Scene 36 - December 19th

Interior Mansion, Late Evening

Dominic Könberg

When we had gotten home, taking shelter under the Kovals’ wards on the family mansion, Morgan had immediately whisked the sword - Excalibur, the Journeymen had said it was called - away from Tristan, and vanished into her wing. Mom, meanwhile, had swept off to check on dad, and make sure that he had gotten to bed alright on his own.

The rest of us, meanwhile had essentially collapsed in a puddle. After we stripped off our armor, left in the padded underclothing that had come with the stuff, I and my siblings were simply dozing, waiting for our mothers to shoo us to bed or to talk about the events of the day.

When Morgan reappeared, Viv was curled up against my side, Percy was lying with his head in her lap, and Tristan was sound asleep across Percy and my legs. I myself had folded up dad’s cape - which had changed color from deep purple to a metallic gray when I doffed it, as always - and was using it as a pillow between my head and the wall.

Morgan smiled a little at the sight, and I tried not to stir too much so as to avoid waking Tristan. Viv yawned and rubbed at her eyes, and Percy propped himself up on an elbow. “Hey Morgan,” I whispered.

“Hey kids,” she quietly responded, crouching. “First of all, I want to tell you how proud I am of all of you.” A sleepy smile spread across my face involuntarily, and Viv blushed a little. Percy just nodded, but I could tell how pleased he was to get such praise as well. “You successfully recovered the data we were hoping to get, you went toe-to-toe with the Journeymen and very nearly won, and you managed to adapt when plans had to change, and keep Excalibur out of the MLED’s hands - which means out of Ambrosia’s hands.”

“What did you do with it, by the way?” Viv asked. “It didn’t seem like something to be careless with.”

“I have it locked under a number of protective enchantments at the moment,” Morgan said. “In a few days I’ll begin investigating it for possible use - see if my specialty in artifice and enchantment can let me avoid the mental effects of it, or if they might be worth it for a few moments at a time. For now, however, we’ll just keep it locked up.”

“Probably for the best,” Percy murmured. “The idea of it being misused again...”

“A scary thought,” I agreed.

“Right. But that’s the first thing - you all did well.” Then Morgan sighed. “The second thing, unfortunately, is that even though you did well, today was a bit of a fiasco. The MLED will be on the lookout for any groups matching our description, has definitely connected your powers to Arthur’s, and Arthur Peregrine himself will doubtless be in the city by the end of the week. The Ambrosia Company will almost certainly have active agents here soon, both for Arthur’s armor and for the sword, if they can get their hands on it. Not to mention that Anima, one of the few heroes in this city that’s definitely not connected with Ambrosia - and a long-standing pillar of the entire East Coast for almost 20 years - might be forced into retirement as the result of this.” She shook her head sadly. “I wish it hadn’t turned out this way.”

“What’s our next move?” Viv asked.

“Nothing - yet. You and I will need to look through the data you recovered from the MLED’s servers, and from there, most likely a lot of scrying to check on hunches and inferences. What we’ll be doing next depends greatly on what we find. The deeper Ambrosia’s hooks go into the MLED, the more drastic the actions we’ll have to take in order to keep Arthur safe from them.” She leaned over Tristan’s snoozing form to press a kiss to my, Viv, and Percy’s foreheads. “For the moment, you should all get some rest. Maybe check in on your father, if Jenny hasn’t coaxed him to bed yet - it’s been a good day for him mentally, but that just means that he was worried about you all.”

“We will,” I promised, Viv and Percy echoing me a moment after.

Morgan whispered a few words, and Tristan rose into the air, still sleeping peacefully. “I’ll put Tristan in his room. Good night, kids.”

“Good night, Morgan.”

“Night,” Percy said, grunting as he stood.

“G’night mom.” Viv yawned, and cuddled back into my side. I decided not to disturb her, and instead just closed my eyes and did my best to follow my sister to sleep.