“Come on Flow. Please, just talk to me.”

They stared at the picture of themself with Nocturknight, trying to figure out what to say to their sister. She obviously figured things out somehow, but should they just go ahead and come clean? Or would it be better to stubbornly deny everything? What if Nora was going to expose the truth to their parents? Flow’s mom and dad were pretty lenient, supporting their two children in experimenting with whatever made them happy, and supporting them through failures and hard times. They offered advice and consolation but never punishment or shame. But what their reaction would be if they learned that Flow was fighting magic-flinging villains on a daily basis? They knew they were putting their life at stakes and if it wasn’t for the ecstatic experience of being able to do such amazing things as Ruthen, even Flow themself would think it was crazy. But how would they start to explain that? Only Natasha and Matis knew what it was to be an Enchanter.

Then there was the whole question of the Knightfall Foundation, the organization Nora claimed to be working to. The same organization that was likely responsible for the disappearance of Nash Poll, Natasha’s best friend from the face of the Globe. They had seemingly infinite funds, shady connections to the government and the gendarmery, and, according to Nora, they were secretly researching magic years before the public even realized magic was real. For all Flow knew, they could be responsible for the appearance of the Sorcerer and the warlocks, and they could be just trying to cover their own tracks. Flow wanted to trust their sister, but what if she was manipulated by the bad guys? They wouldn’t put their trust in the Foundation just yet, not until the very least they had hard proof about Nash’s fate.

Suddenly, Nora’s phone rang in Flow’s hand, making them jump. They also saw a message appearing on the screen, blocking out the caller’s name and the button that would allow someone to accept the call.

Incoming Call

Warning!

Confirmation of user’s identity unsuccessful

Return the device to authorized personal to accept the call

“I think… your phone wants you,” Flow said with a confused frown, handing the phone back to Nora.

She looked at the screen and her eyes widened.

“I need to take this, but we’ll continue this,” she said, pushing the button and holding the phone to her ear. “Who are you and where did you find that phone?”

“Nora?”

It was a young man’s voice she immediately recognized. Except, it was impossible to be him.

“Nora, is that you? I’m Francois. Can you hear me?”

Anger flashed through the young woman’s face. She turned to the side, lowering her voice.

“You damn freak, do you think I will fall for that? We know how you work. Killing my colleague then using his identity to try and get me too – I’m not taking the bait, but for Francois’ sake I’ll make sure to watch when the Foundation grinds your body into fine dust and buries you in a titanium sarcophagus forever.”

Flow stared at her sister with a shocked expression.

“What are you talking about?” the man’s voice conveyed genuine confusion and a hint of panic. “Look, the last thing I remember I was investigating a suspected Artifact using criminal in Pollapolis, then black out and I woke up somewhere else. I think… I think I’m in the Ghost District, but I’m not sure. No idea how I got here.”

“Okay, let’s say I’m playing along,” Nora said. The more information she could make them spill, the easier it will be for the elite team to take down the Vessel. “You black out in the middle of a mission then wake up in an unknown location. Why call me, instead of your operator?”

“I wanted to, but I used the last call button, and it was you instead of him. Guess you called me while I was out?”

Well, of course she did. She was tasked to track a missing junior agent down – it would be pretty awkward to take the express to Pollapolis just find him waking up from a bad hangover. She tried to call his service phone several times, but Francois never answered.

“I don’t get it why are you so suspicious, you must see my number. My phone wouldn’t even work for another person, you know that.”

Nora bit her lips. She admittedly wasn’t completely sure how the phones’ magical protection worked – it was magic after all. Would it work against a fake who literally absorbed the original’s soul and copied their appearance and behavior? She didn’t know, but it was enough of a doubt to shake her confidence.

“Look,” the man sighed. “I don’t think you can do much anyway, sorry for interrupting your own mission. I’ll just call Marcus and…”

Suddenly, the line was filled with static, drowning out the rest of his words.

“Francois?” Nora asked.

 She heard a loud, inhuman screech, then the call ended. Nora removed the phone from her ear and stared at it in her hand.

“What was that about?” Flow asked, but their sister remained silent.

What proof did she really have that Francois died? A confusing scene, played out by blurry ghost images on her goggles. She never bothered to get an enhanced picture of Francois’ body, out of fear that if she saw it, she’d never be able to forget. And now it might be her yellowness that put an end to the poor guy’s life for real.

She had two magical devices, her goggles and Francois’ phone. Both were supposed to be infallible, yet they told her two different stories – one where Francois died last night and one where he was alive and needed help. If she was going to assume that the Vessel could just fool the phone to impersonate Francois she could as well assume that they could fool her goggles, making it appear that the boy died when in reality the Vessel might just take him for whatever reason. If Nora wasn’t so hasty to report him dead, a search-and-rescue mission could be already underway, but now, by the time the Foundation assembles a squad capable of fighting something like the Vessel, it might be already too late for Francois.

It was fifty-fifty. Toss a coin, on heads you let someone die for the sake of playing it safe, on tails you run into your own death for no other reason than pure foolishness.

Nora’s grip tightened on her phone as she dialed.

“Samantha? Track down the last incoming call on my service phone and send me the caller’s coordinates. I’ll explain it later, I promise.”

Nora had no idea how her voice must sound like, but it said something that Samantha didn’t even crack a quip as the noise of loud typing filled the line.

“Ghost District, east quarter. I’m sending you the exact address right now.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait, this call was coming from our own network. The caller was…”

She fell silent for a moment.

“No. Listen to me girl, you’re not going there.”

“I’ll be calling later.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me! Listen Nora, if you hang up right now, I swear to god I’m telling on you to Axel. I don’t want to screw you over, but I’d rather see you suspended for going against orders than eaten by that…”

“Listen, I must hurry. I hope I’m making the right call and can save both Francois and come back from this in one piece. But in case something goes wrong, if I go AWOL… tell the chief that I might’ve been wrong. Francois might still be alive, but I can’t say for sure. Also, the Vessel might be able to fool our technology. I don’t know to what extent; lenses, goggles, phones, it might be all unreliable against it. They need to look into it before trying to take the thing down, or it could end in a blood bath.”

“Please, wait a minute so I can at least-”

Nora hung up.

“Vessel?”

She turned back to her sibling, staring at her, looking pale. Nora still hasn’t figured out how the Vessel ended up with Flow’s face, given that the image rendered by the goggles was reliable at all. There was a lot to unpack here, but she just didn’t have the time right now. She could only hope she’d live long enough to clear it all up later.

“I… I have to go.”

“What?”

The girl stepped to her luggage that was still piled in one corner of the living room. One more thing common in the siblings, their habit to put off unpacking things. To Nora’s excuse, she was there only for a couple of hours instead of several weeks. She took a small, silver colored suitcase from the pile and touched her thumb to a dark spot next to the latches and put her palm on another at the top. Blue light ran over the two spots, then the latches clicked open by themselves, and the case opened with a mechanical noise. She took two items, a metallic rod and some device made up of bronze- and glass tubes, in the approximate shape of a gun. She hid both in her clothes and shut the suitcase closed.

“Could you cover for me if mom and dad ask where I am?” she asked as she went to the corridor and put on her jacket. “Also I need mom’s scooter again, tell her sorry and that I bring it back soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“It’s…” she looked at her sibling, hesitating. “It’s confidential.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Look, I’ll be back in a few hours or sooner, then we can talk about it, okay?”

“That’s not what you told your friend on the phone!”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I told her.”

“You said you might disappear!” Flow was talking a bit too loud considering their parent’s proximity, but they were losing patience. “How am I supposed to let you go like this?”

Nora frowned, anger flashing in her eyes.

“So let’s see if I’m getting this right. Are you saying that if I were about to go and do something incredibly dangerous, you’d want me not to? Because I could easily get hurt and that would hurt everyone who cares about me? Because you’d be worried sick about me?”

“I… I don’t…”

“Then here’s the deal Flow. Do you want me to stay? Fine. Then hand me that pin,” she pointed at the Enchant on Flow’s chest. “If you give it to me, then I sit back on the couch, and we can keep talking about our feelings.”

 Flow just stared at her silently, before the woman sighed.

“Right, that’s what I thought.”

She took the scooter’s keys from the shoe closet and in a moment the door slammed behind her. Flow’s dad peeked out from the living room.

“Am I delusional, or did one of my children just ran off without warning or explanation the third time this fine evening?”

“Oh, ugh, turned out that one of her friends back from high school is in the city too and neither of them realized. But the girl leaves tomorrow, so they made some last-minute plans to meet and catch up.”

“Oh, did she say who it is?”

“Nope, she was in a hurry.” Flow let out a loud yawn which was easy to fake thanks to it not being fake at all. “Sorry for skipping dinner with you and mom but I’m busted. Maybe I call it a day.”

“Really?” the man furrowed his brow. “It’s only eight.”

Flow let out an awkward laugh, scratching the back of their head, like always when they were caught off-guard.

“Yes, but it was a busy day with Nora arriving, going back and forth between home and school and then being stuck and all.”

“Well, usually you can’t get any sleep before midnight,” their dad chuckled. “So if running a few errands in the city helps this much with sleeping maybe you should try to do some exercise next.”

“Sure, good idea. I think I’ll do that. Maybe I start from tomorrow. Good night!”

Flow quickly retreated to their room and with a sting of guilt, turned the key in the lock. Then they turned the lights off and touched their pin in the dark.

“Enchant me!”

Ruthen opened the bedroom window and stepped out to the still. Then, throwing their scarf at a nearby building they swung into the night.

<> 

After the encounter with Tims, Natasha went to the bathroom and doublechecked she closed the door behind herself. She emptied her pockets on the counter under the large bathroom mirror and made a quick inventory of all the Enchants she had on her. Then she took her phone and changed the privacy settings, so it used both fingerprints and a password to unlock. Opening Herald, she updated her password and pushed the button that logged her out from all devices except the one she was currently on. Then she got down to make a bath for herself.

On most days she only took a quick shower before collapsing into bed. But it was one of the other days.

Dropping her clothes on the floor, she stepped in the bathtub, submerging into the steaming water. It was almost hot enough to burn, but it was only unpleasant for a moment. Then her skin went numb from the heat, turning into a fragile but firm shell around her, a border between the world inside and outside. It was like turning into a soap bubble, kept in fleeting existence only by the perfect balance of forces pushing from both sides. She could pop any moment, but who cares? She already contained everything she could ever be.

“If you knew how close you are to the truth. It’s almost grotesque. And definitely funny.”

“No. Not you. Not now.”

“And there it goes. ‘You.’ ‘Now.’ Like those really mean anything. It was nice while it lasted.”

“Shut up. I thought the ring would make you shut up.”                                                                                                                 …make you shut up.

“Don’t do that!”

“You invited me in of your own free will. Did you think you could just get rid of me if you wanted?”

“You said I could have, quote unquote, everything.”

“That’s right! In a way, you already do! You see, Everything is nothing, so if you have nothing, you can take Everything, because none of it means anything. Makes sense, right?”

“What if I just want you gone?”

“No you don’t.”

“You said I want everything.”

“But see, I am something. So you want me.”

“All you do is twist the meaning of words! None of your answers make any sense!”

“Because you want answers that aren’t true, but I can’t give you those. Here’s a tip: never in history was an answer ever wrong. Only people.”

“Point in case.”

Natasha opened her eyes and looked at her left hand. The ring on her little finger kept slowly changing color, what started out as a black dot in the middle of the crystally material turned into a thin streak, filling the ring’s vertical axis. She wondered how much that was. Five percent? Ten? She felt tension growing in her and her other hand curled into a fist under water. The black streak grew a little bit wider.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to loosen her muscles. What did Artemis and Nox say? Focus on the present. Focus on your surroundings. Don’t let your thoughts pull you too far from reality. What was that trick they said she should try?

Five things she saw.

She looked around herself. She saw the tap on the wall, next to the bathtub. The shower cream and the shampoo she liked at the edge of the tub. A tall metal shelf, with a large collection of fancy bath salts and bath bombs she almost never used, but she knew Miranda sometimes had fun with them. Thick, warmly colored towels hanging on the wall. The white floor tiles covering the bathroom.

Four things she felt.

Most she could feel was the heat of the water she used explicitly to numb her senses, the exact opposite of this practice’s goal. After giving it a moment, she realized that she could still feel the bottom of the hub under herself. Her wet hairlocks, sticking to her skin. And the drops of water trickling from them to her back.

Three things she heard.

It was a modern apartment with the best insulation money could buy in Pollapolis. This meant it was very quiet unless the habitants made it noisy. But when she listened carefully, she could still hear water running through the pipes buried deep into the walls. The distant noise of a plane flying over the building, either taking off or preparing to land. Waterdrops falling from the wall tiles back in the tub.

Two things she smelled.

She could smell the steam and her own sweat.

One thing she tasted.

Natasha blinked, looking around in the bathroom. There really weren’t many options. There were all the fruit scented shower creams, sure, but even if they almost surely weren’t toxic, it seemed overboard to…

She looked at herself, her hands hanging idly in the hot water. Without any better ideas, she raised her thumb to her lips, tasting his wet, hot, wrinkled skin.

“Still biting your fingertips when you’re nervous?” Tims looked at her over his glasses, then turned away immediately, like he didn’t want to waste another look on Natasha. “That’s fine. Many adults do it too, whenever they’re afraid or helpless. They act like trapped wolves when they chew down their own legs. You know, wolves have a terrible reputation but in reality, they’re quite harmless. Their howl is scary but leave them alone without their pack and they’re done for. Isn’t it fascinating how humans of the same type instinctively mimic them?”

Natasha hissed and jerked her hand away from her mouth as the closed fan slapped on her fingertips.

“Not in my house, darling,” Mrs. Alexton said on a chatting tone, opening her fan again. “And certainly not at the dinner table.”

Her eyes shot open, and she quickly rubbed her face with dripping hands.

“Okay, guess that was enough self-care for today.”

She quickly dried up and took a clean nightgown from one of the closets, then she retreated to her room. Thinking that Tims can knock if he wants anything, she closed the door behind her and threw herself at the double bed.

Yeah, this room was way too much. Even with the large bed, a separate couch with a coffee table, a television and hi-fi, a work desk with a computer, two bookshelves and a whole kitchenette complete with a fridge, it still had lots of empty space. Since the apartment was on the top floor, it also had a roof window directly above her bed, which needed a remote to open, close and close the shutters on. She also had her own, smaller bathroom, which at least was convenient when she needed to use the toilet at night. Maybe she will start to get her showers there too, the less chance she had to run into Tims the better. Then there was the wardrobe, a complete room on its own with more clothes hanging inside than she could ever wear, and several full body mirrors built into the walls.

Natasha realized that most people would love to live in a place like this and many would see her as a brat for having such a gloomy outlook on the world and her life with this much to keep her happy. Sometimes she also felt a bit hypocritic – it’s not like she missed being poor. Before she was adopted, she often dreamed about a life exactly like this, like pretty much anyone would in her position. But this didn’t change the fact that on most evenings she liked just lying in the middle of her bed and doing stuff on her phone or laptop. Even watching movies or listening to music felt much cozier on a small screen, with earbuds. Having all this for herself just made her think of all the people who could be much happier to have them and a stupid part of her felt like she was letting them down for not deriving joy from it. But knowing that it was all bought with the ulterior motive of setting her apart, as her mother’s daughter, from the ‘others’ just spoiled it all. She knew very well that Mrs. Alexton couldn’t care less about her happiness, and she hated being an excuse for an out of touch billionaire to burn even more money that won’t ever help anyone.

Maybe it could be different if she could see any of this as her own. If she had a word in decorating her room, or what she wanted to wear, or if she could do anything fun here. Maybe if she wasn’t that obtuse about Flow trying to befriend her, she could invite them here, then she could have shared it with someone and feel a bit more home from the memory too. But she didn’t think that would happen now. Her mother’s eyes were on her again in the form of her hound, Tims, and she couldn’t afford to mess up and end up in house arrest again – not now that she led a double life as an Enchanter and finally had a pale chance of finding Nash. That meant no more hanging out with people who Tims could deem as ‘the wrong crowd’ as an excuse to pester her even more. Flow had to settle for being Nocturknight’s friend and forget about Natasha Alexton.

