"Dead?!" exclaimed Jessamine. "No—that can't be right, Hope is—"
"—dead," Laura finished. "Listen carefully: the enemy force deployed counter-magic of their own and waited for your Societie to pop out of their little hidey-holes, then shot them in the head. We need to move, now. Use your shield magic!"
Jessamine's instincts kicked in, and the spell activated.
She noticed that Laura Stuart—whoever she was—was doing the same.
"You can use instinctive magic?"
"I've had a good teacher," the young woman replied.
Caspian, Jessamine realized.
That bastard. He said he couldn't train me, but he trained her?
I'm going to ask him about this the next time I see him…
A single shot broke through the silence, vanishing upon contact with Jessamine's shield.
"They found us," said Laura, her sword vanishing into thin air—Was it magic?—as she pulled a pair of pistols from thigh holsters. "It's the Research Group. I can tell from the weapon: Pierre DuPont."
"Why the Research Group, and not the main force?"
"The main force is severely depleted—you took out half of them, remember? They have to guard the entrance to the Vault, lest the King makes a break for it."
Another shot echoed through the room, this time missing the two women.
"If they use counter-magic again, reactivate your shield as fast as you can," said Laura, guns pointed in the direction of the enemy. "I won't be able to defend you. You'll have to do the best you can."
"You've underestimated me," Jessamine replied.
At that moment, a figure rounded the corner and approached them, weapon drawn: one of the boys from the Research Group. He opened fire immediately, and Laura returned with a volley of her own, causing the inexperienced warrior to instinctively duck.
Jessamine pounced on this opportunity.
She began running towards the young man, her movements graceful and efficient as she closed the gap between them. Taking advantage of her mother's insistence on self-defense training, Jessamine was able to handily disarm her opponent by knocking his arm to the side and strategically striking a pressure point, causing his hand to open.
Though the spy attempted to grab her, Jessamine easily turned the situation to her advantage and began brutally kneeing her attacker in the gut and groin. Laura, though watching the sidelines for other enemies, could nevertheless feel the impact of the strikes resonate throughout her body.
In the midst of the confrontation, Laura caught a glimpse of Jessamine's face, and was surprised to find that the usually-serious and self-controlled heiress had been twisted into a rage-fueled banshee.
When Jessamine had finished, the young man fell to the ground while clutching his stomach. Jessamine knelt next to him and flipped him over to lay on his back, before straddling him and pinning his arms above his head. A quick command of "Allar ln ollor da!" bound the man in place as Jessamine plucked one of his eyes from his head with her bare hands.
The young man—truly, no more than a boy—screamed in pain and horror as his vision went dark and he felt something being shoved roughly into his skull.
He didn't know that Laura, who had been watching the assault with a peculiar interest, had handed Jessamine a fragmentation grenade.
The di Cadenza heiress immediately understood what Laura intended.
As Jessamine stood, she and Laura heard movement in the direction the boy had just come from. They immediately prepared themselves for battle: Jessamine drew her submachine gun, while Laura's pistols refocused on the openings in the industrial forest around them.
Then, Jessamine noticed something familiar.
That aura… I know it.
Caspian!
Laura must have also noticed something, or perhaps Caspian had contacted her somehow, because the younger girl had already lowered her weapons.
Sure enough, Jessamine's final trump card appeared before them a few seconds later, alongside Lance, Gwen, and the newcomer, Natasha, all bearing the telltale scuffs and stains of battle.
"Hey, Jess," Caspian said nonchalantly. "Sorry I'm late."
***
"Argghh!"
The pain was a new experience for Arthur. Even when he had trained with Morgan, she had stopped short of inflicting any serious damage—and now his foot was gone.
It wasn't a clean loss, either.
There was a jagged, fractured bone jutting out from bloody tissue and torn skin. Arthur couldn't look at the bone unless he wanted to become conscious of the nerve endings nearby, which would result in excruciating pain which his brain was otherwise suppressing.
His body was entering a state of shock in response to the traumatic injury as magic-accelerated rounds pummelled the earth around him.
This isn't good.
I've got to find a way to deal with them quickly, before I can't fight anymore.
Their auras… I need to be careful. They're definitely magicians.
I wonder if Excalibur would be able to break their shields?
But if it doesn't, I lose my best weapon.
This is not what I imagined being a crown prince would be like…
No, stay focused.
Breathe.
Steeling his nerves, Arthur pivoted himself to face the enemy on his knees, leaning against his still-burning car for support.
He couldn't see this new team of assassins: they were firing through the truckbed, making sure to conceal their presence as much as possible. From their auras, though, Arthur guessed that there were no less than seven assailants hiding within the truck.
