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Gasps came from those recording as Peter Deforest fell to the ground, veins writhing and shining with the ruby substance that entered through the man’s eyes; Hercule and Adolphe stumbled back, faces white as snow.

“Why…  What did you do to him—why did he say that?”  Adolphe mumbled to Anthony, falling to his knees.  “We’re all dead…”

Hercule bolted out of the bathroom, attempting to leave, but he wouldn’t get far due to the person waiting for him to exit; they responded shockingly fast.

Anthony was too busy hearing the screams and cries of tens of millions across Europe, filtering out the stunned mutters of those around him.

Panic and terror were everywhere, causing cascading strums of an ominous song that rippled space-time, overwhelming him in a sea of melancholy voices that called for aid—prayed for relief—prayed for someone to save them.

He left the small pack of recording citizens and onlookers, stepping into the corner, and vanished from sight to meet Jaenona, who floated with him in space, high above Earth; he hovered in the vacuum, watching boundaries and knowledge flood into his sinuses as the girl held the side of his head.

“Master…  Your connection to Neil’scera still affects you.  Something nearby has sensed the unknowable particles you invoked…  It squirms and twists within its tiny box, unable to find a solution.”

A lump dropped down Anthony’s throat as Jaenona put her hands over his ears and shifted his head to a large satellite that disrupted the light to mask itself; a powerful source of energy drew in antimatter particles in its core, where a hole in dimensional boundaries had been harnessed.

Layers peeled back, showing men without space suits warping onto the device and modifying it a week ago—they weren’t human—whoever this group was, they were alien to their planet, and the analytical equipment within certainly wasn’t from Earth.

Anthony followed an invisible signal going from Peter’s amulet to the satellite.  It wasn’t magic; it was science.  Joseph Fouché was connected to a race not native to their world, whoever he was.  This obviously wasn’t supposed to happen—his presence sent the A.I. on the craft into a panic.

It’s going to destroy Paris to deal with me…

The bar bathroom closed around him like a venus flytrap, and he knew what he needed to do; Neil’scera’s gates were closed—its infinite layers healed—and Anthony still held its key.

Multiple fragmented scenes fractured the mirror; templar knights began rushing towards them with the Legend of Gilles de Rais—Jeanne’s right-hand man—leading them, but they’d be too late.

Shields and swords from Legends would be raised to defend Paris from the effulgence from the sky, yet none would stop the superheated ball of plasma that would crumble the very bedrock of the surrounding area and cause weather-altering effects across the globe.

The A.I. couldn’t determine what would kill him, so it would destroy itself to turn most of France into a wasteland of glass, fusing the atomic structure of the earth into liquid crystal.

Anthony paused at the doorway when a beam of light no larger than a needle bypassed Hercule’s chest as he opened the back door, attempting to flee; it ping-ponged around his heart, and Anthony could see the internal ruptures spilling liquid like a fractured dam.

Little did they—including the assassin, called by the amulet—know that this was not some simple mission to keep Joseph’s name a secret; in less than five minutes, all of France would be wiped off the face of the planet.

The man stumbled and fell to the ground as strength began to leave his limbs from the rapid internal blood loss; only a single burnt cell column would show the entry wound.

His solemn gaze went to Mara as she stood.  “What is happening, Anthony?  Two men are dead, and knights are closing in on our location.”

The citizens around them backed away, looking at one another as they tried to process the information, yet at that very moment, an arrow struck the roof, sending magnetic waves that fried all electric devices.

“My phone just died…”

“Mine did, too!  Is it you—the lights?!”

“What was that red stuff?  Is he dead?!”

Mara winced as a loud horn seemed to ripple throughout Paris—a signal of danger—and the knights outside paused; a brilliant light shone in the sky.

“An assassin—ack?!  Someone is preparing to assault the bar.”

Nemesis’ nose creased, his brightening mood falling at the word assassin; someone he cared about was slaughtered before him by one not long ago.  “Where?  Stay close to me, Mara.  Heh.  I was getting bored anyway.  Do we kill the knights and the assassins?”