She felt both stupid and resigned. She had almost a year of relative freedom after her mother went on her long business trip and she spent most of it expecting it to be over any minute. Now it was, and she didn’t know how to feel about it. Maybe she should have made more use of it, take the opportunity to go out more, to have fun, to get closer to other people. But at the end of the day wouldn’t that just make it harder to lose it all? The less she had to lose, the harder it was to hurt her… right?

Her bed was made by Miranda after she left for school and she felt no motivation to settle for a proper position so she just lied at the top, pushing her face into the clean quilt. After the day she had, all she wanted was sleep – and after the day she had, she knew she wouldn’t get much. Groaning, she raised her head and grabbed her phone, opening Herald. She half-expected to see a message from Flow. Lately whenever they parted ways with the girl in a low mood, she’d start to receive a series of memes, jokes, and weird nonsensical stories from them in an awkward and transparent attempt to cheer her up, before they apologized for spamming her and said goodbye for the evening.

There were no new messages. Maybe they were still talking to Matis? Natasha remembered them saying something about him dropping in.

She quickly typed a short message.

“Hey. Things got a bit complicated on my end. I don’t think I’ll be able to go out much beyond training and emergencies. I’ll try to explain it better tomorrow.”

Her index finger hovered over the Send button for a moment before she pushed Cancel instead, deleting the whole text.

“Let me know how Matis is doing. See you tomorrow” she typed instead, pushing Send.

She got out of bed, leaving her phone behind, and walked to the window. Like from the living room, the view of the city was fantastic from here.

“I should really focus on more important things,” she scolded herself.

She opened her palm and looked at the Compass Enchant. She really didn’t have high hopes of succeeding, but she had to try. If for no other reason, at least it made her feel like she was doing something. She put the pin on her nightgown.

“Direction!”

Like last time, the power activated normally, turning her eyes milky white and opening her mind for the pictures coming far away – and just like last time, she hadn’t received anything. After a moment the power ended without result.

<> 

“I don’t get it,” she complained to Artemis earlier that evening. “I thought it was supposed to lead me to anything or anyone I already know – and I know Nash. Why doesn’t it work?”

“Sadly, with magic, it’s always a bit more complicated than that,” the shopkeeper said. “Each Artifact or magical power embodies an intention it’s trying to go through with. The power to do so comes from thoughts and especially from emotions, while the intention is worded by the creator of the power. When two such intentions – two different spells clash with no way for both succeed, the winner is decided by a variety of factors. One of them is the raw power of the spell, determined by the user’s glow. But magic also runs on a ‘specific beats generic’ rule. To put it simply, in theory, there is a spell for everything – but you can also counter any spells.”

“Like your Singularity,” Nox said. “It’s the power to cut through anything – that’s the power’s intention. If you can channel enough power into it while using, you can even cut through abstract concepts, or space and time… even though, normally that’s a highly advanced application.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Natasha said, thinking back at her fight with the warlocks. “It seemed so easy back then, but now I can’t even remember how I did it. It would be handy in future fights, but I don’t think I could pull it off, at least not without releasing the Spear’s power again.”

“You might learn how to do it on your own, eventually. Think of what Nightmare’s Shadow made you capable of as a peek into your full potential. You just need to walk the long path to get there.”

“Boring. Why walk when you can fly? Magic is all about cutting to the good part.”

“How does that come to play with finding Nash?” Flow interrupted.

“Sorry, we’re getting there,” Artemis said. “You see, even though Singularity’s power doesn’t have an upper limit, and normally it can cut even magical things, like Artifacts, if you created an Artifact or spell to counter it, it still wouldn’t be able to cut through that. It’s because ‘protection from Singularity’ is a more specific purpose than ‘cutting anything’.”

“So you’re saying that someone tries to hide Nash with a ‘hide from Direction’ power?”

“Possibly, but it’s more likely to be something like ‘protection from magical observation or scrying’.” Nox said. “There are varying degrees of specificity and generally, the more specific a power is, the easier it is to use it at the price of lower flexibility. If you need to move a rock, you can do it with a ‘move things’ spell, but it will cost less effort with a ‘move rocks’ spell and even less with a ‘move this specific rock’ spell. Magic users usually aim for the middle ground, trying to find the balance between cost and flexibility. The powers waved into the Enchants are chosen specifically because they’re useful in many situations but specific enough that even a person with average glow can use them one or two times before tiring out, even though people with a stronger magical affinity, like you, can use them more easily.”

“There’s a possibility that they’re not in the Human World or in the Mistworld, in which case the Enchant wouldn’t find them either. But I find that unlikely.”

“Why?”

“Because the Sorcerer is after Nash, and while he’s powerful, so far, his activity seems to be limited to the Human World – almost certainly as a result of the Mistfall. If he had a rival who’s hiding Nash, and their power extended to multiple worlds, it seems likely that they’d find a way to take him down by now.”

“But what if it’s someone from the mistfolk?” Flow argued. “Narwia brought us to the Lower Realms, what if someone sent Nash there too?”

“I am special,” Narwia said simply.

“What does that mean?” Natasha looked at her.

“That I’m special. Not many mistfolk can do the things I can.”

“And what about the ones who can?” Flow countered.

“Nope, the reapers wouldn’t get involved in this. It’s against our code of conduct.”

“But you’re helping us,” Natasha looked at her doubtfully.

The felimorph leaned closer to her, causing the girl to pull back for a moment but then she took a hold of herself and stayed in place. Narwia put her lips close to her ears.

“Because I am. Special!” she said aloud, making Natasha jump on her seat.

“The kid is most likely hidden by someone powerful in the Human World,” Nox said. “Normally, specific spells are easier than generic ones, but that’s not the case with counter-spells. They’re considered an advanced form of magic, there can’t be many people in the Human World who can pull this off. I’m honestly confused how we didn’t know about someone like that – but it’s still the most probable answer.”

“The Knightfall Foundation,” Natasha said suddenly. “What do you know about them?”

“The charity organization?” Nox asked.

“They’re much more than that,” the girl shook her head. “They basically run this city and have huge influence throughout the continent. It’s an open secret that the government caters to them, even my mother had to tread carefully when they were involved.”

“How you guys don’t know more about them?” flow scowled. “They’re everywhere.”

“Part of the Mist Law,” Artemis shook his head. “The more power a person or organization have in the Human World, the harder it is for us to be around them, to interact with them. They become kind of invisible to us, like we are to normal humans. There wouldn’t be much point in preventing us from using magic on your world if we could just invisibly sneak into your leaders’ homes and manipulate politics and ecology from the background, right?”

“So, if they were hiding things, you wouldn’t know,” the girl said sternly.

“Why are you so suspicious about them?” Nox asked.

“It was their property where Nash and I got caught. I don’t know what exactly happened to Nash after that, but I know they thought that they could find there evidence that magic exists.”

“Hmm,” the large man scratched his chin, lost in thought.

“Yeah, those guys definitely deal with magic,” Narwia said nonchalantly.

Everyone stared at her. She shrugged.

“As long as I stay a normal housecat, I can go anywhere, did you forget? I can’t mess with things like that, but I can keep my eyes and ears open, so I do. They run dozens of institutes, technology and scientific research and they all reek of magic. I don’t know what kind though, since they run the top-secret projects behind closed doors, sealed with…”

“Magic,” Artemis sighed.

“I can’t break though those seals without breaking the Law.”

“Didn’t you ever think about telling us about this?” Nox looked at her.

“You never asked,” she shrugged.

“Then it’s obvious,” Natasha said with a burning look in her eyes. “They must have Nash.”

“This complicates things,” Artemis said, crossing his fingers and resting his chin on his hands.

“No, it doesn’t?” the girl shook her head. “We finally have a lead. We just have to follow it.”

“You say these people have a worldwide organization with lots of money and power, and now we know they’re not amateurs at magic either,” Nox reasoned. “If they can hold the Sorcerer at bay they can’t be taken lightly. You can’t just barge in and demand answers, they could be too dangerous for you to handle just yet.”

Natasha balled her fist on the table.

“You could do it though, you know. Barge in and take anything, except a no for an answer. Why make it so hard for yourself?”

“Hey,” Flow smiled at her. “I know, okay? For so long you didn’t know anything, and now you know that the answers are there. It would drive me crazy too. But there’s no point risking everything when we’re so close, right? Narwia said she’d train us – I’m sure that with little more time we can become strong enough to handle anything they can throw at us.”

The felimorph snickered.

“You’re right kid, overconfidence is free so why don’t have as much as you like?”

“You’re saying you can’t teach us how to beat those guys?” Flow gave her a teasing look.

“I can teach it,” Narwia grinned. “We’ll see if you can learn it.”

<> 

Natasha stared out of the window, feeling like the walls of her life closed on her. She was so tired of it – she went from rags to riches, learned that magic is real and became a hero just for nothing to change. She was still pushed around, with no control over her life. She just wanted to breathe, once in a while not look over her shoulder or covering from powers that could crush her. She just wanted… she wasn’t even sure.

No, that wasn’t true. She knew exactly the feeling she longed for. Not the overwhelming, alien awareness the Spear gave her which made everything feel insignificant, but the feeling that she could go anywhere, hide in the shadows or show herself to anybody, do what felt right without worry of being judged and measured. Freedom.

“No, it’s too risky.”

Or was it? All she needed to do was turning the lights off. Tims had no reason to check on her, there were cameras outside her room. Nobody would see her leave and she’d be in her room at the morning, ergo she’s been there all night, right? And she needed to get out of this apartment, she knew that. She couldn’t say what would happen if she was left with the Shadow feeding on all her miserable thoughts all night.

“Enchant me,” she whispered.

She opened the large window, letting the chilly night air tickle her skin, left uncovered by her mask. The city was an ocean of light and music and sirens beneath her feet.

They could close up Natasha as much they wanted. But they couldn’t keep Nocturknight away from her domain.

<> 

The address led Nora to one of the worse parts of the Ghost District. Not like the place had really pleasant parts mind you, most inhabitants were either squatters living in abandoned apartments with no water or electricity, or people either selling or seeking out goods and services that would land them in prison in other parts of the city, but were openly displayed here, where no Civil Guard set their foot. A handful of the businesses here were pretty simple bars and nightclubs that weren’t too picky about their customer basis, but were willing to save money on taxes, safety permits and license to serve alcohol, thus allowing them to offer said customers pretty generous prices while still making a decent profit. There were always some up and coming self-proclaimed crime lords who tried to claim part of the District to themselves, but none of those organizations really took root. The city seemed to have given up on this part of it long ago, and with no real threat from the authorities barging in and taking down their living, most local entrepreneurs learned to deal with the occasional “debt collectors” and remained independent.

Then there were the parts like these. The ones that were built first during the city’s expansion and abandoned first after the economic collapse. The buildings were practically falling apart, setting foot in them ran a serious risk of being buried under a pile of debris any moment. Nora could swear she saw a giant rat the size of a toy dog, but turning her head there, there was nothing. She couldn’t help but think about the online gossip about mutant animals roaming in Pollapolis’ sever system that only come to the surface in certain parts of the Ghost District. The Foundation didn’t find anything proving those stories so far, but in this line of work you learned not to discard a possibility because of the mere lack of evidence.

According to Samantha, the call was coming from a second floor flat. Of course, the elevator didn’t work, and Nora had doubts about the staircase, but she took the risk. Most of the numbers marking the flats were missing too, but she could make an educated guess and locate the one she was looking for by the few that were still in place.

The lock was broken… no, more like it was missing completely. It looked like someone tore out the contraption with a chunk of wood from the door. Nora looked around, but she couldn’t see the missing lock lying anywhere. Feeling her heart pounding, she took her essence gun and her baton in her hands and pushed the door open. It gave in easily.

The flat was smelling of mold and other things better not to think about. Sometime in the past it must be meant to be a single-room residence with a separate bathroom and a small kitchen installed in one of the corners, but by now almost all the furnishing was missing. All Nora could see was a decaying carpet on the floor, a small table and a closet, and various piles of junk covering the ground. Nobody seemed to be inside.

As Nora stepped in to take a better look around, she felt something small, hard and sharp creaking under her shoe. Raising her feet, she picked up the tiny object, but there wasn’t enough light coming in the empty window frames to inspect it better. She clicked a switch on the side of her baton, activating a sharp white flashlight built into the tip of the weapon. The Foundation might be working with magic, but that didn’t mean their designs weren’t pragmatic.

The tiny stone between her fingertips reflected the light with a blood-red sparkle. Nora realized she was holding a ruby. Scanning the ground with the flashlight, she took a better look at what she thought were piles of junk in the dark.

One pile was made of jewelry. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, golden and silver rings, necklaces, bracelets, pearls, medallions, all piled up on the moldy carpet. Another, larger pile was of all kinds of electronic wares – smartphones, digital watches, tablets, toasters, coffee machines, even a few microwaves and a television. Some of them seemed to be taken apart, but all looked completely new.

The third pile was money. Cash, bills and coins in all notes, making it hard to guess the total value. Before taking a closer look, Nora mistook it for paper waste.

She stepped to the small table in the middle of the room, directing her light at the shiny, metallic objects at top. They were knives – pocketknives, kitchen knives, daggers, antique looking dueling- and throwing knives. Nora also noticed a small plastic card at the corner of the table. She took it.

It was an ID card, printed with the Knightfall Foundation logo, almost identical to hers.

Francois Debone

Operative Department

Junior field operator

Feeling her stomach tightening, Nora sank the card into her pocket and took another look around. There were, at the very least, thousands of lunars lying around this dumpster in cash and various goods. Why would someone hoard that many valuable things and keep living like this? Nora felt like the hero of a fairy tale, who just found the cave of the dragon full of its ill-gotten loot – problem is, she could feel it in her guts that this wasn’t one of the puffy modern retellings where the hero always comes on top.

She stepped toward the closet when she heard a noise, like something was moving inside. She stopped immediately, her hands tightening on her weapons. She realized she was panting, and however she tried, she couldn’t move her feet. She forced herself to take deep, calculated breaths, trying to ignore the smells, while recalling her combat training.

Relaxed posture, steady breathing. Always look ahead, use your peripheric vision to look out for dangers from the sides and your hearing to notice ambush from behind. Point the essence gun straight ahead and keep the baton diagonally at your side. Adrenalin is good, it makes you think and move faster, but don’t let panic overwhelm you. If you’re expecting the attack, most opponents can be intercepted and neutralized before they can get in range. Ride your fear like a horse, don’t be crushed under its hooves.

She was grateful to her trainer, but she still felt like a giant, stiff knot of nerve and muscle. Oh well, she still had to do it.

Nora stepped to the closet and swung the door open with her baton-holding hand, then quickly jumped back, pointing her gun inside.

“Don’t move!”

“Don’t move!”

To her surprise, Nora faced the barrel of another essence gun. It was held by a young man with dark hair, who was standing inside the closet and was holding the weapon with two shaking hands as he pointed it at her.

“Nora?” Francois blinked. “God, you scared me. I thought that thing was coming back.”

He let his gun down with a relived sigh.

“Thing?” Nora asked, still pointing her weapon at the boy.

“Yeah, it jumped at me screaming. I could barely get away.”

“Then you… hid in the closet? Instead of making a run for the door?”

“It all happened so quickly, I didn’t know what was going on,” he shook his head. “I still don’t know. I thought it cornered me and I’m done for, but then… it just vanished, I guess? But I don’t think it’s gone for good.” He peeked out to the room over Nora’s shoulder. “Hey, how did you get here so quickly? We were talking on the phone a few minutes ago.”

“No, we didn’t,” Nora said, her grip on the gun tightening slightly. “That was almost an hour ago.”

“Seriously?” Francois asked, his mouth agape. “I must have blacked out again without realizing it… hey, how did you even end up in Pollapolis?”

“I have a better question,” she stared at him coldly. “How do I know that you’re really Francois?”

“What?” the man shook his head with confusion. “Who else could I be?”

“The Vessel,” Nora said, forcing calmness on her voice. “It kills people and absorbs their souls to power itself. As a result, it becomes an almost perfect doppelganger of the victim. It copies their appearance, gains their memories, learns their habits and mannerisms. It can easily fool even those who know the person the best and that’s how they get close to their new victims.”

“I knew what the Vessel is, I was there in basic training with you!” the young man snapped. “But that’s stupid, the Vessel vanished hundreds of years ago. And I’m alive!”

“I’ve seen otherwise,” the girl said quietly.

The boy shook.

“Nora I… I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what happened to me and how did I get here. All I know is that I’m freaking out and you’re really not helping with that right now.”

Nora furrowed her brow.