A round hit the car near Arthur's head, causing him to duck instinctively and making him afraid to continue surveying the situation.
He didn't need to continue, however. He already knew his situation was far from ideal.
On one side, there was a steep mountain face leading into a forested area. Morgan's unconscious form lay at the base of the mountain, where it levelled off and joined the road. He wouldn't be able to climb up the mountain anymore, given his leg.
On the other side, the mountain continued, dropping down into a narrow river valley.
He couldn't advance towards the semi truck, both because of his missing foot as well as the hypervigilant assassins awaiting him. For the same reasons, fleeing along the road wasn't a viable solution, either.
If I can, at least, take out the enemies, I could maybe survive long enough for first aid to arrive…
But how?
He couldn't risk a direct assault, which might cost him Excalibur. And without knowing the enemy's numbers or capabilities, it would be difficult to come up with a plan that could account for any variation.
Wait—I have one advantage.
All of my enemies are inside that truck trailer.
If I can somehow dispose of the entire trailer, I can eliminate the enemies without risking my prized possession.
…the mountain.
A subtle difference in the enemy's firing pattern caught his attention. Arthur could tell something had changed, but he wasn't quite sure how to describe it.
He would never find out, in fact, that the change was due to the assassins' Command suddenly going radio-silent after having provoked Elisabeth Blackstone.
But if there's a time to act, it's now.
He peeked above the trunk of the car once more and clearly visualized his objective, carefully selecting a suitable target along the ground, before calling Excalibur down from the heavens with a slight move of his hand.
The enchanted sword fell at Arthur's command, picking up speed as it entered the atmosphere, never once deviating from its intended target.
Faster, faster, faster—it exceeded its natural terminal velocity with magical aid as it approached the lonely mountain highway with blinding speed.
Arthur only saw a bright flash of light in the early morning sky before the projectile hit the mountainside, just a little bit to the left of the semi truck.
But Arthur had not missed.
The force with which Excalibur had hit the solid-rock mountainside was equivalent to the blast force of slightly less than nine tons of TNT, and that entire force was condensed into a single point: the tip of the sword.
The legendary blade pierced the rock with ease, too fast for Arthur to see, and the shockwaves produced by the impact shattered the mountainside. Some of the rock even flash-melted into magma.
To Arthur, it appeared as if the mountain itself had turned to sand.
The force of the flying shards of mountain was enough to prevent the semi truck from falling for a little while, but very soon that force succumbed to gravity—the truck, along with the highway and much of the mountain above it, was carried by the flow of lava and shattered mountain rock down to the river valley below.
It had been a gamble: if the impact crater had been any larger, Arthur and Morgan would have been in danger as well, and Arthur had no way of knowing whether or not his plan would work.
But it did, and he didn't waste his time worrying about hypotheticals.
After breathing a sigh of relief and once again steeling his nerves, he began walking over to where Morgan lay unconscious.
Man, am I gonna have a story for her…
***
"Sir, we've lost contact with Mission Control. We've also received reports of seismic activity along the interstate where Part A of the operation was taking place. The activity is consistent with our profile of Excalibur."
The agent, a seasoned officer in his department, was nevertheless nervous to deliver bad news.
The recipient of the news didn't look up from his paperwork, even though this result was unexpected and potentially dangerous for his country.
"Call off Part A. If Excalibur is in play, it's a wash. Focus on Part B. Give me a report when it's done, I still need to review my condolence speech."
"Yes, Mr. President."
***
Caspian and his crew had arrived outside the Academy town and were perplexed by the amount of people present.
A nearby raven settled on a tree branch—
[Master, there was one going around and spreading lies, telling them to come back.]
[Good work. Did you see who it was?]
[It was the one who accompanied the mistress on her trip across the water, who only just returned.]
[Thank you. Continue your patrol.]
[Yes, master.]
Pierre DuPont, thought Caspian. You're acting exactly as anticipated.
Thank you for making this so easy.
"Alright, everyone, let's stay outside the town for the moment," he said. "It seems the town is livelier than expected, probably as the result of meddling by our enemies. We don't know how many spies they might have planted among the townsfolk."
This was a lie: Caspian had received detailed reports on the number and identities of the spies from Elisabeth, but he didn't want to reveal that information without a suitable cover story.
"We can teleport from outside the wall, as it's well within the range of the device," he continued. "Let's find a spot where we won't be easily observed."
"Device?" Gwen asked. "You haven't mentioned a general teleportation device to us…"
Caspian smiled mysteriously.
