The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Six: Eddelin City]

The blast took out the lights, but Xadrez' robes gave off enough to see. "There you are," said Kracht, running to embrace Emma.

"Kracht," breathed Emma, weakly. "Is the light back? I can't... Kracht, can you see me?"

The mineral waved his hand in front of Emma's eyes. Xadrez waved a hand above a train of fabric, glancing up at the remains of a candelebra-shaped glow-worm city.

"No," whispered Kracht, not catching Xadrez' echo. "No, no, Emma, honey, I'm sorry." The lights aren't on "You're just blind, is all."

Xadrez looked to the doorway, and Emma just smiled. That way she always smiles.

Silence. The tactician's fingers drummed on the board, toyed with loose fibres,failed to escape Kracht's notice. Kracht looked at the doorway, look at Xadrez. "You know something."

Don't mind me, mumbled the spirit, clearly distracted. its just one of those situations
where one thing
inevitably
leads to a mother

"Mommy's here?" asked Emma. "My mommy works for the newspaper."

"Xadrez," snarled Kracht, gripping Emma's shoulder, "what the fuck are you playing at?"

Release the girl, Kracht came a voice. Xadrez was shaking. You know what your alien radiation is doing to her

Kracht knows. He'll turn to look at her, staring off into space. His presence was undoing would undo what constant time manipulation had wrought, reverting her to the child she'd been when she'd entered her first battle.

Xadrez twitched irritably, the motion amplified through the golden threads and the whale-cave's shadows wavering in turn. Kracht, spat Xadrez, a breaking of his voice like the cracking of eons-spanning stone.

It's the end of the line
the end of the round
you

I

we are going to settle this
the three of us

no

wait
no

Xadrez sounded close to panicky, glancing again and again at the doorway, wringing his robes like cornered kings. Emma's breathing was a soft, arrhythmic rasp, scratching at the edges of the two entities' hearing. Kracht stared in incomprehension; the tactician was searching, stalling, refusing to look at him.

"Is someone there?"

"Sweetie, stay with me," said Kracht, kissing Emma on the forehead, glaring at the ghost. "Xadrez, you need to leave."

Xadrez shook his head, traced the green-gold thread with his right hand, from the thumb, up the wrist, to the aureate tangle at his breast. He studied it intently, before closing the gap and extending a hand. It wavered over Emma's shoulder, afraid one touch would shatter everything. The spirit recoiled, averted his gaze again to his chessboard. He spoke more to the marbled silver stain that encircled the disc, watching its prickling progress.

I do not intend to stay long
nor did I intend to have to waylay you both in this fashion

this is all excruciatingly inauspicious and certainly
certainly not the way things were supposed to be
but here we are
free of distractions

it
it seems a good a time as any to tell you both a story

"A story sounds nice," Emma murmured into Kracht's chest, jamming protestations in his lime green throat.

---

Jen couldn't bring herself to care about how Xadrez was going to wrangle Cedric; it'd taken most of her patience for his aggrandising bullshit to find out from him where Arkal was, find out he wasn't going to not be a cryptic ass about that, and reach a compromise and make tracks for the whale. She carried the dead moon's light on the edge of her sword, bathing the woods in silver and attracting many a confused small bird trying to flee by her compass glow.

If any of the old guard crossed paths with Jen now, they'd think her some spectre of the past, flitting through the Grove like one of its million memories. Skulking around someone else's Place, on some other dead asshole's orders. Something - the whale, she guessed - moaned a sad song to the Place, the only one who'd listen but never really love back such fleeting, dying things like the whale or Jen. For a heartbeat, she missed Cedric and all the fuck-introspection violence his presence entailed.

Jen sniffed, spat out something phlegmy and purple (damn haylcyon-fever) and broke cover, dashing unchallenged into the Palace Gardens and murmuring a thanks to the Grove for carrying her there quickly. The whale loomed up ahead, floating low in the shadow of the spire Xadrez had twisted out of the landscape. Its one visible eye rolled down to study Jen, nothing to offer but solemn communion. The once-queen tromped up the steps, into the shadow of the behemoth, which spasmed with pain as a thunk-crash rang from on high. With a groan, the whale's jaws opened, admitting her into what seemed more or less a regular palace interior.

