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Chapter Text

[“I am a fool. That is well known.” - Mozart]

0

Location: Turm
Time: Thursday morning, 5:00 am

The music on the record player was playing. The song was “Mein lieber Schwan” by Richard Wagner. 

The young man with soft, slightly messy chestnut-colored hair slowly opened his reddish brown eyes. The sun was definitely not peeking through the window’s curtains at this hour, especially at this time of the year. 

He absent-mindedly rolled to his left side, right arm made a wide arc as if expecting to touch something, or someone on that side of the bed. 

But his hand only flopped onto the soft fabric of the cotton blanket, making a light “thud” sound. 

His eyes immediately blinked and opened wide, and he jolted awake in an instant. 

The brunet gasped audibly, throwing the blanket off him in a haste and got off the bed, not even caring which foot he stepped down first - what he usually did every morning. 

Eyes darting around the barely lit room, the young man tried to keep his breathing steady and his nerves calm.

It was still Thursday, wasn’t it? 

A flash of bright light made a thin ray past the gap of the large window’s curtain. 

His eyebrows pulled into a frown and he slowly walked towards the window, putting one of his eyes at the gap without opening the curtain, as if fearing what was on the other side. 

And then, his pupils dilated. Time seemed to have stopped at that moment. 

The sky was burning, with color brighter than the sun itself. 

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

But it was. This was it.

“SkyFall”.

Chapter Text

I

Location: Uber Berlin
Time: “30 days to SkyFall”, morning, 7:00 am

Crossing his legs on the comfy chair of the cafeteria, Dietrich looked out at the busy street. 

People were on their daily routines: the postman taking letters and packages out of the mailboxes, cars and horse carts driving on the brick-paved street, vendors calling out for passersby to take a look at their goods, and so on. 

No one knew what would be happening in a month from now. 

“Good for them.” Dietrich muttered, picking up his coffee and took a sip. 

There was no use for them to know, even if they somehow knew, what could they even do? Crying? Screaming? Hoarding food? Protesting the government? Panicking and desperately looking for a solution? Escaping to outer space? 

Nah, it was all meaningless. “Ignorance is bliss” was the optimal resolve for this.

Thinking of that, the brunet halted his hand, the coffee cup hanging just a hair’s breadth from his lips. Yes, those ‘normal people’ didn’t know, obviously, but he knew. He knew about it. 

It was the top secret information that only the Silver Star ranked members of the Orden were allowed to know, which meant only three top people could access it - Dietrich von Lohengrin (Magister Templi 8=3), Isaak Fernand von Kaempfer (Magus 9=2) and Cain Knightlord (Ipsissismus 10=1). The brief plan for it, as passed down to him by the Magus, was for Cain to repair and setup all the offensive systems of the Ark, which was currently orbiting the Earth like the sword of Damocles, then activated them all on the day of ‘SkyFall’ before flying the Ark to crash into Earth. However, since Mein Herr Contra Mundi's twin brother was back on the chessboard, to leave Cain alone on the Ark would not be a safe decision. Thus, it was required for the Magus to step up and assist his Herr on the mission, arriving on the Ark just on the day of SkyFall to act as his Herr's right hand, operating the Ark while Cain would fight his twin Krusnik brother. Then what about Dietrich himself though? 

"Mein Herr said nothing about the request for you to be on the Ark to assist him. So I believe you are free to act on your own, just don't intervene in the SkyFall operation." Dietrich recalled the 'Magician's' words while taking another sip of coffee.

Ah yes, of course, in their eyes Dietrich was still very much an immature little brat. Cain never took him seriously while Isaak, with all due respect, always kept him in the “kid zone”. It wasn’t like they didn’t send him on important missions - they did, a lot even - but if it was a real big operation, which usually involved Cain’s direct appearance, Dietrich would surely not be allowed to partake, perhaps except that time when Cain needed someone to hack the Ark system first.

Just thinking about that made Dietrich’s beautifully handsome face scrunched up in disgust. 

He grabbed the sugar pot and dropped two sugar cubes into the coffee. Why suddenly it became bitter? Stirring the cup for the sugar to dissolve, the brunet let out a long sigh. 

“...You know too well, Mr. Lohengrin. To them, you are just a means to an end.”

The mocking voice of that woman echoed at the back of his mind. That woman . Oh how he detested that conniving hag. Just the thought of meeting with her in the hallway could make him nauseous. Like a sore in the eyes, Caterina Sforza pledged her allegiance to the Rosenkreutz Orden around quite a while ago, not long after the Popes’ untimely (timely actually) demises. Perhaps the younglings in the Orden would have thought that was a huge victory as one big name in the opponent’s leader rank finally had succumbed to the Orden’s power, but Dietrich didn’t feel at ease, not even a little bit. She stated her reason to join the Orden as “hatred towards the current Queen of Albion” but Dietrich knew it wasn’t that. For someone who not only experienced deception but even being known as one master of it, the ‘Puppeteer’ could easily pick apart the blatant lie. Though when he told Isaak about that, the raven simply hand-waved a dismiss. What did he find in her that made him so interested in keeping her around? It wasn’t like Dietrich didn’t believe the ‘Magician’ was smart enough to not trust Caterina, but for him to still let her be around… 

“Damn that old hag.” Dietrich made a loud hiss and slammed his coffee cup onto the table. His fingers unconsciously reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, the young brunet needed to find something to do to forget about that accursed woman. 

Just when he was about to get up from the chair, the smell of cigarette smoke reached his smoke-sensitive nose. A tall and slim figure had just stepped into the cafeteria, strands of thin white smoke swirling around but never seemed to contact the figure’s clothes. 

And just like that Dietrich sat back down on the chair. It was not everyday luck to actually see such figure to come out, let alone actually walking into a public place. Not that the man never walked out in public places, just that he tended to suddenly appear in a place and for some reason people would never notice him, and then he vanished just like he appeared. For him to literally walk in the cafeteria and pay for the drink, this must be a curious event.

As the brunet expected, the slender figure turned to walk towards his spot. The (very) long, silky and tar-colored hair of the man graciously but gently flew as he walked, with his intricately carved walking cane never making any sound on the floor. Dietrich waved his hands annoyingly as the cigarette smoke strand got thicker with the raven’s approach. 

“Ugh, this isn’t a non-smoking area but can you just not smoke for once?” Irritatedly, Dietrich voiced his ‘greeting’. 

“Guten morgen to you too, ‘Marionettespieler’.” The raven tipped his top hat that fit the color of his gloomy three-piece suit and gracefully took his seat on the parallel side to Dietrich, setting his cane on the side of the chair and his hat on his thighs. “‘Give everyday the chance to be the most beautiful day of your life’ - Mark Twain. I assume that you slept well.” 

Dietrich made a huff at that. 

“-Why?

-Hmm? Why what? 

-You know exactly what, Mage. For all the time I am around you, this is one of the rare times you walk out in public and daylight. 

-I am an old man, ‘Puppeteer’. Have to stretch the muscles and bones sometimes, you know.

-Meh, you are having something in your head. I know you too well.” Dietrich chuckled, picking up his coffee cup again.
The maid brought over the drink that the raven ordered and set it on the table. He thanked the maid with a polite nod and snuffed the cigarillo he was smoking into the ashtray. 

“It is probably you overthinking,” the raven picked up his cup - it was cinnamon black tea - his long sharp eyes with jet black irises fixed on the surface of the substance in the cup. 

“What meaning is there to scheme anything anymore when the world is about to end?” 

…

Location: Londinium

Time: “30 days to SkyFall”, evening, 6:00 pm

The reconstruction of Londonium’s great bridge was closer to completion with full effort from the royal navy. The city was still recovering from the battles and yet, it was important to remind the civilians to not let their anger and rage take over their grieving mind. 

That was why she was out here, overseeing the reconstruction of the most important bridge of the whole country. The Queen of Albion didn’t dress up in her luxurious royal dress with all those suffocating accessories, but in a very common simple dress that can be found in any tailor shop. The sun had long set but the construction progress of today would not end anytime soon, and as much as Esther wanted to give an order to halt it for the day, she didn’t want to deaden her people’s enthusiasm. Especially not in the current situation. 

“Rrrrorrrrrrr…” 

The sound of someone’s stomach growling loudly in her 5 o’clock direction made Esther almost jolted. Despite all those years being close to him, Esther still couldn’t get used to that.
“Fathe- Ehem, Abel Nightroad!” She exclaimed while folding her arms and turned round to stare at the silver-haired man in black priest clothes lying like a potato sack on the ground, with the eyes of people around fixating on him. 

“I’m dying… Esther… Queen… please I need to write down my will” He clutched his stomach, it did sound like he was really dying. 

“Stop being dramatic, you are just hungry.” Speaking only enough for the man to hear, Esther walked over and gave him a light kick at the butt. That was so embarrassing. He was clearly trying to make a fuss to excuse them out of the scene for whatever reason he had in his head. 

“Oh my,” raised a deep female voice from behind. “Our honorable guest isn’t feeling well, Your Majesty?” 

Esther finally felt like she was given salvation, turning round, she was met with the sight of a black-haired lady dressed scantily but with a large fur scarf wrapping around her shoulders.

“Duchess of Erin, thank you for your timely arrival. M-my guest, he got sick again, I-I will have to excuse b-both of us for the rest of the day…” Letting the excuse out of her mouth, the red-headed young lady had to take all of her effort to not stammer, but it failed magnificently.

The Duchess covered her lower face with her fancy hand fan, probably to hide a chuckle, and turned towards the royal maids, giving them a nod. 

“Please escort Her Majesty and the guest back to Edinburg palace. I will take Her Majesty’s spot to oversee the rest of today’s construction progress,” She then gestured towards the potato sack in human form on the ground “... and buy him some apple tarts on the way back too.” 

The maids all nodded their understanding and then hurried to escort the Queen and her guest out of the public sight, out of further embarrassment.

Once they were escorted into the car safely, Esther let out a sigh of relief. 

“I can’t thank you enough, Jane, you are so helpful in these kinds of situations.” Talking about the situation “And you, Abel Nightroad! What was that for?” 

As if she had dropped off all her queenly composition in the blink of an eye, Esther was now looking flustered, her front hair seemingly standing up out of anger, mayhap the fire in her eyes could even light the inside of the limousine if it wasn’t lit up already.   

And just as she expected, it was all drama to excuse themselves. The man on the opposite seat to hers was already back in his normal composition, pushing the pair of glasses up close to his eyes. 

“I do sincerely apologize for that, Your Majesty.” The “priest” sighed and looked out the car’s window, his eyebrows scowled lightly. “I don’t have any news, just that I really feel uneasy…”

Esther was somehow softened upon seeing the man’s expression. 

He had just started to remember who he was and what happened not more than two months ago, when he staggered out to the street and nearly hit Esther’s car. She had never forgotten her promise that they should stay apart so that she wouldn’t be used to hurt him, but after Alessandro’s demise, the nuclear attack on Thimisoara, then Seth’s death… It was all too much to bear. The moment she met Abel again, she couldn’t stop her tears as she helped him up and into the car. And as Esther just couldn’t bear to lose another friend, she set aside the promise and asked Abel to stay. 

“It’s been around 2 years since I fought Cain on the Ark.” The silver-haired man continued. “I believe the impact of the fight along with Seth’s final attempt at striking on Cain must have really killed him… but I still can’t keep the feeling of threat away…” 

Then he turned to face Esther, his cold blue eyes met with her lapis lazuli eyes. 

“You are concerned that he may still be alive, correct?” Esther asked, her face didn’t show any fear nor indecisiveness. 

“Everything I remembered would conclude that he couldn’t survive.” Abel blinked. “But my instinct told me something is not right. It’s been two years and there hasn’t been any big retaliation movement from the Rosenkreutz Orden, as if after Cain’s death they just all disappeared. Especially those two , you know who I am talking about.” 

Esther closed her eyes and nodded. Yes, how could she forget them? Dietrich von Lohengrin who used to pose as her caring comrade in Istvan, and Isaak Fernand von Kaempfer who used to pose as the friendly, helpful Mr. Butler. Their schemes had caused pain and suffering to so many people she knew. Thinking about them caused Esther a light flash of trauma but she had learnt to cope with it.

“I have been sending spies to scout for any information about them in Germanicus. But it seems like while the Orden is still having hands in manipulating Germanicus’ government, there is hardly any news about von Kaempfer and von Lohengrin.” Esther clenched the hem of her dress. “... and of course no news of Cain either.”  

Abel nodded lightly with understanding. There was no point in pushing this at Esther, she did all she could to support him all this time. 

“Rrrrrrroooooooooorrrrrrrr…” 

Blue eyes opened wide. 

“D-did the maids buy the apple tarts?” Abel stammered and searched around. There was nothing edible in the drawers, let alone tarts. 

“Ahhhhhh! It was all your fault! They would have bought the tarts if I was the one who got hungry first!” Esther screamed in frustration and grabbed at Abel’s collar, shaking him like a ragdoll. 

It would take around 15 minutes more to arrive at the palace, and the limousine continued driving. At least it was soundproofed and covered so no one outside could see or hear what was going on inside. 

This was all too embarrassing.  

…

Location: Byzantium

Time: “30 days to SkyFall”, night, 11:00 pm

The loud growling of a cat can be heard from the second balcony of the estate. Baybars must have forgotten to feed that gremlin again. And Ion couldn’t care less. 

The blond Methuselah with the face of a teenager was sitting on the balcony of his room, looking to the sea. Chemiluminescent lights shone the coast. It had been two years after Augusta Vradica was announced dead and just like 90% of the Empyreans, Ion Fortuna still couldn’t accept it. The word “Empyrean” now sounded like a mockery on them all. Without the Empress, they were just a bunch of countries stitched together, like a train without the train tractor. They could continue on the train track but when to stop, what to stop for, where to go next, that was a whole new question for them. 

Apparently, after winning wars on the Terran territories, the Empire had expanded rapidly, too rapidly for exact. Having left only Germanicus and Albion as Terran territories on the map, it was a huge problem to control the rest of the territories without accidentally igniting civil war. For now, the leaders of the cities had agreed on a voting system, any decision needs approval rate above 50% to be allowed in action, of course the equality between Terran and Methuselah was also approved to be in action long term. 

While he knew some of the other leaders wanted to also war against Albion and Germanicus so as to annex the rest of the land into the Empire, Ion was amongst those who disapproved of that solution. First of all there were still many states with low loyalty towards the Empire, second the defensive force of Albion and Germanicus were beyond the scope for the Empire to actually war against two of them at once, if they warred with one, the other one may join in to attack and that would be a disaster. Not to mention that the rest of the Vatican, after the annihilation of Rome, had moved to Albion and pledged loyalty to the Queen, while Germanicus had always been the territory of the Rosenkreutz Orden. 

Ion flopped his head onto his folded arms. He wondered why the bacillus in his body just didn’t give him the power to turn back time. Everything was so simple back then, Augusta Vradica was still alive and leading the Empire, Radu was still alive and… 

The feeling of cat fur rubbing at his legs interrupted Ion’s reminiscent moment. 

“Baybars still hasn't fed you or what?” The blond reached down to pick up the cat. “You are already too fat, I will have to put you on a diet.” 

He turned to look towards the North East, where he supposed the Albion kingdom was located, and sighed with a soft smile. 

“At least I know you are going strong there, Esther. If one day we can meet again, I do want to have a tea party with you.” 

Chapter Text

II

Location: Vienna 

Time: “27 days to SkyFall”, noon, 12:30 am

As Dietrich climbed the stairs to the upper floor of the restaurant, where only booked rooms were set and only rich people could afford such rooms, he wondered if the Magus was really having such a mood for this kind of entertainment. It wasn’t that the Orden’s chief of staff couldn’t afford a luxurious meal but with SkyFall coming and one could still go party, that surely sounded off. 

The brunet expected either a single table for two, or a whole large room full of tables for all the Orden’s members. Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight he least expected, actually he would never have expected or wanted to expect it. 

There was one long table set close to a large wall with a veil over it, there were two chairs and one was already occupied. 

By that one person that made Dietrich lose appetite almost immediately. 

“Why are you here?” Dietrich tried his best not to growl at the hag.

“I was invited, Mr. Lohengrin, by the Magus himself.” The woman took a sip of the water in his glass, the thin black veil covering her face didn’t move much. Her bodyguard, the completely-not-funny “killer doll” stood straight at her right side. 

If this was a joke, Dietrich wanted to call the ‘Magician’ and told him it wasn’t funny. Not at all. 

“Care to explain how you did get invited to this, Fraulein.” ‘Puppeteer’ took his seat elegantly, he didn’t plan to lose face in front of the hag nor make himself a fool to the ‘Magician’, if this was really planned by that man himself. 

The former proud cardinal, now regressed to a member of the terrorist group she hated so much (she probably still hated them by now, couldn’t fool Dietrich’s eyes), set the water glass onto the wooden table. Her tired eyes slightly casted a glance towards the brunet, who was sitting half the room away from her. 

“The Magus came to me and handed me the invitation and address of the restaurant.” She made a gesture towards her bodyguard, who then stepped over to Dietrich, showing him a red envelope. “I personally have no interest in going but Magus said this was for business, not party time.” 

And the brunet jerked the envelope from the ‘killer doll’s’ hands, taking a quick read of the content inside. It was all correct with what the woman just said. But Dietrich knew it would be correct, he did receive an envelope like that as well. ‘Magician’ surely enjoyed making everything as fancy as possible. 

What he didn’t understand, however, was why the hag was invited. 

Exhaling loudly, ‘Puppeteer’ shoved the envelope back to the hag’s bodyguard’s hand and picked up his glass, pouring some water into it. It seemed like this little lunch would just include three people. Dietrich preferred just two people actually. 

But there were only two chairs and this kind of setup in the room was so odd. Why were they both facing the wall for a very expensive room? And shouldn’t the waiter or waitress be here to serve appetizers or drinks already. 

Around 5 minutes passed and they both just sat on their seats, the woman checking her nails while the young man stirred the water in his glass with a spoon out of boredom. Surely they had no intention to start a conversation. 

“Apparently the Magus is late, Mr. Lohengrin.” Caterina spoke up to break the annoyingly odd silent atmosphere. “-It’s the first time I ever see him being late.

-You have only been in the Orden less than half a year, of course, you haven’t seen him that much. 

-You seem to know him personally well.

-Nein. Anyone being in the Orden long enough would know 'Magician' has a very funny rule for everything. 

-Is that so?" There was a chuckle from the woman. 

Dietrich kept his face straight. So the hag wanted a game. While Isaak hadn't arrived yet, it was not a bad idea to entertain this shrewd woman for the time being. 

“Have you ever heard about the story of the Troia battle?” ‘Puppeteer’ picked up the smallest knife amongst the silverwares. The chessboard was set. 

“Humor me, Mr. Lohengrin. I am not familiar with lost literature.” Caterina twirled her water glass. White pawn moved from D2 to D4.

“Oh, the brief summary of that is a war caused by the gods but the ones who suffered were humanity below, killing each other for… ‘love’?” Dietrich spinned the knife one circle with his skillful fingers. Black pawn moved from E7 to E5.

“Interesting, indeed. You would say the gods are the bad ones or the humans are the bad ones?” The veiled woman straightened the handkerchief she put on the table. White pawn moved from D4 to E5.

“Does it really matter? Shouldn’t we just talk about why the war lingered instead? ‘True love sometimes causes more tragedies than pure evil’.” The brunet absent-mindedly tilted the knife to a side. Black knight moved from B8 to C6.

“Whose quote is that?” The woman halted her hand. White knight moved from G1 to F3.

“Who else? Our dear Magus, of course.” A mischievous grin stretched on ‘Puppeteer’s’ lips. Black queen moved from D8 to E7. 

The door opened and the sound of wheels could be heard. Neither Dietrich nor Caterina turned to check who that was, supposedly that could only be the waiter or waitress since there was no scent of cigarette smoke. 

“I can see that you did learn many interesting philosophies from him.” The woman nodded her thank but waved her hand to the waiter to deny the wine offer. White bishop moved from C1 to F4.

“Heh, I can say his presence left a bad impression on me.” Nodding his thank to the waiter, Dietrich held out his hand to receive the wine glass offered. “But it’s fair to say I did learn a lot from him… One thing is to always break open a giant wooden gift horse no matter how beautiful it is.” 

Black queen moved from E7 to B4. Check. 

‘Puppeteer’ tilted his head to his left while casting his eyes to the right, reddish brown eyes met with gray blue eyes; if look could kill then perhaps both of them would have been dead already. And while look couldn’t kill, guns, knife and lost technology monofibre could. 

Suddenly there was the sound of slow clapping; one, two, three claps. 

Then the sound of a match struck on a metallic surface. 

Both the two guests darted their wide-opened eyes to the source of the sounds. 

Sounds that all came from behind their seats, where the waiter was supposed to be right now. 

“Lady and gentleman, what a masterpiece of a playlet.” The soft, melodic but monotonous voice rose along with the scent of perfumed cigarette smoke. “But please refrain from any climax, a lunch scenario should not end in tragedy, don’t you agree?” 

…

Caterina made a sign for Tres to cancel genocidal mode while watching the black-haired man picking up the trays of appetizers from the troller and skillfully served them to the guests. If it had not been for the cigarillo that he had on his lips, one would really believe he was the chief waiter or a butler of a noble house. But as far as everyone in this room knew not to judge a book by the cover, one should never judge the devil by the clothes he wore. 

“My sincere apology for being late.” Kaempfer fixed the silverwares on the table for both sides after setting the appetizers - stir fried asparagus with cream sauce - on their dishes. “I have some business back in Turm that needs urgent attention. I hope no discomfort issued while I was on my way here.” 

The woman kept her posture in her seat. Did Kaempfer invite her here to investigate her motives? If that was what he wanted then he got what he wanted, she had slipped up. 

Since stepping in the Orden, she had been making up a persona for herself, one that only showed jealousy and hatred towards the Queen of Albion. Many of the Orden’s members ate it up, some didn’t fully believe her but they showed no hostility. Witnessing the once proud, just cardinal falling to the depth of despair to join the Orden was already a great victory for them. Although successfully baiting the lower ranked members of the Orden, the bigger fish to catch still never took a bite.  

Lohengrin had never dropped his unsubtly disapproval about her presence in the Orden, especially when Kaempfer just allowed her to be on rank 7=4 right after she pledged her loyalty. In retrospect, that was suspicious of him, though the other members of the Orden did confirm to her she wasn’t the first to get high ranked right away. Lohengrin joined the Orden at age 7 and by age 10, the brat was already on rank 8=3. Did Kaempfer play the favorite card for Lohengrin or was the brat really that genius? After the murder of Empress Augusta Vradica and the annihilation of Rome, Caterina wasn’t sure which was more plausible anymore, it could be both. However the main problem here was that Kaempfer hardly seemed to be affected by any kind of trigger, physically or mentally, and what he thought about her was still a mystery; she simply couldn’t read that man. 

“What was all this for, Magus?” Lohengrin stabbed the fork into the bunch of asparagus on his dish. “Not just booking expensive restaurant but you, with your very humble behind, being our waiter too? What kind of event is this?” 

Kaempfer moved to swiftly switch the wine bottle from white wine for appetizer to red wine for main course. Pushing up his glasses, somehow he did actually wear glasses, the raven read the labels of the wines on the rack. 

“Oh, it’s just like I wrote in the invitation, it’s lunch to discuss some business,” The ‘Magician’ pulled out one bottle from the rack. “-Say, how is world politics? The Empire still wants to attack Albion and Germanicus? 

-So far, they have halted their advancing progress. It seemed like they realized the Albion cupcake wasn’t easy to eat, the Germanicus bagel wasn’t tasty either.” Putting the asparagus in his mouth, ‘Puppeteer’ elegantly chewed on the vegetable before continuing. “But say, they have more problems with their own new lands actually.” 

There wasn’t any reply from the Magus. Seemed like he was busy setting the main course. Filet de canard rôti with truffle sauce, somehow still smoking when the cloches were opened. 

Caterina just kept quiet. Lohengrin surely had relaxed upon realizing his superior’s presence in the room, and Kaempfer just… He had always been like that, always putting up a show. 

The main courses were served and while it kept getting awkward with each minute passed, Caterina eventually picked up her fork and tried the food. One thing she could be sure that if they wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t be here sitting at all, let alone eating, in conclusion, there was no reason to not eat the well prepared food. 

“Does the meal fit your taste, Fraulein?” The ‘Magician’ suddenly turned his attention to Caterina, making her almost jolted, but fortunately she didn’t. 

“My taste has become bland over the years, I find food to be just food, the need for high culinary experience is no longer required.” She replied, keeping her tone flat. 

“Is that so? But so far you seem displeased. Is it the quality of the ingredients, or the way the dishes are spiced, or the drink is unfulfilling?” The raven elegantly poured water to refill the lady’s glass. “Is the restaurant not up to your expectations? Or perhaps you are upset with how I wrote the invitation letter?” 

Caterina glanced towards the man, just as her face was lightly hidden behind the veil, his eyes were obscured by the long thick tar-colored hair strands. 

Now was the time to tread carefully. Lohengrin may be smart but he was still a human (and a brat) nonetheless, which meant he wouldn’t push to the point his life would be at risk. But Kaempfer, despite many attempts to discover what exactly he was, Caterina was still clueless. He didn’t have prolonged fangs nor the need to drink blood nor the fear of UV radiations so of course he was no Methuselah, but he also didn’t die. Methuselahs and Terrans could die of course, but Methuselahs could take more damage to die, even Krusniks could die if their vital neurons were destroyed. Kaempfer didn’t seem to have any real weaknesses, he could be shot in the head, slashed half body apart, blasted with every kind of artillery known to mankind and one moment his dead body was shown, the next moment he was talking right next to the attacker, as if he had always been standing next to them whole time. So trying to backing Kaempfer up the wall with force was meaningless, yet playing the mind game with him was a way to commit lengthy suicide. 

“Whatever reason it was, I do hope you can set it aside. After all, such lunchtime wouldn’t be organized again. So, please enjoy it your best.” Kaempfer continued, as if he didn’t take Caterina’s silence into account at all. 

And Caterina frowned upon that line, no, she frowned upon everything he just said. Two arm lengths away from her, ