It was a quiet afternoon in the Dracis mansion. Once the initial panic over the disappearance of a certain wildly popular, devilishly handsome, and criminally humble Leonard S. Dunning quieted down, everyone's daily routines reasserted themselves, like a river returning to its bed. It might've felt strange from an outsider's perspective, but as far as the servants and the various Draconian dignitaries were concerned, once the owners of the estate were seemingly at peace with the situation, they also quietly returned to their duties.

Of course, there were some rumours, as always. Some said that the sudden change in the otherwise extremely protective Dracis couple's attitude, after they returned home the day before, must have meant they had learned something that quelled their anxiety. Others claimed it must have been a ploy, and they were in on the scheme. Yet others seemed to care less about Leonard S. Dunning's apparent kidnapping, and seemed to be more concerned with the progress of his two fiancée's 'relationship', despite the two's ardent protests to the contrary.

In a way, the notion that the maids, guards, and even the representatives of the various member families had the leeway to immerse themselves in gossip was speaking volumes about how quickly they moved past the initial shock. If I was some kind of wildly popular, devilishly handsome, and criminally humble person, I might've felt slighted by their indifference, but luckily for them, I also happened to be magnificently magnanimous and let it slide. For now.

Jokes aside, the laidback atmosphere was infectious, and despite his loud and repeated protests, a certain Sir Percival Pendragon seemed perfectly contented to stay in his designated room, get his gourmet meals delivered by pretty maids, and play video games on his phone all day long. On the surface, he was living the high life, lounging on a fancy bed in his fluffy blue bathrobe without a care in the world, yet his body language said otherwise.

He was instinctively reacting even to the smallest of noises, eyes flittering over to the source before slowly returning to the screen in his hand. It was almost as if he was expecting to be attacked at any moment, which was a patently silly concern. After all, he was in a room on the first floor of the Dracis mansion, the heart of the Draconic Federation, guarded by the Ordo Draconis and fortified against all manners of infiltration, be it through mundane or magical means. Who in the world could get the jump on him in this kind of environment?

"Well, hello there!"

My sudden exclamation made the old coot let out an undignified yelp and he very nearly flung the phone in his hand at me. He caught himself in the very last second, and after locking gazes with my masked visage for a few long seconds, he let his hand down and exhaled a long breath.

"Oh. It's you."

That wasn't how people usually reacted to me in my Bel guise, but to be fair, I was more or less expecting something like this. Someone didn't become a Celestial double agent and spied on their lifelong friends, colleagues, and protégés by wearing their hearts on their sleeves, and the old man certainly had his own share of annoying secrets. Such as his Oaths.

A quick primer: by default, all knights had seven Oaths in total. In actual practice, only six of them were functional, because their Oath of Loyalty was broken by default, as it represented their servitude to their Celestial masters.

A few others were also relatively easy to break (I had my Oath of Service and Oath of Legacy broken, probably because of my pre-amnesia involvement with the Celestial Intelligence Network and Director Savir, while Morgana and Arnwald both had their Oath of Integrity broken by a botched operation in their youth neither of them wanted to talk about), but the point was that there was no Knight with seven active and operational Oaths. Except for Percival.

Not only that, but his Oaths were of a different design, and while not outright plot-devices, that asshole corner of my mind that, to this day, still refused to share its insider knowledge with the rest of my brain, was very skittish when I tried to interact with them.

I never had the time or opportunity to do a phantom-limb-assisted deep dive, so I couldn't be sure about their functions yet, but my five pence were on his Oath receptacles getting repaired and/or replaced by his Celestial handlers at some point, allowing him to act out against the Brotherhood without consequences. One thing was for sure though; they were straight-up incompatible with the experimental changes I did to Raven Boy's Oaths, and while I imagined I could probably jury-rig the old man's Oaths with some phantom-elbow-grease, it wasn't something I could do on the fly.

As such, I decided to give Roland some peace of mind first, and then mess around with the old bastard's astral body once he was already locked away in our lovely little dungeon.

But anyhow, back to the scene I was making.

"Yes, it is most certainly I!" I declared without missing a beat and gave the old Knight still sitting in his bed a shallow scraping bow.

"Bel of the Abyss, if I'm not mistaken?" he asked in a raised voice, and even though he tried to look nonchalant, I caught him glancing at the door.

A moment later, I reappeared between him and the entrance and leisurely pointed behind me with my thumb.

