tether, pulling me back towards him. I tried to escape but I couldn’t get a good grip on the thing and before I knew it, I was right at Jack’s feet.

I snarled and tried to punch him, but he just smirked, unconcerned. I was out of Aura, after all. He probably didn't even feel my blows. 

“You’re not going anywhere, Red. We’re not quite done here yet.” he said.

The last thing I remembered was the sound of his mocking laughter and the sight of the bottom of his black shoe.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Welcome

“So. You get handed a holy sword by an archangel, told to go fight the forces of evil, and you somehow remain an atheist. Is that what you're saying?”

- Harry Dresden, conversing with Sanya, wielder of Esperacchius

Murphy gestured at the body and said, “I don’t see what’s so funny.” I gave her a strange look and she shrugged. Apparently, it was comedy hour. I ducked under the crime scene tape and stepped into the Wrigleyville apartment

Murphy stood there looking at me. She probably had her own opinions on what had gone on here, but she wasn’t stating them. That meant she wanted an unbiased report from CPD’s Special Investigations consultant - who is me, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Professional wizard, Warden of the Midwest, quick to anger, and all that jazz.

I stopped and looked around, taking inventory.

A single body, lying on the ground on his back, arms spread-eagled. Male. A demonic grin pasted itself on his face. His eyes were wide, almost bursting out of his skull. No blood anywhere, which was odd. In my experience, when I got called in to take a look at crime scenes, they tended to be absolutely covered in blood. Like, overdone haunted house ketchup splatters levels of blood.

I walked a little further into the room and looked around. The window was broken and little shards of glass twinkled on the ground as I went past.

The walls were covered in graffiti.

This wasn’t your usual street alley graffiti either. These were the repetitive sprayings of a complete madman. Every single wall was so covered in spray paint I couldn’t tell what the original wallpaper was like. Completely covered. 

I glanced up. So was the ceiling. I glanced down. So was the floor.

I slowly walked into the kitchen, finding it was just as covered in red and green and purple as the previous room. Cabinets, sink, overturned trash can - all covered in spray paint. I opened the microwave and found that even the inside hadn’t been spared the graffiti treatment. At this point, I had a hunch that if I turned on the faucet, it too would spray red and green, in a pattern of four specific letters.

“‘HA HA’,” I said. “It’s hilarious.”

Murphy’s smile was unpleasant. Sergeant Murphy, formerly Lieutenant Murphy, was one of the fiercest, most devoted cops I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was also barely five foot tall, though that wouldn’t stop her from being able to put me in a headlock faster than you could say “oxygen deprivation”.

She glared at me, waiting for me to say something more helpful.

“This is clearly the Joker. Third one like it this week.” I gestured at the room. “Fits the pattern. Overly obsessive spray painting, vandalism, victim looking like someone out of a Monty Python sketch.” I grimaced. “What an asshole.”

Murphy snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I was quiet for a moment and then said, “Who was he?”

“Greg Bardalacki,” Murphy said. “He and his sister were engineers working for Wayne Technologies.”

The victim’s name wasn’t one I was familiar with, though I did know what Waynetech was: a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises, a multinational multibillion-dollar conglomerate that had a finger in every pie and donated an almost unsustainably large amount of its profits to charity.

“According to forensics, the victim died of sarin poisoning,” Murphy said. “Purportedly, it’s very painful, though I wouldn’t know.”

I frowned. “Gas, eh?” That would explain the lack of blood. What it wouldn’t explain was the demented smile on the man’s face, as well as why the Joker decided to kill him. Perhaps the mad clown was being framed?

Murphy said, “Damn that sick bastard and damn that stupid vigilante. I’m all for following the law, but at some point, some people just don’t deserve any more chances.”

I nodded in agreement, though I didn’t completely agree. Batman, Black Knight of Chicago, was, for all of his shortcomings, a good man trying to do his best to do good. With the wealth that he probably held, he could’ve just laid back and lived a luxurious life without a care in the world, but instead he chose to go out and fight the criminals of Chicago’s underworld relentlessly and unceasingly. That took guts.

“Anyway,” Murphy said, “Why can’t you just locate him again?”

I spread my hands. “First, the Joker’s Named and doesn’t want to be found. That tends to throw off most simple thaumaturgy by itself. That would force us to rely on more obscure or powerful tracking methods, like prophecy or, I dunno, a literal blood relative. Second, his nature is chaotic and unpredictable - he’s not the Mad Prince for nothing. Third, we’d need something of his, like his hair or blood or something generally precious to him, and while we have a lot of spray paint” - I gestured towards the walls - “I somehow doubt he cares about it. If I tried using it in a ritual, it’d probably take me to the paint factory, or perhaps the discarded spray bottles.”