“All right, I tell you what I know,” she said. “You vanished. You went on a mission then didn’t report back for over twelve hours, so I was dispatched to track you down as per protocol. I came to the city. I found your essence trail and followed it to an alleyway right next to North Star Mall. Your trail ended there and when I looked into the Flux, I saw the Vessel killing you.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“There’s a device that runs on magic and shows me the past exactly as it happened and it tells me that you can’t possibly be alive Francois!” the girl said, suddenly on the verge of screaming as she held her gun higher. “That I’m talking to the Vessel now.”

“But… it’s me! I don’t remember what happened, but look at me Nora, I am Francois!”

“Then how did you get here?”

“I told you I can’t remember!” the boy snapped, shaking in his whole body now. “I was tracking a petty thief with an Artifact. I used the reports on the earlier thefts to narrow down their next target then waited. Sure enough, after a few days came an alarm, so I rushed there to set an ambush and… I don’t know.”

“Don’t you remember the alley?”

“I… I think so,” he held his temples tightly, like he was trying to literally press his brain to remember. “I think I remember going there, then cut to black.”

“That’s a very weak story Francois,” Nora said sternly.

“I know,” he shook his head. “But it’s true. That’s all I can remember.”

Nora stepped closer, now only inches separated the barrel of her gun from Francois’ chest.

“That’s really all you can tell me?” she asked hoarsely. She couldn’t help but her eyes tear up. “Nothing else?”

The man just stared at her, then he closed his eyes closely and hung his head low. His fingers tightened around his own gun, but he didn’t raise it at the girl.

Nora swallowed loudly and took a deep breath – then she let her hand drop with the gun.

“All right,” she sighed.

Francois opened his eyes.

“Won’t you shoot me?” he asked.

“As I said, very weak story,” she said, her voice still shaking. “The Vessel is several hundred years old, killed thousands of people and managed to evade any attempts to take it down, even when its physical form was completely annihilated. I think when pressed with a gun, it would come up with something better than ‘I don’t know’.”

The girl stepped back, letting Francois out of the closet.

“What about that screeching thing that attacked you?” she asked. “Could you take a look at it?”

“No, it all happened in a blur,” he shook his head. “Do you really think it was the Vessel?”

“That’s my best guess.”

“Then we should get out of here before it comes back. There’s no way the two of us can handle that thing, I don’t even know where my baton is.”

“Yeah, that would be the smart thing to do,” Nora said, looking around in the room again.

“You’re hesitating.”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Nora said. “How did it fool the goggles? That means it knew about the Foundation, the technology and that we will use it. And more importantly, why? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you’re okay, but the Vessel is supposed to kill people. Why go through all this bother to kidnap you then leave you alone here where you can easily escape from?”

“I don’t know how abominations think,” the man shrugged. “Maybe it’s all just a game for them.”

“The Vessel is rational. Twisted, but rational. It started out as a distorted reflection of its creator, an embodiment of the worst things a human could become. But it became more complex over time and to feed that growth, it developed a hunger for souls. It might be sadistic, but it doesn’t hunt us for the heck of it, it needs us for its survival.

“I’m worried Francois. If the Vessel changed how it hunts, if it doesn’t kill its targets anymore that might indicate that its nature changed too. Maybe it’s something connected to how it returned after all this time, or maybe it stepped into a new evolutional stage, I don’t know. What I know is that right now the Foundation is assembling a special team to take it down, while all their information could be completely out of date.”

“Then there’s what I’d rather not tell you… that on the goggle’s image, it looked like my sibling. I don’t know what happened, but the Vessel left them alive too. If the Foundation connects the Vessel to Flow, they’re going to have questions. By that time, I need to have the answers if I want to protect my family.”

“Look, this is the Vessel’s lair,” Nora said. “If you’d rather go, I understand, but I will stay and try to dig up any information I can before it returns. Agents’ lives might depend on it.”

“Like I could leave you behind right after you came to my rescue,” Francois sighed. “But I don’t know what you’re hoping for. We can pretty much see the whole place from where we stand – if you want to apprehend that thing for grand theft, you have all the proof you need, but what else can you figure out?”

“Let’s at least check out the bathroom, okay?” Nora pointed at the only door leading out of the single room. “Then we hit the bricks and report back to HQ.”

“All right,” Francois given up. “It’s against all horror film survival guides, but let’s go.”

“You can’t survive a horror film by knowing the tropes, that’s just another way to get killed for being too smart. You have to pretend to be dumb until the last ten minutes, then never come back for the sequel.”

They stepped to the bathroom and pushed the door open – then both recoiled, covering their faces with their clothes from the smell. It was like spoiled meat, mixed with a heavy, metallic odor.

“It eats people’s souls,” Francois said hesitantly, like he didn’t want to follow the thought. “Does… does anyone know what it does with the bodies?”

Nora shook her head. She’d rather not think about it, but she felt like she might have no choice but to find out.

The bathroom was just as barren as the main room. The floor was covered with black tiles and the walls with ones that might have been white sometimes in the past, but it was all buried under decades of dirt. There was a broken toilet but no bathtub or shower. Nora saw a tap on the far wall, her guess was that the shower pipe was supposed to connect there, but there was no tray. Instead, a large drain opened in the middle of the room, like in some public showers.

Scanning the bathroom with Nora’s flashlight, they noticed a pile of rags close to the drain. Hesitantly, they stepped into the small, stinking room to inspect it. Using the end of her baton, Nora spread out one of the larger, lightly colored clothes on the ground, then directed the light at it.

Sometimes ago it was a nice-looking white dress shirt, before it was seemingly thorn apart and stained with some kind of reddish-brown material.

“Are those… blood stains?” Francois asked quietly.

“Probably.”

“Dammit,” the boy swore. “We’re really, really out of our water here Nora.”

“Let me just check if there’s anything useful in this pile, then we’re out of here.”

“The pants and the waistcoat she found were in a similarly poor condition and the pockets were all empty.

She noticed a small text embroidered into the shirt’s collar though, barely visible in the dim light.

“Antonio? Isn’t that brand from Capricopolis? I remember you getting kinda obsessed with their shop during training.”

“Y- yeah,” Francois said, fiddling with his shirt’s collar nervously. “Found anything else?”

“Still looking.” The girl pushed the cloth pile away, scanning the floor under it, hoping something might have fallen out of the clothes she missed. “Hey, do you still have that lucky bracelet? The one your dad bought you after you graduated?”

“Yes.”

Francois raised his hand, looking at his wrist. It was a simple silver chain, with a small plaque, decorated with his name. It wasn’t the flashiest gift he ever received, but his father wasn’t really into fashion or accessories and the fact he was trying was kinda heartwarming. Francois kept wearing the bracelet wherever he went.

Fighting against her twirling stomach, Nora reached into the drain with her fingertips, fishing out something shiny. She put it in her palm, directing light at it.

It was a small silver chain with a plaque, the name “Francois” engraved into it.

She looked up at the boy.

“I… I don’t understand…”

He looked at his wrist. His bracelet started to flicker like a bad video tape and vanished from his hand.

“I… I must have lost it. Maybe when I was blacking out. I just imagined it’s still on me, this place is messing with my head…”

“You couldn’t imagine it, I saw it too,” the girl said. “A moment ago, a bracelet identical to this was on your hand, then it vanished. Francois…”

“I want to go!” the boy snapped. “Why can’t we just leave, why…”

The essence gun slipped from his hand, landing on the floor with a loud knock. The boy held his head tightly, bending over.

“I don’t understand…”

Your soul is interesting!

“No! I don’t want to remember this, please!”

You have something precious on you, something shiny…

“It was just a nightmare! Don’t make me sleep back! Please, I don’t want to…”

Nora rose to her feet, staring at the boy, but for a moment she couldn’t decide if she should approach him or not.

Something glowing!

“No!”

Francois screamed, but his voice turned into a distorted screech, barely human. His whole body became transparent, then started to flicker and change. Nora pointed her gun at him and for a moment, she wanted to pull the trigger, but she just couldn’t.

Francois vanished and someone else raised their head standing in his place. Under dyed black and green locks, Nora saw a gentle-looking face, similar to her mother’s, hers. From her sibling’s face stared a pair of eyes, nothing like Flow’s warm brown irises.

“Who the hell are you?” the Vessel asked, giving her a burning red glare. “And what the fuck just happened to me?”

<> 

Her long coat waving behind her, Nocturknight jumped through Pollapolis’ skyline. Night already set in, and the sky was sparkling with moon dust above her as she jumped from one building to another. She stayed high on the rooftops, where the street level looked like a distant web of lines and dots. She wasn’t looking for problems to solve with her magic, just to clear out her head. Ruthen was better at interacting with citizens in everyday situations anyway.

After making a few fancy jumps and spins to get her blood pumping, she headed toward the river, landing at the Botanic Garden. It was far from the tallest building in the city, but it was at the riverbank (built above the river actually), with a nice view of the bustling city around, doubled by the reflection of the water below. There were lights filtering out of the glass dome at the middle of the roof. It wasn’t that late yet, and since the introduction of an exhibit with night flora that only bloomed for a few hours after dark, the Garden stayed open with lowered staff even after normal closing hours. It made the place more accessible, allowed employees to make some extra cash by taking a night shift or two with less visitors but good pay, and the Knightfall Foundation would cover the costs, so it was a win for everyone.

Nocturknight sat down close to the dome, leaning with her palms on the concrete behind her and stared at the view, feeling the pounding of her heart slowly calm down as she let her thoughts and gaze slip into the distance.

“Nice place for stargazing, huh?”

The girl jumped up, spun toward the other figure that she didn’t notice before and raised her hands in a fighting position. She was just about to call out Singularity to arm herself when she finally recognized the person standing in the dark before her.

“Bianca?”

“Sorry, didn’t want to startle you,” the green haired girl said, raising her hands in a calming manner. “Even though… guess that’s kind of a flex, being able to startle a superhero, huh? Still, sorry. I just noticed you sitting there, and I would feel awkward not to say hi.”

“It’s okay, I just wasn’t expecting company up here,” Nocturknight said, letting her hands down. Then she raised her eyebrow. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I just like coming here, calming my nerves I guess.”

“Oh, I… I see.”

“Yes, it’s kinda weird,” Bianca chuckled. “After what happened, this place should be anything but calming. But… this was also the place where you and Ruthen saved me. And after that day I was able to talk to my friend again. So since then, when I’m feeling down and it seems easier to just let go of everything, I come back here and think about how much you did to bring me back. To cheer me up and remind myself that I should keep fighting for myself, since others think I’m worth fighting for too.”

Nocturknight almost asked if she was feeling down and that was why she was there, but she changed her mind at the last moment.

“So, are you often hanging out on rooftops?”

“Sometimes,” the girl admitted. Then she showed up her notebook. “Originally I was making a sketch of the city, before it got too dark to draw. But then I just found myself staring ahead, lost in thought, and didn’t feel like going down. And what about you? Looking for young maidens to save?” She smiled.

Nocturknight blinked with confusion.

“Uhm, because of your name,” Bianca explained. “And also since you saved me… twice, before actually. Sorry, it sounded funnier in my head. So are you on some kind of patrol? Is Ruthen around too?”

“No, I’m on my own,” Nocturknight said. “Truth be told, I’m not on some kind of heroic business. I was just… looking to clear my head a bit. Kind of like you, I guess.”

“Makes sense.”

Bianca stepped closer, standing next to her, looking out at the night city.

“It must be a lot of stress and responsibility, protecting Pollapolis from the warlocks and who knows what else. But sometimes it must be nice, huh? I mean, when your normal life is getting a bit too much, guess you can just step out into the night. Turn into someone else and get away from it all, at least for a little while. I don’t miss being a villain, but… I wouldn’t mind if I had a little escape like that sometimes, without losing my mind.”

Nocturknight gave her a side-glance. She probably wasn’t supposed to do it, not in a situation like this, but… heck, it’s not like there were exact rules to this. Or if there were, Artemis never bothered to tell them. If let’s say, there was a clause about not using the Enchants’ power for personal purposes she was already breaking it by being here.

“Actually, would you like to join me for a little roof-jumping?” she smirked.

“Huh?” Bianca blinked at her. “That sounds like a lot of fun, but… I don’t know how I’d keep up with you. Unless… uh, you wanted to carry me all the way, but…”

Her cheeks turned bright red.

“There’s no need,” Nocturknight said.

She took off her hat and reached into it like a magician. For a moment, Bianca expected her to pull a bunny out, but it was a small, shiny pin in the shape of a four-leaf clover. She handed it to Bianca.

“Is that…”

“If you put this on, you’ll have no problem keeping up the pace.”

“Is this really okay? That you’re giving me this?”

“It’s only temporal,” Nocturknight shrugged. “And I’m not breaking any written rules since there aren’t any that I’m aware of. We’re supposed to use the Enchants to help people, but the specifics of that are kinda fuzzy. As far as I’m concerned, all I see is a citizen in desperate need of some fun and exercise, so I’m helping.”

She winked and Bianca turned away to hide her blush getting deeper. She attached the charm to her blouse.

“This is your first time using an Enchant, so it won’t last long, but should be enough for a little tour,” Nocturknight said. “Also, just in case anything goes wrong… this charm lets you create a streak of luck by saying Fortune. That should keep you safe, but it costs a lot of energy, so only use it if there’s an emergency.”

“Awesome,” Bianca said, looking at the small pin. “Do I get a cool costume too, or are you guys just that good with a sewing machine?”

“No, magic takes care of it. Just touch the pin and say…”

“Enchant me!”

Bianca’s hair kept its color, but changed shape, forming four green orbs around her head. She was wearing a black top with detached green sleeves and a green four-leaf clover motif on her chest, a green miniskirt with black clovers around its hem and high-heeled black boots with green clovers at the height of her ankle and a simple green cape. Her round glasses were replaced with one with a green frame in the shape of two… yes, she was really leaning into the whole four-leaf clover theme.

“Wow,” she looked at herself. “This is amazing, I look exactly like I thought I would. Does this thing read my mind?”

“I think it does, a little bit,” Nocturknight said. “At the very least it knows what you want to do with it’s magic… I never thought much about it honestly. You can create any costume you know; you don’t have to base it on the Enchant’s theme.”

“Yeah, but I like clovers. The four-leaf version is a variation caused by mutation or a rare gene, people are not sure, and they were associated with luck for a long time, even though nobody knows where that tradition started. I always liked that idea. Being born different is usually… heavy. If people don’t treat you outright as a freak of nature, they expect you to be super talented, driven, or hard-working, just to justify your existence. But four-leaf clovers have no specific use that sets them apart from three-leaf ones. It’s just a quirk – still, people consider themselves lucky if they find one. And isn’t that admitting that diversity is a value on its own?”

Nocturknight smiled.

“Let me guess, you already figured out a codename too, don’t you?”

“Heck yeah.”

She spun around, letting her skirt twirl and struck a pose, holding her hand next to her eye, closing her thumb, and forming a V with the rest of her fingers, like she was showing the mark of Victory with four fingers.

“Clover is ready for action!” she winked. “Okay, guess my heroic posing needs a bit more polishing.”

“No-no, it was impressive looking from here,” Nocturknight assured her. “I wouldn’t want to be a warlock threatening the city tonight.”

Clover chuckled at the teasy compliment and stepped to the edge of the roof.

“Then lead the way, will you?”

“Don’t fall behind,” Nocturknight grinned, jumping away from the roof.

<> 

Nora pulled the trigger and her essence gun lit up with white light.

“Ah,” the Vessel grimaced, realizing it was letting their guard down too long.

A white lightning bolt shot out of the gun, hitting the small figure right in the chest. With a blinding explosion of light, they flew through the bathroom and landed somewhere in the bedroom with a loud crack. The long dead lights of the flat started to flicker weakly as the electric system drank up the residual energy from the air.

Nora stared at the bathroom door, her hands and legs shaking, but she couldn’t see the Vessel in the other room. Nothing seemed to move. No noise.

“Come on, move!” she nagged herself silently. All her cells individually objected against going after that thing, but she was cornered in a small room with no other exit. If she didn’t push her advantage now, if she didn’t get away before the Vessel could recover, she could have just let her at its mercy to begin with.

She stepped into the door, where she could see the whole bedroom, and scanned through it with her eyes and her weapon. Thanks to the essence blast bringing back the flat’s lights to life, at least she didn’t have to rely on her flashlight anymore.