"No need to worry, Percy, old chap! I already took care of the guards outside, so you don't have to worry about any interruptions. Speak your mind! Be as loud as you want! Scream 'Onii-chan, yamete kudasai!' from the top of your lungs! No one will care!"

I technically wasn't lying, as I did arrange to draw all the guards and servants away from the area. Or rather, Roland did, but let's not split hairs here.

"I see…" Percival whispered without taking his eyes off me. He didn't even blink. At last, after a silent beat, he adopted his friendly grandfather persona and let out a chuckle. "I was expecting you; you know?"

"Oh, were you now?" I asked back while cocking my head to the side.

Now, to be perfectly clear, all of this was unnecessary. I was here to grab this bastard by the scruff of his neck, Phase him over to our makeshift jail, and throw him in with extreme prejudice… but that didn't mean I couldn't have some fun at his expense, and what other time I could I do this? Since my initial plan of putting him on a pedestal, making him feel he was the king of the world, and then tearing him down just when he was sure he won, was vetoed by Roland, I decided to do the second-best thing. I mean, I was already here, as Bel, so it was only fair to make him sweat a little.

In the meantime, the bastards carefully observed me and responded with a jovial, "Of course. You're acquainted with Leonard, and I was the last person who saw him before he was kidnapped, so it was only natural to expect that you would come looking for me."

"Reeeally?" After a beat, I leaned forward and Phased right in front of him, so close I could count the follicles of his eyebrows, momentarily startling the old man. I held the tension for a moment, then lowered my voice by an octave. "Do I really look like I care that much about the kid?"

To his credit, the old coot maintained eye contact and answered, "This is only conjecture on my end, but Leonard played a pivotal role in your plans, didn't he? No one would accept losing a useful pawn at this stage of the game."

He paused, apparently looking for a reaction (which was kind of silly, considering I was wearing a mask and all). On my end, I did the same, and ultimately shrugged and straightened my back.

"Well, fine. I admit I have a bit of a soft spot for the kid," I confessed with pretend reluctance and walked around the bed before facing him again. "As for games, I—" I wanted to launch into one of my patented Unhinged Bel Monologues™, but was forced to pause when I saw him casually rummaging through the night stand at his side and taking out a bunch of small plastic bottles. "Pray tell, what are you doing?"

"Hm? Oh, I'm just taking my medicine." To punctuate his words, he popped a pill and swallowed it dry before unscrewing another bottle. "Don't mind me, please continue."

Was… Was this bloody bastard seriously using Refuge in Audacity? On me? The gall!

"Percy, Percy, Percy," I spoke with a measured cadence, shaking my head in time, and placed a hand on the footboard of the bed while simultaneously entwining four of my numerous phantom limbs around it. "I can't help but feel that you're not taking this conversation seriously enough."

Before he could respond, I immediately Phased over to the dockyard hideout while still holding the now-empty bed. It landed with a loud thud inside the holding cell. I caught a glimpse of a bamboozled Pip in the corner of my eye before the world blurred again, and I was back in the mansion, just as the old man gracelessly landed on the floor. He tried to sit up, probably by reflex, but before he could even process what happened, I was already over him, one gloved hand clasped around his throat and slamming him back down.

The impact caused him to lose his grip on the white plastic bottle, and it fell to the ground, scattering its contents all over the carpet. Some kind of thick, viscous liquid that smelled sickeningly sweet and strangely nostalgic; probably cough medicine, I surmised.

It took Percival a couple of seconds to collect his wits, and once his eyes cleared up, I raised him up, fingers firmly grasping onto his neck, and hissed, "I'm not here to play mind games with a third-rate Celestial lackey like you. Don't test my patience."

Aaah, yes. That's the look. Eyes wide open, mind blank, jaw slacked… It was precisely what I wanted to see on the bloody weasel's face. Sadly, it didn't last long, as he grabbed my arm and pleaded, "Wait! Please wait! We can make a deal!"

"A deal?" I repeated after him with audible disdain, but after a moment of consideration, I nonchalantly let go of his neck, causing him to fall back onto the floor. In the meantime, I Phased to a nearby divan facing roughly the right direction and landed on it butt-first with practised motions, punctuated by a clap of my hands. "That sounds hilarious! Normally, I'm the one who's offering deals to people, so being on the receiving end of a proposal is a brand-new experience for me! Please, go on! Entertain me!"

