Forehead-mask? They killed him? …If I remember right, they left me a message saying we didn't have to fight the last time they ambushed me a few months ago. Did the horizonguard find out about that? Hm. Doesn't feel like his style. Something must've changed.

Or, from the one time we met him, maybe I didn't get the best idea of him. He does lead a company that specializes in fatal solutions. I lean closer to try and get a good look at forehead mask's face… but he's a pure enigma. The masks really do a good job at keeping people anonymous.

"So at least one high-profile enemy is a construct. Is there anything we can do with that info?"

Jumble hums in thought. "...Maybe. I think it'll depend on if the others with him care about the fact that he's a construct or not."

"Good point," I agree. "We'll need to hope we run into them before things get too deep. Potentially having two of the three on our side could be a big boon."

"It could be, yeah. Or maybe they're constructs, too, just not from this room." Jumble dusts off her lap as she steps away from the body. "That's pretty much everything I can show you now. Oh, uh, please don't try to purify any of the real corpses. There's some magic keeping them from completely rotting and I might want to come back here later."

"Sure. Won't be a later, though." I turn to leave, the body-warmth clinging insistently to me as I open up the wall. "Pearl, you have a list of everyone that had their anchors stolen?"

Pearl shakes her head. "Just the ones who went through here, and a few other names the doctor and his construct listed as important. I don't recognize any of them, though."

Damn. Could've given us something to go off of. I step out of the way so Jumble can get out of the room as well, then point off in both directions. "Which way now?"

She walks to the left with confidence. "I lost Dani's trail around here a few days ago. Finding this place was a lucky break, but… well… I guess I'm lucky I didn't find anything about Gnash here."

Yeah. Because the only clues she could've found would've essentially been obituaries. She ramps up to a sprint over the next few seconds, but… it's way faster than before. My legs pump, my heart thunders, and each breath comes a little harder than the last. The walls blur by in one lump of continuous colour. All the turns feel ninety-degree sharp even though I know they're damn gradual.

Just as I hit my limit, staticky whispers fill my ears. I gasp in surprise as vitality floods my body, along with a strange sense of exhilaration. Almost like Jumble's whispering magic is hyping me up as well as empowering me. Tingles spread over my ears like millions of extremely weak staticky shocks, then down my neck, and before I can react, every single part of me tingles with Jumble's magic.

I marvel down at the staticky sheen coating my body. "It didn't do this before."

Jumble smiles somberly and latches onto my arm. Even though we're both running at beyond highway speeds, neither of us so much as slow or stumble at the motion.

"Part of my power… came back," she says slowly. "From Euro."

…Oh. "I'm… sorry."

She sniffles and turns away. My awareness feels the tears running down her face, and I raise a hand to wipe them away. With gentle insistence she stops me.

"I need these right now, sorry." She tries to smile again, but it cracks. "I haven't felt this powerful in a long time. It… it hurts, Shelby. All this used to be Euro. I thought Dani did this so he could take the power for himself, but… if I have it… then why? Why did he kill Euro?"

Her sob turns into a sneer halfway through. I reach over to scratch between her ears, which perks her up a little. She pushes her head against my nails with a melancholic sigh as the slight chill of the normal city air envelops us. Along with it appears a trio of twisted paindne. Jumble frowns and slashes a flat hand through the air.

A long, staticky slash of magic slices straight through them. They seize up mid-attempt at attacking us, and just… stay there. No struggle, no movement, no nothing. I watch the trio as we speed by, the staticky slash warbling and sputtering like a radio tuned to a dead channel.

"That's new, too," I murmur. "Jumble, how powerful are you actually?"

"Enough," she states simply. "I kind of stopped trying to get stronger a… few hundred years ago? The system wouldn't give me much of anything, anyway, so there wasn't really a point to it all. Obviously most of my power's wrapped up in keeping all my party members alive right now. Before you ask–no, I will not let them all die just so I can be super duper strong to fight the horizonguard."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I shake my head with deadly seriousness. "I'd never ask you to do that."

Jumble smiles–small, genuine, and surrounded by a blush. "I know. There's someone else I'm telling that to."

I raise an eyebrow and glance at Pearl. She holds her arms up in an 'X' and vigorously shakes her head. I didn't think Jumble was referring to Pearl, but there was always a chance. No… if I'm right… she's talking about herself.