“Aye!  Aye!”  Cahira got to her feet as Jack tossed her a bottle of vodka.  “We only came ‘ere to get the scoop on who we be needin’ ta meet.”

Ward sighed, pushing the two front feet of his chair off the floor to look at Anthony as he tried to make sense of a few new pulses through edge-dimensions.  “I don’t be thinkin’ offin’ lads be giving us a shiny record, mi man.”

“My sister?”  Melissa asked.  Hope was in her eyes before looking at the eldritch girl, climbing onto the table from her sitting position.  “Jaenona?”

Anthony held out his hand; the girl was a spear, causing the others to do a swift double take as he brought her to rest against his back, tip pointed at the tiled floor.  “We’ve stumbled onto something far bigger…”

Jaenona’s voice entered his mind as Adolphe returned, seeing his partner lying in the open doorway; the assassin was preparing a wide-ranged attack to take out the entire building they were in, and, obviously, Adolphe saw his best way of surviving was staying near them.

“Master, might I put forward a suggestion?”  the eldritch child chimed, sinking through his back to transfer into his hand in her obsidian and alabaster spear form; it was becoming challenging for even him to follow her odd, nonsensical shifts through reality.

Not hesitating, he agreed, still reaching through dimensional folds like a fisherman, scanning to find the best place to throw his hook.  “Tell me what to do, Jaenona…”

“Are we not fighting our way out?  Haha.  That’s more…”  the Lion King trailed off as Anthony spun his spear in an upward slash, creating a hole through space in the building’s ceiling.  Everyone’s gze truned to the sky,  lit-up and showing the satellite as it gathered all its energy, outshining the sun.

Cahira’s mouth dropped open at the blinding star overhead.  “Aye, uh… don’t be tellin’ me we about ta be space chicken, Anthony?”

A whistle came from Jack as he reached for his drink.  “An orbital attack, hmm; bit excessive, eh, love?”

“What did you do; did you piss off some alien or something?”  Mara hissed as Nemesis realized they were about to get bombed and ran to cover the mermaid.

Anthony shook his head.  “Ugh… maybe?”

Gilles de Rais threw open the entrance as most of his knights remained outside to observe the celestial globe of pulsating white and blue energy in the heavens.  “What the hell is going on?!”

“Showed a man his potential future,” Anthony muttered, jabbing Jaenona into the crack to open a door into the bizarre; he’d found the suitable layer through Jaenona’s guidance.  “All I can say is… pray.”

All screams and cries echoing through Anthony’s soul vanished; an ovule the size of a skyscraper materialized as if a mirage as he opened the way.  Its color shifted like the wind as it sensed the globe of plasma overhead.

Six filaments sprouted out with orange anther rods at their ends, reaching for the light and spreading its many tiny petals the size of a bee’s wing.  They gathered around the egg, surrounding it in a cocoon of radiant colors to form a bulb.

The trillions of flashing lights that blanketed the parasitic eldritch fiend materialized into a closed eye on each leaf, collecting to form twelve petals of pink hues, showing the unified optical pattern.  A long style poked through the top, weaving in the high, atmospheric winds.

No one could pull their gaze away from the unfurling bulb as each eye slowly opened; its irises alternated hues and crimson liquid ran from each, collecting around its base to form a long stem that dripped down to connect to Jaenona’s sharp tip.

He used their bond to Neil’scera to spread the mirrorverse’s properties through the adaptable entity, curbing the maddening lull the creature made.

The awe-struck population witnessed the slumbering eldritch entity’s awakening, its whispers and calling pollen spreading with its unfurling petals.  All of France could see its overshadowing, protective arms spread to fill this new space it had entered, feelers digging into dimensional edges to find new sources of sustenance.

Time slowed, warping as the weeping, blood-like liquid fell over them as rain, each drop sending electrical currents through Anthony that painted a picture of the entire country; it was analyzing its surroundings.

Anthony let go of Jaenona and walked into the floor to appear above the shimmering splendor that Melishna, The Flower Of Light, brought; the plasma orb dropped like a bowling ball, plummeting to Earth to be brought into a loving embrace by Melishna’s stamen, curling around the blazing star that ionized everything around it.