There was no trace of the Vessel. Nora looked at the entrance, still open since she entered a few minutes back. Could the blast push them out of the flat? No – she had a good enough estimate of its weight, and she knew the essence gun didn’t have nearly as much knock-back. Did it just tank the hit then ran away? She couldn’t put that much faith in her luck. Most likely, it was setting an ambush, lying in wait somewhere outside. It didn’t have to catch the girl in the flat – they were on the second floor.

She’d have to pass several corridors before getting to the staircase leading down, dark, mushy tubes cutting through the flesh of this decaying house, all great places for the Vessel to jump at her from the shadows.

Even if she’d get to the staircase, that was a death trap. No room to maneuver, dodge or escape, she could only go down with the Vessel right behind her back.

Even if she’d get through all of that, the thing still got a whole floor to get serious and catch up to her before she could reach the exit.

Then what? The Vessel wasn’t some kind of murder ghost, bound to the place it haunted. Even if Nora got out and breathed fresh air again, it had no reason to stop at the door. It had superhuman strength, speed, and resilience, and it was the closest thing humanity ever got to a natural predator. Her scooter would probably do jack to leave it in the dust.

The bastard was playing with her. There was no other reason why it would pretend to be Francois so long then not snipe at her while her guard was down. Killing wasn’t enough for it anymore, it had to rub it in.

But Nora was an armed prey, and unlike poor Francoise, she came here knowing what to expect. The Vessel might not be human, but its arrogance was certainly human-like. And just like humans, it got careless when it thought it was winning.

Nora had to take it down. Outrunning it was a lost cause, she had to at least knock it out long enough for her to escape. Or she wouldn’t see her family again.

She slowly stepped ahead, ancient floorboards creaking under the filthy rag. She almost didn’t see the shadow moving above her in time.

Nora screamed as the grinning figure jumped at her from the ceiling, but her close combat training honed her reflexes well enough to react without time to think. Her right arm swung on its own to block, while her thumb pushed the big button on her baton without her having to command it. The weapon opened with a buzz as it filled up with essence.

Her knees bent on their own, to provide her a split second more and a few more inches as he parried the strike from the two knives the Vessel had in its hands. But as her another hand raised on its own, to grab the baton too and secure her position before striking back, her essence gun, forgotten in the moment, fell on the ground with a thud. As its feet tapped down, the Vessel kicked it far away on the floor.

Nora groaned and kicked the Vessel in the shin, then pushed it away for long enough to swing her baton. It took two hits to the head but kept smiling wildly and caught her weapon mid-air during the third swing.

“Maybe your toys could faze me while I was starving to death, but now you need much more if you want to scratch me.”

They pulled Nora closer by her baton while grinning at her hungrily.

“And I’ll get even stronger with your soul!”

With a button push, Nora collapsed her baton again, leaving the Vessel stumbling for footing for a moment. She stepped past them and spun around, swung at the Vessel while activating the weapon again mid-swing. The extra push from the opening mechanic was enough to send it to the ground. But before Nora could jump in to strike again while it was down, they pushed their palm down, spinning face-up on the floor and threw one of their knives at her. Nora batted it away, but that gave the Vessel enough time to jump back at their feet again.

They circled around each other for a second, both looking for an opening.

“I recognize you,” the Vessel mused, studying Nora’s face in the flickering lights. “Yes, actually, I double-recognize you. You’re in both of the memories of that stupid kid, Flow, and the other Foundation clown, the one I ate last night.”

“What do you have to do with Flow?” Nora growled.

The Vessel laughed.

“You’re their sister, aren’t you? They thought you were doing some boring internship job but looks like sis is a dirty little liar. And while you were away, learning how to save the word, they’ve ended it! That’s the best story I heard in a few hundred years!”

“What are you babbling about‽”

“Don’t you get it?” they grinned. “They set me free! They didn’t just rub my lamp and made a bad wish – they crushed the lamp and put my fate into my hands! This body, it’s not a projection anymore. My essence isn’t stuck in a mirror or other stupid Artifact you can send me back into. I’m the real deal now! It will only take time before I devour your entire pathetic kind and claim this world to myself. Human World – sounds stupid, isn’t it? How about Vess’ World next, huh?”

Nora jumped ahead, going for a low strike at their waist. Vess side-stepped easily, letting the girl overreach and swung their knife. Nora pulled back and spun, knocking the knife out of their hand. It clanked on the floor.

The Vessel’s red eyes glared up with anger. Instead of retreating they reached for Nora’s chest, their fingernails turning into sharp claws. The girl froze, almost a moment too long, as the scene with the ghost images played back in her head. Francois’ last moments. Then she felt something, a hot tension growing in her chest. The baton’s buzz felt stronger in her hand as a barely visible light coated the weapon. She stepped back and found strong footing. She breathed in deeply. Then she breathed out and struck.

A small shockwave ran through the room, making the lights sparkle as her baton smashed into the Vessel’s face. It faltered and pulled back, rubbing their nose. Nora saw blood tainting the skin on their hand.

“You’re a tough one, huh? Much better material than that nicely dressed buffoon last night.”

Nora still held her baton in both hands, breathing heavily. She wanted to go for another attack, smash the damm thing until it was down, but whatever possessed her body for a moment, it was gone, leaving her feel vulnerable and dizzy. She couldn’t overpower the Vessel like this, she needed a better plan. Without turning her head, she started to scan the room’s floor with her eyes.

“Guess strong glow runs in your family. I always found that puzzling, glow is supposed to carry over from your previous lives, honed through dozens, hundreds of reincarnations. Yeah, souls take a damm long time to ripen but they’re fucking delicious when they’re ready for harvest.”

They grinned.

“Guess some genetic factors just make for better hosts for more advanced souls. Isn’t it funny? You meat- and bone sacks are, in the eye of the universe, just vessels for souls yourself. But doesn’t that make me superior to you? You can store one of those things in your pathetic clay at best, but I can absorb them endlessly. Isn’t it only natural that at the end I’d come out on top?”

Nora answered that with an unamused look.

“Stop giving cheesy villain speeches on my sibling’s voice.”

She jumped to the ground, reaching for her gun.

“Tsk.”

The Vessel raised their hand, and the essence gun flew into their open palm.

“Crap! Freaking telekinesis!”

She turned around to peek into the barrel of her own weapon, pointed at her by the creature.

“I wonder, would you survive a shot from this?”

Without waiting for an answer, they pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

“Sorry, I don’t think you passed your gun safety test,” Nora smirked.

She smashed the end of her baton to the ground, giving herself enough momentum to jump on her feet.

“I see. So it’s locked to your specific essence composition. Doesn’t matter.”

They threw the gun behind themself, where Nora couldn’t reach it without passing through them.

The girl raised her baton and brought it down on the floor with full force again. The floorboards cracked painfully.

“Okay, playtime’s over.”

Vess raised their hand again, tearing away the baton from Nora’s hand from afar. They threw it aside and walked toward the girl.

“Families with strong glow – they made my life so easy before the Mistfall. You get one person, then use their form to get to the next and so on. With a bit of planning and self-restraint, a single family can last for years, decades. Do you know anything about of the royal family of the old Semanopolis? I was their last six High Prince. Just wait a few months, maybe half a year, feed on lesser family members until the next heir invites you to hunt in the woods, just the two of you. Wait until they try to kill you, just to see their expression, then take their place and repeat. With all the plagues and assassinations going on, nobody got even suspicious I was around. I could do it indefinitely if their family parties weren’t so damm boring. On Aunt Seraphasel’s one hundred and fifth birthday ball I couldn’t take it anymore. Ate all of them, burned the castle to the ground and blamed it all on the agitators. I think the city switched to democracy after that.”

They stopped barely out of arm’s reach from Nora and smiled.

“Maybe I’ll use your face to get to know your family better, huh? It always annoyed me how your sibling slipped out of my hand. I just know it would bother me for the rest of the century if I didn’t tear them apart with my own hands… well, sorry. I mean, with your hands.”

Nora jumped in the air, as high as she could, then landed in a squatting position.

With a last crack, the boards gave in, and the floor collapsed around her, letting her fall through a circular hole.

Vess smiled.

Chasing was the best part.

<> 

“This is amazing!” Clover laughed. She followed Nocturknight, jumping from a flagpole to a windowsill to a scaffolding before they rested for a moment, squatting on two gargoyles next to each other. “I’m not even winded. I feel like I could jump to the moon, like I’m unstoppable!”

“Yeah, my first time was pretty ecstatic too.” Nocturknight said. The Enchanter quickly made sure after each jump that Clover is okay and have no problem keeping up but dictated a fast tempo otherwise – speed was a good way to get your worries out of your head and she felt like they both needed that.

“Did it lose its charm since then?” Clover looked at her. This moment she couldn’t imagine how could doing this every day not be… enchanting.

“The speed, the strength, you get used to that quickly,” Nocturknight shrugged. “But it feels like there’s always more to it. The bolder and more confident you get with your magic the more it becomes capable of in your hand. Like it’s always teasing you to test and push your limits a bit further.”

“That’s how ordinary folks see magic. Like something playful but also distant, something following its own rules only. Giving you things or taking them away, following unpredictable whims.

“Doesn’t that sound familiar, Natasha? That’s how people see life too. And it’s not a coincidence.

“Magic. Life. Essence. Glow. Thoughts. Emotions. Reality.

“So many words for the same thing.

“You could do so, so much more. Pushing the limits, always a bit further? Why don’t you cut through them all and reach out for what you want?

“That’s the real power. That’s how you win. And once you do…

“We can watch the Fireworks.”

 

Nocturknight shook her head and jumped up. Spinning toward the wall, she pushed herself away, landing on another rooftop. Clover landed next to her in a moment.

“Wow.”

They ended up on a smaller building, in a gap between two giant skyscrapers and the view suddenly opened before them. They saw the city, stretching into the distance, the Polla as it cut through in the middle, following its ancient course, unaware and uncaring for the billions of lives building their lives around it. Beyond the city there were a few mountains, still unclaimed by civilization, and beyond the mountains, they saw the moon. The irregularly shaped space rock, an asteroid that was heading toward the Globe in the long-lost past, but then got trapped by the gravitational field to fly in circles around the planet for the rest of billions of years poured its golden light on the horizon. Around it, thousands or more smaller lights, the moon dust – much smaller asteroids orbiting the Globe, normally too small to see even during night hours. But thanks to the reflective materials they contained, they became visible as small sparkles if they passed close enough to the moon to trap its light in their field.

“It’s kinda amazing how this view is always here, every night,” Clover said. “Most people never even think about it, least look at it, even though it’s only a few stories high away from them. Must be cool that these things are part of your life – like a secret world, hiding right under everyone’s noses.”

“Yeah,” Nocturknight stared into the distance. “But honestly, being able to share it with someone else makes me appreciate it much more. I mean… normally there’s Ruthen, but that’s different. They were an Enchanter for as long as I was, so I don’t really get to be a show-off with them.”

Clover studied Nocturknight’s face for a moment – what she could see from her mask that is. She turned away, hesitating, then looked at her again.

“Hey, can I be… indiscreet?”

Nocturknight looked at her.

“About what?”

There must be a lot of questions Clover wanted to ask. Where the Enchants came from? How Nocturknight and Ruthen got hung up in all this to begin with? What they knew about the warlocks and the Sorcerer that was still secret for the public? Curiosity was just human nature, but Nocturknight had to be very careful what to say to any of those. Dodging would be probably the safest – for Bianca and for everyone else too.

“Ruthen and you… are you…” she shrugged. “You know.”

Nocturknight blinked, trying to process the inquiry.

“Ruthen and I,” she repeated carefully. “Are we… what?”

“A… you know, an item? Together? Like, a couple?”

Nocturknight crossed her arms before her chest, staring at the concrete at her feet intensely.

“No, we’re not. Why? I mean, why did you think that?”

“I’m not sure honestly,” Clover scratched her head. “A lot of people thinks, but most of them don’t get to spend enough time with you to ask.”

“We’re friends. We’re also working together to help people,” Nocturknight said drily, still avoiding the other’s look. “If we were fire-fighters, working on the same engine, people would still couple us together?”

“Well, if you’d end up as much in the news as fire-fighters… I’d say probably yes.”

Nocturknight scoffed.

“Sorry, didn’t want to make it this awkward. But it’s not that serious. It’s just how many people think… they see two cool people and think about what if they met? If they were friends? And if they already spend a lot of time each other, their mind wanders into what if they were involved, I guess. It’s like… thinking of what if you could combine your favorite TV show and videogame into the same world and plot. Even if it doesn’t make much sense, still fun to think about it.”

“So you’re saying the reason people like to ship so much is that couples are like crossovers for people?” Nocturknight asked doubtfully.

“Partially?” Clover shrugged. “But you’re right, it’s probably a bit more complicated than that. People see you and Ruthen, working together, taking on challenges they couldn’t face alone. You have a great teamwork and support each other so well. Many people wish to have a bond like that with someone, and most of them hopes to find it with a romantic partner. Maybe imagining that that’s how you are too gives them hope that they will find something similar in their life.”

Nocturknight grimaced. Being a canvas for other’s wish fulfilment – she didn’t know if she was comfortable with that. She spent most of her life as Natasha playing roles she didn’t really want but had to put up with to stay under the radar, to survive – to stay in the game. Being Nocturknight was the closest she ever felt to being able to be herself. No, maybe she had no idea what that exactly meant to her. But she sure as hell didn’t want other people to figure it out for her.

On the other hand – if she used the identity of Nocturknight to live out her dreams she never could otherwise, how much right she was to deny the same from others? Most people didn’t have Enchants; they didn’t have magic. The closer they ever got to it was imagining themselves into Ruthen’s and her place. It’s not like these ‘people’ Clover mentioned ever really did anything to make her uncomfortable. They just lived their lives and had some silly ideas. Maybe she should just ignore the whole thing?

Ruthen and Artemis insisted that being Enchanters were more than fighting bad guys. That they were supposed to give people hope. Maybe this was just another way to do that, she really wasn’t sure.

Nocturknight sighed and sat down on the concrete, hugging her knees. Clover looked at her with confusion, but after a moment silence she joined her, sitting next to her but leaving enough space between them.

“Okay. Do you want to know what’s the deal between me and Ruthen? The real deal? Here it is.”

She leaned back on her elbows and pulled her hat back, so she could see the stars above.

“The thing is this whole Enchanter thing… it was a coincidence. I wasn’t chosen to be a hero. Guess you could say that I was at the right place at the right time, but… if it wasn’t for Ruthen, that right place and right time would be the end of me. I’m only here because of them.”

Clover stared at her intently but didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt her.

“At the time they were new to this too, but unlike me, they had a choice to not get involved. They could turn around and walk away – no fights, no supervillains and evil masterminds playing weird games with them. And who could blame them? I wouldn’t. But… they didn’t. They chose to be an Enchanter because I was in trouble and there was nobody else around to help me.

“Long ago, I made a promise to a friend, that I would stay alive, as long as I can. No matter what it takes. And it cost me things, keeping that promise, things I’m not even sure worth it. But you know, the sunk cost fallacy is a bitch – the more I sacrificed just to stay in the game, the more bitter and stubborn it made me to not give up after all that. But that day, it was over. I was cornered, there was nowhere to move. Game Over.

“Or so I thought, before that dork swung in, playing the hero the most awkward way possible. They fought for me. And at the end, they saved me. Saved my promise. Gave me a chance to make all the crap I went through worth it at the end. And when I asked them why, why would they risk everything for a stranger, you know what they said?”

I don’t want to feel that helpless anymore.

She sat straight up for a moment, before leaning on her knees.

“Yeah, talk about something hitting close to home,” she sighed. “Anyway, since then, we’re together in this. And since I know their reason, I was able to trust them, even before knowing anything else about them.”

“When did this happen?” Clover asked. “I mean, I know people only learned about you guys recently, but how long were you doing this?”

“Do you remember our first meeting?”

“Yes.”

“That was my first day as Nocturknight.”

“No way!” Clover stared at her, her mouth agape. “But, but… you were so cool. I mean, you were strong, and confident, and knew what to do…”

Nocturknight burst out laughing.

“I had no idea what I was doing! I was scared of the Sorcerer and of hurting others and failing. I tried to destroy your Artifact, but it just made everything worse. I… I was so angry at Ruthen for being too reckless and almost sacrificing themself but without them, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would’ve been a disaster. But… somehow, they saved us all again.”

She fidgeted with something on her left hand.

