It took Maria´s eyes a moment to adjust after passing the dark barrier of the tower. The once packed room was now hauntingly empty, with only a few scorch marks on the ground telling of the bodies that had filled the room.

A square table had been placed in the middle of the room, two men in white coats standing beside it. They bowed as Maria came closer, avoiding eye contact. Neither seemed happy about being here. On the table laid a tray with various scalpels, a wrench, as well as bandages. Next to the tray, a large stack of folders.

Further back, behind the table, were the captives. Heroes that had been whisked out of their cells before they could be rescued, a few sharply dressed men and women that Maria did not know, lord Lavelier, and one more familiar face. James stood in the middle of the line, the only one looking at her while all others were either staring at the ground or the side.

They all stood with their backs against the wall, unmoving. They were not shackled or chained, what kept them in place was the web of glittering threads. Elaine was standing in front of them with her eyes closed, her fingers moving ceaselessly. Her eyes fluttered open when Maria stepped to her side, a smile appearing on her lips.

"My beloved master, I am overjoyed to see you again. Keeping this batch alive is working a lot better than I had imagined. Only three died so far." Elaine´s eyes crept over to one of the women, who looked ghostly faint. Drool was leaning out of the side of her mouth.

"Well, perhaps four. But only those business-y people, no great loss."

Maria let out a sigh and ran her hand through Elaine´s hair. "You've done well." She waved Sin to come over, she had been waiting at the table. "Why is Lavelier here?"

"He was the first to leave the ball, in quite a hurry." Sin could not hide her fangs in her smile. "Quite suspicious, would you not say, my master?"

Lavelier was now staring at Maria, opening his mouth to speak. "Your highness, I assure you that-"

Maria shook her head. Elaine clenched her left hand to a fist and Lavelier´s mouth snapped shut, biting his tongue. Blood ran down his mouth as his eyes teared up, but the rest of his body showed no reaction.

"Nobility is of course a great value." Sin continued speaking as if nothing had interrupted her. "However it can often times be useful to nudge the good lords and ladies, to remind them that treasonous behaviour will not be tolerated."

"I get it, we'll take him on later." Her eyes met those of James again. "He'll probably be the toughest here." Without giving them another look she returned to the table and sat down in front of the folders. Sin joined her side and looked through them for the appropriate one.

"My beloved master was clear enough, was she not?" Elaine´s voice whipped through the room. "Move!"

James kept his eyes on Maria, he did not lift a muscle.

"Are you deaf?" Elaine narrowed her eyes, a growl building up in her throat. One quick glimpse over her shoulder to her master made her calm down. "Fine, if you are that incapable, I will do it for you."

The strings sung through the air, coalescing around James. He gritted his teeth as he began to walk towards the table. His movements were haphazard, only a single limb moved at a time. The light of the walls illuminated his back, pierced hundreds of times over by Elaine´s threads.

Sin had found the file by the time that James had been made to sit down opposite of Maria. She took out the first papers and laid them out in front of her master.

"Let us see then." Maria cleared her throat as her eyes ran across the document. They had gone over it thrice over in the last week, so there was no hesitation when she spoke. "You're convicted and admitted to joining a radical terrorist organisation with the goal of turning the country into a theistic dictatorship according to the teachings of a fanatical preacher calling himself Samdel. And you plead guilty."

She turned the paper around, laid a pen under the signature line, and slid it across to him. His anger mixed with disbelief.

"You actually think I am going to sign this?" His right arm was moved up by Elaine, though the beast struggled with making his fingers grab the pen. His muscles were tense, yet he did not voice the pain of the threads running across his muscles.

"By the time I leave this room this paper will be signed in your name. Whether you do so and later testify, or we produce your signature and tell the courts you were killed trying to flee makes little difference to me." Maria was rummaging through her bag and pulled out Sir Screech, resting the plush on her lap.

"Not in a million years."

Maria had taken her eyes off of James, fondling her plush instead. With a sigh she shook her head. "Sin."

"My dear little sister, put his other arm up." Sin crossed the table and took the wrench off of the tray as James´ arm was pulled onto the table. His breathing was getting faster.

Sin rose up the wrench and brought it down on his arm with full force. The metal dented, but still he cried out in pain, his body tensing up, though it remained still, held in place by the countless threads wriggling through his body.

She threw the wrench away. "So that's where you got that name from, hm? 'Unbreakable'. We'll see about that." Sin grabbed his head, pulling it back by his hair and stared down into his eyes. "Do us all a favour and sign."