The eldritch creature guided it into the ovule within itself, causing a wave of heat to transfer through the petals that generated a wave of electro-static tingles, touching every person in France and illuminating Melishna’s petals in a dazzling, starry spray of twinkling lights.

He returned below to watch the brilliant purple haze envelop France in a healing powder that, if breathed, would cure nearly any disease.

Anthony took hold of his partner and opened up the gates beyond to allow Melishna to return to her slumber—learning more about the entity’s origins through his partner’s wordless hum in his ear—and everyone in the bar watched the colossal, country-sized flower draw into Jaenona’s point; within a minute, the eldritch entity was gone, breaking the spellbound serenity her song created in conjunction with Neil’scera’s melody.

The radiant mist faded as Anthony breathed a tired sigh and collapsed to a knee, and Jaenona, now a child, placed a hand on his shoulder with a smile.

“I am so proud, Master.”

Anthony forced a chuckle, sweat slicking his face as he returned the key of Neil’scera to its center; the burning sun imprinted on his forehead faded.

He doubted it would be the last time he used the mirrorverse, but he couldn’t hold onto what wasn’t his.  Neil’scera belonged to The Song, and Anthony was only granted access to it through Jaenona being his patron and the Seed.

He couldn’t use Neil’scera in the same way twice, and it would be vastly different the next time he sought out its use, which was how it should be.

Anthony lifted an eyebrow as Cahira forced a smile and handed him a drink.  “Eh-heh, ya seem like ya could use somethin’ ta wash down, eh… whatever ya did there.”

“What did you do…  What just happened?”  Mara asked, seeing tears in Nemesis’ eyes.  “And what are you crying about?”

He sniffed, rubbing his big black nose and shifting his whiskers.  “It was… so beautiful.  I wanted to fight it.  I’ve never felt so…”  He couldn’t seem to finish his sentence, so he shook his head.

An armored man came running through the doorway as the spatial rift Anthony created closed.

“S-Sir!”

“Let me guess,” Gilles growled, seeing the phone in his hand; it hadn’t been in the proximity of the area of the electromagnetic pulse the assassin’s arrow caused.  “Saint Charlemagne?”

“He wishes you to bring the American team to him.”

“Of course he does,” the head knight grumbled, eyeing him.  “Have the leviathan and unicorn brought, as well…  We have a lot of questions.”

Anthony forced himself up, taking a swig of the vodka and coughing as the sharp liquid fell down his throat.

“Careful, Master,” Jaenona whispered, white eyebrows drawing together with concern.  “In unifying with Neil’scera—even if for a short time—you have stressed the Seed within you, expending much of its exercising capacity for a short while.”

“Got it.  Haaa.  Yeah, heh, that was a trip…”

Getting up and answering basic questions, he had Gilles snag Adolphe before he could run; Anthony had more questions for the man, and understandably, he was shaken enough to answer at least a few more things that were on Anthony’s mind.

Gilles and the knights assured the bewildered citizens that details about the incident would be in the news and recorded their identifications in case they needed to get ahold of them.  The assassin seemed to have gotten cold feet after Melishna’s sudden appearance and disappearance because there weren’t any more attacks.

They went by car, though Selvaria refused to go with anyone she didn’t know, thinking they were trying to separate her from her mother to kidnap her.  Anthony got on the phone and convinced her to fly her mother to the government building to meet Charlemagne—it helped that her mother was interested in seeing the location, regardless.

Anthony had time to piece together everything he’d seen on the drive; as he expected, Rachel eventually got ahold of them through Gilles’ new phone.  Accepting the item from the man as he pulled them outside The Palais Bourbon, he tried to sound less exhausted than he felt.

“ ‘Sup, babe.  Did I wake you up?  I know… eldritch creatures can be a bit noisy.”

“Heh.  Funny.  Hmm…  A giant flower… with eyes…  What called for that kind of doomsday approach?”  Rachel groaned, still sounding tired.  “You have Nia all scared and hiding inside me—yeah, you are a scaredy-bunny,” she snickered, probably replying to her internal huffs.