"What about just Dani?" I ask. "If he did actually betray us and kill Euro for no reason, then what are you going to do with him?"

She tilts her head to the side in question. "What would you do with someone who killed one of your closest friends in cold blood? And what if that person was also one of your closest friends? A-and what if… you'd… made that person? Could you just kill them?"

Honestly, I can't even imagine something like that. It's pretty much a parent watching one of their kids murder their sibling.

"I don't know," I admit.

Jumble nods in agreement. "I'm not sure, either. Just killing Dani… it's not enough."

Her arm tightens around mine. Unmitigated rage and hatred fueled by more years of experience than the U.S. has existed pool behind her eyes in a molten exclamation of utter disdain. I'd thought she was having a moral quandary with what to do with Dani. Now I'm not sure at all.

I swallow around a dry mouth and put on a neutral face. "What more could you do than kill him?"

"That's the problem," Jumble hisses through her teeth. "He's acting like he joined the horizonguard. He kidnapped Gnash and… either forced Rina to join him or is working with her. Even if he was a bit of a jerk, this is way too far. He crossed the point of reparations the moment the light left Euro's eyes."

She turns her eyes up to me, her firm hold on my arm trembling with rage. "I want to end him way, way too much. I want to choke the life out of him and tell him that his life's been a lie that I programmed into him just so he can suffer an existential crisis as I snuff out his existence. But he's smarter than that. He'll have Gnash somewhere, his anchor somewhere else, and Rina in a third place. It's not whether or not I want to kill him; it's how much I'd lose if I wrapped my hands around his throat the moment I saw him."

No mercy for Dani it is. Can't say I feel for the guy, but I thought Jumble would feel at least a little conflicted about ending him. Guess it's for the best that she won't. …She's looking at me like she wants an answer. Like she wants affirmation.

I smile down at her. "Tell me if you need help."

Relief beads in the corners of her eyes. "I know."

Pearl stifles a giggle at something, then goes back to looking through the book Jumble gave her. I still don't quite get why Jumble wanted to hide all of that from me, but apparently that's just something I'll have to accept. With a soft sigh and a scratch at my neck I put all that out of my mind and focus on what's important. Finding Gnash, stopping the horizonguard, and getting out of here with everyone alive.

"So how do we find Dani if you've lost his trail?" I ask in an attempt to get back on track. "Pearl might be able to track him with our beacon, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. Pearl?"

She sticks her head out of her shell and shrugs. "Coordinates, signal tracing, broadcasts, and signal boosting is pretty much all I can do with the beacon. Does Dani have a signal?"

Jumble bites her lip. "He doesn't… but the book does."

"The book?" Pearl tilts her head to the side. "If it's a magical signal and you made the thing, why can't you just track it?"

"It's complicated," Jumble hurriedly says. "I made it, planted it there, and used some of my power to make the book give any construct that holds it powers similar to a Class Card. So it's not necessarily magical, just… um… complicated?"

I don't get it. But Pearl nods like that explanation just made perfect sense.

"Okay, I think I can track it, then. Shelby, can you help me out with the awareness cost? I don't want to be useless for a few hours."

"Instead, we'll both be half-useless for a few hours," I chuckle as I summon the beacon. "Here. Go wild."

Pearl slides out of her shell and scurries down my arm. She sits at the beacon's side as Jumble leans in and starts saying things that register as words and numbers, but mean absolutely nothing to me. Once Pearl finishes entering the signal Jumble just told her she reaches up for my finger. I give it to her.

"Hope this works!" She says cheerily and activates the beacon.

An arrow appears over the beacon. Pointing off into the distance. Jumble grins viciously and grabs my arm, pulling me into a full-blown sprint before anyone can utter a single word. Pearl nestles into my palm to stop herself from flying off while we make a breakneck dash in the direction of the arrow.

"I'm coming for you," Jumble mutters.

Her reignited malice washes over everything, coating my awareness in a boiling-hot mirage of staticky magic. I almost feel bad for Dani, but everything he's done stops that feeling from taking hold. Pity, though? Also no, since he doesn't deserve that, but whatever's like… pity, but in the way that you're looking down on someone instead of feeling bad for them.

Well, whatever it is I'm feeling, Jumble's about to erase him from her stories. Just hope Gnash and possibly Rina won't suffer for his sins.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.