“Look, I value my life. Maybe not for the best or healthiest reason, but I do it because of my promise. Still… I think I’d trust Ruthen with it without thinking.”

“I see,” Clover nodded. “I understand. I have a friend like that too.”

“And they weren’t around to comfort you tonight?”

Nocturknight regretted the question as soon she asked it, but luckily, Clover didn’t seem to be hurt by it. She smiled.

“Honestly? I didn’t even tell him. I know, that sounds like I didn’t trust him, but it’s not about that. I know if it was an emergency, he’d throw everything away to help me, and that knowledge alone gives me a lot of courage to face things. But I’d do a disservice to both of us if I called on him every time I’m feeling a bit down. I need to keep in mind that even the most important person in my life is just that – one person.”

“I guess so,” Nocturknight stared ahead.

“Okay, that sounded much gloomier than I intended. What I mean, they don’t have to be the only one, right? It’s not like you’re hanging out with Ruthen right now. I think it’s like what you said about magic. Finding a person you can trust when you didn’t have that before can feel like learning that magic is real. But then you have to keep pushing forward, little by little – by letting in one person, or reaching out to another. I know Chile deserves many people in his life to make him happy. And I don’t want my own happiness to only depend on him being able to make the time for me whenever I need. After all, if I asked him to spend the evening together instead of going to the Gardens to draw, I’d missed out on all this.”

She waved around.

“Yeah, I think I get what you mean,” she turned toward Clover, studying her face as much she could in the distant lights of the city. “I… I’m happy we ran into each other.”

They looked at each other, keeping the eye contact silently for a moment. Clover took a deep breath.

“Hey, actually…”

An alarm screamed in their direct proximity, drowning out the distant whir of Pollapolis. They both jumped on their feet, running to the edge of the roof to look down.

It was coming from the ground floor of the building across the street, where a shop window was smashed to pieces. Several people were jumping through it, out of the shop. They all wore dark ski mask and carried large boxes and some kind of clubs – maybe metal pipes. They encouraged each other loudly to get to the van parking nearby before the Civil Guard could arrive at the scene.

“We have to do something,” Clover looked at Nocturknight urgently.

“Uh…”

She hesitated. The city called and treated the Enchanters as full-fledged superheroes at this point, but crime fighting never really became part of their profile. Fighting warlocks, sure. And helping people who would otherwise gotten hurt. They even saved cats from trees and helped with trivial problems just to make the people of Pollapolis feel better against all the despair they had to face. But what was this? Stealing and property damage? There was a chance that the shop’s insurance would cover everything. It was jerk behavior for sure, but did it worth to escalate the situation?

“Come on, isn’t this what heroes do?” Clover asked.

She jumped over the edge, to a windowsill and pushed herself toward the street.

“Wait!” Nocturknight called out.

Her green cape waving, Clover landed right between the escaping robbers and their vehicle.

“Stop right there!” she pointed at them. “If you want to save some money, maybe check out the discount options – and came back during opening hours.”

“Who the hell are you?” one of the robbers growled as all stared at the costumed girl in disbelief.

“I’m Clover, but meeting me won’t be your lucky day,” she said, putting her hands on her hips confidently.

“Ignore the looney,” another robber commanded the others. “We’re in a hurry.”

They all nodded and tried to push through the girl, going for the car. Clover grabbed one of them by the wrist and smacked him against another, sending them both on the ground. Before they could react, she tripped another with an aimed kick at his ankle.

The rest of them exchanged a quick look and they all dropped the boxes they were holding. They raised their metal pipes high, running at the girl.

Clover danced away from the hits quickly, and blocked a few, using her lower arm to push the thugs’ wrists away before their pipes could connect. But when a pipe whooshed away millimeters from her temple, panic started to kick in.

“Maybe I didn’t think this through. I thought magic would always beat not-magic by default but what if that’s not the case? Wait, what Nocturknight said, what should I do if things go wrong?”

“Fortune!” she called out.

A power built up in her chest, then rushed out, leaving her weak for a moment.

Luckily, that was the moment when the belt of one of the robbers gave in. His pants falling on her knees while he was trying to hit the girl, he stumbled. Another seemed to trip on his shoelaces, who knows when they got loosened in the chaos. They both fell, burying their third partner under their weight.

There was only one robber left standing. Clover gave them an impudent smile, hoping her sudden dizziness wouldn’t show. Sirens, the distinct sound of Civil Guard cars sounded in the distance.

The thug dropped their metal pipe on the ground. They grabbed up as many boxes as quickly as they could, and made a run for it, leaving their partners and the car behind. That was when Nocturknight jumped in their way, grabbing them by the shoulders.

“Enchanters!” the robber spat, dropping the loot on the ground. “Since when were you playing cops? Go, find a warlock to fight, bitch!”

They struggled to get away, but Nocturknight held their arm firmly and pulled their mask down.

She froze.

The kid couldn’t be more than fourteen, maybe less. They had messy grey hair and a nose ring and something ferociously burned in their eyes as they tried to pull their arm out of her clutch.

Like trapped wolves when they chew down their own legs.

They pushed their shoulder into Nocturknight’s chest with full force. She barely felt anything, but her fingers slipped off the kid’s wrist. They turned around and ran. So did the other robbers, getting back on their feet and running past the paralyzed Nocturknight.

“Hey, get back here!” Clover ran after them but stopped next to Nocturknight, checking on her.

“Hey, are… are you all right?”

The street lit up as cars closed in with sirens blaring.

“Civil Guard, don’t move!” a man shouted, jumping out of a car, holding a large baton.

“Identify yourself!” another demanded.

“Let’s go,” Nocturknight said, grabbing Clover’s hand. She gasped but let herself lead by the other hero.

They made a running start toward a nearby building, and with a few jumps, vanished from the authorities’ sight. They didn’t stop until they were in a safe distance from the crime scene.

“Sorry, I got reckless,” Clover sighed. “I didn’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Let’s go grab some food,” Nocturknight said.

“Huh?”

“You used your power,” the coated hero reminded her. “Trust me, you’ll want food.”

<> 

Following a single scooter through a large city like Pollapolis at night was a much more challenging task that Ruthen would have guessed based on the media they consumed – especially if they didn’t want their target to notice them slinging from rooftop to rooftop above them. At least they could tell from the general direction that Nora was almost certainly heading to the Ghost District, but soon after confirming their suspicion, they lost her in the tangled web of streets below. Ruthen landed on a building at the outskirt of the District, trying to keep their eyes on as big of an area as they could for movement, but the chances that she would cross in their line of sight were almost astronomical.

They considered texting Natasha for help. She had the Compass Enchant, with that she could locate Nora immediately. But how would they explain the request to her?

“Hey, don’t freak out but turns out my sister works for the guys who might made your friend disappear. She’s attending some shady business in the Ghost District right now and I’m kinda worried, could you track her down for me?”

How would Natasha even react to that? She’d want to confront Nora for sure and demand answers, and probably rightfully. But what were the chances of that interaction going well?

“Don’t you ever again make decisions for me or put anyone in danger to defend me. Or we’re done working together. Do you understand?”

“You can’t always tell what’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you must make a judgement call, then deal with the fallout of whatever decision you made.”

Ruthen groaned, it felt like they were trying to solve a puzzle with pieces from different sets.

They knew Nora. They knew she’d never work to the bad guys on purpose. But they couldn’t be sure thar she wasn’t manipulated.

They knew Natasha. They knew that she was hurting a lot under her guarded exterior. She deserved help and closure. But they didn’t know that with all the pressure she was under lately, she’d really give the benefit of doubt to Nora.

How to help two people you trust to trust each other if they have no reason to do so? They whished they could just ask Al what to do.

The other option was going to the shop, or text Artemis and ask for help from them. Maybe Nariwa could track Nora through the Lower Realms or something. But that came with the same problem – they would have to explain everything, then ask them not to tell Natasha. And even if they understood their situation and agreed to that, it would mean that now they didn’t just keep secrets Natasha but conspired with their friends to deliberately keep her out of the loop. There was no way that could end well.

It felt like that talking to anyone about what Nora revealed to them before they could finish that conversation properly was like throwing a lit match at a barrel of gunpowder.

Maybe they could ask Matis for help? To like, check where Nora signed into Herlad last time and use triangulation or something? They do find people like that in shows, right? Maybe Matis knew how to do it.

Ruthen sighed, silently laughing at themself.

“I’m really not great at this hero business, right?”

Strange how it never occurred to them how little they had to rely on if there was nobody they could turn to. It was a miracle that they were able to save Natasha from the Vessel on their own, and even then, they only succeeded because the girl ran to their rescue at the last moment. How were they supposed to…

The Vessel.

What… what did Nora said when she was on the phone again?

Also, the Vessel might be able to fool our technology. They need to look into it before trying to take the thing down, or it could end in a blood bath.

Could it be the same Vessel? No, that didn’t make any sense. Flow and Natasha got rid of that thing, that’s how it all started. It was gone.

Don’t think you got rid of me just yet. I’ll never be more than a bad wish away from returning.

But that didn’t make any sense. Artemis told them clearly; the Vessel’s physical body was just a projection. Their essence was trapped in Richard’s bracelet at the time, so destroying that would get rid of them for good. And the bracelet broke in the struggle.

Except…

“Disentropy!” Flow called out a third time. The bracelet mended itself in their hand.

But that was just the bracelet. The spirit had to be gone by then, right?

Unless it was a trick.

Or unless…

This Enchant has the power called Disentropy. It lets you fix something that’s been broken or destroyed, by restoring it to an earlier state.

But fixing the container surely wouldn’t…

Sadly, with magic, it’s always a bit more complicated than that. Like your Singularity. It’s the power to cut through anything – that’s the power’s intention.

Nox said Singularity’s power had no theoretical upper limit. With enough power channeled into it, it could cut through literally anything. Even concepts.

What about Disentropy? Did it have a limit?

Ruthen knew it couldn’t bring back people from the dead. They tried that with Cortas and failed – according to the dreamfolk, because Cortas’ soul already left for somewhere Flow couldn’t reach it to bring back.

But the Vessel had no soul of its own. Artemis told them so much.

They balled their fists. Could they really mess up that mission this badly and nobody realized? Or maybe Artemis and Nox knew that the Vessel could be still around, but they didn’t want to worry them, make them blame themself?

It didn’t matter. Nora was possibly facing that thing alone right now, and Flow had no way to find her, to help her.

Now, to find the Vessel and Natasha, just follow your instincts. I know it sounds like banal advice, but the Enchants were created to fight magical threats like the Vessel. If you let yourself, it will lead you.

Instincts. Their instinct said them to scream. But they won’t give up now, after everything. It was true that when they accepted the Enchant from Artemis, when all of this started, they had no idea what they were getting into.

But that didn’t mean that they would make a different choice now.

For better or worse, they were an Enchanter. They belonged to the Order sworn to protect lives. And if they couldn’t protect anyone else, they will try and do it for the ones who mattered to them the most.

They pulled out their phone. Who knows, maybe TV science could work with a bit of magic thrown into the recipe.

Opening the city’s map, they put an X to the location of their apartment and another around the spot where they last saw Nora’s scooter before losing her. They connected the two points with a line, then extended it to the direction Nora was heading until it went across the outskirts of the Ghost District. There, that section should give a good estimation of the area where she would be most likely to enter the District, depending on what address she was going to, they guessed.

How fast she could move? Their mom’s scooter is no racing bike for sure. They drew a second line through the Ghost District horizontally, marking the estimated distance she could cover assuming she were going full speed. Then came a third line from Nora’s last known position. This one ignored her original direction completely and was perpendicular with the second one. Ruthen marked the point where the second and third line crossed. That was the furthest Nora possibly could be.

But that was unlikely.

They marked a fourth and second point, the ones where the first line crossed the Ghost District’s border. Then they connected those points with the third one into a rough looking triangle.

“There, triangulation! I knew it couldn’t be that hard!”

They stared at the image of the scribbled map for a moment. Seriously, for all they knew, this very well could be some bullshit they just made up on the spot. They really should ask someone to tutor them on math if they ever find the time between their normal studies and saving the world that is.

But if their logic was right, Nora should be there, somewhere in that area inside the triangle. It was still a huge area, big enough to make finding her similar to finding a needle in a haystack.

But somewhere in that haystack was hiding an ancient, evil, soul devouring needle that would make their enchanted danger sense go crazy. That should be enough.

There wasn’t anything else they could try anyway.

Throwing their scarf, they swung away, hoping not to be too late.

<> 

“Okay, so that’s two Frenzy Menus, an Extra Frenzy Burger with double Havoc Fries, and two large madslushes.”

The cashier piled the food on the drivethrough’s counter before taking a better look at her customer.

“Wait a minute,” she pointed at the masked figure in black and red clothes. “You’re… aren’t you…”

“Thanks,” Nocturknight slapped a bill on the counter. “You can keep the change.”

She quickly scooped up the paper bags in her arms and jogged away.

“Oh my god,” the cashier watched after her, then pulled out her phone. “Sorry, just a minute,” she apologized the next customer as she opened Herald.

Just served Nocturknight with enough food to feed a smaller army, lol. At least she tipped well. Guess Enchanters are really into #FrenzyFood huh.

In a few moments she was back at the abandoned tram wagon where she left Clover.

“God, you were right,” the girl said, biting eagerly into her burger. “This power really leaves me running on fumes but… that was amazing! Those guys, basically stumbling and falling over on themselves, was that really me?”

“Yeah.”

“But how does it work?”

“It makes you lucky.”

“Yes, I understand that. But, like, luck as we mean it in everyday use, is an abstract concept. But if there’s a way to manipulate it, even if it’s magic, that means luck is a real, objective power to begin with, isn’t it?”

Nocturknight sighed, munching on her own food.

“Look, not long ago I was demanding an explanation from Artemis the way you do, but the time he finished, I wished I just accepted ‘it’s magic’. Do you really want to go down in that rabbit hole?”

“Artemis?”

Nocturknight turned away, biting her lips.

“I get it, he’s a secret,” Clover sighed. “I won’t pry, I will try and forgot his name too, okay? Then what? Do you want to talk about anything? Or do you prefer eating in silence?”

“You asked for it,” Nocturknight rolled her eyes. “Okay listen, there’s this place called Flux, outside of normal time and space. ‘Outside’ is in the sense that… it basically contains the entirety of time and space. Every moment, ever. Not just the things that happened or will happen to us – the ones that could have happened or might or might not happen in the future. Are you with me?”

“Uhm…”

“The easiest way to imagine is like a huge and very complex railway system. Every split second is a crossroad that could lead to entirely different directions. Our reality is like a train, navigating this network and it’s controlled by us. You, me, everyone. Whenever you make a choice, any choice, it flips a switch, sending the train to a different direction. And so does everyone else in the world. It all adds up, competing and cancelling or enhancing each other, ultimately creating… fate, basically.”

“So humans create the world’s fate together?” Clover asked between two bites. It sounded a bit like a political slogan, but she could wrap her head around the concept.

“It’s not just humans. Animals. Plants. Bacteria. Every living thing with a soul.”

“Bacteria… have souls?” the girl frowned. She couldn’t help but her thoughts went to the disinfectant she kept in her pockets.

“Yep. Bacteria, fungi. Even cattle and salad. Sorry, if you’re looking for an easy guide to what life should be treated as sacred and which can be brushed aside, knowing about souls won’t help you much. Guess we just have to make our own choices like everyone else.”

Clover looked at the burger in her hands, but then hunger prevailed and she took another bite.

“Anyway, back to time-space. When you use Fortune, you flip the switch so things will go to the right direction – well, right for you, or whoever uses the power.”

“But does it change things backwards?” Clover asked eagerly. “You say basically everything is fixed and it’s only people’s choices that create any difference. But then how can a power like this have instantaneous effects? Like… for that guy’s belt to fail at that exact moment, it had to be faulty to begin with, right? If I didn’t use my power, would it happen later, or not at all?”

Nocturknight waved with her hands, like she was trying to conjure the image of a huge orb.

“The power creates an echo throughout the Flux. Imagine it like a bubble, originating from the moment you used it and expanding into both the past and future, and even into those lateral timelines where you never used the power to being with. It makes events gravitate toward the result you need. Where there were crossroads before it creates a straight line.”

