The Three Kings: Resist

Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.

Disclaimer (2): The Home Depot Inc. is founded by Bernard Marcus, Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, Pat Farrah, and Kenneth Langone. Amtrack is traded as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation.

Warning: Mentions of home invasion, racism, sexism, fantasy-based classism, past character death, political assassinations, depression, alcohol consumption, genocide, magical enslavement, theft, political propaganda, infidelity, character death, torture, death of child characters, and kidnapping.

Chapter 6: Dry Gulch

Reyna blinks. Slowly, she lowers her wand.

"You could have knocked…" She grumbles. "I'm going to have to replace the lock."

Atem offers another polite smile, one that tells Reyna that the mage woman thinks that she holds all the cards. She's seen that look on so many people throughout her political career - people who look at her skin and her gender and her half-blood status and think that Reyna needs someone to explain how the world works. She hates it.

"There's a Home Depot not far from here. You can send me the bill. We certainly have enough money left over from the Gringotts raid to pay for a doorknob," Atem tells her, her fingers drumming on the hardcover of Reyna's copy of Throne. She wants to snatch it away, to put it back on the bookshelf that the mage undoubtedly stole it from.

That's mine, Reyna thinks, irrationally. You don't understand what that book means to me.

She pushes her thoughts down, slowly shutting her front door and hanging her coat on the hook in the corner. Reyna lets her eyes flick around the room, looking for anything that Atem might have interacted with after she'd broken in. Everything seems to be in place, from the knife rack in the kitchen to the various knick-knacks that Reyna had picked up in her travels. A small inkling of relief worms its way into her stomach before she turns her gaze to the stairs, where it is promptly stripped away.

Hovering just above the fourth step is a cookbook. Reyna's brother, Enrique, had given it to her as a housewarming gift back when she was still living in that shitty apartment just outside William's Abbey, eating instant ramen at every meal to put herself through Auror training. Reyna's never been much of a cook, so she'd charmed most of her pots and pans to respond to particular recipes within the book that she's enjoyed over the years.

The boyfriend is here, too, Reyna realizes, her heart pounding in her chest as a page flips from one side to the other. Bakura, that was his name. Reyna eases herself into the couch on the other side of the room, forcing her eyes away from the floating cookbook. He's not even hiding that he's invisible. They want me to know he's here. They want me to know I'm outnumbered.

"So…" Reyna says, her eyes narrowing. She hasn't put away her wand yet, preferring to keep it out in the open. The wizarding intelligence community knows very little about the abilities that Bakura and Atem possessed. In fact, aside from the powers of invisibility that Bakura had displayed during the Confederation Broadcast, these two were a literal black hole of information. It had frustrated Angelina to no end.

"So…" Reyna tries again, thinking of a conversation she'd had Kisha Borrego just over two months ago. "Kisha is your mole."

Atem smiles, "She is the obvious choice, isn't she? After all, that's why you hired her - to see if you could control what we knew, what we didn't." Atem sighs and shakes her head, "Ms. Borrego is a red herring, I'm afraid. We have more secure methods of procuring information, Minister, as you have already guessed."

This isn't news, but it still digs at Reyna to hear it laid out so blatantly.

"Please don't fire Kisha, though," Atem continues on. "She's a lovely girl - very bright, very talented. She'd be an incredible asset to your government if you continue to allow her to be."

Reyna blinks, mulling over what Atem had just revealed. Kisha might not be feeding San Francisco information from inside my Ministry, but she is still in contact with them. She frowns, And not only that, but Atem seems to actually like her. Why?

"I wasn't planning on it," Reyna responds. "Kisha does good work. And I'm not about to get rid of the only known connection I have to you because I was wrong."

Atem lets out a low hum, her polite smile looking just a tad more genuine, "I am sorry for all this." The mage gestures vaguely around Reyna's house, "I was going to try and contact you at your office, but you'd appeared to have gone home for the night."

If you were really sorry, your boyfriend wouldn't be rifling through my kitchen supplies right now, Reyna grits her teeth as she watched her cookbook deposit itself on marble countertop before her drawers started to open at close at random.