Percival gasped for air as he pushed himself up, and after glancing around and registering the missing bed and the spilt syrup on the floor, he took a few laboured breaths and forced an amicable smile onto his face.

"I… don't know how much you know about me, but—"

"Percival Pendragon. Retired Keeper of the Bloodlines. Celestial double-agent. Reporting to the Unorthodox Celestials," I rattled off in a flat voice, and after a dramatic pause, I added, in a much more playful tone, "Oh, and you are directly under one of the bigwigs. What was his name again? Scrawny guy? Kinda pale? Has an absolutely terrible eye for people?" Pausing, I rubbed the chin of my mask and mused, "Maybe that's why he's wearing glasses? Probably needs a new prescription."

"I see that you… came prepared," the old man on the floor said, not even trying to get up.

"Nah, this is common knowledge," I responded with a careless wave of my hand. "Now, are you going to offer that deal or not? Do we need some props? I'm personally partial to contracts written in virgin blood and using souls as collateral, but I've heard those are old-fashioned nowadays…"

"No, I just…" Percival stopped speaking and took several deep breaths. I could practically see the gears spinning in his head, and after a whole lot of consideration, he uttered, "I'm still alive."

"Yes. I'm in awe of your amazing observational skills," I responded with a chuckle, but he remained dead serious.

"If you wanted to kill me, you could've done so at any moment. I don't have my equipment, and can't put up a fight against you as I am now," he reasoned, his eyes cold and calculating, with none of the grandfatherly façade remaining in them. "The fact that I'm still breathing tells me that you don't want me dead. No, I would go one step further: you can't kill me. Not now."

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

This time, I didn't have to pretend to be intrigued, as I was genuinely curious about what kind of Olympic-level mental gymnastics performance led him to this conclusion.

"You put a lot of time and effort into creating the Draconic Federation," he posited. "I don't know what your reasons and goals are, but this much is self-evident. However, your pawn was suddenly taken from the board, and now you need a replacement." He pointed a thumb at himself, and confidently declared, "As the provisional leader, I'm that replacement. You came here to make a deal, the same deal you made with Leonard, and you can't kill me, because if I died, it would further destabilize the Draconic Federation."

"And I don't want that?" I asked with just a hint of amusement, and he gave me a completely serious nod.

"No, you don't. Whatever your scheme might be, this organization has to be vital for it, otherwise you wouldn't have shown yourself like this." With a triumphant look on his face, the old man flashed a wolfish grin. "I want in, but not as a pawn."

"Then what? A bishop? Oh, wait! You must want to be the horsie! That's the best piece, because it can go in an L!" I exclaimed with childish enthusiasm, only to then add, in a much more somber tone, "You're already got the part where you make a lot of horseshit down pat."

"Wait, let me explain!" Percival called out in a hurry, showing his palms. "It's exactly as you said. I'm a Celestial collaborator, just like my mentor, and hers as well. A small fish, following orders all my life. However, I'm now the leader of the Ordo Draconis and a major player in the Draconic Federation. I might not hold as much sway as Leonard, but I raised the boy. Once he returns, with all of his memories, he'll listen to everything I say."

"The kid? Listening to you? Hah!"

"Trust me," he insisted with a sincere gaze that said that he might've been just delusional enough to believe his own words. "Let us work together, as partners, and I will prove my worth to you. I can not only steer the Draconic Federation according to your will, but I also have the trust of Director Mensah, a connection I can use to keep the Celestial Intelligence Network in the dark about your intentions. As you can see, I would make a very valuable ally."

I didn't respond right away. Instead, I slowly crossed my legs, placing my left ankle on my right knee, and linked my fingers in my lap.

"How curious. I was under the impression that you had quite a low opinion of the Abyss, and yet you're willing to sell out not only your friends and allies, but even bite the Celestial hand that feeds you."

"I admit, I have my own reasons to mistrust the spawn of the Abyss, but…" Pausing he gave me an innocent smile that sent shivers down my spine. "But you're not any Abyssal, are you?"

"… What makes you say that?"

Chuckling, he casually pointed at the red stain on the floor, his lips parting into a devilish grimace as he uttered, "That's Udug Blood Amalgam."

Blinking, I glanced over, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to connect the dots. That was the thing I accidentally used to write a letter to Crowey when I first pranked him, and it caused him to be bedridden for weeks.