Glancing back at the view from the top of the palace steps (pretty decent, naturally), the ugly orange of light pollution harked from beyond the trees like a forest fire. Somewhere beyond that, beige cracks were hairlining across the sky, weeping a fraction of trillions of Amalgamites.

An ambergris chandelier trembled overhead. Jen found the biggest, fanciest flight of stairs she could and took them on up, following her nose and taking a few inspired-if-familiar back passageways, until one of the doors she kicked open greeted her with the throne room. She tried not to think about the weird floor texture (was that a brain?); luckily, some girl who was probably Emma, damnit, was holding down the main stairwell, up which a steady flow of clockwork soldiers marched. Hector was on the edge of his throne, concentrating on something that wasn't in the room itself.

Jen whipped her sword, now a rapier, like a conductor's baton, slamming the soldiers with a wave of moonsong. Their metal hulls warped and buckled as a dose of concentrated therianthropy wracked their forms, warping hands to hooves and giving a rather ragged Emma a breather. "Nice of you to help," Jen quipped at the King, who roused himself with a gasp from his minke-syncing.

"The Ovoid broke the Place's defences. With the moon gone and the Middle-Gem gods know where, we'll be overrun within the hour." He didn't seem completely broken by the intel, which was a good start. Jen, impending reset be damned, decided to be helpful.

"Actually, I've got your moon here, and Xadrez has the Middle-Gem. We can still pull this off. Pull something off."

The king paused midway to explaining why that wouldn't work, got distracted by Emma's situation and roused up some swans for backup, before looking at Jen a bit more carefully. He didn't look so hot, himself.

"Right, fine. We'll deal with that after that treasonous werestick."

"Klaus? Neither you or Kath thought to get rid of him?"

"You're the one who left him alive and exiled for Kath to get her hooks into," snapped Hector, realising with a stabbing in his side this was all beside the point. "Whatever, look. I'm dead weight in a fight as long as my whale's bleeding out a fresh hole in its chest."

Jen nodded. She'd just have to spot Kracht before Xadrez did; figure out with him how best to fuck over Xadrez, the Ovoid, the Observer, and anyone else who thought they could push her around; let things flow from there. Emma had cleared the last of the clockwork soldiers, and after a bout of nasty coughing ran over to check on Hector.

"Thanks," she said to Jen, beaming in a way that would've been beatific. Her tone was sisterly, though Jen didn't really have that facet register on any conscious level. More distracting was the woman's manaburn symptoms, in Jen's professional magic-wielder's opinion, the king should've noticed and been worried about quite some time ago. She tried and failed to shove the concern aside; she had enough on her plate. Emma herself clearly didn't need anyone fussing over her; she was getting an update on the situation outside from the King.

"Stay on the brain," Emma ordered, "the two of us will handle Klaus."

Hector could only nod and recline on his throne, gritting his teeth. Jen had a moment's deliberation to postpone the whole "following orders" embargo, before chasing Emma down the stairs. "Hey! Emma Brodeburg, right?"

"Hey. Didn't the King guy say you were dead?"

Jen made a noise she hoped was nonchalant. "That'll be Queen Jen the First, thanks." Emma hid a smile, slicing a twitching Silver Soldier apart and kicking his arm clean off. "I think I talked to your sister, once."

There was a whirring and a ticking clashing coming from the bottom of the stairs. Emma flickered, or her magical signature did. Recollection was a hazardous hobby for an avatar of Time. She coughed, and didn't stop coughing for a good minute or more. "We haven't talked in ages," she eventually rasped. "Allie had to leave once I could look after myself."

Shit. Jen was struggling to not feel pity, in spite of her instinctive mistrust of women like Emma Brodeburg (and a general something about Emma in particular which demanded you save your pity in the first place). She got waylaid into a thorny patch of Xadrez-wrangling, trying to figure out whether she was (by the tactician's calculations) supposed to inform Emma right now or not, when the Workship almost fried her and Emma with a lightning turret affixed to the prow. The prow itself (the non-tip bit that wasn't impaled clean through the floor) was unfolding into a thousand whirring arms and teeth and knives, trying to chew/drag the Workshop's way into the royal bedchamber. There were dead animals and ripped-up toy soldiers and the place stunk like an inspiringly-badly seasoned steak.