"If you don't mind me asking, where were you tonight?" Atem asks, drawing Reyna back into the conversation.

Reyna snorts, "Classified, I'm afraid."

Atem studies her with her inhuman purple eyes for a moment before saying something absolutely devastating, "Where you visiting the late Minister Bruneau's family?"

Reyna jerks to her feet, a cold rush of panic flooding her veins. Nobody knew about that. Nobody except for Neal and Angelina.

"How-" She asks, but is cut off.

"The Almeida crime family doesn't pick sides when it comes to battle, Minister. They only care about who is paying them, and how much," Atem informs her. "Though, I will be fair and admit that we have a bit of a personal connection to them, so we do have a tiny leg up on Mr. Pendergrass. Please give him our regards."

Reyna shakes. If San Francisco knows that she's hiding the Bruneau's on American soil, then there's no telling what they could do with that information.

Atem raises a hand in mock surrender, "We don't harm children, Minister. This secret will never leave this room. I promise."

The mage indicates for Reyna to sit again, but she stays standing out of spite.

"You promise?" Reyna growls. "Why should I believe a single word you say?"

"Because trust is the foundation of any alliance. Minister Li knows this. As do Ministers Rafiq, Potdar, and Ðức Phong," Atem says, listing the names of the Ministers of Magic from Pakistan, India, and Vietnam respectively. The mage finally breaks eye contact for a second to glance down at her hands before raising them once more, "Bruneau knew this. I'm sorry that we couldn't get to him in time."

Reyna's knees give out on her. She drops back into the couch cushions, stunned, "You were talking with France? Before…?"

Atem nods, "In secret. But yes. We were."

"And Italy hung him for a traitor because of it," Reyna swallows, muttering mostly to herself. "I knew that he was interested in an alliance, but..." She looks up at Atem, "Why didn't he tell me?"

"I don't know," Atem says and chuckles when Reyna gives her a look of suspicious, "Believe it or not, Minister Palamo, but we don't actually know everything that goes on in the wizarding world."

Reyna still finds that hard to believe.

"Why did you ask Kisha how to get in contact with us?" Atem asks, tilting her head to the side. She looks… almost human, Reyna thinks. It's almost too easy to forget that this is the mage who broke down the doors to one of the most magically secure buildings on the planet with the flick of her wrist.

It's like she just cancelled out the spells, Angelina told her, quoting the results of the Forum Romanum's investigation. It shouldn't be possible - there were so many contingency curses. What the hell is she?

Reyna leans back in her seat, toying with her wand. She'd wanted to open talks with San Francisco for a long time - probably as far back as last year when she watched Atem and Bakura's host of mages disappear from the floor of the Curio Julia in a brilliant flash of strange magic. Reyna had watched as the wizarding world turned on its head and thought, We have to get ahead of this now, before it's too late.

Neal had his reservations, like he always did, but followed her nonetheless. Angelina did her job, searching the entire damn world for scraps of information, for anything to give Reyna a leg up in future negotiations.

Reyna's eyes drift to her bookshelf, where Angelina's file is located. She doesn't think that Atem and Bakura have tampered with it, but she can't be too sure.

"Minister Palamo?"

Reyna jerks back to reality, watching as Atem leans forward in her seat. Somewhere in her kitchen, Bakura has clearly found what he wanted in her cabinets and has actually started to make dinner. Because this is Reyna's life right now.

At least I know why he was looking through that cookbook, Reyna thinks distractedly before turning back to Atem. "You were the ones giving us the silent treatment. I had to find a way to talk somehow."

Atem blinks, considering her for a moment. There's a hint of a smile on her lips when she asks, "If it makes you feel better, we were about to swing by - you beat us to the punch."

"And why didn't you?"

"Switching time zones takes a toll, Minister. Even on us," her smile is less of a hint now, more of a promise. "We wanted to be at our best before we tangled with you ." Atem's inhuman purple gaze almost seem to flash, her face a polite mask of stone, "Now, we've stalled for long enough. What would you like to talk about?"

"San Francisco exists with US borders," Reyna says as she stands, heading over to her liquor cabinet. She pours herself a gin and tonic, "At the very least, we need to establish some kind of open dialogue. We're close enough geographically that it would be stupid if we didn't." She takes out an empty glass, gesturing vaguely to it, "What can I get you?"