“So… it cancels out free choice?” Clover scratched her face. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“No, it’s not brainwashing. But it changes the circumstances that determine the impact of a choice. Like let’s say there’s a guy who drinks his morning latte with either normal milk or almond milk. It has a fifty-fifty chance but for whatever reason, that day you need him to drink normal and you use Fortune. So in that momentarily choice, he picks normal milk. But what if he likes almond so much, he picks that ninety percent of the time and also he woke up with a huge craving for almond milk? The power then won’t force him to change his mind, but the ripples will expand further in time. Maybe two days before, when he was shopping, he didn’t buy almond milk, thinking he still had enough at home, and he needed the money for something else at the moment. And sure enough, his almond milk lasted for two more days, but on that fateful day, he ran out of it and had to use normal milk instead. It’s not what he wanted, but it was a result of him making a choice before, prioritizing something over buying his favorite milk. But then, what if he’s crazy for almond milk and he always have several packs at home to avoid a situation like this. But then, maybe, the shop clerk messed something up a week ago, and now the shop is temporally out of almond milk. Poor guy still can’t have his almond milk, but it’s because someone else did their work sloppily. And that’s not something anyone could control. It’s just bad luck for him.”

“But that’s… crazy. You’re saying the power will just ripple through time indefinitely until it finds the point where it can move things to the direction that is beneficial for me via butterfly effect. Doesn’t that mean that in theory it could cause an outbreak, just so a bad guy can get sick and sneeze at the moment when he tries to punch me?”

“In theory, maybe,” Nocturknight shrugged. “But that means that an outbreak was already in the cards, and it could have happened without you anyway. Even if you get punched in the face to avoid it. But it’s unlikely anyway. Like, what’s the more probable cause for a sneeze, that there’s an outbreak, or that you kicked down your blanket at night and got a little cold? Enchants are not jerk genies, trying to twist your intentions to screw you and others over. They try to get you to your goal as straightforward and efficiently as possible. It’s like worrying that taking a can of beans from the shelf will cause a chain reaction ending in crushing the cashier under the shelves. It can happen, but unlikely and you still need to shop, right?”

“Yeah, but that would be just a normal accident, not me using magic to manipulate the chances,” the girl frowned.

“The difference being? Look, people do stuff all the time without being aware of the full extent of the impact of their actions. You can’t even be aware all of it! So usually, when something good or bad happens and there’s not an immediately obvious reason, we just call it good or bad luck. This is the same thing. Your life is probably already affected by this power, used by other people in the past, future, or other timelines. You just experience it as chance events, and so do others. It’s only magic when you’re the one using it.

“Whether we like it or not, magic is deeply weaved into how our world works. We can choose to use it and try to do something good or ignore it and hope that others won’t use it for bad – but with the Sorcerer around, that’s pretty much a hypothetical dilemma.”

“Well, if you put it like that…” Clover frowned. “I don’t know what if you put it like that, other than I’m getting a headache.”

“So?” Nocturknight smirked.

Clover rolled her eyes.

“You were right. I should’ve been happy with ‘it’s magic’.”

They quietly slurped up the rest of their drinks. Clover looked at the third bag sitting next to Nocturknight.

“So, are you still hungry?”

“No,” she took the bag in her hand. “I just realized… there’s a place I should visit while I’m out tonight. You can come with me if you’d like but…” she blinked at Clover hesitantly. “It’s not nice.”

Clover smiled at her.

“Lead the way.”

<> 

Vess was about to jump after Nora, when with a loud thud, someone jumped through the empty window frame into the flat. They spun around to see a short, masked figure with silver hair, gray and black clothes, their lower face hiding behind a long scarf.

“You?” the Vessel grinned.

“You.” Ruthen said quietly.

Both of their postures shifted slightly, like two animals getting ready to jump.

“You won’t get away from me this time!”

“You won’t get away from me this time!”

Ruthen swung their scarf at the Vessel. They held up a hand, letting the silvery cloth warp around their arm, then pulled on it. Ruthen rode the momentum, rising to the air, then spun around, landing on the Vessel’s shoulders with both feet. Then they jumped over them, warping the scarf around their upper body, tying Vess’ arms to their trunk.

“I can’t hold back now, there’s too much on the stake. Last time we fought I was completely unprepared but so where they. I know I became stronger since then, but who knows how powerful they are at their best?”

Using their enchanted strength, Ruthen swung Vess across the room, first smashing them into the far wall, then pulled back, throwing them on the small table at the middle of the room.

The table collapsed and dozens of knives rolled on the floor, clanking.

The floorboards creaked.

“Heh, why not?” Vess grinned. “Let’s make this into a family gathering then.”

“Huh?”

The room’s decayed floor squeaked one last time before it broke into pieces beneath them.

<> 

It took a moment for Nora to recover from the fall. She jumped on her feet and started to run, part of them wondering why the Vessel wasn’t breathing down on her neck already. Maybe it was confident enough that they could catch her – but hey, whatever was the case, she won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

She was counting her steps; a few turns and she’d get to the exit – then she can leave this mushy deathtrap of a building and at least face the Vessel in a more open area. That was when with a rumble, a section of the ceiling collapsed behind her and several kilograms of knives, jewelry, electronics and cash poured on the ground floor.

With the rubble, two figures landed on their feet in the chaos. One of them she recognized as the Vessel, tearing some kind of silvery cloth off itself. The other…

“You? What the hell have you come here for?”

Ruthen’s face crunched up.

“Sorry, I don’t think we had the pleasure miss,” they said, quickly retracting their scarf, before the Vessel could tear it into pieces.

Vess laughed with delight.

“Secrets, lies, how delicious! I almost want to let you just fight it out between each other – but guess I’d rather take your souls and taste all those spicy feelings myself.”

Ruthen threw their scarf around a girder sticking out of the broken ceiling and swung themself at the Vessel – but halfway through the girder broke down, leaving them uncontrollably diving through the air.

“Oops, not like I planned!”

They flew straight toward Vess who punched them in the guts mid-air, sending them bouncing back to the ground.

“I thought it would be ladies first, but let’s not get too old-fashioned I guess,” they stepped next to the lying Ruthen, then turned toward Nora with a pointy smile. “Unless someone else volunteers to be the first course.”

With a snarl, Nora ran toward the two of them.

“No!” Ruthen growled.

They reached upwards and grabbed Vess, bringing them on the ground with them.

“Get out of here, I’ll handle this!” they shouted at Nora.

Ignoring them, the girl dived to the floor, picking something from the rubble around them.

“Throw them in the air!” she commanded.

“What?”

“Do it!”

Ruthen groaned and using both arms and legs, they pushed the Vessel as high above themself as their strength let them.

Raising to a half-kneeling position on the ground, Nora aimed her essence gun and pulled the trigger.

The blast caught the flying Vessel dead center, pushing them further through the broken ceiling. They landed with a crack somewhere on the floor above.

“Argh!” Ruthen tried to hide their eyes from the blast of light. “What the hell was that?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Nora jumped on her feet, nodding towards the exit. “It knows this place too well, we’re at a huge disadvantage fighting here. Outside we might have a chance.”

“Wait a moment.”

Ruthen turned toward the ceiling.

“Disentropy!”

Rubble rained upwards around them, and in a moment, the hole vanished, denying the Vessel an easy shortcut downwards.

“That should delay them, at least a little.”

Nora nodded and they both ran toward the exit.

“So you don’t think your gun killed it, huh,” Ruthen said.

“It’s not lethal,” Nora frowned. “It knocks out a normal person for around an hour, then they recover fully without ill effects. For people with stronger glow, it takes shorter to wake up, varying between ten to forty-five minutes. That thing? It’s like shooting paintballs at them.”

“Have you got anything else we might use against it?”

“I had a power baton, but I lost it. It was probably among the rubber too, but it would take too long to find it.”

They dashed through the exit, stepping out to the dirty streets of the Ghost District. There was no public lighting but at this point their eyes started to get used to the dark.

“My scooter is around here,” Nora pointed.

“No offense, but I think my way would be faster,” Ruthen protested, spinning their scarf, looking for a good grappling point.

“And you’re planning to carry me all the way? I’m a head taller than you.”

Before Ruthen could answer, they heard the noise of breaking glass as the Vessel threw itself out of a second-floor window. It landed on its feet and immediately ran at them with glaring red eyes.

“Guess that’s a problem for later,” Ruthen said, switching targets and throwing their scarf at Vess, trying to restrain them.

The Vessel grabbed the scarf mid-air and jumped up. Nora aimed with her gun and shot.

Vess spun out of the projectile’s way, letting go of the scarf. The essence ball exploded, and the white straps of energy ran through the silvery cloth like electricity on a conductor, right to Ruthen at the other end. They screamed, letting go of the scarf and fell to the ground kneeling.

Nora saw white smoke rising from their palm. She felt the blood running out of her face.

“Crap.”

The Vessel landed on their feet and stepped toward Nora with a smug smile.

“That’s how it is with manifested material, they conduct essence really well. Good thing if you use your own essence to move them, bad if some madman shoots unrestrained essence bullets around you. Maybe if I just sat back and waited for you to defeat each other it would be over much sooner. But better late than never I guess.”

They raised their clawed hand, reaching out for Nora.

Ruthen jumped up, pushing the girl behind and planting themself between the Vessel and her.

“Deflection!” they called out.

A glowing, silvery white circle appeared in front of them, its inner side decorated with ornate symbols. As Vess’ hand reached toward the circle they bounced back with a shockwave, slipping several meters on the ground. They let out a groan as the circle scattered into pale light.

“Don’t you have a normal gun?” Ruthen growled, still holding their burnt hand.

“No!” Nora snapped nervously. “I’m a field operator, not a hitman. Look, sorry, are you…”

They reached under their cloak and threw something small and shiny toward Nora. She caught it and looked at her hand. It was a small silver pin in the shape of a heater shield. She looked up at Ruthen.

“You can’t use your weapon safely around me, and I can’t fight it alone. That Enchant lets you create a shield like I did before, you just have to say…”

“Yeah, I heard it,” Nora said, putting the pin on. Ruthen nodded, grabbing their scarf from the ground.

“So you’re already bringing in the cavalry?” the Vessel teased. “Then let me call for the artillery!”

They raised both of their hands and with a sudden move, pointed at their two opponents. The air filled with clanking as dozens of knives flew out of the building’s windows, all coming at the two of them.

“That’s way more than I saw before. They must be keeping weapons in different flats too.”

“Deflection!” Nora shouted.

She felt a power expanding in her chest, focused on the pin, then a shield appeared before her. It was different from Ruthen’s – a more classical looking heather shield, much like the Enchant itself, and it was made of amber light instead of silver. It was decorated with the shape of two crossed swords.

She jumped ahead and danced before Ruthen, deflecting all the knives coming at them. The weightless magic shield followed every move of her hand with such grace that would be impossible with some crude metal construction. Her body felt light and full of energy too, she moved around with such speed and precision, her normal self felt like a clumsy ragdoll compared to this. She couldn’t help but laughed.

“I know how it feels, but stay on your toes,” Ruthen warned her. “We’re still in a precarious situation.”

“In that case, all this defense is great, but how about some offense? You told me not to use my gun then gave me a shield instead.”

“I wish I could be more help on that front, but it’s mostly covered by my partner.”

“Just like in Alpha Cross Combat, huh?” Nora grinned as the Vessel’s forty thousand knives attack slowly came to an end. “You always hated to play DPS.”

“I really think you’re mistaking me for someone else. Look, you can use the Enchant to create gear. I never tried to use it for weapons, but it might worth a shot. Just be careful to not drain yourself too much – everything you do leaves you with less power to absorb injuries.”

Oh right, they could do that too, right? Honestly, Nora kinda half-assed her seminar on Enchants. There were easier subjects to make up for her grade and she assumed she wouldn’t need to deal with some legendary objects lost to history during her fledging years as an agent. Her karma obviously never heard of subtlety.

“Enchant me!” she called out, touching the pin.

With a flash of light, her normal outfit was gone. Instead, she was wearing a tight-fitting black overall made of a material similar to a sweatsuit with a sleek silver chestplate, long legged metal boots and metal gauntlets, reinforced with nails at her finger joints for better punching force. A helmet appeared on her head, leaving the lower half of her face free, but complete with a mask-like vizor to both protect her eyes and let her see. Breaking the monochromatic style of the outfit, a purple cape twirled from her shoulders.

“Okay, guess I can see the appeal of this,” she admitted to herself.

“Deflection!” she summoned her shield back for protection, the ran at the Vessel, ready for some face-punching.

“Be careful!” Ruthen shouted, throwing their scarf.

Vess dodged swiftly, avoiding being tied up, but Ruthen kept changing the scarf’s direction mid-air, coming back at them from all sides. They kept the Vessel on the defensive while Nora got in range for her assault.

“This is for Francois!” she screamed, dealing a punch right into the creature’s guts. The force of the hit sent them into the air.

Ruthen wrapped their scarf around them tightly and swung them around, smashing them into a nearby building, then another, then another.

“Here!” Nora shouted, holding her shield high above her head.

Ruthen nodded and brought the Vessel down, right at the middle of the shield. The deflective force pushed them back, even higher into the sky.

Their scarf stretched to its full length. Ruthen flexed their muscles, summoning all the supernatural strength the Enchant could lend them and one last time pulled Vess toward the ground. A cloud of dust and debris raised as the body hit the concrete, creating a crater several meters away.

“And this is for everything else,” Nora spat.

They both stepped to the crater, mentally preparing themselves for the image that might await them. None of the looked forward seeing something like this, but they had to make sure that it was really over.

Spastic, unhinged laughter filled the air as the Vessel, all claws and teeth, raised to its feet. Blood was pouring from their nose, mouth, even from their eyes, but they kept laughing.

“Don’t you get it?” they said hoarsely. “You useless, wobbly, carbonic sacks of meat and water, don’t you get it‽ I’m not alive, so you can’t kill me. And you can’t close me up anymore either. If you bring me down, I just get back on my feet again. Then again!”

Power buzzed in the air as a shockwave cleared the lingering dust away. Ruthen and Nora felt a heavy pressure pushing them down.

“I’m unstoppable!”

Knives, rocks, bricks, pieces of concrete and glass and metal raised around them, forming a twirling wall of deadly projectiles. Ruthen gulped, even if their Enchants protected them, they knew that this is going to hurt.

“Duck!” Nora commanded, holding her shield above both of them.

Vess kept laughing as the crushing cloud grew even bigger and they got ready to bring them down on the two covering figures.

Then their body twitched.

The objects rotating around them all stopped, floating still in the air.

“What the-” the Vessel growled, reaching to their head. “Who the hell are you‽”

The flying rubble came down aimlessly, some of it harmlessly bouncing off the shield, most of it landing on the ground away from them.

The Vessel screamed, their whole body twitching and changing.

Then they turned into someone else.

“Francois?” Nora whispered.

The boy standing in the crater panted heavily, looking around with panic and desperate confusion.

“What’s happening?” he asked pleadingly, staring at his own hands. “I… I keep blacking out… and that thing…”

He twitched again and turned back into the Vessel.

“I’m the one asking the questions! Who…”

They turned back into Francois.

“Who…?”

Then the Vessel again.

“Who…”

“… are you?”

“What’s…”

“…happening…”

“What…

“… are you doing…”

“In my body‽”

“In my body‽”

The Vessel fell to their knees, holding their head.

“Enough! I’ll kill you all fuckers! I’ll annihilate this fucking city, then the planet until I can have some peace finally!”

The ground trembled lightly with a rumble as all the buildings around waggled.

Then an arm reached out of Vess’ chest, grabbing at their throat.

“Huh‽”

It was followed by a dark-haired head then a naked torso.

“You ain’t killing anyone else, motherfucker,” Francois hissed as he forced his way out of the Vessel’s body.

Shouting, Vess punched him in the face then grabbed the back of his black locks. They both screamed as they pushed the boy back inside their chest, then their own hand phased trough their body too, like they were grabbing at something inside them tightly. After a moment, they pulled their hand out and looked up at the frozen Ruthen and Nora.

“I’ll get back to you later.”

Then it jumped back at its feet, and running up the wall of a nearly building, vanished from their sights.

“What… what was that?” Ruthen asked, shocked.

God, they were grateful now that they skipped dinner.

“Francois,” Nora said quietly, her voice shaking. “I don’t know how but… he’s alive.”

