Realms of Magic: Demon Invasion

17. The End of the Beginning

Alice's metal manipulation powers have opened all the jail doors simultaneously. As soon as she does that, hundreds of rabid prisoners flood the area. Luckily, our red lenses are good enough to fool them.

"Listen, y'all," Alice shouts, "We're selling you Dolls to someone today ... get out of here!"

Like puppets controlled by a puppeteer, the Dolls begin to crawl to the open door.

"Poor souls," I mutter.

"Let's get out," Alice says, "We have no business here."

Outside I can see hundreds of prisoners being freed. John and Joe are reuniting happily, hugging each other.

"Vio!" Darryl greets me as I exit Lady Caitlyn's HQ.

"Darryl!" I greet him back, "Where have you been?"

"Well, Juggernaut was attacked, too. I barely escaped with Nala on a boat," Darryl replies, "Come on, you must rest. We'll bring you back to your HQ in aerocopters."

Soon enough I find myself in a room in an aerocopter. Exhaustion sets in. I desire only rest.

But the aerocopters are wickedly fast, and they soon arrive at different locations in Irvine; mine in my HQ.

The habitants of my HQ–more like a small mansion, actually–greets the two or three aerocopters warmly.

"Ha, finally! Now we can start actually planning for the war!" Madam Fron exclaims. She, like her opponent Lady Jessica, is severely wounded.

But Madam Fron isn't the only one waiting for us. Archduke Luxor is there too.

"My daughter! Did you save her?" he asked hopefully. His eyes are beaming.

"Well, I mean, we do bring her back, but–" I answer before being cut off by Archduke Luxor.

"Where is she? Please let me see her!" the thin faced man screams enthusiastically to the point of near lunacy.

Well, this man isn't going to be happy.

As an answer, John and Aelita escort Dita out of another aerocopter, her hands cuffed.

Archduke Luxor falls to his knees when he witnesses Dita's glowing red eyes. "No," he mutters to himself. "NO!"

He attempts to limp back to HQ, tears freely flowing from his watery eyes. "Father ...." Dita clenches her fists.

"Why, Dita? What do you ask that I don't give to you!?" Archduke Luxor cries in hysteria. He can look no further as Dita is escorted, and he enters the HQ.

"Poor man. Now, you, it's time to get out," Madam Fron hisses, fire on her palms.

"Huh?" I ask in confusion.

"You might fool the Twelfth, you might even fool Anwar, but you can't trick me! Now get out before I burn that damn aerocopter down!" Madam Fron shouts, before sending a blizzard at it.

"Okay, okay! I'll get out!" Alice shouts from inside the aerocopter.

The proud Alice wearily gets out of the aerocopter. "I can't believe you-"

Mr Anwar cuts off Madam Fron's words. "She's an ally, Fronica! She helped Violleta escape and showed us crucial intelligence," he defends Alice, positioning himself in front of her.

Madam Fron maintains her tense stare for a few seconds before relaxing them.

"Hmm ... I see," Madam Fron laughs, "looks like Lady Caitlyn's a real shitty leader. We've had four traitors from her ranks-you're the fifth."

"Come in, we have business to do," she adds.

Alice is allowed to enter the HQ, and is even given her own room.

"So," Madam Fron asks as she and I enter Alice's room, "What's your name and rank?"

"Alice, assassin," Alice swiftly answers.

"Wait. Alice, Alice, Alice. I feel like I've heard that name somewhere. Ah, were you under Lord Luke?" Madam Fron asks.

"Yes, I was," Alice replies, "But Lord Luke transferred me to Lady Caitlyn."

"Can you tell me something? Some kind of inside information, perhaps? Personal data I can use to piss off Lady Caitlyn when we fight someday?" Madam Fron asks again, a smile on her face.

"Well, Lady Caitlyn doesn't value her assassins as highly as her Dollmakers, so you might want to interrogate Dita about that, but I do know something about the recent attack," Alice says.

Madam Fron's eyes widen, as if she has won a jackpot. "What do you know? How?"

"Well, after the failed attack, the Lords and some others like the Princess of Terror and the White Witch had a meeting in Lady Caitlyn's HQ. I was the only one guarding, since they were powerful enough anyway," Alice begins narrating her story. Madam Fron listens with her breath hold.

"They were debating about the loyalty of someone called Crown," Alice says, "Whoever this Crown is, they didn't tell the Lords that the Great Five were there. They thought there would be no opposition aside from some Imperial Guards. They wanted to assassinate the nobles en masse, but the main target was King Arthur."

"Crown?" Madam Fron is alarmed, "we've been trying to catch this spy for a long time, too. Continue."

"They also said something about hunting the King. Apparently he went missing," Alice continues.

"Hold on. We at Irvine thought the Empire engineered that!" Madam Fron exclaims.

"Well, they do have a hand in that, but once again apparently Crown messed up. Crown should have invited the King to a meeting of some sort, but the time and place was messed up, too, so when Lord Eugene and Lady Caitlyn came to intercept him he was already gone," Alice explains.

"So now King Arthur is in some place that nobody can find, not even the best mages of Irvine and not even the Lords of the Empire?" Madam Fron, aghast, asks.

"Yes," Alice answers.

"Is there a place like that?" I ask. For all I know, Madam Fron and her peers and the Lords are on the top of the food chain. If they don't know, who does?

"Agnes comes to mind. She's really damn elusive, and she might want to shelter the King for some reason," Madam Fron replies, "but then again Agnes owes no loyalty to Irvine-she joined the previous war simply because her domain was attacked, so, yeah, it's all real weird."

"Hmm ... well, for now they consider King Arthur neutralized," Alice says, "they are deploying a few spies and assassins to search for the King, but nothing too crazy."

"So they want the King out. But why?" Madam Fron asks herself, but then immediately flinches, as if remembering something.

"Well, get your well-deserved rest," Madam Fron says as she leaves the room, gesturing for her to follow me.