But Atem shakes her head, "While I'm aware that the wizarding world says I'm old enough to drink, the laws of my land say that I'm not. I'm going to have to pass."

Holy fuck, Reyna thinks, but tries not to let it show on her face. She's young… Merlin, what is this world coming to? Her own daughter, Chanara, was fourteen, and yet here Atem was, probably not a day older than twenty, speaking with some of the most influential people the wizarding world had to offer.

For someone so young to be held in such a position, especially in a hastily put together society like the San Francisco mages, Atem herself would have to be incredibly powerful. Or…

Or, there are so few mages who make it to adulthood that she's been shoved into this position, Reyna thinks. The revelation sits like a stone in Reyna's throat.

"And what would be the purpose of our talks?" Atem asks.

"At first? An armistice," Reyna answers, taking a swig of her drink and walking over to her bookshelf to grab Angelina's file. Somewhere in the kitchen, Bakura starts to set the table for three as his pasta water comes to a boil. "We need to establish that our two societies can co-exist before we can begin to think about much else."

"Funny how you refer to this as an 'armistice' - especially considering that we have not attacked you," Atem says.

Reyna grits her teeth, "Your boyfriend-" she jerks her head toward the kitchen, "-stole ten percent of the gold from every Gringotts bank in the world and you-" she turns her gaze back to Atem as she sits back down on the couch, "-are using the threat of doing that again to hold the International Confederation of Wizards hostage. What do you call that, if not an attack?"

"Reparations for the slaughter of countless innocent mages over the last millennia," Atem responds cooly.

"And what do you call your alliances with various magical creatures?" Reyna reaches into the file and throws down the muggle photo of Bakura laughing amongst the crowd of veela at the Amtrak station in Chicago. "We've got reports of you two jumping all over the planet, talking to giants and werewolves and vampires. Now, I don't know how much you know about our history. But when our people start doing that, they usually turn out to be Dark Witches or Wizards in search of an army."

Marie Fawly's use of wampus cats to hold entire cities under her control, combined with sweeping strikes by quintapeds imported directly from the Isle of Drear by British sympathizers, made her nearly undefeatable foe. Reyna's mother told her that Hatfield lost his wife, three children, and eight grandchildren to the five-legged flesh-eaters while leading the rebellion. Fawly had used the wampus cats to hypnotize them into holding each other down while the quintapeds chewed on their limbs and sent Hatfield a howler containing their screams.

"You misunderstand our intentions," Atem tells her. "We're not allying ourselves with the other magical races to aid in battle. We're honouring old treaties by providing aid and shelter, now that we have the resources to do so."

"'Honouring old treaties?'" Reyna asks, taken aback. "What treaties?"

"Long before the Roman Empire upset the balance of magic by caging its power within specific bloodlines, humanity lived beside the other magical races through a complex set of alliances," Atem explains. "For example, the Andranos Accords fashioned between Pharaoh Shabaka and the siren Queen Naisia led to increased commerce between the two cultures. Eventually, it culminated in a trade route that encircled the entire globe, including the Mayans, the Shang Dynasty, and the Ojibwe. But the main purpose of the Andranos Accords was to ensure the continued survival of all the peoples involved. If one were struggling, the others would offer support."

Reyna blinks, her mind blank. Atem frowns, "You are acting as if you've never heard of the Andranos Accords. It literally shaped the world for decades after its inception."

"I… haven't," Reyna answers. To be fair, she's still stuck on the part where Atem implied that wizarding started with the Roman Empire and not thousands of years prior with the Three Kings.

"What about the Pact of Tadite?" Atem asks, and Reyna shakes her head. "The Treaty of Xitix? The Olympiad Conventions?"

Reyna has no idea what she's talking about. Atem sighs, looking at her feet, "Well, it would explain a few things…"

"What things?"

"Why wizards treat non-human races like they do," the mage says, a sense of foreboding dread making its way into her voice. "I mean, you enslaved the elves…"

"House-elves want to work-"

"No. They do not," Atem says, her tone cutting and final. "You don't know anything, do you?"