"So that's why it smelled so familiar!" I exclaimed and stood up from my seat.

Percival observed me closely, his expression unchanging.

"As I said, I was expecting you, and made preparations in advance," he told me and rose to his feet with deliberate, non-threatening motions. "It's diluted, but a single whiff should've been enough to make an Abyssal's powers go haywire. Intense pain, muscle cramps, suffocating from their own blood filling up their lungs. Not a pretty sight." At this point, he paused to straighten his bathrobe and looked me over from head to toe. "Not even the Lords of the Abyss are fully immune to its effects, and since you aren't convulsing on the floor, the only logical explanation is that you aren't a denizen of the Abyss at all!"

"Oh wow! That's some really smart deduction, Percy!" I exclaimed with childlike innocence, using it to hide the inner struggle I was undergoing, trying my hardest not to punch him in his smug face. "All you need is a pipe and a deer-stalking hat, and you can start solving all kinds of crimes!"

Before he could respond, I Phased to the right and slightly behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not going to lie; you've made a pretty strong case for yourself. That sudden twist with the Blood Amalgam?" I pantomimed a chef's kiss and then pulled him a bit closer. "But, just to be clear, have you been carrying that around all this time?"

"As I said, I came to the island prepared."

"And, let's say… This is a hypothetical scenario, but try to follow me… What if it did work on me? What then?"

Percival turned his head towards me, without moving any other muscle in his body, and nonchalantly told me, "I doubt it would've killed an Abyssal Lord of your caliber, but it would've certainly made both of us learn much from the encounter."

"Ah, yes. Veeery astute. Veeery clever," I spoke softly while tightening my grip on his shoulder. "Now, staying with hypotheticals… what were you planning to do with the Blood Amalgam if I didn't show up in person to meet you?"

"I… don't see how that's—"

"Now, now, Percy! Don't hold out on me like that! The curiosity is going to kill you! I mean, me! I mean you! You know what I mean, right?"

He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately exhaled a sigh that practically screamed 'Well, it can't be helped'.

"… Do you want me to be honest with you?"

"Of course! We're all friends here! Birds of a feather! Peas in a pod! Partners in crime!" I exclaimed and dug my fingers even harder into his shoulder. "Aren't we?"

"Well…" He hesitated for a second, but when I continued to stare at him in a very, very amicable way, he swallowed hard and told me, "To tell you the truth, the bottle was diluted because I was saving the rest for the Inanna girl in the—"

That's as far as he got. There was no ceremony, no dramatic pause, nothing of the like. Just white-hot rage, a fist, and a face that was way overdue to receive it. My knuckles made contact with Percival's nose, and there was a sickening crunch as something gave way. There was no reaction on his end, as his head snapped back with such force it was a small miracle his neck remained intact. To my mind, all of these observations felt very distant.

I noted, with detached indifference, that my foot swept the old man's legs out of under him, and after I let go of his shoulder, I used the same arm to deliver a vertical elbow strike to his solar plexus. It sent him to the ground and he sprawled out on his back, dazed and barely conscious. It was a pathetic sight, but my mind was already seared blank by unyielding fury, and I descended upon his defenceless head without any hesitation.

Straddled on his chest, I raised a fist and punched him right in the cheek. Then it was his forehead. His nose again. Right in the mouth. Left eye. One after the other, my fists rained down on his face without any technique or discipline, pounding pure outrage right into his flesh and bones. The old man tried to raise his hands to protect himself, but it was in vain, and he went completely limp.

It was only then that the curtain of rage slowly lifted from my mind, and I beheld my handiwork. Percival's nose was visibly broken, his face swollen, his left eyebrow was ripped open, and not only my gloves were covered in blood, but my suit was also speckled with red. Strangely enough, I wasn't heaving, nor was I horrified by what I just did. If anything, I was surprised I managed to stop myself from literally ripping the fucker's head off. Maybe remorse was supposed to come later, I mused?

Anyhow, I wiped my hands on his bathrobe and then put an ear over his mouth. Yep, he was still breathing.

I reached down and put my hands under his armpits, and with some effort, I managed to drag his limp body off the ground. Without further ado, I Phased into the holding cell, where the Fauns were still in the process of inspecting the new piece of furniture I brought over.

"Boss?" Karukk squeezed out during the time I unceremoniously threw Sir Percival's limp body onto said bed, but fell silent when I pointed a blood-stained palm at him.

