‘...a slaughter. You should come with me before he finds us...’

Blood dribbled down my psychic barrier. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think, but I could only stand, mortified.

Their head, covered in bulbous, hardened stone, and their hands, outstretched to claw themselves out of the grou-

“Beg the Yellow! What are you doing here?”

My eyes flickered open, the bright morning light irritating them, and I slowly stood from my stone bed. What had happened last night again...? Right, I fell asleep after talking to Daakyn.

“Jeez...” Vrazel complained, standing on the balcony’s edge, before turning to walk back into the citadel. “I found her. She was sleeping on the steps!” he yelled, prompting a few people to come out of rooms and yell further down the ruins. [who sleeps on stone stairs?]

Oh?

Curious, I opened and closed my hands, stretching them as cold, fast wind blew between my fingers, spurred on by my psychic power.

[Oh, you’re thinking again. I thought you were dead,] a familiar, annoying voice thought.

“Come with me,” the leader said, prompting a strange sensation to run up my neck. The magical collar trying to control my mind was pathetic compared to my powers, but I still followed.

I began walking through the halls, behind the leader, privately thinking with Green.

[What took you so long?] I asked, frustrated. [You said it would be a minute.]

[Sorry about that, mortto(kiddo, but for mortals). Yellow was being real annoying about it, saying, ‘he’ll gain too much power if he regains his psychic abilities. It isn’t my job to give that poor girl her powers back.’] He gave ‘Yellow’ a dopey-sounding, deep voice. [As far as I’m concerned, the Monster King is already practically invincible, so giving him psychic powers probably won’t make him extra invincible.]

[How hasn’t he taken over the world already, then?]

[Well...I actually don’t know. He’s cunning and battle-savvy, which is a big part of why he’s so powerful, but according to Violet, he prefers to sit in his throne room rather than go around murdering people. It probably gets boring, to be honest. Like, how many brains do you need to splatter before it gets routine, you know? But anyhow, it wouldn’t be wrong to think he treats it all like some game.]

[He’s a kid, after all(probably 14 by now),] I admitted. [Anyway, that doesn’t explain why it took so long to get Yellow to relent.]

[Yeah, yeah. I had to wait till breakfast so we could discuss it with everyone else over tea. Speaking of which, now that you’re on the line, Orange, Yellow, and Violet are concocting a hell for if you betray us.]

[Fun...]

[Orange, in particular, wants to tell you that your hell would be filled with...people talking to you in languages you don’t understand...I guess?]

I recoiled at the mere thought. [OH MY GOD, please don’t even threaten that!]

[Why is that scary to you...]

After about a minute of walking, Vrazel stopped in front of Daakyn’s room and knocked.

...

“Daakyn?” he asked. “Are you in there? We’re going to talk about our next move over breakfast.”

...

He opened the door, annoyed, only to see a note on the ground right in front of it.

[I’m going to meet with a friend. They contacted me, saying the Monster King was on the move. See you all in a day or so.]

Vrazel threw it into his room. “Why’s that man always go to be so secret?”

“What does any of that mean?” I asked.

“Well, the Monster King only leaves his fortress every week or so. Most groups keep a close eye on his behavior, but it can be a risky job to keep tabs, even with magic. It...it’s pretty terrifying, to be honest, because every time he leaves, heads roll. He usually decimates resistance groups like us on his ‘weekly excursions’. But, enough of that, you’re coming with me to the conference room.” Vrazel said.

[Is that all you need from me? If so, I’ll disable psychic powers in the realm I’m in and leave you alone.]

[Sure, you can go and do that,] I responded. Green promptly halted our psychic connection. Come to think of it, it was interesting that the link worked across dimensions in the first place. It put a lot of science into question.

Vrazel led me down the hall and into a room with a big wooden table. A lot of people were gathered in the relatively small space and wore the same robes they had worn earlier.

I sat down in some random chair while Vrazel took a seat at the end of the table.

Two more people entered the room before Vrazel began, making for about 14 attendees in total. “So, where should we begin?” he asked as the room settled down.

All the thoughts in the room were centered on me, some people wondering if I was alright, one or two wondering if they could find a way back home for me, and some curious about the details of my arrival and powers.