Arkal punched his way out of the workship hull with a gauntlet that wasn't there. To Jen's relief, his cuts looked superficial; Kracht and the surviving toy soldiers tumbled out after him. Arkal wasted no time kicking aside a rug and putting his tools down, a carved-off chunk of the Clockwerk (despite all sense, Tick!) resting atop the forge.

"We'll talk (and Tock!) and work, lass. What's to report?" Jen passed her Ovoid-sword to Arkal without complaint, receiving a (Tick!) substitute in the interim.

"Everything's turning to shit, and Xadrez wants you dead before those guys-" Jen did her damnedest to not act like Emma and Kracht's reunion was a tangible step to getting her life back "-fuck up their lives forever."

Arkal returned the Omnisword. "So that's Emma Brodeburg? I don't suppose we should tell them what's in store?"

"I don't know," admitted Jen, pulling a face. "Xadrez stole someone's cheat sheet, and was pretty insistent we had to let this play out."

---

"I won't do it," Jen repeated. "You're lying about-"

Jen couldn't finish that. Xadrez, blank eyes blazing, had plucked at a green-gold thread on his wrist, pulling it tight enough to curl the attached finger.

I do not lie to my soldiers, Jen
Ive sufficed two wars and a worlds end without resorting to untruths and I see no intention of starting
It is out of respect for you you petulant child that you are told what must be done and not a grocery list of happenstances to eventuate some design I keep locked in my mind

Jen looked about ready to argue, but the ghost the Librarian the General the Tactician raised a finger so she knew he wasn't finished. His eyes narrowed, a fake-and-deliberate soft surprise as he analysed Jen.

You think me petty
you think that I do not consider his premature death in this insidious tournament unconscionable
Well
I do not lie when I say there is no higher judgement
none to absolve me of the million slaughters
each terrible and necessary to see the Grandmasters fall
for such a judgement would've curtailed all this from the beginning

So call me cruel, call me a monster, a war criminal
once you do what I've commanded of you, I would owe you that much
But do not suggest again I would order lives ended without good reason

Xadrez sighed, shook out his sleeves. Cedric groaned and spat out a bit of beard-soot, and Xadrez glanced down at him and away from Jen with something that might've been relief.

Ill give you this decision to make
You can ensure by your own hand Arkal dies with dignity
or you can attempt to talk sense into your beaten dog here
or
inevtiably failing diplomacy with the knight
you could terrorise Emma and Kracht yourself
be the one to set him off on his circuitous demise

The tactician waited a moment, tugged at some strings, and unsteadily lifted up Cedric by the scruff of his neck. Hearing no intelligble protest from anyone, he dragged the knight up until his knees stopped scraping the ground and nodded to Jen.

I will handle the loop, then
inform you as required on developments
you have your orders
and I promise you a reckoning once this is done
if you insist it cannot wait until after the Grandmasters are dead
then next round

Xadrez dragged Cedric toward the pool with a cautious flick of his fingers, dropped him face-first with much less care. He studied the colouds of ash and tendrils of blood as they leaked into the pool, back turned to Jen.

Say your piece
But please then go get on with it

"You're going to tell him what's in store. You owe him that much."

Gold sleeves, shimmer chartreuse. There are risks associated with altering too much of the events or the Kracht which lead circuitous to our prime timeline
For this our first foray into non-linear time we had best be content with gathering information
though such an event is beyond my current projections if the opportunity arises again we might-

"You don't know that we can't change things for the better here, right now."

Cedric had managed to haul up his front half long enough to gasp for air. The spirit flicked the knight onto his back, traced the warp of his golden robes, and shook his head.

I am being permissibly cautious
there are too many unknowns at stake
The Fates handed me not three
not six
but an irksomely indivisible multitude of threads

"You're an asshole, Xadrez. A petty, spiteful asshole."

And until you kill Arkal, I am my only authority
if you wish to squander the final round styling yourself as my arbiter
if you wish to mete out unto me judgement
if you think the Grandmasters can wait

Well

To say 'I cannot stop you' is a lie
But then and only then can I not stop you from trying

---

Kracht had a bad feeling about this. Relieved as he was to find Emma, protective as he was of her (he was her rock in every sense of the word, after all), he hurt her just be being present. Her condition had only deteriorated, and Kracht wasn't sure (didn't want to be sure) that their next parting would be their last. He couldn't send her alone to fight probably-Klaus and possibly-Cedric down in the basement where the whale's heart lay.

He didn't want to be alone.