"I had to get a bit rough. Make sure he lives, but don't give the bastard any comfort. I'll be back once I take care of some other business."

I didn't even wait for them to respond, and Phased right back into the room. Thanks to the extra range I gained after my phantom limbs' latest multiplication, I could comfortably get there by using one of the maids working on the floor above as an anchor. First and foremost, I walked over to the nightstand and checked the rest of the unlabelled bottles in it. I couldn't find anything even remotely similar to the syrupy Blood Amalgam, but I packed all of them away into a paper bag I found and set them aside. I'd have Fred check them, just to be safe. I also picked up Percival's phone and turned it off before placing it next to the bag, and then I went on a bit of a scavenger hunt.

Fortunately, it didn't take long to find what I was looking for. Inside a familiar travel bag I remembered from the day Percival first showed up at my doorstep, I found a small, rectangular box. It was made of wood and had a simple metal latch at the front, but cursory observation showed that it was booby-trapped by a relatively secure enchantment array. Of course, since I had no interest in its inner workings, I simply disabled it with a swipe of a phantom limb and opened it up, revealing a fist-sized crystal ball, softly glowing with magical light.

Exhaling, I undid my Bel disguise, and returned to the white outfit I put together in the Elysium. This naturally meant that my enchanted mask was also gone, yet the face reflecting on the ball's surface wasn't my own. First things first though, I reached back into the travel bag and took out a really ugly brown and green knit sweater that was perfect for the situation. Once I pulled it over my head, I used my fingers to comb my white hair into something resembling normalcy, straightened my beard, cracked my neck, and moved to the corner of the room. I held the box with the crystal ball up and, with just a little bit of phantom limb based tweaking, turned on the magitech device.

"Agent Pendragon," an unfamiliar female voice greeted me, followed by a semi-transparent blue hologram rising from the ball, showing the scanlined visage of a middle-aged woman. "It isn't time for your scheduled report yet."

"I know," I responded with an unsteady voice, trying to mimic the mannerism of the old bastard. "Is Director Mensah available?"

"The director is currently in a meeting," the lady, whom I presumed was the Celestial equivalent of a personal secretary, answered in a disinterested voice, but I didn't mind.

"Bah, figures. Please tell him that I probably won't be able to report in for a while." I pretended to be interrupted by a coughing fit, and then continued in a raspy voice, "I've caught the flu, and these overprotective fools are keeping me under twenty-four-seven surveillance to make sure it's not some slow-acting Abyssal poison. I barely managed to make this call, and…" I paused and pretended to look away and listen to a distant noise, and then hastily added, "Someone's coming to check on me again. I have to hang up. Please convey to the director my message and my apologies. Agent Pendragon, out."

I didn't even wait for her to respond, and just slammed the lid of the box shut. Exhaling a long sigh, I put the communicator away, and as I did so, I could feel the skin on my face quiver.

"You can get off now, we're done," I said absent-mindedly while I picked up everything I set aside, and not a moment later, my vision was covered in a puff of smoke. I could feel a pulling sensation on my whole head, from my scalp to the tip of my chin, as a certain flesh-ball detached from me once it undid its transformation, and a second later it landed on the floor with a soft plop.

It didn't seem bothered by the impact, and after waving its tiny tentacular appendages around for a while, it righted itself and shook its whole body, like a small dog that just came out of the water. At last, it turned an expectant eye at me, so after I put away the ugly sweater, I crouched down and petted the tiny abomination.

"Good job. They probably didn't suspect a thing."

Pudding-kun let out a pleased 'Nyuuu~!' sound as I picked it up. I glanced around the room, just to make sure I gathered everything, and as I did, my eyes lingered on the bloodstains left where the bed used to be.

Honestly, this particular excursion ended up much less light-hearted than usual, but to be fair, Percival definitely deserved what was coming to him. Not to mention, I (and by that, I mean Bel) have been threatening to open an economy-sized, freshly picked, ethically sourced can of all-natural ultra-violence on someone's ass for a while now. The fact that the person on the receiving end was a conniving asshole who casually threatened to poison my sister was entirely incidental. I certainly didn't overreact or anything.

As if to reassure me, the small ball of eldritch horror rubbed its whole body against my torso while making purring noises, prompting me to let out a sigh.

"Well, at least you're not judging."

And with those final words, I left the scene of the crime.