"It's a special project I've been working on," he replied, revealing a small obsidian cube a few inches in size. "This device transfers energy between two points in space, but it has a limited range because of the amount of power it requires. Still, we should be close enough at this point, so let's give it a shot."
"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Lance. "Like that old science fiction show—Space Voyager—with the teleporters that recreate your body somewhere else… isn't it a common philosophical dilemma? Whether or not the version of you created by the teleporter is still 'yourself'?"
"We don't really have time for philosophy," Caspian replied, "but, it's not quite the same as that. This device simply changes the endpoint for energy transference, specifically the energy of motion. It's no different than walking around—your atoms stay the same."
"Isn't that the same as bending space?" Gwen asked excitedly, but she didn't receive an answer.
As the group moved towards a small overhanging cliff which would protect them from unwanted attention, Natasha Angeloff was coming to terms with the powers she had just seen.
Caspian hadn't noticed Natasha watching him during his communication with the raven, otherwise he might've been more careful.
There was clear psychic activity going on, she thought. Caspian's brain lit up like a lightbulb, and the light seemed to reach out to that bird…
…it's not possible for a psychic to communicate with animals, though.
What could he have been doing?
Maybe he was influencing its behavior?
Whatever he was doing—there's no way that he's unaware of his psychic abilities.
He's deliberately trying to hide them.
Just who is this man?
Caspian brought out the small, polished, black cube under cover of the overhang, making a show of tracing various patterns across its surface before drawing a large, door-shaped rectangle in the air.
To the amazement of everyone present, a small blue crackle of electricity followed Caspian's finger as he did so, and when the box was complete, the interior flashed white for a second before becoming transparent. Only the crackling blue outline remained.
"The portal is configured," said Caspian. "Now, we just have to position it."
Natasha couldn't believe her eyes: she had seen immense psychic energy emanate from Caspian as he was using this supposed magic tool, but she hadn't sensed anything from the tool itself—Is it a sham? Is Caspian hiding an instinctive, psychic magic by pretending he's using a tool?
But, then, why did he say that the device has a limited range?
Caspian began scrolling his fingers along the cube, and the appearance of the portal changed; it was initially confusing to the viewers, but they soon realized the portal's destination was shifting in space, giving them a cross-sectional view of whatever happened to be intersecting the portal at that time.
"Uh, Caz, if this is a portal, why isn't anything falling through it?" asked Lance.
"It's in what I like to call 'Window Mode', where it only redirects light from the destination to aid in targeting," their friend replied.
Caspian's answer was met with a round of "Oh"s and "I see"s from the other members of Research Group Theta.
Presently, the scene on the portal-window shifted to that of the Academy's sub-basement, where the group observed the traitorous Research Group receiving orders to eliminate Jessamine and Laura. The initial assault was delegated to one of their younger members, who ran off into the maze of machinery, while the remaining members would use his fight with the two girls as a distraction to flank them.
"Looks like we're just in time," said Caspian, tapping twice on top of the cube. The outline of the portal switched to an off-yellow color reminiscent of fire. "The portal is in passthrough mode now. We don't have much time. Let's take those guys out."
His Research Group nodded in agreement.
Gwen was the first through the portal, gingerly stepping through, and Lance followed bravely behind after seeing her safe on the other side. But when it came time for Natasha, she stopped and looked at Caspian right before she entered, and that's when something awful happened.
The psychic was suddenly assaulted by what felt like a mental wave against a breakwater, a battering ram against a castle—something was forcing its way into her mind.
[Little girl,] said the voice, which she recognized as belonging to Caspian, [you seem to have taken an interest in me and my mind. That is most unwise.]
Natasha looked up at Caspian in shock, tears forming in her eyes from the mental strain.
[You belong to me now. If you even think about what you've seen here, I will rip your mind from its home and incinerate it with the power of a thousand suns.]
Natasha suddenly found herself being sucked into the gravity of Jupiter—she was in outer space, inexplicably, choking due to the lack of oxygen—her blood was boiling from the pressure difference, her skin was freezing—and suddenly she was back, standing before the portal, her mind being forced into submission.
She couldn't resist.
Her own willpower, her own obligations—none of it mattered.
Natasha didn't say anything, but she bowed her head to the man before her.
[Good girl. Now, run along.]
Looking through the portal, she saw that Gwen and Lance had already engaged the enemy.
She didn't hesitate.
I've gained another valuable pawn, thought Caspian as he watched Natasha jump through the portal with eagerness. I'll have to bring her back to the house. The family might have use for a psychic of such ability.
Caspian smiled, and joined his friends on the other side.