Insert Epic Space Opera Here

Chapter 3: A Diamond In The Sky

It was nearing zero hour, and Adrian had barely enough time to remove his face from his hand before he would smack it back down again. Currently standing in the doorway leading into the main hanger, the latest test of his patience was arguing loudly with the other leaders.

"But I want to come!"

"Not in a million years," Harriet said bluntly. (a) pouted hard at her.

"You're all so mean! I'm here to help! This is a mission and, no offence, but you need all the help you can get in this fandom!"

"Well how could we possibly take offence to that?" Michael asked sarcastically, leaning against the doorway and effectively blocking (a)'s entrance. In the massive hangar beyond him, the rest of the Society were hustling back and forth, dragging last minute supplies and equipment into their vessels, some patiently pretending not to listen, while the others shot the AI Sue dirty looks.

"(a) this is not up for debate," Adrian cut in firmly, surmising the situation immediately. "You're not helping us on this mission and we are not letting you back in the Manta after all Emily's hard work."

"Yes and if I see you in my system again," Tash glared. "I will find the darkest and most creepy 4chan forum I can, and I will lock you in it!"

"But I want to come!" (a) repeated in a whine. "Look, I even made my own mission outfit!"

She did a silly little twirl showing off her bright orange and pink jumpsuit, covered in flashing lights that caused her to twinkle like a Christmas tree. Everyone around her facepalmed.

"We have a uniform (a)," Emily explained impatiently, referring to the identical white flight suits worn by everyone who was not in the Strike team. "Because our usual policy is to shoot the things that look stupid."

There was a round of snickering from the room, and with a tearful pout on her face, (a) vanished in a cloud of pixels.

"Good riddance," Emily muttered, shouldering her supersoaker and impatiently stomping into the room under Michael's outstretched arm. Harriet and Tash followed her with a fond smile on both their faces.

Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Remind me, why am I not going on this mission alone again?"

"Because we'd just follow you anyway," Michael clapped his friend on the shoulder bracingly. "C'mon man, admit it – it makes you feel better to know that others are watching your back."

The Librarian pulled a face. "Not really. It just means more people to worry about."

A frown crossed Michael's face, and he held out his arm across the doorway again, this time to block Adrian's entrance. "This is you being all noble and heroic again, isn't it?" He rolled his eyes. "Look, you need to stop doing the whole 'I need to do this alone because I am the Librarian' thing. It's boring, and I may as well be honest – you totally can't do this alone."

"Michael..." Adrian sighed.

"Michael nothing," the Chief Agent interrupted. "How many times have we had to save your ass now? Fate/Stay Night, Kingdom Hearts, the rescue mission for Aster...oh yeah, and let's not forget the whole bringing you back to life thing. As much as you'd like to go it alone, every time you do, you just end up needing to be rescued. So stop pretending you can do it, cause I can guarantee your ass is going to need saving again and again because you're just that stubborn, and just that dumb."

"Thanks..." came the dry reply.

"You're welcome," Michael shot back. "And besides, I'm pretty sure if we can keep rescuing you as effectively as we keep doing, then we're capable of looking after ourselves. So stop being all angsty – God knows this season has had enough of that already – and get your furry ass onto your ship."

Adrian pulled a face as the Fourth Wall gave an ominous rattle. "Since when did you become so responsible?"

"I do have pearls of wisdom from time to time," Michael said, stroking an imaginary beard. "Besides, there's only room for one crazy psychopath in my head, and the Darkness will never change. Now hurry up."

Their little man-to-man over, the two of them headed into the hangar, which was by far one of the largest rooms in the whole Library. With a high ceiling, big enough to allow the ships to take off, and a huge blank wall for plothole generation, the back wall by the doors was covered in bookshelves guarded by thick glass, with manuals and maintenance guides of every description, it was the perfect place for maintaining a fleet of spaceships. As with so many of these rooms, nobody was quite sure if it had even existed before today, and Adrian got to retain his mysterious credibility for another day.

The Society fleet had been split into two teams, with the call signs of Red and Green. Adrian had lost the coin toss to Harriet, and thus she had been put in charge as Red Leader (Adrian had also consented to the leader's condition that she be addressed as Darth Killer-Heels, and allowed to wear a captain's hat with her flight suit), while Emily, piloting the Manta, was designated Green Leader. The Red team would take out TIE fighters, and the Green team would concentrate on getting the Manta and the Strike team to the space station in one piece. It seemed like a good plan, even to the Librarian, but he knew how often those worked out.

Slowly the hanger began to hum with the sounds of craft warming up, and systems engaging. Adrian patted his own ship before firing up the systems. Seeing a nod from Harriet, the Librarian focused on the far wall, and a plothole swirled into existence as his computer ran its final checks. It was almost time for take off.

So it was wholly unwelcome therefore, when the doors opened, and a group of Counter Guardians walked in just as Adrian was about to close up his cockpit. The entire Society groaned, bar the Librarian, who just rolled his eyes at his friend's behaviour, and stood up in his seat so that they could see him.

"Something we can do for you guys?" he addressed the group. Aramayis stood at the front, his eyes twinkling with amusement as they swept over the fleet of machines. Saito looked scowly and disapproving as he always did, and Kuroneko just examined her fingernails. Two more rounded off the group – a tall silent figure, robed and covered from head to foot, who Adrian knew as Kitsune, and a redhaired woman in tight black clothing called Mara Jade Skywalker. Adrian mentally groaned, knowing that the latter's home fandom was the very one they were about to jump right into.

"We actually came to steal your boardroom again, Adrian," Kuroneko chimed in casually. "But if you're busy..."

He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Go right ahead. Clean up after yourselves," he swung himself back into the cockpit of his fighter, and brought the thrusters online.

"Come on Jedi Master Fluffles!" Tash bellowed from the ramp of the Manta. "We have Sith Lord butt to kick!"

Adrian sighed heavily. So much for subtlety. "Yes dear..."

As the fleet fired its engines up and took off through the plothole, the Counter Guardians watched them depart with deep frowns on their faces.

"We'd better keep an eye on them," Mara finally broke the silence as the last ship vanished.

"I don't recall babysitting being one of our duties," Saito said, striking a match against the wall and lighting his cigarette, in complete defiance of the 'no naked flames' sign on the wall.

"None the less," Aramayis nodded. "They may need help. They often don't know exactly what they're getting involved in, and Adrian is not as strong as he used to be. Let's see if that gentleman in bandages can shed any light on the situation..."

OOO

Every school child knew that there was no sound in space. The only way for it to travel was through solid objects, and in the depths of space lit only by the split star, there was not a solid object for miles.

Until with a pop, a fleet of X-Wing's appeared through a plothole, with The Manta hovering behind them, like the large child in the school photograph.

...CRACK-BTZZZ...POP!

"Library this is Red Leader."

"Go ahead Harriet."

"I have a visual on all twenty four active vessels. Opening comms now."

"Roger that."

"All agents, this is Red Leader. Sound off."

"Red two, standing by."

"Red seven, standing by."

"Red five, standing by – do people bleed in space?"

Nobody answered.

"Green nine, standing by. YES! First!"

"Green eleven, standing by."

"Red eleven, standing by."

"Green three, standing by...I swear, if Chevilla backfires one more time...!"

"Red six, standing by."

"Green five, standing by."

"Red eight, standing by."

"Green seven, standing by."

"Red four, standing by. Never mind the blood, Willie – do Nuke's work in space?"

"Green four, standing by."

"Red nine, standing by."

"Green Leader, and Strike team, awaiting instructions."

"Red twelve – do I have a rocket launcher on this thing? I wanna aspolode some spaceships!"

"...munch munch...green eight, standing by!"

"Green Leader to Green Eight – kindly stop eating your own spacecraft, Tyler!"

"Green ten, standing by."

"Green twelve, standing by."

"Red ten, standing by."

"Green six, standing by."

"Green two, standing by. If anyone spills my coffee, there will be hell to pay!"

"Red three, sorry I'm late!"

"Haha! Rhia owes us all a round next time we're at the pub!"

"Screw you, guys!"

"Red Two, this is Red Leader, confirm?"

"Confirm Harriet."

"If you could please provide orientation towards the space station Mr Librarian, then we can get underway?"

"Roger that. All agents, adjust course fifteen degrees west and follow the light. Over."

"Copy that."

"Red Leader, this is Green Three, visual of the broken star, one o clock."

"Hmm looks like a builders bum from this angle..."

"That's because you're on your side, Harriet. Straighten up – you're drifting a little to the left too..."

"Excuse me, Red Two, who did you designate as mission leader?"

"...sorry ma'am."

"Hehem?"

"Scuse me. Darth Killer Heels."

"That's better."

"Red Leader, this is the Library."

"Go ahead Library."

"You're now entering Sith airspace. I repeat, now entering Sith airspace. High levels of Sueishness detected in your vicinity. How copy?"

"Copy all, Library. All agents, this is Red Leader. Maintain silence on all but short range communications. Lock S-Foils in attack position. Now playing track forty two."

"...Red Leader, this is Green Leader. The Strike Team would like to ask, what is track forty two?"

CRACK! Bzzzzzt...

"...sunshine lollipops and, rainbows everything, that's wonderful-"

"Library, this is Red Two. Request permission to obtain a new mission leader?"

"Request denied. No turning back now, Librarian."

"Oh wonderful..."

THUMP!

"(a) I won't tell you again! Stop putting 'boobies' into my command screen!"

"Teehee!"

OOO

The Monitor Room of the Library Arcanium was set up rather like mission control, with agents occupying all of the seats around the computer terminals. As the most senior agent in the room, Marcus was serving as coordinator of the Comms team, taking all of the information as it came in, and issuing orders as necessary. Valerie, and the other eight agents selected to man the Retrieval team, were on standby, both in the hospital wing, and the swimming pool which had been set aside for the plotholing of agents who had aborted. Joe and Ossa were in charge of liaising with them, while Chrys and Louise were tasked with monitoring the activity in the fandom itself, from plotholes, Sues, or stray comets going past. If anything sneezed in that particular region of space, they could see it. Alice and Robert meanwhile, were serving as radio operators, managing the flow of conversation from the agents active in the field, though since Harriet had issued radio silence, they would only be in contact with the team leaders, unless an emergency called for it.

Hopefully there wouldn't be too many of those.

"Are we all prepped downstairs?" Marcus asked, handing Starbucks cups to Joe and Ossa.

"We're good," feet propped up on the monitor desk, Ossa took her coffee and immediately began drinking. "Valerie and her medics are on standby. They shouldn't need intervention though – everyone's got great reflexes with their abort buttons after all that training. Second their ships starts to blow up, they'll be through a plothole and back into the retrieval room, brushing themselves off."

"And even if they're not," Joe added. "Adrian had all us techs installing those little short term shields to the wriststraps all afternoon. If anyone's exposed to vacuum for more than two seconds, the shield springs up automatically. Should help maintain the PSI in their bodies for a little bit longer than usual."

"Anoxia is still an issue though," Louise pointed out grimly.

"Yeah, but they've got air in their suits," Ossa reminded her. "Besides, anoxia takes three minutes to kill you. You can do a lot in three minutes. Valerie and the rest of the retrieval team on the ground have O2 with them. No one should sustain any damage from not being able to breathe."

Marcus was more than satisfied. He knew too, after the crash course that all agents had taken in space flight, that freezing would not be an issue – in spite of the common misconception, space itself was not cold. Solid objects were affected by radiation from nearby stars however, and so Adrian had been sure to provide all the agents with appropriate flight suits. Flying this close to the broken star, they were liable to get very toasty if they happened to float near it unprotected. Marcus had to suppress a grin as he remembered a very stern Alice lecturing all the agents on how to properly don space clothing, and the identical expression on everyone's faces when they had been enlightened as to the purposes of Maximum Absorbency Garments.

Something popped onto the screen, and both Louise and Chrys examined it, one set of eyes narrowing, and another opening wide in alarm.

"We've got company," Louise reported. "Looks like they got noticed. Alice, inform Harriet that there is a Super Star Destroyer popping out of hyperspace at her three o clock. ETA two minutes."