“Short answer…”  Anthony sighed, settling back to stare out the window as people gathered outside the government building for answers.  “Aliens.”

“Huu-haaa.  Great.  Another problem to add to the bucket list, and can I at least group them into an existing category?”

“Does the name Joseph Fouché ring any bells for you?”  Anthony shot a ‘really’ look at Adolphe as he flinched; only he, Melissa, Gilles, and the skittish man was in this SUV.  

Gilles answered him, hand freezing on the door handle.  “Joseph Fouché… the anti-religious extremist of the late 1700s that helped Napoleon?”

Rachel hummed at the news.  “Interesting.  So, he’s connected to aliens somehow?”

“At first glance…  The plasma ball that would destroy France and change the planet’s surface was an unfortunate response to… I suppose you could say Jaenona.”

“Ah!”  Adolphe gave a short scream as the white-haired eldritch girl appeared beside him in the middle seat, raising a hand with a charming smile.

“It was my fault of sorts, my master’s bonded.  On the positive side, my master has made phenomenal strides in what I have been attempting to show him.  Rest is required now.”

“Huh.  I see.  Got it handled, babe?”

“I got it.  No need to get your tail ruffled,” Anthony returned, seeing Melissa’s silent laughter at the comment.  “You need to be at the top of your game for whatever you have going on tonight, so let those oversized ears have a break.”

“Oversized ears, huh?”  Rachel repeated with a short chuckle.  “We’ll have to talk about how big they are when you get back, and, babe…”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t have the tail without the ears; I’m a package deal.  Night!”

Anthony pulled the phone away from his head with a wry smile.  “Oof.  I think I’ll get a bloody lip for that one when I get back.”

Getting out of the car with Gilles, the knight gave him an incredulous look; the press was on the scene, but they were swarming Nemesis’ group, who had gotten out first, drawn to the giant lion’s appearance.

“She’d hit you for that?”

Jaenona was standing outside the door with a bright expression as Anthony exited, and they walked around the vehicle to join the knight.  “While ‘hitting’ is one of my master’s other half’s specialties, I would consider the more appropriate response a bite.”

Gilles had to pause at the innocent child’s comment, and Melissa giggled.

“Eh… bite?  Oh…  Oh.”

Anthony laughed and scratched his head; Rachel had turned out to be more of the rough-love type, which was new for him but not necessarily bad.  He could feel her slowly building up the tension between them, and he was waiting for her to pop that bubble.

Gilles’ cheeks turned a tad red as he marched them up the stairs, refusing comment when the vultures swarmed while guiding the hand-cuffed Adolphe with him.

Maria met him inside, leaning against a pillar with black-suited government agents surrounding her.  “Couldn’t make it an hour before making a scene, hombre.  The flower was pretty, so, eh… what’s up?”

“Aliens have my sister,” Melissa returned, making Maria roll her eyes.

“Great.  Are they little orange Martians?  At least I’ve dealt with their shit.”

The void-eyed cat girl’s head tilted to the side as the unicorn filed behind them; Nemesis, Mara, and the pirate pair were lagging behind after throwing out random BS to the news that would no doubt cause confusion.

“You dealt with aliens before?”

“Yeah.  It’s where I got this little baby,” she said, plucking out an icy flower from between her breasts.  “Thing’s been pretty useful… and a thorn in my ass,” she growled, glaring at it before rubbing her chest and returning it underneath her thick jacket.

“Huh.  Little orange men from Mars?”  Melissa asked, now seemingly curious about the topic.  “They wouldn’t be doing any kind of experiments with my sister, would they?”

Anthony shrugged, spotting Selvaria and her mother further on ahead, looking at the classical artwork with a guard following them; she was holding her moose plushie—Chocolate—since Galatea was sleeping.

“Not orange, and not necessarily from Mars…  I’ll explain what I found when we meet Charlemagne.  Hey, Selv.  Have a good time with your mom?”