Reyna's had enough, "Is that what you came here for? To insult me? Look, I'm sorry that I don't know about your Andranos Accords, but they didn't exactly teach Mage History 101 at Ravenwood!" She stands, rage coursing through her body, "And I realize that that's probably the fault of some Unspeakable cover up, but I honestly don't fucking know-"

"Minister Palamo, please listen-"

"No. You- You listen, for once," Reyna shouts, everything in her exploding outwards in an uncontrollable wave. "I get why you stole the gold! I understand why you did what you did! You think I haven't thought about it myself, every time I hear someone make a comment about my blood status or my heritage? Or that I married a man who left me for a younger, blonder model? Or that I'm still paying off my debts from Ravenwood while my best friend just asked his father for a loan and now lives in a fucking mansion? You think that I don't want to burn the whole system down every single time I pick up The Quill to see what excuse their using to call for my resignation even though I've had the strongest economy in almost a hundred years?

"I get you. More than Neal Pendergrass ever will. I think what you did was right. So Merlin help you, when you end up dealing with him, because you will never get this level of understanding when he's Minister of Magic," Reyna stresses. Her eyes are burning, but she refuses to cry in front of Atem the mage. "But that doesn't mean that there haven't been consequences for what you did."

"You're referring to Adam Morin?" Atem says, and Reyna isn't even surprised that the mage knows about that

"Yeah, I'm referring to Adam Morin. I'm also referring to every other whackjob who's sent me and my family death threats in the past year because you singled me out on the podium," Reyna says. "I've had to put my kids and ex-husband into hiding so that they don't end up dead."

"We won't let that happen," Atem promises, but Reyna just laughs.

"Did you tell that to Bruneau, too?" And Reyna revels in the way Atem's jaw clenched ever so slightly. Yeah, you did. And what your words are worth in the end?

"You changed the rules," Reyna continues. "And while you've been off partying with giants and merpeople and veela, the rest of us are stuck here trying to live with the consequences. The wizarding world is on the brink of global war. France has fallen, Britain is throwing their own people in prison for trying to cross the border, and the new Emperor of the Forum Romanum is on the march." She remembers Angelina's last report, "Frederick Haas, the Dutch Minister… He and his family were found dead in his house yesterday. This morning, the Netherlands' new Forum-born Minister announced they were closing their borders. Tell me: with the way things are going, how long do you think it's going to be before your friend Xiang Li and his mage son are strung up as traitors in Tiananmen Square? Or will you not let that happen, too?"

"Then what would you have had us do?" Atem hisses and at last Reyna sees the cracks in the armour. "Stay silent? Continue to let the Department of Mysteries murder our people in droves?"

"No. You did the only thing you could do, given the circumstances," Reyna says. "You made this bed, Atem. You and your thief boyfriend," Reyna nods toward the kitchen. She's so goddamn tired. "Now, you two have got to sleep in it, bloody sheets and all."

It takes a few minutes for Atem to speak again. But when she does, it's with a terrible fire in her purple eyes.

"Or maybe, it seems like we have a common enemy," the mage supplies.

"What enemy?" Reyna snaps.

"The one that wants us to be too busy fighting each other to notice the havoc it reaps on the other side of the world," Atem says.

"You're speaking of an alliance," Reyna scoffs. "Alliances need trust. And no offense, but I don't trust you."

She throws Angelina's file on the table, and a few of the pages escape, sliding across the wood finish. Atem reaches across the table to pick on up, her eyes flicking across the inky word written on the parchment.

"You've done your research…" Atem says, but she seems unimpressed. Reyna suppresses a smirk. You don't know the half of it.

"Fake birthdays. Fake citizenship papers. Fake everything," Reyna says. "I don't know who you are prior this date." She opens up the file and pulls out a receipt for a hair salon in May of 2013, "I can get information on every other person who walked into the Confederation with you that day. Seto and Mokuba Kaiba, your supposed brothers, were especially easy to find, given that the NYPD still has warrants out for them regarding the death of Gozaburo Kaiba," and Reyna has to give Atem credit for her poker face because the girl doesn't even flinch. "But you two? Nothing. And that makes me think that you're hiding something so bad that you've got the best of the best inside San Francisco covering it up."

