Chapter Text
Between Douxie's necklaces and accompanying note, the magic pulse that had as much rocked Arcadia, and now this lockdown? Jamie was not having a good day.
It was one thing knowing that your coworker was allegedly a student of the Merlin. It was something else entirely to have an old wizard show up in your place of employment, identify himself as Merlin, and demand to know where his apprentice was.
Jamie was no fool and hadn't narc'ed. For one thing, he had no proof the guy was actually Merlin. For another, it was illegal to give out employee information. For a third thing, he had absolutely no idea where Douxie was. Given Douxie was a wizard, for all Jamie knew he could be anywhere on the planet! (And, from what he'd heard, possibly a few places off it as well.)
He told the old guy all of this and watched him as he stalked back upstairs to the roof access.
When he heard the roof door slam shut, Jamie let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and whipped out his phone, texting Douxie for details about what was going on.
He got no answer.
Jamie sighed and stared moodily at the counter of the empty bookstore. His latest read lay open there, but he certainly wasn't going to make more progress on it now.
Green light flashed outside the front windows.
His head snapped up. That came from the roof.
Common sense said to hunker down and stay put. But common sense didn't weigh all that high in the life of someone half raised by an ancient winter wizard.
Jack'll kill me if I get myself killed, Jamie thought, slipping a bookmark between the pages and shutting his book.
Jack would be running right at the problem himself if he was here, and I'd be right behind him.
...Yeah, most of the time it was very obvious that he and his (much) older brother were related.
His book bag slung crosswise over his body, Jamie mouse-footed upstairs.
Claire was as quiet as she knew how to be, barely breathing as she skulked around crystalline corners. Behind her... well, she would have thought Angor Rot wasn't there, if she didn't glance back once in a while.
She was guessing he was a very good assassin for reasons completely unrelated to magic.
She also guessed he and Strickler (and maybe Nomura) might have a lot to talk shop about, once things were all over.
Distracted, she wasn't expecting the blast of gold magic that knocked her off her feet. She fell back, the necklace with her ring flying from her hand and bouncing across the ground to end up in front of a pair of golden boots.
"I thought I heard a mousie skittering about," Morgana's voice mocked through the dusty haze that obscured her. "And, look, it's my treacherous little handmaiden!" Her gaze lifted from Claire's face to Angor's. "And just see who's brought her to me."
Claire had not missed this version of Morgana. "Long time no see," she muttered, getting to her feet and dusting off her skirts. Her butt hurt where she'd landed on it. "Hello, Morgana."
"Come to lock me away again, hmm?" the woman purred, gold light wreathing an emerald hand. Her face shifted to cruelty. "I think not!"
"It was nine hundred years ago and you were trying to kill us," Claire snapped. "Let it go."
Morgana stalked forward, ignoring her words. The clawed tips of her finger armor tilted Claire's chin back and up, magic still gathered around her other hand, a threat. "Has Merlin sent you...?"
Claire scowled. "Merlin can go suck a lemon."
Tap-tap-tap went Morgana's claws on Claire's chin. They felt sharp, but they didn't dig in and draw blood. Not yet. Morgana was biding her time.
Claire could bide her own time and wait too. She had learned a lot from Morgana. More than she had ever learned from Merlin, that was for sure. In some ways, Claire had even learned more from Morgana than she had from Douxie. Which wasn't a fair comparison at all because the subject matter was so very, very different....
"And just where is the great Merlin hiding?" Morgana cooed. "I owe him a... visit."
The thought crossed Claire's mind that she also would like to Rule Three Merlin. But that wasn't what Morgana wanted, nor where she would stop. And downtown Arcadia didn't deserve to be wrecked again in the crossfire of a master wizard battle. It wasn't even fully cleaned up from the fight with Gunmar yet!
"I wouldn't tell you even if I knew," Claire sassed.
Behind Morgana, a shadow shifted.
Claire's eyes widened.
"Perhaps," said Dictatious, coming forward, "the information may be... extracted from her, my lady."
Morgana's cruel smile turned into a snarl. Her gaze flicked up from Claire's face to Angor Rot, standing right behind her. "Seize her," Morgana commanded. "I have questions for the girl."
To Claire's shock, Angor obeyed, his bony hand grabbing her wrists, pulling her arms tight behind her back, hauling her backwards (she stumbled) against his body.