“If that’s the case, then we’re stuck with a whole lot of legwork,” Murphy said.

I hesitated. “Murph, you do realize that there’s almost no chance you could contribute anything to the Joker investigation, and even if you could, Commissioner Gordon would probably just relay it to Batman, right?”

Murphy turned towards me and scowled. “You think I don’t know that? This is my city, and I hate the fact that that clown can go around and murder whomever he pleases and that I can’t do anything about it! But I’m still trying! Why aren’t you? ” She seemed to realize what she had just said and, after a couple seconds, muttered, “Sorry. It’s just...”

Murph stared at the body, and her eyes were haunted. 

I sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” It would be unlikely that I would be able to do anything, since the Joker and Batman had become almost nemeses to each other, or something close to it. Normally, that would keep other Named out of their personal business, but I was good at poking my nose into things I shouldn’t have been able to. Ask anybody.

I paused. “But I don’t think you should be involved in this one, Murph. The Joker’s Named, and no offense but you have about as much narrative weight as a bag of airline peanuts.”

Murphy glanced at me incredulously. “I’ve gone toe to toe with faeries and vampires. I can -”

“Die horribly and painfully,” I finished. I looked her in the eyes and tried to impart as much seriousness into my expression as possible. “Fighting the Fae and other supernatural beasties is one thing; anyone can do that with enough skill and knowledge.” I ignored the second incredulous look she sent me and continued, “Named, on the other hand? Fate is literally on their side against vanillas.”

Murph protested, “What about the Nickelheads? Nicodemus had a Name, didn’t he?”

I said, “Yes, but we had two Swords of the Cross with us at the time. They’re amazing equalizers, and, frankly, if Sanya and Michael hadn’t been there, we would’ve been toast. Extra crispy, even. Against the Joker and without them, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

In truth, the issue went a tad deeper than that. Lieutenant Murphy was a cop. The Mad Prince killed good devoted cops like her every day more easily than one might swat a fly. Also, Murphy was… fairly close to me, and I had a Name. I was worried that Fate would kill her to provide me ‘proper heroic motivation’ or some bullshit like that. While that could provide enough narrative momentum to kill the bastard once and for all, I’d really rather have Murphy alive than the Joker dead.

Murphy was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “Fine. I’ll keep away. But if you ever need help…” She trailed off. The unspoken ‘call me’ was clear.

I nodded. “Sure thing, Murph. Probably won’t though; I wouldn’t want to interrupt your Oprah.”

She scowled at me. “I don’t watch that.”

I said, “Sure you don’t,” and walked out the door.

As I drove back to my apartment in my tiny Volkswagen Beetle, which has seen more combat than most military veterans, I couldn’t help but think there was something fishy about the details of these cases. The big one was the sheer thoroughness of the graffitiing. Every time, the victim’s home had been vandalized to a ridiculous degree and the victim had been found with that stretched-out smile on their face. I tried to estimate how much time that would’ve taken, and came up with a number of ‘way too much’. Even a whole gang of people would’ve taken at least an hour to paint poor Greg’s apartment with such thoroughness, and I couldn’t imagine what kind of person would spend their time doing that, and for what? Not even the Joker’s men would deface an entire apartment for…

Scratch that, they totally would.

I turned right at an intersection and kept thinking about the recent murders (and failed to notice the suspicious lack of cars in the area).

Still, while the Joker’s goons were insane, I’d like to think they had some modicum of common sense and wouldn’t go through this much effort for some random guy. It made things simpler. I didn’t want to go on a hopeless chase through Chicago. Also, there was a small chance that Fate would help me out if I thought this through, even if it took some outstanding liberties with coincidences.

So: why would the Joker want to murder this person?

… literally any reason. For all I know Greg could’ve cut him off in traffic. Dammit.

I made a left turn and tried going down a different train of thought. Who else might’ve killed Greg and wanted to frame the Joker for it? Yes, this seemed much more productive. Trying to get into the heads of the criminally insane was a lot harder than getting into those of the criminally sane.

First, his employers could’ve offed him for any number of reasons and gone overboard with the cover-up. Maybe he’d been working on some deadly invention and was killed to prevent knowledge of it from spreading. Maybe he’d dug too deep into something he shouldn’t and had died as part of the cover-up. Maybe the morally bankrupt corporate heads decided to kill him for shits and giggles.

That, for the record, occurred quite frequently; I could name three major businesses that were secretly led or funded by a Villain - Umbrella, Triumvirate Holdings, Fazbear Entertainment - that were also taken down in spectacular and embarrassing ways within the last two years.