“Amazing,” she huffed in her monotone, sarcastic way, showing her monstrous fangs and sweeping her powerful, bladed tail to the left; a carpet was blown down the hall, and her glare was on one of the men.  “We were going to get some more breakfast when they ruined my date with my mom.  It was only a big flower.”

“It’s okay, honey,” her mom chuckled, moving closer to kiss her on the forehead.  “We still have all day, and I got to see such a giant, monstrous efflorescence in action.  Can’t say I’ve seen that in the States.  Haha!”

“Yeah, that was pretty cool…  Anthony got some pretty fun powers from the eldritch people,” she muttered in her steady voice.  “Any updates, Melissa; can we kick some bad guy butt now and rescue lil’ sis?”

“Anthony said he’d explain in a bit,” she sighed.

“Boo.  Okay, let’s go so we can get answers.”

Chuckling at the casual atmosphere their team had when the world was just about to be sent back to the Stone Age, Anthony followed Gilles to the open door of the French President’s special council.

Charlemagne stood by a half-drawn window, staring at the cloudless sky; there wasn’t a trace of what had occurred.  “Close the door and fill me in on what on God’s green Earth I just witnessed…  Representatives are in bunkers across France, our military is on the highest alert, and we are about to institute martial law and scrabble every military option at our disposal.”

He turned his bright blue eyes to him.  “So… give me answers.”

Anthony sat down as everyone filed in, and Jack Ward closed the door behind him, ducking to a back seat upon catching Charlemagne’s stern gaze move to him; he had a bottle of rum tucked under his arm.

“To give you the cliff notes…  Jack discovered a man that could give us information regarding Melissa’s sister.  I met him, and he refused to talk, so I showed him the future he desired… the path he wanted to walk, and… it turned out he didn’t want that after all.”

“He told you where she was?”  Melissa chimed in, tail held stiffly against her stomach as her ears pulled back.  “Does this Joseph Fouché guy have her?”

Charlemagne’s vision narrowed at the name, focus sliding from the disguised tentacle monster to Anthony, yet he allowed him to continue without interruption.

“I’m not sure yet, Melissa.  It’s our next lead, which our friend over here will help us with, but… as for the flower and light in the sky…  Huu-haaa.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at the smiling white-haired child beside him.  “A hidden alien A.I. satellite picked up on the energies I have when the amulet Peter wore transmitted its radial data—the man we met with and died—the talisman was a piece of advanced technology that killed him by introducing a foreign agent into his bloodstream.

“However, it also reported everything within the area, which included me… and it considered the force I was connected with to be of the highest threat level, so… it tried to destroy all of France by firing a massive plasma ball that would have wiped out tens of millions in an instant before ravaging Earth’s ecosystem.  So… as luck would have it—at that moment—I had the means to bring in an entity that could absorb it.”

Anthony glanced around at everyone looking at him in the somber atmosphere.  “That’s where we stand.  An assassin was preparing to take everyone in that bar out but was frightened off when Melishna showed up.”

“The hell’s Melishna?”  Maria asked.  “Heh, that big flower?”

Jaenona giggled.  “Melishna is a rather playful creature who enjoys basking in stars to lighten her mood; if she were hungry, she might have consumed your solar system.  This was an acceptable tribute as a midnight snack for her.  Wasn’t she adorable?  She is a far more complex creature than the child Maria wears between her breasts.”

Maria glanced down at her bust in utter confusion.

“Uh-huh…”  Cahira shot a look at Jack, who twirled his finger around his ear.  “So you just… booted the lassy-flower solar system eater off ta, heh, bed?”

Selvaria’s tail was wagging as she listened, her mother writing notes in a small notebook she took from her purse.  Melissa seemed to be anxiously waiting for the next point involving her sister, and Jaenona appeared distracted by some little invisible fish floating through the atmosphere, causing her to scoot off her seat and run into the corner.

Anthony shrugged.  “I guess.  In any case, it gives us a few more leads.  Any further questions, Mr. Charlemagne?”