"Got it," Alice pressed another button.

"Red Leader this is the Library."

"Go ahead, Library."

"You've got a welcoming party."

OOO

"This is Red Leader, confirming visual of incoming fighters at one o clock," squished in her cockpit, Harriet squinted at the TIE fighters, which were swarming towards them like a cloud of mosquitoes from underneath the belly of the Super Star Destroyer. "All Red fighters, prepare to engage. Green fighters, prepare to engage with Star Destroyer. Concentrate on clearing out their gun turrets. Green Leader and Strike Team prepare to board the space station. How copy?"

"Copy all," Tash, currently in control of the Manta before the strike team could board, adjusted her course, and lead her larger space ship off in the direction of the broken star, while the Red and Green squads remained on a direct course to engage with the TIE fighters and the huge spaceship, looming in the distance like a wedge of black cheese.

The Strike Team's progress was halted by the crack of the radio.

"Green Leader this is the Library."

"Go ahead Library," this time it was Emily who answered Alice's call.

"Confirming an upsurge of Sueish activity detected in the Super Star Destroyer coming from the location of the bridge. I repeat, Sueish activity is now coming from the Super Star Destroyer. How copy?"

Harriet frowned. Two Sues was thoroughly unexpected, and she had to get in on this conversation. "Library this is Red Leader – can you confirm the presence of the original source of Sueish activity is still present on the space station?"

There was a pause before Alice answered.

"That's affirmative Harriet. It seems this Sue has a friend."

"Red Two are you hearing this?"

"Loud and clear, Harriet," Adrian's voice was grim. Heedless of the radio silence, he continued speaking. "Library, can you confirm the level of this new Sue?"

There was a pause as the Comms team pulled the information up. Harriet was curious – in spite of their constant scanning, they had had no conclusive results from their initial readings into the Sue on the space station – not even a power level. Harriet was not sure if this relieved or worried her.

"Star Destroyer sue is ranked at level six...and it's actually a bloke. How copy?"

"Copy Library." Adrian sounded thoughtful. Whatever he was thinking, Harriet wished that he would think it faster – the TIE fighters were almost within striking range, and she could not afford to be distracted.

"Red Leader, request permission to continue to the space station as planned?"

Harriet knew that she had to think fast.

"That's a negative Tashy. Head for the Super Star Destroyer. We'll go after them first."

"Are you sure that this is wise?" Adrian asked. Leadership aside, it seemed that the Librarian was nervous.

"Positive," Harriet confirmed. "I'd rather we took out one Sue swiftly, and took out the Super Star Destroyer and the TIE fighters with it, than got onto the space station with a Sue that we don't know anything about, only to have half our fleet slaughtered by this new bloke."

There was a pause, before Adrian responded. "Sound reasoning, Darth Killer Heels."

"Obviously," Harriet replied casually. "Green Leader, repeat, set course for the Super Star Destroyer. Please advise Strike Team as to the change of plans. How copy?"

"Copy Red Leader. Strike team advised. Over."

"All Green agents, please escort the Manta to the Super Star Destroyer. Repeat, escort the Manta to the Super Start Destroyer, not to the space station at this time."

And suddenly, there was no time anymore to think of their sudden game change, for the TIE fighters were right on top of them. Finger braced on her trigger, Harriet instantly jumped onto the comms.

"Red Leader to all Red fighters – fire at will. I repeat, fire at will!"

Across the expanse of space, the stars lit up with the flashes of laser fire.

OOO

There was a tremendous explosion, as the first wave of TIE Fighters veered out of the way of the incoming craft. One unlucky soul's fire was broken as it crashed straight into one of its comrades.

"GET OUT OF THE ROAD YOU FUCKING LUNATIC!" Tash bellowed, flipping switches like a mad woman, and banking the Manta hard to avoid another collision. Her unfortunate passengers felt their stomachs roll.

"More coming in on our six," Emily for once, was not in the co-pilot chair, but in the gunner seat – at this current moment, it was pretty clear that Tash needed to return fire more than she needed help steering – and in any case, Emily could not keep up with the leader when she had road rage.

There was a burst of laser fire, and Tash's growling eased off a little.

"Aneki, remind me never to get in a car with you – ever," Michael squeaked fearfully. He cringed as Tash rounded on him, her eyes glowing angrily.

"D'YOU WANNA GET OUT AND WALK?!" she demanded.

"No ma'am!" her brother whimpered, yelping as another blast knocked them all off balance.

"Back deflector shield is down to fifty percent," Emily warned, firing off another round of laser fire and destroying the one responsible. Through the front of the cockpit, the Super Star Destroyer filled everyone's vision. Lights were dotted all over it, and they were getting close enough that they could start picking out the millions of external instruments that kept the ship running.

"I see the maintenance hanger," Tash's voice returned to a slightly more reasonable tone, but her orders were still barked. "Emily, get ready for our reception committee. I'm pulling power into the front deflector shields."

"Are we going to die?" Kyle asked nervously.

"No!" Tash all but shrieked. "Stop asking me that!" She slammed a hand on another button, and dials on the console began to flash at her. "BEHAVE!" she barked at her ship, and almost eerily, the dials shut up.

The hanger they were heading for was not the big main bay where the fleet waited to be deployed – this was a smaller, out of the way one that took craft in need of repair or upgrade. As they flew closer, the TIEs seemed to vanish, drawn back to the bigger battle around it. The Manta was by no means safe however, as turrets placed along the side slowly began to line up to face them.

"Cock," Tash growled. "Emily, do something about them before they do something about us?!"

The Destroyer seemed to streak by through the window as Tash picked up speed. Thick pulses of green light exploded from the turrets, almost immediately swallowed up by flames as Emily let loose a round of torpedoes. The Manta rocked, but Tash managed to stay in control, guiding the ship towards the bay.

"Welcoming party!" she warned, as Emily swung her attention back to the hanger. Sure enough, a flustered line of Stormtroopers were waiting, raising their weapons and locking on to the intruding ship.

"Take this!" Emily shouted, slamming her finger onto another button. All the Manta's lasers opened fire simultaneously, the shots ricocheting around the walls and crumpling over half the battalion. As Tash hastily slammed the breaks on, she swung the tail end of her ship around, knocking the last few soldiers over like bowling pins, before carefully settling the Manta down.

"Nice landing," Emily quipped.

"Thanks."

"Can we go yet?" Aster asked, clutching her stomach and praying that her bowl of ramen would not be making a reappearance.

"Yes we can," Tash announced, shouldering her bag and hugging Emily. "Take care of my gorgeous baby, Em – don't drive like an arse. Come on everyone! We have a Stu to kick!"

As soon as the ramp was down, Michael flung himself onto the floor of the hanger.

"Hello sweet ground!" he cried, hugging the solid surface for all it was worth. His prone position turned out to be a blessing, as the backup squad of Stormtroopers burst into the hangar and immediately opened fire. As the three standing agents scrambled for cover, Michael screamed and rolled away behind a nearby pile of crates.

"Destroy the light!" the Darkness hissed in his head, and he whistled to Tash over the din of the laser fire. Up in the cockpit of the Manta, Emily hit a few buttons and began returning fire.

"Aster-" Tash turned to the fae.

"On it!" Aster assured her. She snapped her fingers, and every light in the hanger (save the ones on the Manta) fizzled out of existence.

The confused Stormtroopers ceased their fire and began barking orders for someone to turn the light back on, but it was too late. With a sinister hiss, Michael's eyes glowed orange, and the nearest stormtrooper was picked up by his leg and wishboned, while another was flung clean out of the open bay door and into the depths of space. Tendrils of black swept over Michael's body, armouring him against the laser blasts. Swiftly, Kyle leaped in, his Omni-Weapon spreading out into a shield, which soaked up the energy from the blasts quickly. Tentacles exploded from around it, sweeping up to pull unfortunate soldiers apart.

Tash blinked and looked at Aster. "Y'know, they work pretty well as a team...do they really need us?"

"Boys are stupid," Aster reminded her matter-of-factly. "Of course they need us."

Shrugging, the leader examined the room, ignoring the sounds of the last remaining Stormtroopers having their hearts plucked out, and grinned as she spotted an information terminal. "Oooh brilliant! Something I can menace!"

OOO

Squinting through the glare as another ship exploded into an inferno, Adrian did a quick mental count of the agents. So far, they'd only lost two, and they had been safely and effectively transported back to the Library. The rest were zooming around, whooping and cheering like a bunch of children as TIE after TIE fell to their assault. He wanted to smile at their antics – to take amusement in their cheer and happiness like he always did.

But he couldn't. He had work to do.

Turning away from the fight, he began to guide his X-Wing over to the suns. He knew that the shields would be able to hold – he had upgraded them himself for just this purpose. But this still required some careful manoeuvring as he tried to slip between the widest part of the two sun halves. He couldn't afford to be distracted by his ship melting around him...

"Red Leader to Red Two! Adrian, what on Earth do you think you're doing?"

...or by Harriet catching him in the act of deserting. Grumbling in frustration, the Librarian flipped the comms to open on all channels – Harriet's voice would have carried to all of the other agents. He had no doubt.

"Something stupid," he replied, not tearing his eyes off the encroaching sun halves for a single second.

"You get back here right now, and join the rest of the squad! That is an order!"

"One which I can't follow," Adrian said calmly. "I'm sorry Harriet. I'll explain later."

"You ass!" that was Rhia. "You can't desert us!"

"What the fuck, man?!" that was Ben, with Emily echoing his sentiment not a second after.

"I have something to take care of on that space ship," Adrian interrupted. "I won't be long. I'll catch up to you in a little bit."

"I don't want you to catch up in a little bit!" Harriet shrieked furiously. "I want you to get with the programme, and remember what we are here to do! We're catching Sues using the plan that we put together! Not dashing off for brainless heroics!"

But Adrian was not listening any longer, and as his ship slipped between the raging inferno of the sun, he silenced his radio communications with a flick of a button.

"Sorry guys," he thought. "But I need to know for sure…"

OOO

"Adrian!" Harriet was still bellowing down her comms unit even after Adrian's fighter had disappeared into the star. In the background, her radio continued to play Star Trekking in a blatant display of blasphemy. A TIE fighter dropped out of nowhere and pelted her with laser fire, which bounced harmlessly off her front deflector shield.

"Oi! I am trying to be cross here!" the leader ranted, launching a missile impatiently, and watching it soar off into space for a moment, before she went back to the radio. She was still yelling, when the missile impacted, blowing the TIE fighter to smithereens.

"Red Leader this is the Library. We've lost the signal from Red Two's craft. Presume that he has docked at the space station. How copy?"

"Rrrrr!" Harriet growled furiously, smacking her dashboard with her fist, before sighing. "Copy Library. He is so on toilet duty when we get home!"

There was a shriek from over the radio, and a flash from a plothole as another Society craft exploded and the pilot was sucked back into the Library.

"Blue Leader this is the Library."

"Go ahead Ossa."

"Red Eleven has aborted. Expect incoming. How copy?"

"Copy Ossa. Over."

Furious, Harriet banked hard, and went after the TIE that had put an end to Inara's space craft. She had some irritation to burn off, and there was no shortage of targets here...

OOO

Ears high and alert on his head, Adrian crept along the Space Station. His borrowed lightsaber had a faint smell of burning flesh about it after he had been forced to fight his way through troopers in the hangar. The thing that was putting his ears, and every sense in his body on high alert, was that aside from the squad of Stormtroopers that had greeted him on arrival, there was nobody else in sight. He could sense others in the building, but they were all hiding. He didn't like feeling so expected.

The hangars were located at the hilt of the sword – Adrian was heading for the bottom. Since he didn't trust the elevators in the building not to drop him into some kind of incinerator (or knowing this fandom, garbage chute) he muttered quick spell, and jumped down the access shaft. The magic caught him at the bottom before he could break his legs. He lamented his lack of sword. The borrowed lightsaber was fine, and his magic was amazing and one of his strongest gifts, but he felt naked without a weapon of his own. Hoshikuzu had been his sword for many centuries, and he had yet to find a suitable replacement...and perhaps he never would. There would never be another sword like it.