“The girl,” a redheaded girl in red robes I recognized, who was about my age, said, crossing her arms sternly and glaring like she owned the room. “What’s with the girl?”

Vrazel rolled his eyes. “Yes, we can talk about that. Unfortunately, she cannot use her powers for some reason and has yet to regain them.”

“Why do we know that? She benefits from us knowing as little as possible, so I figure she’d keep her mouth shut if her powers came back. Hey, Psychi or whatever your name is, tell me if your powers are back.”

I felt the collar react to her command, but it hardly had an effect on me anymore. “No,” I lied.

“Chara, I’d like it if you could give me more credit. I am the leader of the Marionettes for a reason. Perhaps you weren’t aware, but yesterday, Daakyn put restrictions on Psychi right after he left the ritual room. One of those restrictions was that she must tell us anything important to our operations.”

W-wait, what? What was he talking about?

Chara seemed unconvinced. “Does the collar work that way? It’s a prison collar, so wouldn’t its commands wear off like normal?”

“Heavily modified prison collar. Unless its creator died, the restrictions should remain.”

Daakyn was meant to put restrictions on me? Did he just...forget? Why would he choose not to? Even if he had planned on betraying them, he could very well have put any restriction he wanted on me, but instead, Daakyn didn’t even bother with the collar...

The man I had seen pass my room earlier, who had a bunch of knives on his belt, raised his hand. “Where is Daakyn right now?” he asked, straight to the point. [He’s never missed a meeting.]

Vrazel shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Apparently, the Monster King is on the move again, and for some reason, that means he needed to leave.” [He’s always been spontaneous. I guess that’s just a fact of life.]

“So...we’re just letting him walk off without an explanation?” [It’s difficult to say ‘I don’t trust him’, especially to Vrazel’s face...]

“Ain’t like we can stop him.”

Tzera raised his own hand as he leaned on the wall. “Can we send Psychi back to her world? Is it possible, I mean? I feel bad trapping her here like this.”

I looked to Vrazel in anticipation, despair creeping up on my heart.

The thought of being stuck here forever terrified me.

“P-possibly, Tzera,” Vrazel relievingly said. “The spells we used to summon her are from the age before our Recreation, and I would presume any spell designed to send her back would be one of equal power. Furthermore, the only feasible way to send her back the way she came is through finding an old spell that can send people out of our dimension rather than in to our dimension.”

I raised my hand, creating some curious murmurs. “What is the ‘Recreation?”

Vrazel shrugged. “It is when humans were recreated after the last world ended, a hundred and eight years ago. I’ve seen the majority of humanity’s growth and our war against the dark forces that plague our world, so I can say for certain that we can avoid another recreation!” He raised a hand up in a triumphant manner. “We can definitely save the world from the Monster King!”

There was a lot of eye-rolling across the table. “You said that exact monologue during yesterday’s feast, too, Vrazel,” the knife dude said. [and the situation isn’t getting any less bleak.]

“O-oh, did I?” the old man said, embarrassed.

“Yes.” [Sixty’s a bit young for memory problems.]

“Sorry, then...So, with that out of the way, we should begin discussing our next move. We’ve been working on this ‘summoning’ project for quite a while, but since it seems to have been for naught, I think we can ally with the hero. I don’t think I need to list the benefits of joining with the only person with a coordinated, trained army and the support of most of the world, do I?” [I don’t like him either, you all, but we can’t afford to hesitate, not anymore.]

The thoughts of people across the table were rather mixed. Many of them found the ‘hero’ to be overzealous and knew joining him wouldn’t be easy.

A lanky dude with long brown hair and blue clothes was thinking about how difficult it would be to actually find the hero and his small, hidden nation. He voiced his opinions without reservation, “Sir, I think we have a better chance at espionage. Right now, we’re situated deep in the Monster King’s lands, undercover. Right under his nose is the best place to be; as we are.”

“Do you think we shouldn’t ally with the hero?”

“Well, would it not be much better to retain our secrecy? If we could identify the Monster Lords, we would provide a valuable asset to him. I’m sure the hero could respect our wishes for secrecy and independence if it provided him gain.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Chuzzo,” Chara said, patting him on the shoulder by leaning across the table. “I think we should go with that.”