The whale thrashed in pain, its size translating the motion into something more like being momentarily tossed onto a stormy boat. Kracht felt a pair of lowercase-g grandmasterly eyes on the back of his neck, and saw Xadrez quietly luminescing at the top of a flight of stairs. He was expressionless right until he opened his mouth, which let a sneer mingle on in there.

She is in no state to fight whatever lies down there

Another heave of the whale. Emma almost lost her footing; Kracht had to grab her shoulders.

She needs to rest
Cedric is coming

"How-"

I have it on good authority

Kracht's thoughts kept on roiling for a bit after the whale stopped. He turned to Emma, who was looking disorientedly up at Xadrez. Kracht tried not to let the worry show in his voice.

"Emma, you go ahead, ok? I'll be right behind you."

Emma snapped back to the now, blinked a few times. There were black spots spreading in her vision. "Sure." Kracht waited until she was out of earshot, before looking back up at Xadrez.

"Is this the part where it-"

Where what
You need not concern yourself with the specifics
But if it puts you at ease
no man or man-comprised aberration lays a hand on Emma
That much I'll promise you

Now go

---

"... And then what?"

And then
Cedric barges through that door
and Emma-

Kracht flinched as the Librarian spun about, glaring at her. Xadrez' tone had had that standoffish chill Kracht hadn't heard since the start of their first battle together, a silent sneer as it told the story like such intimate details had no frank and brazen place hung out in the open. Kracht would've shut him up well before this point, but Emma seemed content in the mineral's embrace.

She has the opportunity to fix everything
She alone has power to rival to undo the Amalgam
But she entrusts that task to you, Kracht
and through that blunder I, circuitous, arise

"Wait, so, you are from the future, even though-"

Yes Scout's mercy yes snarled Xadrez, jabbing a claw at Emma. Kracht took a step back, Emma mumbling a protest, arms weakly clinging round his waist.
this girl sends you back to the beginning of our battle and you try you to save the multiverse because of her idiot hero complex and how she bequeathed it to you
that converse imbecile from the library you meet him- a finger raised in Kracht's face, a thread exposed, fraying into a gossamer cloud- and a million others and too often you somehow pull it off
you somehow save the multiverse but it doesn't matter it never matters and it's all because of her
It's only when the observer intervenes only in the loop I'm in that you finally die and your horrible existence-to-be is finally validated
And I hate it
I hate everything about it

Xadrez flicked at Emma's shoulder, Kracht's free arm shoving through the tactician's face. why would you do this
what in all the hells made you think this was a good idea
that Kracht deserved this
that your friend deserved this
Origin wept the longer I think on this the worse you look, girl

Kracht pulled away. "That's. Enough," he said to Xadrez, as the whale juddered and rained rubble. He shielded Emma from the shards of chandelier, gently lifting her head from his chest once the coast was clear. "Oh, honey-"

It is not
It will not be enough until she understands the consequences of her fool endeavour
I have this single chance to make something of this
of us
we three can orchestrate a path here and now to the grandmasters demise-

"Xadrez, please."

The way he said it (barely audible) didn't make Xadrez stop, nor was it any coercion on Emma's part.

There was blood on his chest, little black stains on the green.

Her nose was bleeding. Her tear ducts, her gums, under all her fingernails, bleeding. Her hands slipped off from around Kracht, hung limply until he lowered the rest of her to the floor. Kracht crouched by her side, kissed her forehead, whispered "I'm sorry, god, no-"

no

"No," murmured Emma. The sound froze the two in place; the light from Xadrez' robes shimmered on the walls like an ocean. Emma laughed.

"Don't worry be sorry. We did great, Kracht."

Kracht raised one frail and bloodied hand, clasped within his. He knew exactly what was coming next. Xadrez mistook the not-rhythm of the Ovoid pounding at the edges of reality for blood in his ears, at disjointed crashing odds with the thrum of the Middle-Gem. This wasn't happening. This never should've happened didn't happen he wasn't struck fucking dumb again as his everything fractured-

Emma Brodeburg just

stopped breathing.

Chased by the beige crackle of an inelegantly showy round transition, the death itself was rather underwhelming.

Had he still possessed the anatomy for it, Xadrez might've thrown up. The Middle-Gem, placid and inert as Emma's body just discarded there, stabbed in his chest like a heart attack.