There was only one door on this floor – functional, grey and dull. And yet he felt the presence strongest behind it. With a casual flick of his wrist, it slid upwards and open, leaving him to stride in unhindered.

The room was grand – clearly meant to be a viewing room rather than an actual control room. Adrian almost cursed, for he had been hoping to find a means of shutting the station down on his travels. But even with it's high arching ceiling, and huge reinforced windows revealing the sun outside, the room was far from bare.

A single seat was positioned at one end by the window – not a throne, but black and high backed, almost like an office chair. Draped over one of the arms was a length of white fabric, which fluttered from a nonexistent breeze.

Holding his breath, Adrian stepped carefully towards the chair...and released his breath in a startled gasp, as a hundred sharp shards of metal plunged themselves all over his body. The shards dissipated almost as soon as they had hit, leaving his wounds gaping, and blood spreading all over his skin. He staggered to one knee, struggling to regain enough focus to perform a healing spell. Feet were padding slowly and deliberately across the floor from behind him. It crossed his mind for a second that that should not have happened – nobody should be able to sneak up on him – when a foot came down on the largest wounds in his stomach, and rolled him over onto his back like he weighed nothing more than a puppy.

White...everything was white. Skin was the fairest of fair, and the hair was spun like silver. Even the irises were a stark white which made the sclera seem dull in comparison. They were broken only by a pupil of the darkest black imaginable. The white fluttering fabric from the chair floated over and wrapped itself around bare skin lovingly, and yet making no efforts at modesty. There was nothing modest about the creature standing over Adrian.

"Heal as much as you like Librarian," she crooned, standing over him, with one foot on either side of his hips. "It will not last long, I promise you that."

"You're not her..." Adrian whispered before he could stop himself. She smiled.

"So glad that we got that out of the way," she conceded, bending at the waist to bring herself eye to eye with him. "Do you miss her, Librarian?"

"What happened to you?" the deeper wounds were becoming shallower, but he needed more time if he wanted to stop bleeding entirely. She straightened, one white eyebrow arched.

"When a woman is offered the chance to become a God, and silence the wickedness in her forever, how is she supposed to resist?"

Adrian's heart plummeted. In truth, he had known deep down what had happened – what must have happened when the connection had gone dead all those months ago. That did not make the blow any softer however.

"Do they tell you what it's like?" in a flash, full lips were pressed against his ear, in the faintest breath of a kiss. "To have everything that you are ripped out of you, and only the strongest bits stuffed back in? How you're an empty shell and yet still have enough inside you to burn? It's like you're being cleansed...all the worst bits taken out of you and burned so that they can't come back. It's...perfect. I am perfect."

Almost there...just a few more cuts on his arms. "Nixie-"

"That's not my name!" she did not raise her voice, but it slashed through the air, sharper than a razor. She snapped back, ramrod straight as the air around her shimmered and rippled into a thousand tiny spears, all aimed at him. "She burned, along with the psycho in her mind. I am not them. I am the creator and the destroyer...I. Am. Divinity!"

The razor sharp spears fired.

OOO

Laser fire burst across the view screen followed by a ball of flames which were quickly extinguished in the vacuum. Runoa's only acknowledgement to the battle outside was a quick blink as another explosion seared across her vision. Her senses were otherwise engaged, spread out across this desolate and otherwise unremarkable patch of space, waiting for the right moment.

And it was a moment worth savouring, she reflected. Countless millennia of hard work, scheming and endurance, had all led her to this moment. She could feel the threads of a thousand plots all weaving together to finally give her what she wanted. And she would get what she wanted, because she had worked her ass off to get it. Losing years at a time, scouring the Library for the knowledge that she sought. Delicately planting the first long term schemes, knowing that they would eventually bring fruit. Sowing the seeds of doubt with the Powers That Be that would eventually lead to her removal. Carrying her son to term and ensuring that his own life would give her exactly what she needed. Planting backdoors into the Library for those important moments in the future. Developing Immaculation. And now, with her army of Sovereigns behind her, and her master weapon waiting, her breath quickened, and her heart beat hard with a rush of anticipation.

Soon, she thought. I will have the truth in my hands, after all these years.

Her senses gave a tingle, and then erupted into a full on body spasm. Divinity was engaging on the lowest floor of the station, and the magical signature next to her could only belong to the Librarian. She hissed as the energy crested and slashed at her own aura, the blow sending her reeling back from her position over the controls. Panting, she hastily withdrew her senses.

"Lady Runoa?" Order was by her side in an instant, his silver eyes narrowed in concern. No doubt he had felt the disturbance too and she felt no need to explain, so she shook his concern off.

"No matter," she insisted. "How are we progressing?"

The Damocles station was operated and controlled from the highest point of the sword, in the handle. It was here that Runoa waited with her Sovereigns as her latest and greatest toy began to warm up. She had to hand it to her Sovereigns – particularly to Creation and Passion – they did give her just what she needed, and not even Passion's untimely death had slowed their progress. But every set back was balanced out by Divinity, who behaved as a massive energy source, and provided the kind of power needed to make the machine work properly. With this machine, she could open a plothole and stretch it wide enough to accommodate an entire fleet...

...or she could focus all that energy down to the size of a single person, and pierce through into a world that had previously been impregnable. Well...almost impregnable. You could kick Runoa out of her home and change the locks but that did not mean there weren't windows she could slip through. If she was lucky, the Librarian would not even know she was there. She smiled. It was true what they said – the Library always appeared to those who needed it. And she had need of it now.

"Eighty percent power!" Resolve called from one of the monitors. Pulling herself back to the present, Runoa turned to Order, handing him a key card from around her neck.

"As soon as I am through, you must set the self destruct," she informed him, sternly. "I don't need to explain to you what will happen if another Sue gets a hold of this technology, or if that little upstart Merle starts sniffing around again. You set the self destruct, and then get yourselves out of here."

"Yes my Lady," Order nodded, pocketing the key card into his long robes.

"I do not know how long I will be," Runoa admitted. "You must remain vigilant for the Library at all times – two streets and a right hand turn from the centre of the plot – and keep an eye out when you do see it. As soon as I have what I am looking for, I will let you in."

"Power at full capacity!" Resolve announced, flicking switches. "Coordinates, boss?"

Turning away from Order, Runoa tentatively branched out her senses again, trying to avoid the spurts of power coming from the decks below. Her lips curved into a smirk, as she felt the familiar sensation. It was time.

"There." She tapped the point on the screen with a fingernail, and waited for the moment to begin.

OOO

"Any word from Adrian?" Marcus was pacing. He did not like being out of the loop, especially not on a mission such as this – and Adrian's desertion was putting him on edge. His job was to know where everyone was at any given time. And while he knew that Adrian was on the space station, his exact whereabouts and what he was doing was anybody's guess.

"No, and I have other things to worry about than his stupidity!" Louise snapped impatiently, before turning back to the radio. "We've got another wave of TIE fighters about to hit them hard!"

"Red Leader," Alice reported dutifully, having heard her best friend loud and clear. "Reporting a sixth battalion of TIEs about to descent on your position, how copy?"

"Copy all Library." Harriet's voice was breathless. "THAT COULD HAVE BEEN MY PAINTWORK YOU SON OF A-"

"Red Leader this is Green Leader – I am coming up on your six. Do you require aid?"

"If you please, daughter of mine – this jerk just scratched my ass!"

"How kind of him," came Emily's sarcastic drawl.

Marcus groaned. This was not the kind of response he needed. Thanks to the colourful commentary from all the agents, he knew exactly where they all were. It was Adrian that was making him anxious.

"Having trouble with your mission?"

"What do you guys want?" Marcus snapped. The last thing he wanted now was nosy Counter Guardians. Aramayis shrugged, and Marcus was annoyed to see that Saito had a lit cigarette in his mouth.

"Just showing concern," the mild mannered Counter Guardian said.

"Well, show some concern for Adrian," Marcus suggested, rounding on the monitors again, as though hoping that speaking Adrian's name enough times would summon him. "He's gone off to the space station, against orders, and now he's vanished from-"

"Library this is Blue Leader!"

"Go ahead Valerie."

"Adrian's biofeedback is going haywire! Surges of adrenaline, norepinephrine and testosterone. His kidney function just became compromised, his BP and pulse are all over the place – he's having a fight, and he's losing, Marcus!"

"I'd love to tell you who he's fighting Val," Marcus said. "But I can't see him! I've got nothing to help him with!"

He yelped as the radio was twisted out of his grasp.

"Incorrect statement," Aramayis stated. "He has us. We will extract him for you."

"You will?" Marcus asked, his sentiment reflected by everyone in the room, and at the other end of the radio.

"It's not in our nature to offer assistance," Saito drawled. "Especially to juveniles. But it would be most inconvenient for everyone if the Librarian were to die again."

Marcus could sense several of his Comms team swelling at the implication that they were children, so he ploughed on. "You'll need a craft – you can't plothole directly onto the space station."

"We shall rendezvous with young Miss Foxblade," Aramayis said pleasantly. "She has already made the trip once – she shall certainly be able to do it again. I, Saito, Kuroneko and Kitsune shall set out immediately."

"What would you like me to do?" Mara Jade asked sarcastically. "Roll bandages?"

"Perhaps you could offer young Mr Pate here some assistance?" Aramayis suggested, equally dryly.

"You're not going with them?" Marcus asked in surprise. The Jedi master huffed.

"Doesn't Adrian tell you anything? Counter Guardians are forbidden to enter their home fandoms." She nodded to Aramayis and Kuroneko. "Unless, like those two, you're a self induced amnesiac –"

"Oi!" Kuroneko scowled. "It's not self induced! We just opted to have our memories wiped like the Librarians do so that we could have the freedom to go anywhere."

"Huh…" Marcus's eyebrows lifted. "I didn't know that."

"Are we going, or are we going to stand here tutoring?" Saito growled impatiently, a plothole already open and ready to go. Perhaps sensing the mood, the rest of the Counter Guardian's filed in in a swift line.

"Great," Mara Jade muttered, sitting down firmly in the chair next to Louise and stealing her hot chocolate. "What do you want me to do then, since I am clearly useless on this particular mission?"

Marcus marvelled at moment of having Counter Guardian asking him for instructions, before he tossed a headset at her. "Help Louise with co-ordinating the forces. We're already six agents down, and one AWOL. I'm not losing any more."

OOO

"Captain, we've lost contact with our sixth battalion!" a frantic Lieutenant advised.

"Our fighters are shooting the enemy down, but they seem to be vanishing right before destruction!"

"Our guards are non response-"

"Listen!"

The command was shouted by a frightened captain, who paced the walkway above the terminals, trying to betray no sign of anxiety, less the Lord of the ship notice. Outside the ship, battle raged, with laser blasts flashing in the background punctuated by bursts of flame as ships exploded into nothingness.

Echoing from the corridor outside the room, were the unmistakable sounds of slaughter.

"The leg bone's connected to the, hip bone..."

There was a crunching sound as armour was pulled apart, and a scream filled splatter that sent chills down everyone's spines.

"The hip bone's connected to the, backbone..."

Another crunch that sounded like a trooper being flung into a wall.

"The backbone's connected to the, rib bone..."

"Michael, my dearest brother. You are enjoying this far too much," came the dry chastisement.

"Did you say something, Aneki?"

A nasty crack and a squelching sound interrupted.

"...nothing," the response deadpanned. "Nothing at all."

Allowing himself to swallow nervously, the captain gestured, and a line of Stormtroopers fell into place, their blasters raised and aimed at the entrance to the walkway. For a long time, all the crew members held their breath as the sounds of battle dimmed, and even the footsteps seemed to vanish, leaving the alerts and beeping computer monitors to fill the silence.

Instantly, all the crew members yelped in alarm as their hands were frozen to their computer terminals in blocks of ice. The jumpy Stormtroopers whirled to help, only to be tripped up by a long thick tentacle of blackness, which swept like a whip under their feet and sent them all sprawling. As they struggled to rise, ice formed around their hands, freezing them to the floor.