The rest of the conversation divulged into people giving ideas on how they could find The Hero. Apparently, Chuzzo had a signature magic that allowed him to track people’s movement. Using that and clairvoyance magic called ‘Violetsight’, which allowed someone to scry areas of civilization from many miles away, he could search for villages that had been destroyed and find the one the hero had first fought at during the start of the Monster King’s uprising. Apparently, that would help them find him.

The plan got further refined as people remembered things about the past, like that at first, the hero was a lord’s son, so it might be easier to track him from where he had lived before the war. People offered more ideas about how their own signature magics could help, and eventually, the Marionettes settled on a rough plan.

The meeting got more and more disorganized, and eventually, people had to leave. Some people needed to work on harvesting food, some needed to get back to carpentry, making new furniture for the ruins, and others began their assigned roles in the search for The Hero. I was left with a select few who stayed to plan.

Surprisingly, I saw Tzera and Kalief decided to be the last to leave, besides the people still planning. Eventually, Tzera brought Vrazel out of the room, saying he wanted to talk to him and thinking about an ‘apology’ or something like that.

“I had to do it, Tzera. You were on board with it too!” I heard Vrazel say from the hall, raising his voice.

“Vrazel, you still ought to apologize!” Tzera insisted, meeting the old man’s voice with a deep, intimidating one.

“It won’t solve anything!”

“Just fuckin’ do it, Vrazel. You know well enough that she deserves at least the bare minimum of respect. I’m still all for forgiveness before permission, but you’re trying to cut out the forgiveness part too. Just go out there and say sorry!’

I crossly watched the door as their voices settled down into vague conversation. When they walked back into the room, the old man looked rather grouchy and reluctant.

[he’s seriously asking me to do this?] Vrazel thought before being lightly shoved towards me by the burly medic. He reluctantly walked to me, thinking about how Tzera was too pushy, then glared at me. I returned the motion with a passive-aggressive cock of my eyebrow.

“Erm...I won’t say I was wrong to do what I did because I have my duties. However, as Tzera put it...he said...” [‘You’re being a massive jerk’] “that I wasn’t being very kind to you, given that I put you into this situation selfishly. So, I guess I will say...” he sighed, the next word in his mind surprising me. “Sorry. I understand what this might feel like to you, and I know my methods were not...ethical. I won’t attempt to excuse my actions, as they need none. I hope we can become willing partners in the future, despite my grievous transgressions.” [That should do it for now.]

“U-uhh...” I said, mouth agape. I wasn’t used to people being so nice and polite, and most definitely not while they were certain they were in the right. “T-thanks for thinking of my feelings, I guess.” I scratched my head, not sure what to say. “But I expect you to at least try to get me out of here, you got it? I don’t know when my powers will come back, but once they do...Sorry, but I’ll be expecting better treatment for my contributions.” I didn’t feel good about deceiving them, but my powers could conveniently ‘come back’ at any point. No harm, no foul, I guessed.

“Good enough. Now, why don’t you, Tzera, and Kalief put yourselves to good use? Speaking of which, we need to see what magic percentiles you have.”

“Daakyn already had me do that.”

“He did? What was he thinking with that, I wonder?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. All I can do is...” I clapped, making the old man reel back in surprise as confetti popped from between my palms. “That, and,” I poked his forehead, creating a screen with graphs, which we both looked at curiously.

Elementia: 60.1%

Vita: 60.2%

Unntatura: 60.3%

“Those are awfully similar,” I said.

“Interesting, I knew all my percentiles were in the sixties, but I didn’t know they were all sixty. It’s also rather ironic how I also happen to be sixty now that I see this. Is that really all you can do?”

I shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry, I only have a .1 in every percentile.”

“Wow, so you’re absolutely useless.” [Unique, but useless nonetheless.]

“Yes!” I said with fake glee.

“Why are you so happy about that?” Tzera asked, looming behind Vrazel, causing the old man to jump in surprise.

“It was sarcasm,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Vrazel continued, “You should learn some cooking with him and Kalief, so you can have something to do.”

Tzera motioned for me to follow, and we met with Kalief before walking through the halls.