"What is the point of this?" Atem frowns.

"You want an alliance? Give me something," Reyna pleads. "Throw me a goddamn bone, so that I can trust you."

When dealing with wildcards, back them into a corner just to see how they'll react, Hatfield had told her once. And Reyna's always been good at taking things to heart.

Atem doesn't fidget, doesn't even blink. There is something unnatural in her stillness, in the fierce red of her hair and deep purple of her eyes. Something buzzes underneath Reyna's skin, something that tells her that she may have sprung her trap, but Atem is anything but caged.

There is a hidden power to this girl-creature, something that Reyna doesn't think that she's ever seen before and ever will again.

Atem tilts her head to the side, bird-like, and responds.

"My parents didn't love each other. Or, if they did, they'd stopped long before I was born," the mage tells her. "But despite everything, they remained married right up until my father died."

"Because of you?" Reyna asks. Merlin knows that she and Tavell had tried to slog through their own problems for the sake of giving their children an unbroken family.

But Atem shakes her head, "No. My father was an important man, and being his wife offered my mother certain privileges. She stayed with him because it was advantageous, nothing more," The mage looks at Reyna, "You're divorced, correct?"

"I am."

"Are you happier, now that you're no longer married?"

Reyna thinks about it for a moment before answering, "Concerning my relationships… Yes. I am."

A sad smile ghosts across Atem's mouth, "Women in positions of power sometimes have to sacrifice their personal wants for the sake of professional gains. Sometimes I wonder if my mother would have been happier had she left my father. She deserved that, if nothing else," Atem's grin shows some teeth, "I'm sure she would envy you and the courage it took to say: 'No. I will have both.'"

Atem comes from privilege, Reyna thinks, replaying what she just learned. She has a low opinion of her father but idolizes her pragmatic mother. But… her brows knit together, That comment about deserving happiness... Perhaps the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Reyna glances down at the file, at the new information Angelina had dug up just last night. Off in the kitchen, Bakura is mixing his cooked pasta with some kind of cream sauce. Got you.

"Your mother took a lover, didn't she? That's why you think she should have left your dad."

Atem blinked, "I'm…" Something passes over her eyes, like she's not quite sure how to respond. Like she genuinely doesn't know something. "I don't…"

"What's the matter, baby girl? Cat got your tongue?"

That gets Atem's attention, "What did you just call me?"

"'Baby girl.' That's what he calls you, isn't it?" Reyna asks but already knows the answer. "Not Bakura, of course," Reyna nods toward the floating spoon in the kitchen that has mysteriously stopped moving. "It was… Leo, wasn't it? Or at least, that's what you call him. His real name is…"

Reyna takes her time rifling through Angelina's file until she finds the right page. Across from her, Atem is stiff as a board.

"Well…" Reyna raises an eyebrow at the name Angelina has listed. "I don't think I can pronounce that. But I can tell you that Leo lives at 116 George St. in Toronto, Canada in a penthouse suite. And-" she lets out a low whistle, "-you two text a lot. Tell me, does Bakura know that you're ready to jump into bed with another man the moment he looks the other-"

There's a knife at Reyna's throat. Bakura fizzles back into existence, not in the kitchen, but right behind her, his breath ghosting over Reyna's neck. How? She thinks for just a second before looking back over at Atem. It was her. She controlled the spells I put on the pots, just like she took the doors off their hinges in the Forum. Reyna swallows, the razor blade of the knife kissing the thin skin of her neck. Bakura was behind me the entire time.

Bakura unleashes a hiss as a snake-like tongue flicking out between grey lips. Across from her, Atem's hair looks more like bloody feathers as black talons erupt from the tips of her fingers. In the kitchen, whatever was being cooked starts to burn, filling the room with the putrid smell of blackened cream.

Reyna buries her fear and stares into the girl's eyes, Atem's pupils blown wide like a hawk.

"Is this supposed to intimidate me?" Reyna says, keeping her voice as level as she can as the lights flicker uncontrollably, "You won't kill me. You won't dare risk San Francisco over-"

"Don't you dare presume to tell me what I wouldn't do for Leo," Bakura's growl vibrates deep through her chest, and Reyna realizes that, somehow, she got it completely wrong. "If you even breathe on him, there isn't a force on the earth that can protect you from my wrath."

The blade pressed into her skin, not enough to cut it, but just enough to leave a reminder, before disappearing entirely. Reyna makes fists in her robes so that she doesn't reach for her neck. Do not give them an inch, Hatfield told her.

Well, shit, old man. I just think I have them a mile.

"Who gave you that information?" Atem asks as she stands, the flash of the lights putting her face into sharp relief. If Reyna had thought that the mage woman had looked inhuman before, it is nothing compared to now. A hooked beak sprouts from Atem's face as her back arches unnaturally, like she's grown six new vertebrae in the past few minutes. Something moves along her back, under her shirt, and her knees violently crack as they invert.

"You have your ways of getting information. I have mine," Reyna says, because she's going to continue playing this game no matter the consequences. They won't kill me. They won't fucking touch me. Because I have Leo, whoever this kid is to them. "I won't do anything to him. Just like you're not going to tell the world about how I'm hiding Bruneau's wife and kids. Don't you trust me? Alliances need trust."

"I trust you about as far as I can throw you," Bakura hisses. Reyna laughs and almost throws out a 'The feeling's mutual.'

Except she doesn't. Because there's a knock at her door.

"Minister Palamo? Minister Palamo? Open up, please. It's urgent," a man's voice comes from the other side. Reyna's heart seizes. If I'm seen with mages, I'm done for.

Astoundingly, Atem and Bakura realize this. Bakura darts to his girlfriend's side and they both disappear under the cloak of his invisibility. Reyna swallows the knot in her throat.

"Who is it?"

"Captain Laird, ma'am, of the Auror Department and Ministry Security. Minister Palamo, I need you to open the door. There's been an emergency concerning your ex-husband."

The bottom drops out of Reyna's stomach as blood rushes through her ears. Tavell and their children were supposed to be hidden under the protection of the Fidelius Charm. How could there be an emergency? Let alone one that the Aurors would know about?

"Don't open the door," Bakura whispers, somewhere to her right. When she doesn't listen, the mage warns again, "Minister, don't do it. Trust me. Please!"

"They have my children…" Reyna murmurs, her worst fears coming true.

The knob is cold against the palm of her hand. She turns it, feeling impossibly light headed, and yanks the door open.

She knows Captain Bryan Laird. He's middle-aged, maybe in his mid-fifties, but he'd gone grey early, sometime before they'd been introduced. With boxer's build and strong jaw, Laird was someone that his subordinates looked up to. There was talk of him taking over Neal's position one day, when Reyna's friend eventually retired. The captain was a steadfast ally of hers during a time when she needed them the most.

Laird is a good man - a loyal, hardworking man with a wife and a daughter and a St. Bernard dog waiting for him at home.

So when Laird raises his wand and points it at Reyna's chest, her mind genuinely can't comprehend it.

"Avada Kedavra!"

There is a flash of green and what feels like a horse kicks Reyna in the chest. She flies across the room and hits the back wall, air exploding from her lungs. She slides down to the floor, her head lolling, too heavy for her neck to hold up. Her eyes droop and she falls to the ground, darkness encroaching on the sides of her vision.

I'm so tired, she thinks and then all she knows is blackness.

Plant #85,855 sits calmly on the couch as she watches Tavell Cross's breathing slow before finally coming to a sudden and abrupt halt. The poison had worked just as it was supposed to. She'd calculated the dosage to his height and weight. There is no mess. No pools of blood.

[Plant #85,855 is efficient, an asset worth her salt. Her handlers had always prided her on that.]

Plant #85,855 takes a few seconds to observe Tavell's body. She traces the lines of his face with the tips of her fingers, runs her palms over the width of his chest. She feels nothing for the man as she strips him naked and poses him, as per her instructions. Plant #85,855 wraps a rope around his wrists and ankles, pushes his body inside a large burlap bag, and hang him upside down from the ceiling.

["It must match the death of Minister Haas and his family," Latner had said. "Those who see the pattern will rally behind it."
Latner had shrugged when Plant #85,855 asked why, "Fanatics have always been easy to control."]

Frederick Haas had had two children, just like Tavell, but his wife had been home as well. Plant #85,855 did not kill the Haas family, nor had she known the Plant who had. He hadn't been as productive as Plant #85,855 would have been, taking his time with the kids while their parents had been forced to watch. The Plant should have been killed upon his return, as the Department did not want to leave any loose ends.

Plant #85,855 had been placed into deep cover at the age of eleven, cultivating a backstory throughout years of dull schooling in the hopes of being noticed by top Ministry officials. After she'd been selected, Plant #85,855 had rooted herself within the government, made herself indispensable with a whisper here, a rumour there.

She'd been one man's surrogate daughter and another man's surrogate wife, a caring sister for a lonely woman and a doting mother for a little girl who wondered where their real one had gone. She'd played the fool and the wise man, the gift and the gifted. She'd controlled what information reached the ears of the most powerful people in America and filtered all that she'd learned of them back to her true masters.

Plant #85,855 had played her part well. Her handlers in the Gardens called her the next Gellert Grindelwald. And then one day, everything had gone silent, and Plant #85,855 had been left adrift in the wind.

She grits her teeth and she climbs the stairs of the old cottage, anger bubbling up against the back of her throat. Plant #85,855 had craved the order that her handlers had given her, so much so that in their absence, she had searched the world for them. But when she'd turned up nothing but dead bodies rotting in the Garden's pits, Plant #85,855 realized that she was alone.

[For the first time in her life, Plant #85,855 had been scared.]

The darkened hallway upstairs contains four doors, beyond which are three bedrooms and one bathroom. Light streams out from under from under two of the doorways. Plant #85,855 turns the knob leading to the one closest to the stairwell.

Inside, Chanara looks up from where she is laying on her bed, a book in hand. The girl glances at the clock on the wall.

"I was going to go to bed soon. The chapter's almost done, anyways," Chanara tells her, a slight whine running through her voice. "Curfew isn't for another three minutes."

Plant #85,855 shuts the door behind her.

["It must be a match to Minister Haas and his family," Latner had said.]

When it's done, Plant #85,855 looks down at Chanara's ruined body. She sits down beside the girl, running her fingers through her thick curls.

"I'm sorry you're dead," Plant #85,855 says and presses a kiss to Chanara's forehead. She tastes the girl's blood on her skin, feels the still-warm flesh beneath her lips. "I was so alone for so long, Chanara. I thought that you could be like me. I thought you would be strong enough."

But Chanara heart had given out not even a tenth of the way through the training Plant #85,855 had gone through in the Gardens. It makes Plant #85,855 seeth with disappointment. She had wanted a successor and she'd thought that Chanara Cross, with all her will and strength, could give her that.

["Weakness will not be tolerated," Blaine Garrish, a man with slicked back hair, had told her.
It is Plant #85,855 first memory and it is the one she holds most dear.]

Plant #85,855 takes one last look at the body. She feels nothing. She moves on.

Marco's room is located at the end of the hall, on the left side like his sister's. Plant #85,855 despisesMarco and she thinks that the feeling is mutual. The boy is frail, weak in body and mind, barely worthy to call himself Chanara's sibling. He needs vapours to calm his asthma and potions to relieve his anxiety. He is small and worthless. Plant #85,855 knows that his death will be quick.

She opens his door. His room is empty; a chess board with the black pieces set in zugzwang is placed on the bed. Plant #85,855 is not at all surprised.

Marco's only redeeming feature is his curiousity. He often sneaks out at night to play down by the river, poking at the frogs he finds with sticks. Plant #85,855 assumes that is where he will be.

She heads back downstairs. Plant #85,855 is not in a hurry, her steps laced with measured calm. She pauses to observe the bagged body of Tavell Cross hanging for the ceiling and takes a moment to adjust the knot, ensuring that it will stay in place until this place is discovered. Plant #85,855 takes her coat from the hook by the back door and wraps herself in its warmth before heading outside.

The night air is crisp and the grass beneath her shoes is slightly damp. The sky is clear, the stars blinking in the inky blackness as the moon illuminates Plant #85,855's path toward the river. She listens to the crickets and takes in the glowing fireflies that hover just above the long grass, flickering in and out of existence.

The boy is not at the river. Plant #85,855 stares down at the long stick that had been flung hastily to the side, one end wedged into the mud on the bank. Footprints are leading away from the river. Marco must have turned back home. She turns back to the cottage.

Marco Cross is waiting for her at the backdoor, illuminated by the light spilling from Chanara's bedroom.

"They're dead, aren't they?" The boy asks. His hands are shaking and his pupils are dilated. It could be the fear, but it could also be the side effects of the vial of vapours that Marco has clutched in his fist. She has seen such a response in him before.

Plant #85,855 says nothing. She observes the boy, feels the calm in his voice, the blatant lack of anything.

Finally, she responds, "Yes."

"You killed them."

"Yes," Plant #85,855 tilts her head.

"I knew it. I knew you would do it," Marco says.

"How?"

The boy shrugs, "You're a liar."

[Plant #85,855 can't help it. She is intrigued.]

"Are you going to kill me?" Marco asks.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I was ordered to."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I don't care."

"And then what? Where are you going to go?"

Plant #85,855 blinks, "To the next mission. Why?"

"Because I want to go with you," Marco says.

"No."

"You always liked Chanara better. But she's weak. She can't be what you want her to be," Marco raises his chin in defiance. "Chanara can't lie. But I can."

Plant #85,855's eyes narrow.

"The first time I had a panic attack, everyone paid attention to me. Mom. Dad. Chanara. You," Marco says. "I like it when people pay attention to me, so I learned how to fake it. I don't even need this." The boy throws the vial in his hand into the grass, letting it roll through the long green strands until it disappeared out of sight. "I just like getting out of class so that Nurse Gaamwala will fuss over me." Marco grins, "I'm a liar. And so are you."

Plant #85,855 sees the ambition in his eyes, sees the drive that she possessed in the earliest stages of her training.

[Could she have been wrong? Could Plant #85,855's successor have been this slip of a boy this entire time?]

"Your mother is dead. Your father is dead. Your sister is dead. America will fall. All by my hands," Plant #85,855 says, stretching the truth ever so slightly. She had Imperiused Bryan Laird, using him as a scapegoat to assassinate Minister Palamo. The Auror captain was under orders to copy the Haas murders, just as Plant #85,855 was.

["'Magic is Might' must be written in her blood. The American idiots will fall in line and the country will crumble from within."
Latner had said and Plant #85,855 was too obey.]

"So what?" Marco says, and there isn't a hint of regret, of sadness, of anything other than blind dismissal.

["It must be a match to Minister Haas and his family," Latner had said.]

[The Department has left Plant #85,855 alone for far too long. And she is lonely.]

Plant #85,855 moves, reaching for the boy's chin. She tilts his faces up so that his eyes meet hers.

"If you falter... If you show any sign of weakness… I will cut you down without hesitation," she promises.

Marco holds her gaze, "Liar. You would hesitate to kill me."

[He might be right. Plant #85,855 is impressed.]

She lets him go, turning to walk away. The boy follows.

"Angelina," he asks. "What's your real name?"

Plant #85,855 does not look at him when she answers.

"I do not have a name. And from now on, neither do you."

Hello again!

I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Tz342, Moonfirekitsune, dragomira, green lilah, and anita15. You guys are awesome!

And thus we start the first arc of Resist, which will focus primarily on the American plotline. It will take up several of the upcoming chapters before we turn our focus back to Reiko and co. in France.

Much like Luccenia's prior chapter, the upcoming arc will have scenes that have the potential to be incredibly triggering for a variety of reasons. Please read the warnings at the beginning of each chapter. If you feel like you will be unable to read something because of a trigger, please contact me either by PM or by a review and I will send you a summary of the chapter and/or scene you specify so that you do not miss out on any crucial plot points.

If there are any possible triggers in the contents of the chapter that you believe I have missed, please inform me, and I will make the appropriate changes to the warning.

Until next time,

AlcatrazOutpatient