"Kyaa~ I ran out of water Tash-san." A vague voice declared.

"I thought you could draw water from the air?"

A small girl in a blue sailor fuku rounded the corner into the bridge, and observed the struggling, terrified guards with a careless look.

"I did. We're in space. There's not much in here." She shrugged.

A scowling blonde followed her.

"The human body is seventy percent water – couldn't you steal it from there?"

Another casual shrug. "I didn't feel like it."

The Lord rose out of his chair by the bridge window. Catching the swish of a cloak out of the corner of his eye, the captain felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the ice, and began to offer up a few prayers...to who, he wasn't sure.

"Ah, my honoured guests. Welcome."

OOO

"I thought you were supposed to be all knowing?! So why don't you have the foresight to know why sneaking up on someone during a fight is a piss poor idea?!"

From a crumpled, soaking wet heap on the floor, Saito lifted his gaze and gave Emily a look that spoke volumes. Feeling just the tiniest bit guilty, she tucked her supersoaker behind her back.

"Saito, your foot is in my face!" Aramayis pointed out irritably, and the four crumpled guardians picked themselves up, and tried to collect their scattered dignity (which was difficult to do when you were standing in a puddle of disinfectant). Aramayis had a shoeprint in his cheek, and sulky kitten growls were emerging from Kuroneko's throat. Knowing just how unhappy cats were about being wet, Emily decided that the emergency towel would best serve its purpose with her. The other three could suck it up.

"We're rescuing Adrian," Aramayis filled in, rubbing his cheek. "Take us to the space station."

Her guilt was gone in an instant. Emily folded her arms. "No."

"Excuse me?" Emily hadn't even known that there was a setting for surprise in Saito's voice, but there it was.

"No. I don't take orders from you...yeah, you heard me," she added, seeing them all halt in surprise. "You can barge into the Library and make demands all you like, but on this ship, I outrank you."

"You don't want to play the rank game with us, girl," Saito assured her with a scowl. "Now move this heap, or-"

"Or what?" Emily demanded. "You'll move it yourself? I doubt it. When you need assistance from someone, it usually helps if you ask them nicely, not make demands like a dick. You need to get used to the fact that not everybody is impressed by your aloofness, and I for one think you're all out of line."

"Emily-" Kuroneko emerged from the towel, but the youngest agent was on a roll now.

"Don't Emily me!" she bristled at the patronising tone. "We have been in this fandom for thirty eight – sorry, thirty nine minutes now," she spared a glance at the controls as she spoke. "We haven't been safe! The only reason people haven't died when they've been shot down is because we designed our own eject systems! In thirty nine minutes, you haven't been bothered at all about what happens to us – now suddenly Adrian is in trouble and it's Counter Guardian's to the rescue! This!" she brandished a hand angrily at the group. "This is not how normal people behave! Normal people – "

They never got to hear what normal people did, as a stray TIE fighter had finally noticed the motionless spacecraft, and a direct hit on the back of the Manta caused the ship to lurch, and everyone inside to stumble. Emily crashed painfully back into the controls, and something on the screen began to blare.

"Argh fine! I'll shout at you later!" she exclaimed, as another agent chased after her attacker. "Everyone sit down and shut up!"

She slammed a hand into the thrusters, but to her horror, nothing happened. The alarm continued to blare.

"OH COME ON!" she roared, finding the rest of the Manta's controls non responsive.

"Uh Emily," Kuroneko peered out from under her towel from her position sandwiched between the wall and Kitsune. "I think my shoulder hit a button."

"Y'think?!" Emily demanded, as all the systems and lights died, save for the helpful text on the computer screen, which read "EMERGENCY WATER LANDING ACTIVATED".

OOO

Tash wasn't a Star Wars nut like some Society agents. Her knowledge of the fandom consisted of the six movies and a little bit of information on the expanded universe that she had gleaned from trawling Wookiepeedia. So she wasn't sure what she had expected the Stu to look like – maybe a more powerful version of Emperor Palpatine. Definitely not like this.

"Typical," the leader thought. "Even when Stus are Sith Lords they still manage to be gorgeous."

"For honoured guests, we got a shit welcoming party," Michael said, jumping as the Darkness lashed out and bisected a pilot through the middle. He smacked the offending tentacle. "Behave!" The parasite retreated in a sulky fashion, and the Stu quirked an eyebrow in interest.

"Well then, allow me to welcome you properly – I am Darth Sadic."

"Tash, Michael, Aster and Kyle," Tash introduced with a quick sweep of her hand. "And now that we all know each other, you're under arrest for fandom manipulation, creation and maintenance of an army with intent of further counts of the same, and dressing like a complete tosser," she finished with a wave of her hand towards his tightly fitted black body suit, with gold trimming. A black cape swept behind him as he took a step off the front of the bridge and towards the group.

"Aren't you a little bit curious?" Sadic asked, walking casually towards the group. "Just a little intrigued as to what my plans could be involving a massive plothole generator?"

"Frankly no," Kyle stated, in his usual attitude of complete genre savvyness. "We'd much rather arrest you, and then find out your plan, if that's alright with you."

"Ah, Runoa said you would say that," the Stu shook his head with a chuckle and all the agents froze.

"What does she have to do with this?" Tash demanded furiously. The mention of Runoa's name only served to remind her of the fiasco in Twilight all those months ago and the horrible price that they had paid.

"Runoa has everything to do with everything," Sadic declared, smiling the kind of smile that made you instantly feel in the presence of a far wiser teacher. "Everything to do with me. Everything to do with the Sword...and everything to do with you. With every mission you attempt, she gains another key...I just maintain the doorways for her. Including those in your precious Library."

It was perfectly possible to hear the sharp intake of breath from all of the agents. The Library had always been their impregnable fortress (save for a few rare occasions). That it could be so easily breached again had horrific implications.

"That thing could get into the Library?" Michael asked, pointing towards the sun, where everyone knew the station to be hidden.

"Oh yes," Sadic assured them. "And that would only be the start. You think you are fighting back against her, defending the universe, but there are wheels in motion that you do not know about – so many parts of this story you and the Librarian are unaware of. You play into her hands, like the children you are. And then the story resolves itself, with her victory as the inevitable ending."

Even as he spoke, another one of the Society craft shot past the window, exploding for a moment into a ball of flames before it vanished into a plothole.

"Why fight back?" Sadic asked, his voice low and hypnotic. "It is pointless. Even now your friends fall to my fleet. Why should they fare any better against the entirety of Runoa's might, when you struggled to save one little girl from a relatively unprotected mansion?"

Aster flinched, and Tash glanced anxiously at her friends. Sith Lord or not, Sadic had a point. They were vastly outmatched. The extent of everyone's injuries after Aster's rescue proved that, as well as the difficulties they had faced against various Sovereigns.

"Wouldn't it be just easier?" Sadic continued. "To give up and save the inevitable-URGH!"

He doubled over as a tentacle of Darkness shot from Michael and stabbed his right hand, which had been waving back and forth by his waist for the past two minutes. Blood seeped from his palm, and The Gary Stu Gutter's body was coated in the black ooze of his armour.

"That's enough of your mind tricks!" the creature hissed, turning its host's eyes orange with blood lust, as the rest of the Society shook their heads clear of the influence. The Stu growled and a beam of red light flared, severing the tentacle in half. The Darkness screeched, even though the tentacle almost immediately began to reform. Seeming unperturbed by the blood pouring from the wound in his hand, Sadic raised his lightsaber again and charged for the group.

"Don't just stand there, you fools!" The Darkness hissed angrily.

Straight away, Tash skidded into flashstep to block the blow. The lightsaber let out a burst of static as it collided with Nephthys. Sadic's eyes widened at the weapon that held his blade off, and hissed angrily as it failed to slice the metal in half. Distributing her weight to her back leg Tash kicked out at his kneecaps with the front. The Stu darted back at the last second, bringing his weapon down once more for her head. This time the leader blurred back for an instant before charging back in at the same time as Michael.

"Knees, host! Go for the knees!"

"I'll leave hitting below the belt to Aneki, thank you very much."

He went for the throat, which the Stu blocked instantly, leaving Tash to come back in at the back of his legs. In a flash he had twisted away leaving the blonde to skid to a halt to avoid impaling her brother instead, and with a thrust of his hand, Sadic sent them both flying into the nearest wall.

"Deadly Impa-URK!"

Seized by the Force at point blank, the energy burst off Kyle's fists and blinded both of them from view. When they reappeared, Kyle was picking himself up gingerly from the ground, as Sadic blinked the spots out of his vision.

Shafts of ice shot up from the ground, as Aster threw her full weight behind her powers. One came tantalisingly close to skewering Sadic through the jaw, but with a jerk he slid out of the way, lightsaber humming as it slammed down on her staff. He seemed startled that it did not go straight through, and Aster smirked and blew gently into his face - ice rippled out across his skin from his nose, causing him to jerk back. Twisting her staff around, Aster rammed the pointy end towards his face, but was deflected by the furious lightsaber, before a shove with the Force sent her sprawling back into a computer terminal.

"Aww why does that attack never work?" the water fae pouted, nursing her pride. Michael gasped as he landed at her feet, but no answer was forthcoming, as the Chief Agent began to choke against an invisible hold. Sadic sneered as he tightened his fist, and continued to deflect a furious Tash with the other hand. Lightsaber and flaming sword collided with the floor, sending a shower of sparks into the air.

"You cannot defeat me!" the Sith Stu hissed, yelping in surprise as the leader brought her foot up at an impossibly high angle, and landed a solid kick across his jaw. Across the room, Michael dropped to the floor like a ragdoll.

"Says who?" the leader drawled. She yelped as a jet of Force lightning zapped across the room. "Oh come on now – play fair!"

Electricity cracked across the room and the dance continued.

OOO

Coughing blood into a puddle on the floor, Adrian rolled over, and met the pure white eyes, dancing merrily above him.

"Why?" he managed to choke out. Divinity beamed.

"Why what? I do hate unspecific questions." She casually pressed a bare foot to Adrian's throat. It felt like someone had pressed a dwarf star into it.

"We loved you..." he whispered. The Sovereign gaped at him, before bursting into giggles. The noise sent a chill down Adrian's spine.

"Oh Adrian, Adrian, Adrian," she shook her head, before grabbing him by the front of his trenchcoat and hoisting him up into the air. "Did you really think that was going to be enough to save me? Oh no...this is one demi-god that you won't be able to charm."

With a heave, she slammed the Librarian into the floor, leaving a man sized crater in the metal.

"You love me," she singsonged, trailing a fingertip down Adrian's face. "Of course you do. You always have. But it's not a magic wand, Librarian. How was loving me going to get rid of the madness left inside me by Death? No, to get rid of it, I had to become more than a simple Sovereign. I had to become everything! And that's just what I am – I can turn anything into nothing, and nothing into anything. There's no limit to me or what I can do."

She gave him a flick on the cheek with one of her fingernails, drawing a cut down Adrian's cheek, before grabbing him by the front of the trenchcoat again, and hauling him out of his crater. Adrian gasped in pain - he counted four broken ribs now, and breathing was starting to really hurt. He was fairly sure too that something didn't feel right in his hip. When was the last time he had been beaten this badly?

An alarm shrieked in the corner, and Divinity eyed it with an almost lazy look.

"Seems there's a bit of a party going on at Sadic's," she muttered, shrugging and sending a fresh bolt of pain through Adrian's limp body. "I was bored of acting as a huge Sue-power battery to this place anyway."

"But..." Adrian managed to gasp out. "If you leave-"

"Then the power starts to drain, the station shields start to fail, and it eventually gets vaporised to ash by the two halves of the sun," Divinity finished in a bored voice. "You may have noticed that I don't really care - I owe Runoa for helping me, but...frankly this plan is stupid. And I hate to miss a good party."

Her nails pierced Adrian's neck as she grasped him tightly. Adrian was aware that there was some kind of magic in play - that or she was warping the world to suit her. All he knew for certain was that one minute they were in the middle of the space station, and the next they were standing on the flight deck of the Super Star Destroyer...and his ribs still burned like hellfire.

"Adrian!" Tash shrieked, paying dearly for her moment of inattention as Sadic hit her in the nose. It broke with a nasty crunch. Acting like he couldn't even feel Aster clinging to his back like a spider monkey, the Stu rounded on the Sovereign and glared at her from across the room.

"What do you think you're doing?!" he demanded. "Runoa demanded-"

"Why don't you marry Runoa, if you love her so much?" Divinity sneered, tossing Adrian to the floor. The Librarian crumpled into a heap, and was instantly fallen upon by his girlfriend, who was still trying to contain the blood flowing from her nose. "You might have signed up to her little mission as caretaker to her multidimensional sports car, but I have better things to do than babysit!"

"Nixie?" Michael finally found his voice - Tash's seemed to have abandoned hers along with all the blood in her face.

"That's Divinity to you, Michael," the Sovereign crossed her arms over her bare chest.

"You have no authority to abandon your post!" Sadic snapped. "Runoa will-"

He gagged and choked on his own words as blood spurted from the two sharp icicles protruding from his eyes. As his body slumped slowly to the ground, Aster dropped and rolled away, dusting off her hands.

"Kyaa~ Bored now," she declared.

"Tash...?" Michael whispered, as Divinity blinked in surprise at Sadic's form as it writhed, grasping to it's last hints of life.

"All agents," Tash tapped her earpiece, her voice thick with blood. "Mission abort. I repeat, mission abort."

There was a long silence, before Divinity roared with spine chilling laughter.

"Say again, Tash?" came Alice's impatient tone through the crackly radio. "Is that one of you laughing, because I don't have time for-"

There was a final agonising shriek from Sadic, before his body seemed to burst from the inside out. A disgusting mix of blood, bile and other fluids splashed out across the floor, with shards of bone and scraps of flesh hitting the agents. The few pilots and star destroyer crew who had been frozen to the floor, or just stupid enough to stick around when the fight had started, began to panic and dart for the exit. But Divinity was still giggling, and with screams of horror, they too burst into showers of gore, splattering the computer consoles and sending a sprinkling of blood across the windows.

Kyle screamed. Michael dry heaved. Even Aster looked shocked as she slowly reached up with both hands to touch the blood matting through her hair. Shaking, Tash touched her ear again, and spoke only two words in a frightened whisper.

"Deadly serious."

OOO

The line was silent again, but Harriet felt almost hypersensitive now, her ears straining for the sounds of injury and screaming that she knew must be happening over on the Super Star Destroyer. The TIE fighters were still attacking, but the Society agents fight seemed to have drained from them and been replaced with fear, and their retaliation was jerky and wild. Nobody was making any move to obey the terrified command.

That, more than anything, galvanised Harriet into action.

"You heard the lady!" she bellowed into the radio. "Mission abort! All agents evacuate the fandom! Library prep for mass re-entry!"

"Copy Harriet!"

Harriet did not even stop to look at what her other agents were doing – they knew where their eject buttons were, and they knew how to use them. They weren't stupid enough to sit around and wait to see what had spooked Tash so badly. So, ignoring the TIE fighter now peppering her back shields with laser fire, Harriet smacked her own button, and waited for the plothole to materialise.

...it never came.

"What the hell?" she demanded quietly, hitting it again, with the same result. Her ship rocket as the back deflector shields took a massive hit.

"Harriet I'm stuck!" that was Rhia.

"Me too!" and that was Jess. Around her the airwaves came alive with frantic sentiments of a similar nature. They were all trapped.

"HEY!" Harriet bellowed over the radio. "I heard you all the first time! All agents, evasive manoeuvres! Library, this is Red Leader requesting data – what is wrong with our aborts?"

She darted to one side as the TIE fighter closed and her back main deflector shield went into the red.

"We don't know what's wrong with them!" Marcus sounded frantic. "All systems are operational! Someone get me a scan of the fandom! There must be an outside interference!"

"(a)'s reporting a surge in interference from –"

There was an audible screech as the radio cut out.

"Library, Red Leader. Copy?" Harriet hit her radio a few times, but it continued to produce only static. "We've lost the Library!"

An obnoxious TIE fighter blasted her from behind, and the alarm that represented her deflector shields began to shriek.

"Oh bugger off!" the leader shouted, opening fire, and reducing the TIE to smithereens in a matter of seconds.

"Harriet!" it was Rhia. "What do we do?"

"Argh!" Harriet gave a yelp as another alarm began to sound – she was getting sick of her ship trying to tell her that she was in trouble. "All agents, regroup under the belly of the Super Star Destroyer at the very back – I want us to have some cover!"

"And then what do we do?" This time it was Jess asking.

Wisely, Harriet did not answer, instead turning her craft around and screaming a war cry as she blew another TIE into fragments.

OOO

Inside the control room of the Sword of Damocles, things were being to spark.

"That better just be a pyrotechnical effect you've got going there, Creation!" Runoa snapped. She had all but swooned when she had sensed the crushing pressure of Divinity's presence vanish suddenly, but she was not celebrating it. Where on earth had her latest Sovereign gone? Everyone else had felt it. Order was furious, and already swearing vengeance on her for ignoring her orders to stay put. Resolve and Creation were also swearing – loudly, rudely and angrily at their machines. The Damocles station was humming with energy, still fully charged, and she could sense the small plothole generated beneath them, but as systems began to shriek in alarm, she felt the energy start to wax and wane.

"We can't maintain the generator!" Creation was shouting. "Not without Divinity inside to power it! We're operating on back up systems now, but they were never designed to take this. You need to go now, boss lady!"

Any other time, Runoa might have punished her young artist Sovereign for telling her what to do, but she knew that she was right. And she would not lose her opportunity now.

She turned and gave one last nod to Order, before striding out of the room, and heading towards her private hangar.

OOO

The blood was cooling, no longer hot and thick on his skin. Usually blood did not bother him. Now it was sticking to his limbs and his hair, along with bits of fatty tissue and sinew, like someone had tried to apply body paint for a horror movie.

Maybe that was why he did not want to move. His body was thrumming with adrenaline, telling him to get up and fight, but he felt glued to the floor like the blood had cemented his limbs into position.

It took Michael a moment to realise that what he was feeling was fear.

There was nothing predatory about the way Divinity carried herself, or the gleam in her eyes as she took in each Society agent. They were not even prey to her. Still, she struck with the speed of a killer, seizing Aster in an invisible grip which lifted the fae off the ground. Shrieking in fright, Aster's power flared, a bubble of water forming around Divinity. The Sovereign snapped her fingers and the molecules boiled instantly, evaporating off into steam.

And then Aster screamed.

Michael had never heard her scream before. He had been busy playing a card game with Runoa during the rescue operation, and had only seen the fae unconscious. But it triggered the simmering adrenaline inside him, like someone flinging a match onto petrol. He could not see what was causing the pain, but he would be damned if he let it continue.

He moved, sprinting off with Kyle as they both tried to tackle the newest threat. But with a casual brandish of her hand, Divinity sent them both flying backwards. Michael's head slammed into the console, and he felt the room swim. Something warm was oozing through his hair, and down his neck, and his heart leaped he heard a clang of metal, and a shriek as his sister's own follow up attack failed.

Through Michael's blurred eyes, Aster seemed to be surrounded by a reddish-brown haze. Then he blinked, and his stomach turned over as he recognised it for what it was. Aster's usually fair skin was a bloody, raw red, and great patches of her flesh seemed to be disintegrating into thin air, flecks of it peeling from her body, exposing muscle and tissue to the air. Her clothes were doing the same, revealing pale shoulders and stomach which instantly turned red as the top layers of skin were pulled free. She struggled and twisted in the invisible grasp, but Divinity only smirked and the rust-coloured cloud of flesh around the fae seemed to thicken.

She was pulling her apart, one atom at a time.

A column of fire surrounded Divinity, but with a casual jerk of her head, it was snuffed out as though she had tossed a fire blanket over it. Tash shrieked something which might have been rude, but she was drowned out by Kyle's furious cry.

"Aurora Grenade!"

The rainbow-coloured sphere of energy tumbled towards Divinity and exploded on impact. For a moment, as the Darkness swarmed over him, Michael thought that it might have worked. And then Divinity emerged, with not even a scratch, the energy reforming into a ball in front of her, which exploded into glitter.

"What?!" Michael had never heard Kyle sound so astonished. It turned into a shriek, as Divinity locked eyes with him and the flesh from his arms and face began to dissolve just like Aster. With his arm immobilised after his attack, Kyle could only stagger to the floor helplessly as blood oozed out onto the metal surface.

Black tentacles of Darkness seized Divinity's wrists and ankles, and she turned her attention to Michael, smirking in amusement as the snarling entity wrestled with her arms. It didn't appear to break her concentration for an instant, as behind Michael, Aster's shrieks gave way to gurgles, as blood began to flow from her mouth and nose. Kyle was not much better, writhing on the ground as his skin peeled off like tissue paper.

"We can't stop her," Michael realised, as Tash raced up behind Divinity, her sword blazing a path to her neck, only to clang to a shuddering stop as it jarred on her spine. The smile curved wider, as the head turned to lift one eyebrow at the orange blade. Tash seemed to falter for a moment, and then strain as Nephthys was pushed out of the flesh. As the line knitted itself neatly back together, the leader gave a scream, as with four loud cracks, her arms suddenly went limp, and she crumbled to the ground, moaning in pain.

Then it was Michael's turn. With only a flicker from Divinity's eye, the tentacles restraining her exploded into dust. The Darkness roared in agony, and Michael screamed as he felt a tugging sensation wrench at his entire body to his knees. More tentacles were reforming to compensate for the missing ones, but they were being shredded as soon as they appeared. It felt like she was pulling the parasite itself from his body, and nothing had ever hurt as much.

"Host!" the Darkness was shrieking in his ear, and he realised that this was what it sounded like when it was truly afraid. "If you have a plan, implement it! Hurry!"

They didn't, Michael realised, as he felt the tearing sensation in the core of his very being. They couldn't fight someone who had control over matter itself. It was impossible.

Aster's gurgling cries were broken by a cough of something that was too thick to be blood. Tash was screaming – from injury or fear, Michael could not tell – and the pool of blood around Kyle was thicker than he had thought possible.

"Goodnight, little fairy," Divinity crooned.

There was a blood curling shriek, and the thud of a body, followed by silence.

OOO

The battle did not pause for an instant as the Society regrouped, huddling beneath the belly of the Super Star Destroyer.

But that was okay. Harriet was great at multitasking.

"We are a team!" she barked, doing a count of her fighters, as she sheared another TIE fighter's wing off with a spray of laser fire. Red team were down to seven agents, including herself (and discounting Adrian), while Green were doing slightly better with eight agents still kicking (nine, when Emily showed up from taxi service again). She wasn't sure that anyone was really listening to her grand inspirational pep talk, or if they were too busy soaring around, twisting, firing and trying not to get killed.

But that was also okay. Because it was for her own benefit as well as theirs.

"And up here, being a team is all that matters. I don't care what you guys think of each other. I don't care if you love or hate your fellow agents. Up here, we have each other's backs. Because until the Library work out a way to circumvent this interference on the fandom, each other's backs is all we've got!"

Below her, three X-Wings ganged up to blast two incoming TIE fighters. Harriet almost fancied that she could see them all shaking. A few stray adjectives filled her head – alone, inexperienced, terrified. She ignored them, and turned her attention to the fresh squadron below. Rhia and Ben were closest to her, and they unleashed a rainbow of laser fire, blowing up several fighters at once, and causing the rest to scatter. Several were picked off by other agents.

"The guys on the Star Destroyer – whatever is going on in there, they know what they're doing. Now we need to do the same. And what we're doing is getting all of us home in one piece. So let's go!"

She pounded the radio with her fist for emphasis, and the music began to play, louder and heavier than earlier. With an accompanying scream, she fired at a cheeky little TIE fighter that had attempted to take her from below. Around her, everyone was moving – like a cloud of wasps swarming around a hive. They circled and zoomed around their 'home' but always stayed close, knit together by the comfort of having their comrades close by. Harriet grit her teeth, and repeated her own speech inside her head.

"Nobody is dying here!"

A panicked voice burst through the radio.

"Harriet! I'm dying!"

"AND NOBODY INTERRUPTS MY DRAMATIC SPEECHES!" the leader bellowed, spinning to find the problem. "Green twelve, elaborate – calmly Stephen!"

The frightened agent did not have time to oblige – there was a cacophonous blast from below, and one of the X-Wings exploded. Harriet swore loudly.

"Green twelve report?"

"Red leader, this is Green two – visual of new wave of fighters – five o clock!"

Harriet whirled to put some dents into the incoming wave of fighters. "Copy Jess. Green twelve, are you there?" Harriet demanded.

"Copy! I'm spinning!"

As Harriet exhaled heavily, she spotted him. It was a relief to see that their eject buttons still worked. Though the plothole had failed to activate, the protective bubble of shielding had sprung up on command, cocooning Stephen within as his ship had blown. Currently her agent was pinwheeling his way through space in an uncoordinated flail of limbs.

"Hang tough Stephen – you've got air in your suit. We'll get someone to you before it runs out."

Though first she was going to have to think of how to do that. If only they would stop firing so she had a moment to think…

"Green three to Green twelve, I'm pleased to report that the fighter who hit you has just taken a plasma missile to the kneecap."

Stephen's only response to Jared's comradery was the graphic and visceral sound of him succumbing to motion sickness inside his own helmet. Several new TIE's blazed past him.

"Don't these guys ever run out?!" Harriet demanded.

"Red four to all agents! I've lost my lasers! I'm being chased by two TIE's and I've only got missiles!" Ben broke his transmission to swear, loudly and fluently. "Some help…please?!"

He sounded so panicky, that nobody wanted to leave him. But Harriet's vision was suddenly full of three TIE's approaching her at lightning speed, and she immediately fired, shooting one of them out of the air, and causing the other two to split.

"Shit! I'm-"

There was another explosion nearby, and Harriet's heart lurched.

"Green five, report!"

"Karissa!" in her own X-Wing, Charis's voice was high and tight. "Are you okay?"

"Green five reporting! I'm fine! My shield is active, I'm fine!"

She was directly behind her, so Harriet had to trust her word. But now she had two people to rescue from space, and she had no clue how. On the right side of her cockpit, another X-Wing zoomed past, with three fighters right behind it. Harriet fired, and one of them burst into flames.

"DON'T MESS WITH NUKES!"

The nuke appeared before the two remaining fighters, hovering in mid-air like an obnoxious roadblock. One fighter swerved, the X-Wing still locked in it's sights, however his companion was not so lucky, and ran straight into it. To Harriet's amazement, the bomb shattered apart like a glass figurine, shards of metal flying everywhere, but in the absence of atmosphere, there was no supernova of heat and flames. Instead the debris ripped through the wings and cockpit, and the ship spun off into the distance.

"Fuck!" there was a thud, which might have been Ben punching his console. "Red leader, please! I need help!"

"I'm coming Ben!" Harriet whirled to give chase, but her entire cockpit lurched as a new TIE fighter decided to make a target of her.

"SHOVE OFF!" she roared. Out the left side of her cockpit, she could still see Ben. The gap between the fighters was getting smaller and smaller. Harriet rarely swore, but she had several very creative curses running through her head as the shots came too close to Ben for her liking. Unless something gave in the next few minutes she would be too far away to take a decent shot at the pursuing craft.

"I've got him!"

Harriet's heart lurched in terror at the familiar voice and the sight of the craft shooting across her vision like a bullet. She hadn't known X-Wings could go that fast outside of lightspeed.

"Dave, careful!"

"I'll be fine!" came the reply, and she could picture him gritting his teeth in concentration.

"Red four, there's another one coming up on your three o clock! I'm giving chase!"

Pssssh…vwp!... "ssssShh…-rriet? Do you co-pssffff…"

The tantalising slice of communication from the Library was cut off almost as soon as it appeared, but Harriet was not listening any longer.

"Green three, disengage! You'll fly right into them!"

"Negative Harriet! I've got one on my tail now! Can't disengage!"

"Red seven and Green three disengage!" Harriet repeated, her heart pounding. "Red four abort!"

It was like watching a road traffic accident at a crossroad. As Ben weaved, keeping so close to the belly of the Star Destroyer, Dave came up behind his pursuer, opening fire as soon as he had a clear line of sight. As Jared came up on the right, Ben took a nosedive that saved him from the collision, just as the TIE fighter exploded. Jared made to swerve, but Dave was already on top of him, and both fighters collided in mid-air, just shy of the belly of the enormous umbrella of the space ship.

"God damn it!" Harriet kicked something in her ship, blasting her own persistent pursuer. "Green three! Reds four and seven! Everyone report!"

"I'm fine," Ben's voice was hoarse, and there was a definite shake to it. "Fuck. Where are they?"

"Green three, I'm fine!" Jared did not sound fine, in spite of his insistence.

"Red seven, report! Dave, where are you?" Across the radio, other agents were calling to. Heedless of her own safety, Harriet whirled her craft towards the blast, her eyes trying desperately to see through the debris.

"Red leader, I have a visual of Red seven!" Jared announced. "He looks…oh shit…"

Finally coming into range, Harriet squinted at the ruins. She no longer cared if someone was on her rear end. They could shoot her for all she cared – it didn't matter to her at that stage.

"There!" she shouted, seeing a familiar flash of green flying among the debris. "I can see him!"

Far from relaxing, her panic only increased. She could see Dave, but there was no sign of his protective shield. He hung limply as he drifted through space. She could see Jared, bubble engaged, and apparently latched onto the belly of the Super Star Destroyer. She couldn't be sure from this distance, but she thought he was holding his arm at a strange angle, as though he had injured it when he had crashed into the bottom of the ship. He would be okay until help could get there. But if Dave had no shield…

"Harriet is he okay?" that was Rhia.

"He's drifting! Dave this is Harriet, repor – Bugger!" Harriet finally gave into her urge to swear, as a new TIE appeared and began to give chase. Rolling, and attempting to shake, she kept one ear on the radio conversation going on in her ears.

"Hang tight Harriet," Ben was sounding less shaken now that they'd established that his friends were alive, and in her peripheral vision, Harriet caught sight of him tailing her pursuer.

"Harriet, I think he's got a tear in his suit! I repeat. I can see a rip – about a foot long – in his left leg!"

As Jared spoke, there was another flash of green, as Dave's Mysteron powers did their best to keep him alive.

"Red leader this is Green leader!"

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!" Harriet shrieked at her daughter. Had she had any tissues on her, she might have cried.

"Harriet," Emily said firmly, as the Manta zoomed into view like a sleek silver arrow. "Do me a favour, and don't ask me that question. Now, who's ass am I saving first?"

OOO

Pain and Adrian were old friends.

He could usually ignore superficial injuries. Mild pain could be pushed to the back of his mind until a quieter moment. Severe pain, like his ribs and hip, was harder to deal with, and he usually relied on his body's accelerated healing to get rid of the worst of it before he was able to function again.

But he would happily have taken twenty severe injuries if it took away the pain of watching a loved one die.

The scream had echoed around the room, and then Aster's body had dropped to the floor like a lump of raw mince. Blood smeared over the metal surface, like a crude autopsy table.

Only once before had Adrian seen Aster bleeding – when Runoa had kidnapped her and tortured her for reasons which they were still unsure of. He had saved her then. Why not now? Why hadn't he done anything? It was his job to save them!

Then her chest gave a wheeze, and another bubble of blood leaked from her mouth. Adrian would have collapsed had he not already been prone on the floor. She was alive. He hadn't failed her after all...

In the second it took for him to realise this, something else registered in his mind.

That scream had not belonged to Aster.

His head snapped around. Michael was nearest, doubled over on his knees, panting as the armour of the Darkness finally gave up on healing and retreated, leaving a shaken and sweating host behind. Kyle was raw and bleeding, like someone had taken sandpaper to his skin, and breathing seemed to be excruciating, but he was alive. Tash, blood crusting on her face, and arms bent at an unnatural angle, was furthest away, but she, like all of them, was focused on where the scream had come from.

Growling angrily, Divinity took a step forward, the blade sliding out from her chest as she walked. The wounds sealed up behind her.

"Do you mind, Saito?" she demanded, whirling on the Counter Guardian, who eyed her with a cold expression. "I was enjoying that!"

Something exploded nearby, and Divinity was suddenly on the retreat, blocking a flurry of punches from Aramayis. Computer terminals and machinery buckled and twisted under the stray attacks, as Saito joined in, both men driving her further and further down the bridge.

Adrian yelped. Without even realising, he had tried to rise upright to join his colleagues in the fight, only to crumple back down to the floor. He gave another scream as fresh fire lanced it's way through his lungs. It was drowned out as Saito took an attack that sent him skidding the length of the bridge and coming to a painful halt not far from him. The Counter Guardian growled as he struggled to right himself.

Adrian felt fresh fear. He had never seen Saito get more than a bruise before. If Divinity was strong enough to beat them...

Aramayis seemed to be glowing a pale blue, and his punches came harder and faster, until finally one of them connected with the Sovereign, embedding her into a wall panel, and sending sparks up behind her.

"Now that you mention it," the Counter Guardian said with a surprising amount of venom. "Yes we do mind!"

There was a groan beneath his feet, and he had just a second to spare before the metal disintegrated beneath him. He jumped clear of the first hole, but instantly fell to the second, which swallowed him up and sent him plummeting away to an unseen part of the spaceship. Clicking several broken limbs back into place, Divinity stood tall.

"Mind the step!" she called down the hole with a chuckle. Her mirth vanished, as the panels behind her burst free of the wall, and her arms and legs were seized by thick, spidery roots. "What?!"

Pain was blooming through the left side of Adrian's chest, but he managed to twist his head around enough to see Kitsune stationed nearby. A smooth wooden staff had been drawn and was standing unaided, glowing a dark green as roots dug their way from the base between the cracks in the metal, creeping their way through the bridge and emerging from the ground to wrap around Divinity's body. With a squeeze of the Counter Guardian's hands, the magic flared brighter and every bone in Divinity's body was snapped with a gut churning series of cracks.

Nobody was fooled, least of all Kuroneko, who dropped from the ceiling like a ninja and struck hard at Divinity with her fan blades, bisecting her at the waist with two slashes.

For a moment, Adrian dared to hope. Then he heard a rasping laugh and he knew they hadn't won. He couldn't see very well from this distance, but from the way Kuroneko recoiled he knew something impossible was happening. Nobody should have survived that...

"Shit," Saito was up, as Kuroneko struck again, magic arcing from her fans like silver sunbeams. Both strikes seemed to boomerang and whip backwards at their owner, forcing her to dart out of the way and leave them to explode against a computer panel. More roots were sprouting up around Divinity to keep her contained, and snap after snap echoed through the room as the freshly healed bones were rebroken as fast as possible.

But it was not fast enough. As Kuroneko landed on her feet some distance away, Saito sped towards the enemy as Divinity's hand reappeared, seizing the blade with bare skin. It cut deep through muscle and flesh, but she seemed unfazed. Having leaped back out of his hole, Aramayis blurred back into sight, fists already drawn back for a follow up strike. Something new cracked, and the roots squeezing Divinity burst into a cloud of dust, which warped in the air before smothering both Counter Guardians. Both men began to choke, and stumbled into a retreat. Adrian was horrified to see blood creeping from beneath Aramayis's lips.

"Poison!" he realised, his brain still foggy from pain. "She turned the tree molecules into poison." Was there no end to what she could manipulate?

Kuroneko's fans flared, and a gust of wind scattered the deadly cloud away, but the damage was already done. As two more deadly energy strikes scythed their way towards Divinity, the Sovereign winked out of existence, and Kuroneko skidded to a halt, her assault coming to an instant standstill.

"There!" Saito's voice was raspy, and his hand shook as he lifted his sword to point. But it wasn't quick enough. As Adrian turned his head (another bullet of pain shooting down his ribs and hip), he saw the spears of black energy fire, penetrating Kitsune and staining the blue robes a dark navy. The Counter Guardian gagged before slumping forward to the floor, blood oozing into a fresh puddle on the metal. Saito vaulted off the nearest console, and struck with his sword, but Divinity just laughed, and darted clear. Behind him, Adrian could hear the unnerving noise of Aramayis vomiting as the poison clawed deeper into his system.

Something seized under his arms, and he yelped as pain shot down his body again. It was Kuroneko, and her face was grim.

Adrian made to speak, but the pressure on his chest was unbearable, and a bubble of blood emerged instead of words. Still, Kuroneko understood.

"It's not retreating, Adrian," she promised. "It's advancing in the opposite direction."

As she bent to haul him over her shoulder, Adrian's nerves exploded, and he screamed as the pain drowned him into the darkness of his mind.

OOO

"I need more juice, Creation!" Resolve barked, as something in the console hissed like a savage rattlesnake. Sparks flew like hailstones.

"Where do you propose I get it from?!" Creation was furious. "I'm seconds from losing my containment shield – I've got no reserves for the plothole! That's why we needed Divinity!"

"Shut up!" Order did not pace, or fiddle, or possess any nervous ticks, which was a shame, as he looked about ready to boil over from the constant yelling behind him. The keycard remained clenched in his fist as he watched the observation window. The plothole was well beyond the eyesight of normal humans, but the Sovereigns had other senses at their disposal, and they all held their breath as the tiny space craft approached its destination. Sweat was running in mini rapids down Creation and Resolve's faces, and everyone else leaned just a little further forward to watch, as the craft plunged deeper and deeper.

Finally, it winked out of sight completely, and the distinct sense of magic that came with their boss vanished with it. There was a collective sigh of relief from the entire room, followed almost immediately by another swear from Creation as all of her dials simultaneously dropped into the red.

"ARGH! I lost it!" she shouted, kicking the console for good measure. "The shielding is down! All external plotholes are active again!"

"It is of no consequence," Order assured her, turning to Resolve. "Disengage all power to the plothole and let it close. Everyone else, we meet at the rendezvous point in an hour."

"What about her?" it was Harmony who spoke, creeping forward from where she had been huddled silently by the wall for the duration of the mission. Nobody needed to ask who she meant – nobody dared speak. Even Order paused for thought.

"She knows our orders," he pointed out.

"You really think she's going to listen?" Creation asked. "She wasn't ordered to engage Adrian, or the Society, or the Counter Guardians. She wasn't ordered to kill Sadic." She nodded in the direction of the Super Star Destroyer. "But what can you feel?"

Order didn't have to feel – he could sense the flaring auras just fine.

"She's not coming back," Harmony whispered, staring vacantly through the window, in the direction of the fight. She did not really seem aware of anyone else at the moment. "She never was."

Order believed her. He always believed her.

"We meet in an hour," he reminded everyone, passing the keycard from his left hand to his right. "She knows the schedule. If she is sensible, she will show up. If she disobeys, we will deal with her in due course. Our priority right now is Lady Runoa's plan."

He pressed the keycard against the empty slot on the desk, and let it hover there for a moment. "Leave the plothole to close. Meet at the rendezvous. Self destruct..."

He pressed the key in, depressed the button, and turned it a quarter clockwise. The digital readout flashed into view, the numbers giving a small mechanical beep as they ticked down.

"Active. Thirty seconds and counting."

The first Sovereign cast a dark look to the battle outside. "It will all be over soon."

OOO

"Green three is secure! I repeat, Green three is secure! Who's next?"

Harriet gulped, and swerved.

"At the rate I'm going, it'll be me!" she shouted. She was down to twelve fighters, including herself and Emily (which wasn't really accurate, as Emily was too busy picking up stranded agents to be of much use).

"Harriet watch your butt!"

Harriet whirled and opened fire, sending the TIE fighter bursting into atoms.

"What is it with everyone trying to get me from behind today?!" she demanded. "Is it because I told everyone to watch their ba-"

The question died as light seared across her vision and she was forced to duck her head to shield it from the ferocious glare. It was as though someone had added napalm to the sun. She couldn't hear anything, but she knew that something inside that split star had just given – dramatically.

She slammed a hand on the radio.

"ALL AGENTS! STARBOARD SIDE! I REPEAT STARBOARD SIDE! MOVE YOUR ASSES!"

As she screamed the command, the explosion burst through the ball of flaming gas, pushing a cloud of debris out into the vacuum. It rocketed towards the battlefield, and Harriet felt sweat trickle down the side of her head as the newest and closest cluster of TIE fighters were instantly shredded to pieces by the flying debris. Even as Harriet banked, putting the enormous bulk of the Super Star Destroyer between her and the shower of debris, she was not sure it was going to be enough, as the flying pellets of metal plunged into the Star Destroyer.

"Oww! My ass!" Emily bellowed, by far the slowest of the group. Sure enough, there were a few new scratches on the Manta that had not been there when they had set out that morning. Tash was going to kill her when they got home, Harriet thought to herself. She could not help but duck as several of the faster shards of metal punched their way right through the Star Destroyer and zoomed overhead. She gave a wordless shriek as one of them struck the closest X-Wing in the back, blowing it sky high.

As the craft exploded, Harriet immediately saw that something was different.

"What?!" she shrieked, blinking at the emptiness in the middle of the debris. "Green nine, report?"

Her radio burst into life.

"-lling all fighters! Can you hear me?!"

"Library this is Blue Leader! Green nine has just appeared!"

"Communications are back up!"

"Harriet this is Marcus!" the Library's mission controller broke all protocol and shouted down the radio. "Please tell me you can hear me? Plotholes are working! I repeat – plotholes are working again!"

It was officially the best news Harriet had heard all day, and that included the cricket results that morning.

"All agents abort! I repeat – all agents abort! Library expect mass incoming!"

There was a cheer from the monitor room.

"Copy Harriet! It's so good to hear you!"

Slamming her fist onto the button on her wrist, Harriet let the nearest TIE fighter blow her to smithereens, and felt herself relax as she was instantly catapulted headfirst through the plothole.

She landed, as everyone else had before her, in the swimming pool. Shedding her suit, and letting it float to the bottom, she paddled for the surface. The warm lights twinkled above her, and nearby, she could see the shape of the little dinghy paddling across the pool, assisting agents who were took shaken or injured to swim. As she broke the surface, she waved to the boat to indicate that she was fine, and struck out for the edge of the pool.

"I hate space," she grumbled, seeing Terrie approach her, with a towel and an emergency medical kit. "Space is rubbish!"

She got a snort, and a towel on her head in response.

"Harriet!" Valerie was racing towards her, hands outstretched. "Are you hurt?"

The leader shook her head, wondering what on earth could have happened now as Valerie tugged her to her feet.

"I'm sorry, but I need all medical hands on deck. It's the Strike Team."

Wondering what on earth could have possibly happened now, Harriet tossed the towel back to Terrie, and ran after her flustered medical director. The day was not over yet.

OOO

Deep between the shelves of the Library Arcanium, a pair of feet padded noiselessly over the wooden floors.

When Runoa wanted to be dramatic, she let her boots click with her footsteps. But she was not being dramatic right now. She needed to be stealthy. It would not do to ruin her plans now just for a little bit of flair.

She had hidden her ship in a hangar – not the huge one that Adrian's fleet had set out from – but a smaller, more private one, which she remembered from her own tenure. The Library was always helpful to visitors, and she was grateful for it. She had left the plothole to close on it's own, and let her feet choose her destination. They would know which way to go. She was sure of it.

She smiled as she crossed the threshold. This particular wing of the Library was dimly lit, and a little dusty. But to her, it felt warm and comforting.

It was here.

Slowly, she weaved her way between the shelves, feeling her destiny inch forward with every silent step.

OOO

It was unfortunate that Runoa had not lingered.

In the private hangar of the Library, the plothole shrunk down slowly, like treacle pouring through the drain of a bathtub. Runoa's craft was parked neatly to one side, the systems shut down, with only the emergency lighting casting a soft glow over the otherwise dark room.

A soft chuckle echoed from the plothole – distant and indistinct, like it was coming through a thick barrier of foam.

A tiny wisp of blackness oozed from the straw-sized plothole, and floated through the hanger, coalescing into a ball of smoke that hovered in the middle of the room. Thin fingers of magic reached out and teased at the surroundings, slithering up over the floor and caressing the outside of the ship.

The plothole slid completely closed, and the lights of the ship went out with a crack.

OOO

"…ave…Dave? C'mon man. It's safe to open your eyes. Shirley isn't around…"

Groaning, the bearded agent cracked one eye open hazily, only to slam it shut again as light seared through his vision.

"Oh you're awake! Thank goodness!" You could have powered a field of wind turbines off the sigh of relief that Ben gave. Scowling at the realisation that he wasn't going back to sleep, Dave risked opening his eye again to peer at his fellow agent.

"Maybe we should have let him sleep Ben…and for that matter, you should be too."

"I'm fine," there was an edge to Ben's voice that betrayed a lie.

"Yes, but it was a close run thing," the second voice belonged to Cristoph, Dave realised. What kind of surreal environment had he entered where they spoke to each other civilly?

"Too bloody right it was close!" Ah that was Alice – the admonishing tone was familiar and reassuring. "Have you seen the flaming ward? All the beds are occupied!"

"No they're not," that was Robert. "I just saw that Mara Jade woman helping Aramayis leave…against Valerie's explicit advice, of course."

Oh great – the Counter Guardians were around…maybe he should just go back to sleep…

Someone poked him gently in the side, and he groaned.

"Ow…" he muttered darkly.

"Sorry Dave," that was Harriet. "Just need to ask you a few things. And really guys! The rules are two visitors per bed on this side of the ward!"

"We're his friends!" that was Louise protesting.

"I want to say thanks for saving my ass!" Ben argued.

"I'm just here to eavesdrop." (a) said simply. Peering through two cracked eyelids, Dave could make out Harriet facepalming.

"Well you all need to wait outside while I find out how he's feeling, so shoo!"

With a bit of hand flapping, the other agents dragged themselves grumbling through the curtain. With the smell of antiseptic and laundered sheets, Dave could now place himself in the familiar environment of the hospital wing. Indeed, he had counted those ceiling tiles often enough to be able to tell exactly which curtained bed he was in.

"Right, welcome back!" Harriet smiled at him, but Dave could see the weariness in her eyes. "You had us all worried my dear – not going to lie about that. Do you know where you are?"

"I'm going to guess that hospital wing." The agent drawled, with a pointed look at the monitors next to his bed.

"Indeed – five points for a correct answer." Harriet sat down on the bed. "Can you raise two fingers for me?"

He did, and he sat patiently as she shone a light into his eyes and made him wiggle all of his limbs.

"Well, looks like you got away with no brain damage." She concluded with a smile. "In fact if I didn't know better, I'd say you'd never been exposed to the vacuum of space. It's good to know that your magical alien powers protect you from anoxia and slow decompression."

"Yes, that's a huge load off my mind," Dave replied sarcastically. "What happened?"

Harriet's face fell. "I'll get one of the others to brief you," she said. "In the mean time, I want you to stay overnight for observation. Convenient powers or not, you were in pretty bad shape for most of that fight. Always best to be sure…"

She trailed off, her eyes drifting to the curtain as though she could see the other beds beyond. With a small sigh, she put her smile on again, and patted his hand. "I'll send the others in. But if you need to sleep, feel free to tell them to piss off."

Ordinarily, Dave might have argued in defence of his manners, but tired or not, he knew something terrible had happened in that mission, and Harriet's night was far from over. So instead, he smiled. "Thanks Harriet. I'll take care of myself."

You don't need to worry about me was what he really meant. And he suspected that she understood, as she returned the smile and tucked herself around the curtain.