Either way, I made a mental note to look into WayneTech and moved on. 

Another alternative explanation would be that he was killed by one of his employer’s competitors for similar reasons. The main one in Chicago would be Vector Incorporated, a weapons manufacturer that stepped up into the gap left by Stark Industries. It was an open secret that it was run by the Vicious Legionary, but no one had been able to decisively prove it yet.

Speaking of which, it was also well-known in Chicago that Vector Inc. had ties to the mob. One particular criminal syndicate

That tied back to the Bardalacki case nicely. For someone to go through so much effort to vandalize Greg’s apartment while killing him, they’d have to be very devoted to their theme.

Perhaps some sort of… 

The car ran over a pothole, drawing my attention back to the road just in time for me to slam on the brakes, stopping right before I hit someone. Someone in a white coat, derby hat, and holding a cane.

I grabbed my staff, got out of the car and slammed the door. The man turned to face me, surprised.

“Vandal.”

Alex Deor, better known as Jack Candlestick and half a dozen other names. A member of the infamous Woe, a group of villainous Named who’d banded together and taken over a third of the US’s criminal activity. The Vandal, standing in front of me and oozing more charm and wit than the Pirate Captain. The Vicious Legionary, who didn’t seem all that vicious and wasn’t a legionary. The Necromancer, who actually didn’t do much actual necromancy. And the elusive Black Queen, who was, in fact, black. Or African American, for those politically correct people out there.

All of them were dangerous as hell and I’d had my dealings with each of them. They’d come into power during my lifetime, and sometimes I found it difficult to reconcile the twenty-something man in front of me with the just-barely an adult who’d tried to threaten me during the Sells case.

Alex shook off his surprise and slipped into his trademark smirk. “Well, hello there, Warden. Pleasure to see you. Anything I can do for you?”

I looked behind him and immediately noticed someone wearing red right behind him, lying on the ground. A young girl. She couldn’t have been more than 16 years old and appeared to be unconscious, though unharmed. More importantly, I felt a sort of… weight , coming from her. The kind of weight one might find coming from particularly powerful entities. Entities that drew one’s attention, let everyone know that they were there .

The same kind of weight that was found in Named.

Now, if you know anything about me, you’ll know I’m a bit of an old-fashioned kind of person. I believe that women and children usually need protecting, though I’ve met plenty of each in my time that could kick my ass twice over without breaking a sweat. In particular, I’d like to mention a young girl named Ivy, also known as the Archive, who is eleven years old and has more knowledge and magical power than most of the Senior Council.

Regardless, it really ticks me off to see kids or females in danger. And, as I took a closer look at the scene and noticed the details I hadn’t before - the shattered concrete, the broken windows, the smoke rising away from that rocket launcher that Alex called a cane - it wasn’t hard to piece together what had happened here.

Alex - for whatever reason - was out here and ran into this young girl. As an experienced Villain, he too would be able to tell that this was another Named, and likely a Hero at that. Those tended to be problems for people like him. Fortunately, this one hadn’t even discovered that she could hide her own presence, indicating that she was green, likely only Named for a few months, if that. Thus, to rid himself of a future problem, he took aim and fired. There was a struggle, for Named rarely go down easily even under the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) conditions, but the Vandal eventually emerged victorious, knocking the girl unconscious. He prepared to finish the job, and then I barged in.

This couldn’t be a coincidence. I wasn’t sure if this was an act of Fate or an act of God (probably the former, though the latter tended to meddle in my affairs more frequently than one might expect), but I wasn’t going to just walk away now.

I smiled welcomingly and said, cheerily, “Hello there, Vandal. Pleasure to see you too. Do me a favor and step away from the girl before I vaporize you?” 

Alex’s smirk fell away and I felt his cold, analytical gaze settle upon me as he sized me up for a fight. I looked him in the eye and quickly did my own calculations.

Alex was fast and had some measure of enhanced durability; he could even shrug off bullets to some extent. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but it did have its limits. I’d learned this firsthand when we were forced to work together in Undertown against a random mad murderous wizard - also a surprisingly common occurrence for me. His main weapon was his cane, which was simple but effective, being just a lighter and a heckton of gunpowder loaded into a barrel. That meant I couldn’t hex it like I could a more complex firearm. He probably had some other odds and ends tucked away, but for the most part, that was it.

As for me, what can I say? I’m a wizard: Harry. I’ve got all sorts of tools in my metaphorical toolbelt. I had my staff in my hand, my shield bracelet on my wrist, kinetic force rings on my fingers, my blasting rod in my duster’s pocket, the enchanted duster itself, and, if worst came to worst, a loaded and well-maintained Smith and Wesson revolver in a holster.

Maybe it was arrogant for me to think this, but I was fairly sure I could take Alex Deor in a one on one fight. 

He still hadn’t said anything, and I still stood there, waiting. I considered blasting him now, but dismissed the idea after a bit of thought; for all I knew, Fate would see that as a dirty move and make the ensuing battle harder because of it.

Alex opened his mouth. I focused my will, preparing to hit him with a bolt of force.

Then he said, “Sure.”

I blinked.

He turned away from me, twirling his cane, and started literally walking off into the sunset, whistling a jaunty tune as he walked.

I said, with my usual eloquence, “What?”

Alex didn’t stop. He didn’t even turn his head. He simply called back, “Dresden, I don’t know what you were thinking, but I didn’t and don’t want this fight. Take the girl.” 

I blinked again. I’d been so sure there was going to be a fight…

“Whatever,” I grumbled.

I took the girl. Picking her up in a bridal carry, I noted her red cloak as well as the strong smell of gunpowder. Once again, the fact that she wasn’t even singed and didn’t have any visible bruising stuck out at me a bit, odd for someone who had just been in a fight. I did smell a faint scent of blood without a discernible source.

As I placed her in the backseat of the Blue Beetle, something shining and silver on the ground caught my eye. I went to investigate. 

I walked over towards it and saw that it was a long metal tube, about the length of my staff, and also scorched and battle-beaten. I picked it up, and had to put my staff down to do so, requiring two hands; it was quite heavy. Looking more closely, I saw a couple buttons and triggers on it, and I, being the inquisitive soul that I am, pressed one. 

In hindsight, I was lucky I hadn’t pointed either end at anything I cared about. The tube blasted off with tremendous sound and slammed into a wall, cracking the brick. At the same time, something broke a hole in the glass opposite it. A very large bullet hole, if my guess was right.

I winced. I had a bit of a reputation for collateral damage - completely unwarranted, mind you - and this wouldn’t exactly help.

“It was totally like this when I found it,” I muttered, glancing at the girl in my car, then walked over to the deadly weapon and lugged it too back to my vehicle, dumping it in the passenger seat with my staff.

Then I got in myself and drove home.

I carried the girl downstairs to my apartment, earning a few strange looks from my neighbors, and laid her down on the couch. 

It was small basement apartment in a building made almost entirely of wood, a rare holdover from the days before the Great Chicago Fire. A trapdoor, leading down to the sub-basement, where I keep my lab where I do a lot of my magic. Knickknacks and thingamabobbers lay strewn about and carpets and tapestries decorated the floor and walls. The whole place smelled faintly of wood smoke, courtesy of the charcoal stove I used.

Home sweet home.

It was a humble place, and one might think me odd for choosing to live in it when I could probably be building a stereotypical mage tower. Well, I’ve been living in it for more than a decade, and I find it homey enough for me.

“ Flickum bicus ,” I whispered. The candles around me lit up. For a wizard, candles were better than lightbulbs because the latter tended to burn out or explode; magic is really bad for technology, and I’ve got a lot of the former. As a result, I haven’t got much of the latter.

My cat, Mister, and my dog, Mouse, were both curled up in separate corners, sleeping. I smiled at them and filled their bowls with cat and dog food respectively, also adding water to each.

Mouse stirred, opening his mouth and letting out an almost-yawn, then trundled over to me, nuzzling my side. My waist, specifically.

Mouse is a big dog.

I laughed, bent down, and rubbed his head. His tongue lolled out in a doggy grin, and his tail shook back and forth.

“Good boy,” I said. I stood back up and moved towards the basement door. Mouse made to follow, but then paused, sniffing the air. 

I picked up my blasting rod. “What is it, boy?” I asked. 

Mouse had an exceptionally keen sense for trouble. If he was worried about something, then I was going to pay damned good attention. 

Seconds later, someone started pounding on my apartment door. I answered it and Terezi, arm dangling uselessly and bodysuit covered in lacerations and blood said, “Hey, Harry. Long time… no see…”

Her cane clattered on the floor, her legs buckled beneath her, and she collapsed.

Oh.

Super.

Up until that moment, I’d been laboring under the misapprehension that I’d have only one unconscious Named in this apartment today.

“Goddammit, again?,” I blurted at her unconscious form. “What the hell? You have got to be kidding me!” I was really, really tempted to slam the door and leave her lying there in a heap. The bitch sure as hell deserved it.

I pondered it for a moment or two.

I slammed the door and left her lying there in a heap. The bitch sure as hell deserved it.

Mouse looked at me reproachfully with his doggy eyes.

“What?” I said.