<> 

The parking lot was dark, damp and mostly empty. Most of the cars there were looted wrecks – when people first started to move away from Pollapolis, many didn’t have a good enough vehicle that could take the long trip, but with the economy in ruins, there was nobody to buy the unwanted cars either. People ended up taking everything useful they could from the machines, then left them in parking lots like these, before spending the rest of their founds to join one of the mass-caravans, sometimes housing half a dozen families in a single trailer, in the hopes of finding a better place to survive. Most of the cars were completely dismantled for the parts during the years since then, but some of their bodyworks were still lying around, ghostly mementos of lives that could have been.

“So, there’s someone know around here?” Clover asked, trying not to sound too doubtful.

“That’s a stretch,” Nocturknight said. “Chances are high he’s not even around anymore. But a few years ago… well, let’s just say I had a bad streak.”

“What, you were gambling?” Clover asked jokingly.

“No, but for a shirt while I was living on the street, and this was one of the places I used to find shelter.”

Clover stared at her.

“I… I’m sorry, I had no…”

“Please,” Nocturknight waved her off. “It was long ago, I survived, and it was my choice to begin with, kind of. It’s just, there are some things…” She sighed.

“Are you okay?”

“I… yes. But I told you it was kind of a coincidence that I became an Enchanter, right? The thing is, I wasn’t really a heroic type before.”

Without an explanation, she dashed off, looking up and down in the building. No trace of anyone, not even a hint that someone is living here anymore. It made sense, it was over three years ago. Still…

“Hey look!” Clover pointed at the floor. Nocturknight followed her finger, but at first, she didn’t understand.

“Everything is dusty,” the girl explained. “Look, I can see your footprints in the dust. But here, there’s nothing.” It was true, there was a completely clean track coming from the entrance. “It’s like a beaten track.”

A bit revived, Nocturknight followed the track, Clover tightly behind her. Soon, it led them to an ancient car wreck, it’s color completely lost to dirt and rust. Nocturknight opened the door.

The car was completely hollowed out, but at the bottom, they saw a sleeping bag and a few blankets and other rags.

“Someone is actively living here?” Clover wondered. “I know people get desperate, but why don’t they just go to the Ghost District? There are thousands of unoccupied homes there and nobody cares about squatters.”

“Would you want a warlock for a roommate though?”

“Point taken.”

They heard the echoes of footsteps and muffled coughing behind them.

“Hey,” a hoarse voice spoke. “Do you guys, uh, want anything, or…”

Nocturknight turned around to see an elderly man, his hair is gray and white. His clothes were dirty and torn, his face is covered in uneven stubble, like he was trying to shave, but couldn’t keep up with it properly. He was holding a large plastic bag.

He was studying the two costumed strangers warily.

“I… I can’t really give you anything. If… if you want to have the place to yourself, I can move away, but…”

Nocturknight quickly moved toward the man. Startled, he backed off a few steps, but the Enchanter crossed the distance between them in a moment.

“Here,” she pushed the third bag of fast food into the man’s hand.

He stared at the bag with surprise. He didn’t open it, but the smell of the burgers was hard to miss, and he gulped rapidly, like he was trying to control his salivation.

“I just,” Nocturknight said. “I came here to say that I was…”

She kept looking back and forth between the man and the dark, distant end of the parking lot. She stomped her feet a few times, like she was waiting impatiently for her words to come out. Then she let out a frustrated sigh and reached into her coat, pulling out a purse.

She took a handful of bills out and without even counting them, pushed them into the shocked man’s hand.

“Look, nights are getting colder,” she said, looking away. “I know that most shelters are shit, but the Foundation have a few decent ones on the east part of the city. That should cover the travel and you can buy supplies from the rest. Take care, okay?”

And with that, she galloped away toward the exit.

“Well, good appetite,” Clover smiled awkwardly at the homeless man and quickly walked after Nocturknight.

She found her standing next to the entrance.

“That was very nice,” Clover said. “But it’s obvious that you’re upset. Do you want to talk?”

“I don’t know,” Nocturknight shook her head. “It’s just… life. Shit happens, I have to deal with it.”

“I can’t prevent life from making shit happen,” Clover admitted. “But I can listen to you. If you’d like.”

Nocturknight sighed, leaning her back against a nearby pillar.

<> 

Natasha looked at the homeless man from a safe distance. He was taking shelter in the same parking lot where the girl was. She kept an eye on him for a few days, not showing herself just to be safe, but he didn’t look like a threat. But today as he returned from his daily tour from the city, he had something with him – a sandwich. Maybe he got lucky with a generous passer-by, or he saved up his money for a long time to get it, there was no way to know.

It was risky but her supplies from the mansion were long gone. All she has left is her clothes, once flashy and expensive, from the hottest fashion shop, now dirty and torn beyond repair – and one more thing she took the night when she left, just in case. She reached into her pocket and grabbed it.

Sheathing herself into the shadows, she stepped behind the man without a sound. Her target had no idea yet that she was standing behind him, the next step however required delicate timing. She reached out and grabbed a handful of the man’s gray, gluey hair and pulled his head back a bit. With the same smooth move, she slipped the blade of the kitchen knife at the man’s throat. Her prey gasped in terror.

Should he move his head an inch and see Natasha’s small figure, he would realize that knife or not, he could easily overpower his attacker and it would be over. But at this very moment, he was nothing but a mouse in her claws. She leaned close to his ear.

“Nice sandwich you got there,” she whispered. “But is it good enough for your last meal?”

“Please… please…!” the man stuttered in shock.

“No need to piss yourself, I’m just hungry. Give me that grub and you may live to maybe have another.”

The poor guy raised his hand with the food. Quickly, Natasha let go of his head and grabbed it, then not wasting any time she retreated into the darkness of the parking lot. After gaining some distance, she stopped and looked back – if the man saw her, she had to run.

It took a few moments before her unlucky neighbor even dared to look around. He didn’t notice the small girl in the shadows, and seemingly he had no intention to chase some creep with a knife in an abandoned building. Natasha smiled and slipped away in the dark with her loot.

“Alone in the wilds, without my pack, huh?” she thought as she took a huge bite from the sandwich. Her first meal in days. “We’ll see. You still don’t have me. I’m still in the game.”

<> 

“I see,” Clover said after a moment of silence. “Look, I think it’s great that you’re trying to make up for the stuff that you regret, especially if it helps to move on. But it’s not like anyone can really blame you for all that. You were a child, trying to survive, you did…”

“I was a foolish brat!” Nocturknight snapped. “All that time I could just go home where I wouldn’t have to worry about starving or freezing, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted a perfect happy ending like in fairy tales – for myself and for my friend. I acted like I was owed something. What a joke. That voice is right. I want everything and I’d rather fuck up everything trying to get it, than be happy with what I can have.”

“Voice?”

“And the best part? It was all for nothing. Of course. I was found and brought back before I could find them. I’m still paying the price of that stupid decision, and nothing came out of it either. It’s so tiring. I keep moving so they wouldn’t get me, but I never arrive anywhere. I’m fighting to keep my head above the waves, to stay in a game I know I can’t win. It’s pointless. Always was and always will be, completely pointless. I’ll never achieve anything.”

“That’s not true,” Clover said simply.

Nocturknight looked up, staring at her.

“Did you already forget?” she stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You saved me, remember? Maybe you couldn’t do it without Ruthen, but they couldn’t do it without you either. You’re the reason I’m still here, and I’m grateful. If I’d lost myself completely to Poison Rose, I’d never see that things can get better for me. So, you want everything? Fine. You gave me everything – because you gave me a chance and where I was back then, that meant everything. So, I think you deserve to be happy with your friend too. You just… you really should let others help you more. With everything you do for them, I’m sure I’m not the only one wanting to be there for you too.”

“You talk just like Ruthen.”

“Are they saying smart things while looking cute too?”

Nocturknight chuckled. Then she turned at the side, looking at Clover’s hand on her shoulder. Her skin turned red under her mask.

“Uh, well, it’s getting late,” Clover stuttered, pulling back.

“Y- yeah, better we get going.”

<> 

“Disenchant.”

Nora took of the Shield pin and looked at it in her hand as her armor faded away. Her look was contemplating.

“Sorry, but I have to ask it back,” Ruthen said. “It would be too dangerous to just let Enchant go around in the world.”

They moved away from the sight of the battle, finding shelter at the top of a building at the edge of the Ghost District, where no normal people could see them.

“You don’t say,” Nora said drily. “Where did you and Nocturknight got them anyway?”

“That’s…” Ruthen bit their lips. “Confidential.”

“I see.”

She looked at the pin again. Recovering a single Enchant could pave the path for her career at the Foundation until she was a senior agent. Maybe further. Elite agent? Special force? Management? Who knows. The stars were the limit.

But they wouldn’t take it without asking questions. And they would push for the answers.

She sighed and dropped the pin in Ruthen’s open palm.

“Thanks,” they said, with a hint of surprised relief.

“You know,” Nora said. “I had a conversation with my sibling earlier tonight.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I told them I can’t expect them to trust me if I didn’t show them trust first. But I’m starting to realize, that’s not how trust works. It’s not a decision you make. It just happens, outside of your control. Sometimes you trust the right people and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it pays to trust and sometimes it comes back to bite you in the butt. But it’s a feeling and so is beyond your control. You can only control how you act to others. If you act on your emotions or against them. I could decide to not to open up to my sibling again if they didn’t do the same. But it would be something I’d do to either push or punish them. I’d still trust them.

“But just because I trust someone it doesn’t mean I’m not worried. People I trust can make mistakes. Can be hurt or manipulated. They could end up hurting themselves while trying to do something good. And if that happens while they don’t trust me, while they don’t let me in… that’s terrifying. Because I want to be there to help them if anything bad happened. And I just can’t. Guess I need to find a way to deal with that.”

She turned away.

“Well, good night Ruthen. Hope you have a safe place to return to.”

“Disenchant.”

Their outfit turned into silvery sparkles, fading away in the night.

“I trust you,” Flow said. “But I can’t trust the Knightfall Foundation.”

Nora turned back, looking at her sibling.

“Why? Because of the conspiracy theories? Just because…”

“Because of Nash Poll.”

“Who?”

Flow told her the brief version of Nash’s and Natasha’s adventure in Knightfall Center and the fallout it caused.

“I see,” she sighed. “Okay I can understand why she wouldn’t trust us after that. But Flow, you have to understand, she was a child and had a scary experience. Nothing she saw actually confirms that the Foundation really did something to that kid. It’s a humanitarian organization – they save children, not kidnap them.”

“Even if they somehow knew about their secret magical research?”

“Sure, the Foundation have secrets it wants to protect,” Nora threw her hands in the air. “But they do it for everyone’s safety. You know what magic is capable of, after what we both saw today… Heck, I’m part of their secret operations and they didn’t give me any lethal weapons. Why are you so sure that they’re secretly some villainous army?”

“Because something doesn’t add up. Someone made Nash vanish. Someone is manipulating us. There’s someone behind all this, a factor we can’t see.”

“And it can’t be the Sorcerer. He wants to find Nash too.”

“Well, that much I agree,” Nora said. “And that brings me to something else I wanted to talk to you about. Your friend, Natasha Alexton… she’s Nocturknight, right?”

Flow turned away.

“Fine, don’t answer,” she sighed. “I can draw my own conclusions. How long have you known her exactly?”

“A few weeks. Why?”

“Look, I really don’t want to be an asshole about this, but… how much do you really know about her? Or her family?”

Flow frowned.

“What are you getting at?”

Nora crossed her arms.

“I know what kind of public image she tries to maintain but Flow, Agatha Alexton is not a good person.”

“I know that much. Natasha told me about her.”

“She also told you that her mother is involved in the trafficking of Artifacts?”

Flow blinked at her.

“What?”

“Please, try to understand how this looks like from the outside,” Nora said, trying to remain calm. “You somehow get your hands on some ancient and powerful magical items, thought to be lost for centuries, and at the same time you start to hang out with Natasha Alexton all the time? Even if I’m wrong about Nocturknight’s identity, there’s two logical explanations. You either got your Enchants from Natasha which means Alexton is involved and knowingly or not you’re working for her. Or…” She hesitated.

“… or her mother sent Natasha at my neck to get a chance of stealing the Enchants for herself,” Flow finished. “That’s what you really think, don’t you? That she’s only friends with me so she can spy on me.”

“I don’t know what I think Flow!” Nora snapped. “Because I know so little. If you just told me where did you get those Enchants…”

“So you can report it to the Foundation?”

“I don’t know! Maybe? This is their job Flow; you can’t seriously think that you can use that magic better than the people who researched it and trained for it for decades.”

The enby turned away, crossing their arms.

“You’re wrong about Natasha,” they said quietly.

“Look,” Nora took a deep breath, calming herself. “I know, okay? I… I still remember my first crush from high school. God, I was such a mess.”

Flow looked at her again.

“That’s what you think why I trust Natasha so much? Because I’m falling for her?”

“I’m not trying to tease or patronize you,” Nora shook her head. “This is just human nature. Love makes us confused and vulnerable, and it can be awesome, but I really don’t want you to get hurt Flow. Especially not with this much at stakes.”

“You’re wrong. I’m not in love with her.”

“Okay,” Nora gave in. “Even if you’re just really good friends…”

“You don’t understand,” Flow interrupted. “I don’t think I could fall in love with her… or anyone else. I… I guess I’m aroace.”

Nora lost her words for a moment, blinking.

“O… okay,”  she said clumsily, not sure if her sibling wanted to say more.

“I was thinking about it for a while,” they shrugged. “When I was small and the other kids all started to have crushes on singers and movie stars, I just couldn’t relate. It just all seemed pointless, unreal. But then the adults all said it was something that would pass for them, so I felt proud. I must be really smart if I didn’t fall into that fake-love thing, right? Then later they all started to go out with each other but I still didn’t care. I didn’t think much about it. I thought it would happen eventually; I just didn’t find the right person yet.”

They leaned to a nearby wall.

“I mean, it’s not like I met many people at all. I couldn’t even make friends, so why worry about dating? Honestly, for a while I thought that when I get older, I’d just fall in love with Al. Then if he liked me too, we’d get married or something, get a house for the two of us. I imagined it like and endless sleepover where none of us have to leave next day because we’re home. We’d be able to stay up as long as we want to play games and watch anime, since we’re adults.”

They chuckled.

“But then we grew, and I never started to see him any different. Not even when he started to date that girl from the choir… I mean, I know some people just don’t get jealous. They’re okay with their partner dating others. But it wasn’t like that, I just didn’t care.”

“Then you’re better than me,” Nora said. “That girl was so annoying, god save me, I was happy when they broke up.”

“You know what I mean. I didn’t… fantasize about being in her place or anything. As long as our friendship with Al stayed the same, I was happy. I didn’t want anything to change between us. But I guessed that’s normal, some people just can’t fall for their childhood friends. He’s almost like a brother to me. But then things did change, we had to move away. And I met Natasha.”

Nora crossed her arms, listening carefully.

“And uh… she was amazing, you know? The first time we met she saved me from a bully. The guy was thrice her size, but she just stood to him like it was nothing. She introduced me to Igne and Matis, saying I needed friends – then she just walked away. She’s… honestly, she might be one of the weirdest people I ever met. But she didn’t seem awkward or ashamed about acting like that at all. Like she didn’t give a damm. And… guess a bit… I got obsessed with her. Like, I always wanted more friends, people other than Al to hang out with. But it was just this abstract idea in my head. Having friends, like, I don’t know, extras in a movie. She was the first real person I really wanted to be friends with. Then it happened and it made me happy. Guess that was when it hit me.”

“What?” Nora asked.

“That if I’m not falling in love with her, it’s just probably not going to happen.”

“Wow,” Nora blinked. “Did you tell her any of that?”

“Well, not with those words,” Flow scratched their head. “Why?”

“It’s just… ‘If I’m not falling in love with you, it’s just not going to happen’? That’s probably the strongest not-pick-up line I ever heard. Too bad it doesn’t really work if you’re allo.”

Flow stared at her.

“Sorry, I’m not trying to make fun of it. Thanks for telling me all this. And Flow… I really am happy that you found a friend who means so much to you. I wish I could just trust her the way you do. But there’s too many questions marks about this whole situation. The much I want to see you happy I can’t help being worried as long you’re involved in all of this.”

“Then guess we hit a dead end,” Flow sighed. “We trust each other, and we trust our friends, but we can’t trust each other’s friends.”

“I can’t do anything to make you give a chance to the Foundation.”

Flow scratched their chin, thinking.