"What happened?" he hissed, as soon as the others reappeared, blatantly disregarding the 'two visitors per bed' rule. He was conscious now of what Alice had said – every bed was occupied – and he was reluctant to disturb anyone who really needed sleep.

"The entire Strike Team was hospitalised," Robert reported in a low voice. "And three of the Counter Guardians. Aster's in one of the HDU rooms in that huge tube thing. Adrian's in the other – what did Valerie say?"

"Pneumothorax, fractured pelvis, severe kidney trauma which has led to renal failure…I could go on," Alice sighed heavily. Dave guessed she was put out that she would not be hugging her new favourite victim for a while.

"Kyle's in bad shape too," Cristoph reported, his voice grave. He had always got on well with the quieter agent. "He's not as bad as Aster but I think they're going to put him in the tank once she's done…" he shuddered. "It looked like they'd had their skin peeled off."

Dave swallowed hard to stop himself from being sick.

"And that's not all," Ben said darkly. All eyes were on him. "I overheard Tash when Harriet was casting her arms." He jerked his head across the ward. "Apparently what did this to them was another Sovereign…a new one. And you won't believe who she is…"

OOO

There were days, Valerie Shockley thought to herself, when it just was not worth getting out of bed.

Days when the Library had epidemics of viruses were one of them. So were days when Michael felt like escaping from the hospital bed with limbs still in plaster, or when Ben and Dave decided to have pun-marathons within earshot of a certain sentient piece of wood with anger management issues. Days when Tyler decided that small objects were a better midnight snack than a bowl of instant ramen. Days when people came whining to her for pain relief because they had been stupid enough not to warm up and stretch properly before PT sessions. When these days occurred, she genuinely went to bed at the end of it with a thumping headache wondering why on earth she put herself through all of this shit.

Glancing around her hospital wing, which had been full this evening of agents, leaders and (most worryingly) Counter Guardians, she decided that as of today, she had another point to add to her ever growing list. Days when the Librarian thought that rushing off on his own to be heroic was a good idea. That man was an idiot, and if he ever woke up from his extended healing nap, she would be the first to tell him that.

Sighing heavily, she signed herself out of the hospital wing computer for the night, and flicked the desk lamp off. Around her, everyone was sleeping. In spite of her request, Saito had refused all efforts to stay in the hospital, and had staggered out again almost as soon as he had been comfortably medicated. Aramayis had crawled out of bed and into the HDU room to see how Aster was doing two hours ago, before asking Mara Jade politely to help him to his room (Valerie hadn't even known that the Counter Guardians had rooms!). That had left Kitsune, who had snuck out five minutes ago when the healer had gone into the HDU room to check on Adrian's vitals. One of these days, Valerie was going to work up the nerve to tell the Counter Guardians what she really thought of them. But not tonight. She was too tired.

Adrian and Aster had been the worst set of casualties – indeed, Aster had spent most of the evening in the healing tank, allowing the gelatinous goo to fix all of her internal injuries. She had come out of it not an hour ago, daze and confused, and had conceded to spend the rest of the night in the hospital. Her remaining injuries were superficial, and the goo absorbed by her skin would take care of them by morning.

And there were others – Kyle, who had taken a shorter spin in the healing tank after Aster, and was now in a heavily medicated doze in the nearest bed. Dave, who was resting after Valerie had chased all six of his visitors out with Seriyu. Tash, who's arms were encased in heavy white casts. Jared, also cast, this time only on the left where he had slammed into the side of the Super Star Destroyer. And Michael, who had no physical injuries save a bang on the head, but who had been sitting in the corner all night, shaking and muttering to the Darkness, forcing Valerie to sedate him so that he could get a good night's rest.

Rubbing the growing headache, Valerie let her feet carry her away from the desk and into HDU 2. The faint glow of the laptop screen from within the room indicated that Harriet was remaining vigilant over Adrian in place of her injured best friend. Gently she rapped on the door.

"I'm going off duty," the healer whispered, interrupting Harriet from what appeared to a marathon of Supernatural episodes. "Are you sure you're okay to cover the night shift?"

Harriet nodded. She'd slept in that morning, and knew she would be good for a little while. "It's fine. They're all stable and recovering...and he's definitely not going anywhere." She nodded toward Adrian's bed. "If he does...well I'll be pretty impressed."

Valerie tried to smile, but she honestly would not put it past the Librarian, and she did not need to add that to her list of concerns. "You have a good evening then." Harriet gave a nod before going back to her delicious Winchester boys without further ceremony. Leaving the ring of keys in the top drawer of the desk, Valerie gave one final sweep of the hospital wing, before steering herself out of the door.

She was really going to have to address the issue of huge, high risk missions and the number of casualties that it brought. Blacklists were there for exactly this reason, and yet she had already dealt with three major incidents involving the entire Society in this season (the fourth wall gave a little vibration in objection to her thought process). With Phoenixia gone, she was severely understaffed too. If Adrian was going to insist on leading them all into danger, she needed to be prepared.

She would have to address this with the leaders. Not Tash – she was difficult to deal with at the best of times, and she was even worse when she was injured and grumpy. Harriet was a possibility, but the leader's quirky outgoing attitude were intimidating to the introvert that was Valerie – in addition to which, you never knew exactly what the leader was thinking. Being British, she was a master of the polite facade, and even Valerie with all her empathy had difficulty reading what Harriet's true thoughts were sometimes. Which only really left Michael. That would work, she thought to herself – Michael liked a bit of violence, but he would hear her out and had been in the hospital enough times to sympathise with her…once he'd had a good night's sleep and shaken off whatever had been plaguing him today.

Satisfied with this, she picked up her pace towards the kitchen, fully intending to fetch a snack before going to bed.

OOO

Smiling to herself, Divinity watched the skeleton of the Damocles space station as it finally succumbed to the crushing pressure of the star's gravity, crumpling like a grape being crushed in an enormous fist. Bits of metal and smashed space fighters floated free, only to crumble seconds later. Violating nature was a habit of humans in every fandom...but not Divinity. In this relationship, nature did the violating at her command. And she loved it.

Floating in the middle of space, the wisps of white cloth floating around her body, Divinity folded one leg over the other, and closed her eyes. With ease, she felt the tentative connection between her and her spell – a tiny seed of magic by all means, but even seeds could grow into thick vines, strangling all that touched them. And that was exactly what she intended to do.

Gently, she gave the tiny spell a little push, and felt it begin to flow out, sapping the life and energy from all around it, and hungrily spreading as it gained more momentum. Eyes still closed, the Sovereign felt the laws of space and vacuum bend to her will, filling the area around her with sound.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star..."

OOO

Yawning, Emily rubbed her forehead, and knocked back the ibuprofen capsules along with half a glass of water. Her head was still ringing. For somewhere that was supposed to be devoid of sound, space had been so noisy in so many other ways. Flashes of red and green still burst across her closed eyelids, and her nose and throat still carried the iron tang of blood from the hospital wing.

Her heart sank. She was thirteen – she was too young to be despairing. But all the beds in the hospital wing had ended up full, and what had they gained for it? A dead Stu. It was not even a result in her mind. A result would have been nailing another Sovereign. A result would have been finding out what Runoa's plans were. A result would have been doing something – anything – to stop Divinity and bring Phoenixia back. But Tash had made that sound impossible, from the brief, pain filled statements that she had been able to give in between huffs of entonox.

The fights were getting worse. The first time most of the agents had wound up in hospital thanks to Death. The second time had been right after Aster's rescue, where they'd almost lost Adrian. And this time, the Counter Guardians – the untouchables of the multiverse – had been hurt. Never mind that all of them had been well enough to discharge themselves already. They were not supposed to get hurt. That was the rule of being a Counter Guardian – unless your name was Adrian, she mused. He seemed to attract danger.

It was all a huge mess, Emily thought to herself. And she doubted that it would be less of a mess in the morning. But none the less, it was just gone midnight, and she had been up since six am. She needed sleep. Maybe then all of her friends would be getting better...maybe Natalie would have found a way to get stuck in her own front door and not be at school next week...and maybe (a) would stop messing with the monitor screens, Emily thought irritably, as she saw the screen in the top right hand corner pop into blackness. Infuriated now, she reached up to thump it.

The screen next to it flickered, before snapping into a black haze. Emily scowled. The universe was determined not to let her sleep tonight. And yet even as she thought it, a third screen began to darken. She squinted at it, noting in passing that all three cameras were located in one of the main corridors. Swirling blackness seemed to claw its way up the walls before coming to coat the camera lens in darkness. It only took a second for the picture to cut out entirely. Another one, further down the corridor immediately began to do the same.

There were many things that original characters could do that self inserts could not. One of those, was sense changes in their personal plotline. And as Emily watched the cameras flicking off one by one, she saw not the black fog swirling in to smother them, but her own personal demon, coming closer to drag her into the place where all forgotten stories went, never to return.

Adrenaline surged through her legs and heart, and she rode with it, seizing her bag and bolting from the Monitor room as the first fingers of the spell teased at the other end of the corridor.

"How I wonder what you are..."

OOO

Rhia's kitchen was rarely empty. Even when the chef was in bed herself, there were people sneaking in for a cup of tea or to raid the fridge. So when Valerie entered and found that Rhia was sipping on a mug of hot tea, Ben was eating some leftover lasagne, and Cristoph was attacking a huge bowl of donburi, she was not surprised, and she quickly dove into the fridge to see what sandwich fillings they had.

"Up above the world so high..."

With her back to the door and extractor vents, Valerie did not see the tendrils of blackness slipping in and entangling around chairs and feet. She only heard the thuds as Ben landed face first into his lasagne, and Cristoph slipped sideways off his chair. Rhia followed not a second later, her eyes rolling back into her skull, and her mug shattering into pieces on the floor, tea pooling out over the stone.

Feeling the cold air drifting from the fridge down the back of her neck, Valerie sank to her knees and felt her eyes slide closed against her will. She had just enough wits to rest her head on the bottom shelf of the fridge before consciousness was snatched from her in a swirl of magic.

OOO

"Like a diamond in the sky..."

Runoa's senses prickled, and she slowly put down the book that she had been studying. Something was wrong. Even with the mood lighting the Library was never this dark. The historical fantasy section looked as though all of the colour was being leeched out of it.

The darkness swept over the carpet, it's momentum carrying like a wave around the bookshelves. Runoa tasted magic, and she knew it's source.

"Oh you...clever bitch..." she had just enough time to breathe, before sinking to the floor, her head coming to rest on the open pages of the book.

OOO

"Twinkle, twinkle little star..."

The door swung violently open and banged against the back wall. The few remaining agents stirred, only to be dragged straight back under by their sedation.

"Emily!" Harriet looked up from the main desk scowling, the rest of her admonishment dying on her lips as she saw the black spell clouding up the windows. "What the hell?!"

Her charge snapped the lock, even though she could already see it seeping in through the floor. "Get back!" she shrieked, sprinting the length of the hospital, as Harriet hastily shoved her chair back, scattering carefully stacked papers everywhere. Above their heads, the ventilation systems rattled ominously.

Wishing terribly that she had a clue what was going on, Harriet seized Emily by the back of her jacket, and hauled her towards the nearest door. The HDU room which Adrian was currently occupying was entirely self sealed, designed for quarantine of people with infectious diseases. Harriet doubted that it would hold off this supposedly dangerous fog indefinitely, but it was all they had. The door sealed shut with a hiss behind them. Oblivious in the grip of morphine, Adrian slept on.

"Get us out of here!" Harriet barked, kicking at the breaks on the wheels of Adrian's bed. She knew it was too late to save the others in the hospital wing – there was a wrenching crack as the door was forced open against the rolling tide – but they could still save Adrian. Securing the drip line to the bed with the clamps, she felt the rush of magic ahead of her as Emily yanked a plothole into existence behind Adrian's bed.

Blackness teased at the door and observation windows, and Harriet felt a cold back draft from the ventilation shaft above their heads. Emily let out a shriek, and the Society leader closed her eyes and pushed as hard as she could.

"...how I wonder what you are."

OOO

The spell seemed to bloom in her senses, and Divinity smiled into the coldness of space.

"…good night, Society."

OOO