“Oh, me,” Selvaria said, throwing up a hand.  “What did they look like?  Little orange men, like Fiona told me about when you guys went into that one crystal?”

Charlemagne moved to his chair, folding his fingers and focusing on him.  “Yes.  What did these aliens… that were about to destroy my country… look like?”

Well, I’ve really stepped in the middle of something big, but Charlemagne might have a bigger picture than we have to point us in the right direction since we have his attention.  It also brings us closer to being seen as a necessary partner rather than tourists causing trouble…  He’s probably thinking: devils, eldritch, and aliens… what next?

Anthony cleared his throat, buying time to recall what he’d sensed when peering through time and space.  “They were creatures of light that contained themselves in a mechanical, human-like suit, or else they’d scatter across the cosmos; at least, that’s the feeling I got from them.  I can’t say if they’re hostile or not, but…”

Charlemagne’s face tightened.  “They created weapons of mass destruction around our planet and hid it from us… possibly before even The Oscillation; it could be for observation or other reasons, and there are bound to be other factions within this race vying for their own ends, which…”

His gaze shifted to a tablet beside his desk, absently playing with it and reading information as he trailed off, likely confirming some dots he’d connected.

Melissa creased an eye and mumbled, “Eh, so, basically… it was a rogue A.I. run by a bunch of sentient, light-elemental, robot space aliens?  Uh-huh…  Is, eh, this normal for you guys?”

“Pretty much,” Maria grunted.

Ward lifted his bottle, flashing his golden tooth.  “Cheers ta that, love!  A life forever plagued by adventure and danger is a life I can drink to!  Savvy, mi fine-dressed emperor?  There, eh-hehe, be a wardrobe I can take a look-see nearby—maybe a little rum—hmm?”

“Indeed…”

“Ho-ho!  Off I go!”

“Wait for me!”  Cahira shouted, running after the soldering-off fellow.

The legendary emperor paused on a set of documents, scanning the contents as Jack promptly left the room, swaggering off to find a new set of clothes.

“If Joseph Fouché is involved, we can assume he’s working with the ‘Lioness of Brittany’… or at least has dealt with her.  They’re extremist revolutionaries, willing to go to any lengths to see their ideals made a reality, and that one of their men wore a piece of alien technology tells me The Cult of Reason works for their interests.”

Charlemagne shot a dangerous look at the quivering man in the corner, overwhelmed by everything he’d been a part of.  “Isn’t that right…  The Cult of Reason has been plotting something for the upcoming elections in two months.  Well… I doubt this man will be our bastion of enlightenment, but he can draw out someone who will be.”

“I… I didn’t know anything about aliens or subverting elections…  I was just friends with Peter—Peter was in on all that stuff!”

Charlemagne ignored his pleas as his focus moved to Gilles.  “My paladins are scattered protecting the current administration; can you organize a protection detail for those in the bar immediately, and, Anthony… I would like your support, given your… unusual abilities.”

He rose to his feet with a short chuckle and flipped the tablet around to show him a red Crystal in a snowy field, octahedron-shaped and eight meters tall with a light-green aura; it was just starting to develop and, according to the report that Tom showed him on their trip to Cuba, the challenge rating was higher than the Azure Frost and High Rolling events.

“I have a gift for your girlfriend when she wakes up.  For now, I want this Cult of Reason found and to hear more about this alien threat, which should tie in nicely with discovering where Melissa’s sister is being kept.  What do you say?”

Taking one look at the eager faces of his party, Anthony got up and took the Legend’s hand, shaking it.  “Glad you’re on board with the rescue OP.  I look forward to working with you, Charlemagne.”

“I can’t wait to storm a hideout,” Selvaria grinned, tail smashing through the floor and making her stiffen.  “Oops… my bad.  Eh-hehe… Maria will cover the cost.”

“Like hell, I’ll cover it!  I’m takin’ it outta your paycheck, chica…  Dammit…  Ick, how much is that stone?”

Selvaria’s eyes lit up.  “We get paychecks.  Wooh!  I won’t be broke anymore!”

They chuckled and began to prepare for the operation.

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