"Good," Morgana purred, holding magic flame in her hand. "Hold still, little handmaiden. This won't hurt... much."
I talked Arthur into fighting at Killahead. I talked the Guardians of Arcadia into destroying Gaylen's core. I was born with a silver tongue in my head. I can do this! But faced with Skrael's stubborn unwillingness to bend, Douxie wasn't sure how.
If I can just do this... it'll pay for everything I've done.
"Give humanity one century," he pleaded. "A measly one hundred years! It'll pass like the blink of an eye. Let them get used to having their magic back and see who they'll become with it. Then judge them."
"You ask for more time," Skrael growled. "We have given them millennia and they have only grown worse."
"They didn't have their magic then! They were crippled, wounded - you know how an injured animal will lash out!"
"Irrelevant," Skrael dismissed Douxie's argument with an icy blast.
"Enough!" barked Merlin. The butt of his staff slammed to the ground, its Fae-iron ringing. "Hisirdoux, the gods will not listen. We must defend humanity!"
He stared aghast, gape-mouthed, at his mentor. "Locking gods away is not the answer!" Douxie snapped. "It's part of the reason we've got so many problems to begin with. How can people get used to magic, comfortable with it, if they never see it?"
"That," said Merlin crisply, "is not my concern."
"Well, maybe it bloody well should be!"
The gods were watching the master wizards argue. Nari's eyes were wide. Bellroc seemed bemused. Skrael's scowl spoke for itself.
"I will not be gainsaid by my own apprentice! I have spent millennia watching magic fade from this world--"
"No," Douxie interrupted. If Merlin was going to be overblown, he was going to be pedantic. "You spent six hundred years watching magic fade. And then nine hundred years in a coma."
"I was monitoring the situation--"
"Maybe," said Douxie. "But you didn't wake up, Master. You were healed centuries ago, we both know that. But you chose to keep sleeping."
"I waited," Merlin said icily, "until the strategic day that I had foreseen--"
"You waited," Archie said, leaping down from Douxie's shoulder and stalking forward, shedding his feline guise for his draconic one, "until children needed to beg the great master wizard for help. I do think you could have stepped in quite a bit earlier, if you'd actually cared."
"Archibald--"
"You blamed me," Douxie said quietly, "for letting magic fade from this world. But what have you done, Master, to preserve it?"
Merlin suddenly looked drawn, his face gaunt and old. "A wizard's place is to stand between man and magic, and defend one against the other."
Douxie and Archie exchanged a look. "But now that magic is returned to mankind," said Archie gently, "what then?"
Jim was faster than Arthur. Whether or not it was going to be fast enough... well, that was another question.
Also, a pair of glaives against Excalibur was stupid. But Jim had never let that stop him before. "You were a terrible king, you know?" he baited, dodging. Douxie had said different, that Arthur had been a good king for humans... but anyone who would prioritize humans and persecute magic beings? Jim wasn't going to count Arthur as good. Was he racist? Maybe not. But he'd been speciesist and, worse, genocidal.
"Be silent!" snapped Arthur.
Anger was sparking in Jim's heart, and he was trying his best to keep it contained. To think, fight, and speak with logic. But it was hard, faced with Arthur. And not even with the man who had fought beside the trolls, had tried to reconcile with Morgana - no, this was his shade. His vessel. In raising him from the dead, the Arcane Order had stripped out everything that had made him good and memorable, and left an empty, angry puppet. "Protecting one little city?" Jim taunted. "One tiny geographical area? So sad."
Arthur swung again. "My kingdom was vast! The greatest in the British isles!"
They were out from under the bridge now, away from the entrance to Trollmarket. The sunlight felt gloriously warm on Jim's armor. He was just getting started. "Pfft. Wales is one thing, but you didn't even rule all of Britain."
"It was to be a mere matter of time, boy."
Jim could have laughed as he danced farther and farther out of range. Drawing Arthur away from his target. There were people up on the bridge, watching, but the sun was behind them and Jim couldn't make them out from this distance. He hoped they weren't going to try to do something stupid, like interfere. "One city? One kingdom? One people?" Jim shook his head. "What are you even fighting for?"