“Since you’re inside, can’t you figure out what happened to Nash after they were caught? That would sure make it easier for Natasha to trust you – and if they didn’t do anything bad as you say, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“It’s not that simple,” Nora shook her head. “What if the Foundation did hide that kid, but they did it for their own protection. Digging the information out could be putting them in danger – maybe that’s exactly what the real bad guys want.”

Flow had to admit she had a point. They knew that the Sorcerer wanted Nash, even though he tried to push them toward finding the social worker, Edward Tims first. Following other leads still could be dangerous – however Flow would rather risk those than willingly jump on the bait the villains thrown at them.

They hated putting their sister under pressure, but they had to do something. They breathed heavily.

“Natasha won’t just give up you know,” they said. “And I’m willing to help her. If we have no choice, we have to find the truth on our own way.”

“What does that supposed to mean?” Nora stared at them.

“I can’t say.”

The girl groaned and for a moment looked completely helpless. Flow’s stomach churned with guilt.

“Okay,” she said eventually. “But give me time. I’ll try to figure out as much as I can, but I already pulled too many stops and I’m risking being asked questions I don’t have an answer to. If Samantha didn’t get me suspended already, I need to figure out something to say to her, something that doesn’t put you on the Foundation’s radar. Then I need to lay low for a while, but then I try to find your answers.”

“I’ll give you as much time as I can,” Flow nodded.

“That is, the time Narwia needs to prepare us for an assault against the Foundation. If she can’t find anything until then, I doubt I could stop Natasha any longer. And I will be on her side – I really hope we won’t end up on opposing sides, sis.”

“Hell of a vacation all right,” Nora massaged her forehead. “Okay, let’s get mom’s scooter, then head home. We have some explaining to do.”

“You do,” Flow said, sticking their tongue out. “I’m peacefully asleep in my room. That reminds me, don’t forget to make up some highschool girlfriend who came to Pollapolis, you were supposed to spend the evening with her… Actually, go ahead. I can get home faster than you, and there’s something I need to do quickly before I do.”

She gave them a worried look.

“I’m not planning to get in any more tonight, I promise.”

“All right,” Nora sighed and turned toward the fire escape to get down.

Then she stopped and turned back.

“You know, it’s too bad I didn’t have the time to come up with a codename for my costume,” she mused. “Hey, how about Protectia?”

“A bit lame… sounds like a brand of medicine. Or like you’re trying to pick a romantic rivalry with Destracta.”

“Shut up.”

She poked them in the side and they both laughed. Yeah, their life got crazy. But at least they were still the same people.

<> 

Nocturknight and Clover landed on the roof of the Botanic Garden, almost at the same spot where their journey started.

“Disenchant.”

Bianca gave an affectionate look to the Enchant before handing it back to Nocturknight.

“Thanks. For everything,” she said simply.

“You sure you don’t want to take the skylines going home? It would be much faster.”

“Thanks, but I think it will be better this way,” she smiled. “This night was fantastic, but using the public transport might help to switch my mind back to being normal-everyday Bianca. And we wouldn’t want people accidentally connecting Bianca and Clover… just in case, you guys ever need some reinforcement. Going home the way I came will be much less suspicious.”

“Yeah, good thinking.”

Nocturknight vanished the Enchant in her hat, still seeming a bit flustered.

“So, uh… Originally, I wanted to help you to clear your head out but guess at the end you helped me much more than the other way around. So thanks.”

“Hey, do you remember what I said about help? It goes both ways. And I don’t know when I had this much fun anytime in my life… speaking of which…” she fidgeted with her hands nervously. “Do you think we could do this again sometime soon? I mean… not necessarily the magic part, even though that was very cool. But just hanging out with you again as Bianca… I think I’d enjoy that a lot too.”

“Yeah, well, I’d love that too,” Nocturknight scratched her head. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other more, and I hope we’ll have the time to talk and hang out again. Thing is, making plans… I don’t know how that would work with a secret identity. Like… we can’t really exchange contacts. Guess we could agree to meet up somewhere, but with no way to get in touch in the meantime, it could be bad if something happened, like a warlock attack or…”

“Yeah, understandable,” Bianca sighed. “Honestly I was kinda expecting that being an issue, that’s why I never really…” she fell silent, biting her lips.

“Huh?”

“Okay. Can I tell you something silly?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I know we didn’t know each other for long, right? But the thing is, since the day you and Ruthen saved me, I… I really wanted to get to know you better.”

“You mean like… me and Ruthen?”

“Uh, sure, Ruthen too. But… especially you.”

She stared at the hero for a moment.

“Oh…” Nocturknight murmured. “Oh.”

“I told you it was silly,” Bianca shrugged. “Here I am, having a crush on a superhero. I feel like I’m thirteen again, dreaming about my favorite singer showing up in my door and asking me out on a date.” She chuckled. “So of course, I didn’t take it seriously. I wanted to leave and a good impression on you if we happened to meet again, sure, but as you said, there wasn’t much chance for us to be even proper friends, let alone anything else. I understand that that’s why originally I didn’t want to tell you. But then… well, tonight happened. And it just didn’t feel right to keep it to myself anymore.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said in all honesty. She really didn’t want to get tongue-tied now, but it was a struggle to get out every single word. She felt like her face was on fire under her mask. She wondered if her skin was any distinguishable from her hair right now. “I… I really liked spending time with you. If things were any different, I’d say… guess I’d say let’s hang out and see what happens but…”

“I have an idea,” Bianca interrupted. “I mean, I don’t want to push anything, but I wouldn’t even know if you go along with it or not, so it’s really up to you. I… I work in Café Velvet, you know. I meet a lot of people every day. If you’re interested, you could drop in sometimes. Not like… this. But as your everyday self. I wouldn’t know. But… we could talk. Maybe… who knows. Maybe we could see what could have happened.”

“But wouldn’t that be creepy?” Nocturknight scratched her neck. “I mean… I’d be knowing you already, pretending that we just met. Wouldn’t it be like stalking you or something?”

“Normally? I don’t know,” Bianca shrugged. “But it’s an abnormal situation and I’m giving my consent, so why not? And call me stupid but I kind of… like that idea. In the future, any time I meet someone nice, there will be a chance that it’s you in disguise.”

“And if you won’t like my real self?” Nocturknight asked with a teasing smile.

“Then I’ll know it’s not you. You’re too cute to hide it, no matter how much you try.”

They both blushed, realizing what Bianca just said.

“I want to be honest,” Nocturknight said. “You were right earlier. The reason I came out tonight… I needed to get away. My life, my real life, it just got turned on its head and I have no idea what will happen next. I might can’t have new people in my life for a while. Maybe I even have to cut some bonds. But… if there’s a way around this… now or later, I want to find it.”

Bianca nodded.

“Thanks. Truth be told, this is helping me a lot. I’m trying to be more open, so I don’t start to bottle up everything again if things go wrong. And seeing this, that I can be open with you and it’s worth it, it makes me want to do it more.”

She stepped closer and Nocturknight froze. She saw Bianca leaning closer to her, but except for feeling her lips opening slightly, she was unable to move even an inch.

Bianca hugged her tightly, her cheek brushing against Nocturknight ear. Then she let go of her and stepped back.

“Take care, okay?”

“Y- yeah. You too.”

Feeling stupid, but also unable to say anything else, she turned away and jumped over the edge.

This time she avoided splashing right into the water, but she quickly ran to the spot that she and Ruthen used to disenchant after the first fight in the Garden. She needed a moment, and she didn’t want any prying eyes.

“What the hell am I doing?”

Here am I, having a crush on a superhero.

“This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I didn’t want people to admire and idealize me.”

You’re too cute to hide it.

“And here I am, enjoying the situation. Just how long it will take for this to bite me in the ass if I get carried away? I better clear my head. She only sees that Nocturknight saved her. She’d never feel the same way if she really knew me.”

You just… you really should let others help you more.

She shook her head.

She needed to get home. She needed to sleep.

It was a very long day.

Maybe tomorrow everything will feel simpler.

<> 

“Disenchant.”

Natasha collapsed on top of her bed, more tired than ever before that night.

Still, something was different. Even though her limbs felt like lead, there was a tiny gripping feeling in her stomach before. Now, even if it wasn’t gone, it felt lighter.

Her phone buzzed next to her. She just realized she left it on her bed before going out. Flow just answered her earlier text.

Hey! Sorry for not answering earlier.

Matis is fine but we have an issue.

It’s not something I’d explain through text though.

 

I know you must be busted, maybe you’re already asleep.

But if you see this, could we meet up before you go to bed?

Natasha frowned.

Yeah, ok, but I can’t go out now.

Even though sneaking out a second time was technically possible she would really feel like she was pushing her luck. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could even muster the strength to transform again.

Okay, could I go to your place?

She knew Flow, they wouldn’t be pushy if it wasn’t something important.

Sure, but you have to use the high entrance.

She sent them directions to find the building and her window. Fifteen minutes later Ruthen climbed into her room.

“Wow, this place is awesome,” they looked around.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Anyway, sorry for barging in like this, but I really didn’t want to wait with this until tomorrow.”

“Guess we’re even now,” the girl shrugged with a smile. “Anyway, what’s this emergency is about?”

Ruthen sighed and their expression made the gripping return to her stomach with full force.

“Do you remember the Vessel?”

“Vessel?” the girl asked with widened eyes. “You mean, stole-your-face-and-tried-to-kill-me the Vessel? The Vessel we got rid of on our first day as Enchanters?”

“It’s back,” Ruthen said. “And I think it’s my fault.”

 

< ⋁ >

None of the bars in the Ghost District could be considered very respectable places, but some were better than others. In most, you only got hurt if you picked a fight with the wrong person on dug your nose into something that wasn’t your business.

Tracey’s was different. In Tracey’s, you had to earn your place before you could get a seat.

Thus, when the door opened around 10 PM on the ground floor of an unused building, all the regulars looked up, hoping for some clueless fresh meat who they could teach a lesson about where not to go for a cheap drink. Then all sank deep back into their seats and turned back to their drinks when they recognized the short chubby teen standing in the door. Not even the messiest thugs in place were stupid enough to get in the way of that guy. Especially now, that they seemed to be covered in blood to their neck.

Vess stepped to the counter.

“The usual,” they barked, ignoring the other guests.

The bartender, Trace, put a shot glass in front of them without a word and poured it half with some kind of foul-smelling spirit. Then they took a small plastic bottle from under the counter, full of thick, black liquid. They added the motor-oil to the drink, then took something small and shiny from their pant pocket. It was some kind of bullet. They reeled the head out of the cartridge and strewed the gunpowder at the top of the drink. Finally, they took a match and lit the liquid on fire.

Vess grabbed the glass and downed the flaming drink before it could burn into nothing. Then they threw the tiny glass into their mouth and crunched on them loudly.

After finishing their snack, they turned toward the back of the bar.

“Gotta use the loo.”

“There’s no water,” Trace said calmly.

“Sounds like you’re going to have a problem then.”

They slammed the door behind themself.

There was a single, broken mirror hanging on the filthy toilet’s wall. Vess stepped to it and leaning on the wall with both hands, they put their face as close to the glass as they could without touching it.

“I know you’re there, asshole. Show yourself.”

Their reflection twitched like an old tape, and it turned into the image of Francois.

“What do you want?” the young man asked, staring at them from the mirror.

“What I want?” Vess growled. “Why are you here? You’re fucking dead.”

“You ate my soul, didn’t you?” the boy smirked without mirth. “Maybe you bit more than you could chew.”

Vess pushed themself away from the wall and their hand snapped toward the mirror. They reached through the glass, grabbing Francois shirt and pulled the boy’s image into the bathroom with them.

“How did you…”

Vess slammed him against the wall.

“Maybe I can’t kill you a second time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”

They reached into Francois’ chest, grabbing something tightly. The boy screamed.

“Cough it up, what’s going on!”

“Argh! Okay-okay!”

The Vessel lessened the pressure but kept him pinned against the wall.

“I’m not an expert, but each soul carries an imprint of the memories and the consciousness of the host,” the man gasped. “They’re only cleared from their past life when they enter the Soul Stream in the Astra. But my soul couldn’t really go there, right? Much thanks.”

“I ate thousands of souls!” Vess snapped. “None of them ever came back to haunt me. So why you?”

“I have no idea!”

The Vessel huffed angrily, staring at their own hand on Francois’ neck. Their hand, covered in blood.

Their blood.

They had blood.

Something happened, Vess knew that immediately after the fight with Flow. The Contract they made with Richard, the glow they drained from the Enchanter kid, the spell they used to fix the bracelet afterwards. Some of that, or maybe the combination of them all somehow changed the Vessel, allowing to exist in the Human World as a real person, not just a projection of an Artifact’s will they were before.

And maybe that, somehow, made them more human.

Maybe their body that could only store human souls before, and harvest their power now was eligible to manifest those humans’ consciousness too.

That was an issue. They needed souls to regain the powers they once had. Even like this, when their minds constantly fought for control, Vess could feel how much stronger Francois’ soul made them in that very moment. They couldn’t stop.

They probably wouldn’t be able to, anyway.

But more importantly, they didn’t want.

That feeling was everything they had in this stupid, pointless world. Hunting the foolish blabbering humans down and peeling their souls from their clay. Eating the strong ones to grow stronger and throwing the rest back into the reincarnation circle, until they became worthy to be consumed by the Vessel too.

They won’t stop until they swallow the last soul this reality can offer to them.

“Okay,” they looked back at Francois. “How I fix this?”

The boy laughed, before it turned into a coughing fit.

“Even if I knew, why would I help you?”

“Maybe you like being stuck like this‽ There must be a way we can go back to normal.”

“I have no idea, I’m not a fucking wizard.”

“Fine, they you’ll bring me to the wizards,” Vess grinned.

“What are you talking about?” Francois looked at them with a frown.

“I know the Foundation research magic. There must be someone there who knows what to do. And how lucky – since you worked there, there must be no problem for you to get me in.”

Francois leaned closer to them, even though that was a challenge.

“Open your eyes and read my lips, because I don’t think you heard me the first time. I’m. Not. Helping you!”

Vess smashed him to the ground and sat on him, their clawed hands tearing at his chest. Francois screamed.

“Then we’ll going to have a delightful eternity together! Other humans might believe in hell, but you’re lucky – you’ll know for sure that it’s real!”

Francois growled, trying to push the Vessel away – and as he did, his hand slipped through their flesh, sinking into their chest. Vess gasped, backing off.

The man stared at his hands for a moment, then grinned. He jumped after the Vessel, reaching deeper into their body this time. They could feel something, something pulsating with power deep inside them. They grabbed it, making the creature scream.

“I think you forgot about something – if I’m still around that means I can still fight. Who knows, maybe with a little more practice, I can take full control. Then I’ll go to the Foundation, and I’ll ask them to operate you out of my body! Sounds like a plan, huh?”

Vess pushed him away, and the man vanished like he was never there. They peeked at the mirror, but they could only see their own image.

With an angry howl, they punched the wall, leaving a hole in the tiles. Then they left the bathroom.

There was a girl sitting at Tracey’s counter who wasn’t around when Vess left the room. They smirked – maybe this they could be salvageable after all. They walked up to the girl, staring into her drink, and ignoring any niceties knocked on her shoulder.

“Despairta?”

She looked up, quickly recognizing them.

“Destracta, you dipshit.”

“This is your lucky day,” Vess said. “I’m having second thoughts about the whole teamwork thing you proposed last time.”

“What a coincidence,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m having second thoughts about the same thing too.”

“I’m not here to play games with you,” Vess growled. “I have an issue and I need to know if your boss is able to solve it or not.”

Destracta laughed.

“You have some guts, calling me desperate, then asking for favors. But I save you a big waste of time. My boss is a swindler. You better stay clear from him.”

“I got no time for your middle-life crisis.”

“Middle-life‽”

“If you’re lucky. Let me put this into a different light for you. You can take my offer and let me to join your team…”

They raised a hand, letting their claws out.

“… or you could join mine. But you won’t like the entry ceremony.”

Destracta looked at them without fear, considering something for a moment. Then she smiled.

“I’ll give you a counteroffer.”

“I’m all ears.”

She pulled out the chair next to her, offering the place to Vess.

“Let’s forget about all this nonsense about my team and your team and try something else. Why don’t we talk about our team?”

Vess stared at her for a moment. Then they let their hand down and sat next to her.

“I let you buy me a drink,” they said. “Tell me what you have in mind.”