"I am not signing any-"

His head was smashed down onto the table, once, twice. It quaked under the force, but held. The two men in coats looked at each other, remaining silent.

Maria looked up without lifting her head, staring into Jame´s bloodied face. His nose was a wreck, and one of his front teeth had fallen out. "There's a good twenty people waiting their turn, one of them nearly died already. Do you really want to be the cause of their deaths?"

"They're dying because you aren't giving us food!" Blood ran out of Jame´s mouth, making his words slurred. "Let them go, none of them ever did anything to you."

Maria and Sin exchanged looks. Then Sin pulled him back and burried her fist in his stomach, knocking the air out of his loungs. More blood dripped down onto his costume.

"Ever since I took on my inheritance, the world has been against me. My enemies turned my family against me, they killed my parents, they burned my house down. I had to live on the run, and now you expect me to just let them go?" Maria bit down on her lip.

"No. They will sign their confessions, they will read them out in court, so the country and the world can know what they did to me. What they did to the world. So that they can finally recognise me as their one true ruler."

Sin pulled James´ head back up, forcing him to look Maria in the eyes.

"But you're too stubborn, aren't you." Maria waved to Elaine. "Get that one."

"You heard my beloved master, get yourself in gear or I will make you!" This time Elaine was obeyed. The woman being shouted at quickly made her way over to the table, facing the ground. Her suit was stained and torn, her dark brown hair a mess. She was trembling as Sin walked over to her, picking the wrench back up.

James began to struggle, his muscles showing through his skin, but the threads kept him in place. "Don't, don't do this."

"Your actions have consequences, boy." Sin ran the wrench up against the back of the woman´s head. "Isn't the job of a hero to protect people? You're doing quite a poor job."

The table once more shook when Sin pushed her face onto the table, facing towards James. Abject terror was written on her face as she stared up at him, Sin raising the wrench.

"You think you can just forget the look of her open skull? I met a lot of tough people you know, but none of them ever got these kind of-"

"I'll sign!" He yelled out, drowning Sin´s words. "I'll sign the damn thing, just let her go!"

Sin dropped the wrench onto the woman´s hand, making her yell out in pain, then the servant shoved her out of the way. While the woman crawled back to her spot at the wall Sin leaned over the table, grinning at James.

"Well?"

With gritted teeth James grabbed the pen and left his signature on the paper, staring back at Maria with disgust.

"Just what did this woman do to you, Maria. This isn't you, I refuse to believe that."

Maria pulled the paper back and laid it on top of his folder, taking out another and sliding it to him. "Second copy." She then crossed her legs and leaned back. "Sin saved my life, when your new friends tried to kill me. She was there for me when nobody else was. There is nothing she did to me. I just became what I needed to be."

James took much longer to sign the next paper. "A lot of people are threatened or attacked, they don't start killing and torturing people."

"This is a matter of life and death, coronation or decapitation, James!" Maria´s grip around sir Screech tightened. "Me or them, and I will be damned if I let them win. They are threatening my life and that of my servants!"

James finished his signature and leaned forward. Elaine let out a gasp, yet this time her threads did not contain him. Sin slammed his head back on the table, holding him in place.

He slid the papers to Maria, looking up to her. "People who fear for their life seek protection. They don't burn down cities."

Maria stood up, shaking her head. "We got what we need, put him back with the others."

One of the men at her side leaned in. "Your excellency, I would advise to have his wounds examined, it could prove-"

Her glare alone silenced him. "He'll live. He's 'Unbreakable' after all." She spat out his title, holding her plush close to her chest. "You can check on him tomorrow or if he falls over or something. Now make yourself useful and get me something to eat, I got another twenty idiots to finish up and I haven't even had breakfest!"

James removed himself from the table, getting back in line of his own accord. The interrogations continued, though at a much accelerated pace. After the display that Sin had made of James, most of the other prisoners only needed to be handed their papers to sign, with a few overly eager ones trying to win favour by adding onto their alleged crimes.

Maria rarely let them finish. Her aide had found a loaf of bread for her, and she was gulping it down as Sin tended to her duties in her stead, shouting down and roughening up the few that tried to claim their innocence.

Within two more hours the folders were stacked up on the other side of the table, filled with fresh convictions. Sin wiped the blood off of the last piece of paper and returned to her master´s side.

Without another word they left for the exit, only stopping when one of the men mustered the last of his courage to speak up. "May we give them food now, your excellence? I, just believed-" He withered under the gaze of Maria, who looked from him to James.

"No."

Maria stepped through the dark, back out into the city, and was greeted by a scene of catastrophe.