"I fight," snarled the Green Knight, "for the glory of my masters. They will purge this planet and make it anew. With no twisted, half-breed flaws!"
"Is that supposed to hurt me?" Jim wondered. "Because I've heard worse. A lot worse."
"Foul beast," declared Arthur.
"Go look in a mirror," replied Jim, catching Excalibur's tainted blade between the cross of his glaives and guiding it aside as he moved ever backward. "I fight for the good of all." His amulet, inscribed with that vow, gleamed in the sunlight.
He wasn't just the Trollhunter, protecting a single species. He was a divine king. "Merlin believed in you and you failed him. This whole world is mine to protect," Jim growled, the green gem in his circlet glowing. He could see its light shining on Arthur's helm. "And I'll stand between it and anything that would harm it." Meaning, at the moment, Arthur.
His glaives vanished.
He raised his hand.
Crackling with divine energy, Excalibur manifested in his grasp.
"Your time is done," Jim informed King Arthur. "It's our time now."
Mother had come to the conclusion that the energy wave which she had detected had been of magical origins, as it had gone through all of her safety shields and somehow supercharged the regeneration chambers, resulting in the King and Queen's cores being completely healed.
It was logical that magic was unlike other forms of energy in that the magical burst had somehow done something to her, giving her full awareness in a way that she had not had before. Ricky and Lucy, the two active blanks, had also seemingly achieved sapience.
Full sentience, Mother found, came with an awareness of pain.
It was not pleasant.
"Ricky! Stabilize the Kelvoid superstructure while reroute the influx from the manifold," commanded Prince Krel.
"Right-o, champ!" Grinning, the blank set to work.
It took a few sektons (seemingly interminable at the speed at which Mother processed data), but then, blessedly, the knowledge of the damage became numb. As though it was held back behind a firewall.
She did not sigh with relief, though she wanted to. "The damaged area is sectioned off," she reported to the prince.
"Good! Lucy, I need you to--"
Mother paid only half her attention to the prince, focusing the rest on her outer sensors, where Princess Aja had stealthed her way out onto the pool deck and waited crouched behind the fence as Varvatos Vex opened the front door and stepped outside, seeming no more than a crouched old geezer.
"Your Majesties," said Zadra, "I must ask you to stand behind the blinds, not in plain view of these bounty hunters."
"We wish to observe Aja's improvement," said Queen Coranda mildly.
Zadra gritted her teeth. "I will remind your Majesties," she said, "that these bounty hunters are scum, who have no morals and will stoop to any depth to achieve their goals. And General Morando has sent them after you."
There was a moment's silence before King Fialkov nodded, granting her point, and stepped aside, concealing himself from the view of the Zeron Brotherhood. With a sigh, Queen Coranda did the same.
"Oh no no no," Mary said breathlessly. "The ship is on the move!"
"I see it," said Stuart. She could feel him in the satellite's systems with her. He was also sitting in his plush chair behind her in his apartment back on Earth. Being split in two places like this made Mary feel dizzy if she thought about it, so she didn't.
Don't think. Become, she thought to herself instead, which was something she'd heard Jim and the others say multiple times. It seemed to have some special meaning, and if it worked for them, it was going to work for her. Mary would force it to.
"Is he breaking orbit, or...?"
"That," said Stuart solemnly, "looks very much like a landing maneuver. General Morando is coming to Earth."
"Kleb," said Mary, her fingers on Earth already dialing Aja's phone number to relay the news.
Krel had left him to keep working on the wormhole device while he patched up the holes attackers had apparently made in the Mothership's infrastructure.
On one hand, this was all deeply cool. On the other hand....
Eli breathed deeply, trying to force himself to be calm. Sure, he knew a little about Akiridion technology, but he was still just a beginner. Multiple promises that he would someday build a real life Gun Robot aside... he just didn't know enough about this to finish up Krel's work!
"Okay," he told himself. "You don't have to finish it. Just do the parts that you know you can do."
Put like that, it became a little easier. Slot the transwarp drive into the oscillation overthruster. Use Krel's really-klebbing-cool sonic screwdriver to tighten the clamps and then fine-tune the connections.
"No no no..." Eli whispered. "No, the other way..."
The polarities flipped, then realigned themselves.
He let out a breath. "Okay, next is...." He blinked. "Oh, I know!" It was suddenly obvious. He reached for one of the many parts that were still littering Krel's work surface. It was heavier than he had expected. "What is this, titanium?" Eli asked, adjusting his glasses. "Oh, it's a gold-titanium alloy. Nice." He went on working.
He didn't notice the deep green glow around his hands, or the corresponding one emanating from his eyes. It just all seemed simple, when he really thought about it. One obvious step after another.
He loved being in the flow!
Oh crap, thought Jamie from where he had the roof door open just a crack. I guess that old guy really was Merlin.
And he'd found Douxie, or Douxie had shown up anyway, which Douxie admittedly did have a tendency to do. The two of them were arguing, starting to tear verbal strips off one another about the relationship between Man and Magic, Gods and Mortals--
Jamie swallowed, getting by context that the three figures standing between him and the two other wizards might very well be gods. He'd never met a god, and wasn't sure he wanted to. Everyone knew gods were dangerous and capricious. A fact which was borne out when one of them, the pale one swathed in black, wearing some kind of skull for a helmet, growled and slammed the butt of his staff to the ground. A blast of purest winter's cold blasted out from that point of contact, ice spiking up from the roof and down from the eaves of the access. The plants in their tubs and pots were instantly frozen over.
Beth was going to be pissed.
"Enough," the god snapped. "This pathetic bickering will sway me no more than your alleged history lesson." His black eyes snapped to the small green figure who stood by Douxie's side. "Nari, we are done with this rebellion. You will come with us now, and once we three are reunited, we will mend this broken world."
The red-haired figure, who wore what looked like a cape of raven feathers, tilted their head wordlessly. They extended a hand to the green girl - presumably Nari.
Douxie's hand clenched on hers.
"I will not come," Nari enunciated clearly. "I will have no part of destroying what has grown."
"You," growled Skrael, "will come!" This time the blast of cold was infinitely stronger, coating the roof in slick ice, freezing wind howling in its wake. There was something desperate in his voice. "You have to. There is no other option--"
The lone figure standing in the middle of the snow and ice triggered something for Jamie.
"It was dark, and it was cold, and I was scared."
Jack had told him that, years ago.
"But then, then I saw the moon. It was so big, and it was so bright, it seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did, I wasn't scared anymore."
Jamie, always imaginative, hadn't had to work hard to picture it. A young teenager, lost in the winter woods. Jack had tapped his nose, and his sister's, snowflakes sparking briefly to life in their living room as their ever-so-great-uncle told them about the night he'd discovered his magic.
Jamie hadn't understood, then, what having enough magic for immortality meant for Jack. The way he'd outlived generation after generation of his own sister's children, but kept coming back because they were his family.
He also hadn't quite understood the way Jack had been so happy, and so horrified, the day that Jamie had turned out to be a wizard too, the first in the entire extended Overland clan in three hundred years.
Happy, because it meant that finally Jack might have family he could keep.
Horrified because Jack had never wanted anyone else to lose everyone the way he did.
It had built, and built, until finally Jack broke and caused a spectacular blizzard when Jamie had been ten.
He remembered trudging out in the wind and snow, to find a lone figure screaming all his hurt out into the weather.
It was that memory that caught his breath now and sent him surging out the roof door, toward the figure in black that might or might not be a god, but was in so much pain--
"Jamie, no!"
Ignoring Douxie's panicked shout, Jamie wrapped his arms around black-clad shoulders, and held on.
Mother's camouflage matrix was very good. The fence around the pool area looked like it was made out of Earth wood planks. Including some curious holes that seemed to happen in Earth wood. Aja didn't know why they happened, but they were very convenient. She put her eye against one of them now, assessing the situation. Stuart's junker still sat in the carport, disguised as an elderly Earth vehicle, blocking her view, but if she just....
Moving to another knothole (why were they called not-holes when they most definitely were holes?), Aja finally got a glimpse of the situation.
Zerons Beta and Omega stood in the street. Beta was snarling, claws twitching. Omega stood very, very still. Her tail had not fully regenerated yet. Was it affecting her balance? Maybe, Aja thought. But she certainly could not rely on that to tip the battle.
"--back for another round?" Varvatos was demanding from the front door. "Very well!" A flash of blue gave away his transformation. She could hear as he pounded one fist into another. "If the Zeron Brotherhood wishes to become extinct in its entirety, Varvatos Vex will certainly oblige!"
"Oh, this should be good," Aja muttered to herself. She pulled her serrator out, ready to join in once the fight began. Wait for the opportune moment, she counseled herself. You need to be patient.
Ugh. I hate being patient.
Varvatos screamed his battle cry and charged toward the Zerons.
Gripping her serrator tightly, Aja prepared to jump the fence--
Her communications device trilled.
"Not now!" she hissed, scrabbling for her pocket. The ring tone was going to give away her position!
"Aja!" Mary's voice shot out of the device.
"Mary, this is not a good time--"
"Morando's ship is preparing to land!"
Aja froze. "What?"
"And given his trajectory," Stuart's voice added in the background, "he is heading straight for Arcadia Oaks."
Oh, this was not good, Krel was not finished with his wormhole device--
"Hold still, you misbegotten cretin!" Varvatos bellowed. Their neighbors were probably watching from the meager safety of their own homes, glass and walls a flimsy shield against interstellar bounty hunters.
"Mary, I have to go," Aja said, and hung up on Mary's squawk, shoving the communicator back in her pocket.
Fight the Zerons first. Worry about Morando after.
Blue light flashed again, but this time it wasn't Varvatos.
Aja turned, blinking. "Tronos Madu...?" she asked the red creature that stood beside the pool.
He grinned. Or at least she assumed it was a grin. "Hello, Princess."
"Technically, you know, I am not a princess," said Aja, standing up straight, back now to the fence. "I am a Queen-in-Waiting."
"Nuance," said Tronos.
"The difference is small, though legally significant," Aja allowed. "I will not assume this timing is a coincidence." She gestured toward the fence and by implication the battle she could hear beyond. "Are you using the Zerons, or are they using you?"
Tronos' glowing gold eyes never strayed from her. "You seem sure that I am not their ally."
"Are you?"
He did not answer, only hummed in a different way than electricity hummed.
Tronos stepped closer to her. She did not step back, did not flinch. Not even when his hand came up, claws cupping her chin. He wasn't crackling with voltage yet; surely, Aja thought, that must be a good sign?
"You lack fear," he observed.
"Oh, I am very afraid," Aja admitted, because she was. He could kill her. He might still kill her. She was letting him in close and raising neither weapon nor shield against him. "But... fear is but the precursor to valor," she said softly, thinking of her friends. "And to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what makes us heroes."
"You think you are a hero?" Tronos' voice was dripping with derision.
"I know I am," said Aja. "One of many."
He stared into her eyes a moment longer, then tore away, his claws ripping through the stones on the house's facade. Chips clattered, spraying the ground even as dust floated in the air.
Aja waited.
"You," Tronos growled, "are insufferable."
"I am sorry for what my parents did," said Aja quietly. "If it would bring back your planet, your family... I would give my life to you. But it will not."
His hands flexed, claws clicking softly together.
"General Morando is on his way," Aja felt obliged to inform him. "He will be landing soon." In another timeline, Tronos Madu had chosen the path of heroism, but he had died at Morando's hands. Krel had only told her this later, information he had obtained from Sergeant Costas of Area 51-B. We should never have left you behind. I hope we can do better by you this time. "He will judge you by your failure."
Golden eyes narrowed. "You seem sure of that."
"I am."
His chin lifted; his weight shifted. Still, she did not move. She did not think he was going to attack. "I could capture you now."
"You could," Aja allowed. "Why haven't you?"
Silence.
She took a step closer. "Why do you hesitate, if that is truly your goal?"
A longer silence.
Aja waited.
"It will not... bring them back," Tronos Madu said. Something in his voice was broken, throbbing with pain.
Aja bowed her head and closed her eyes, acknowledging his loss. "I cannot restore what was lost. I can only offer support to rebuild that which remains." Her eyes met his. "I am not my parents," said Aja. "I will not stand idly by when I can help."
Another moment of waiting. The sektons ticked by, as slow as the dripping of some viscous fluid. Aja could hear the sound of Varvatos engaged in glorious two-on-one battle, apparently having the time of his life.
Finally, Tronos Madu spoke. "I accept your offer." His gold gaze bored into hers. He made a small bow. "Queen-in-Waiting."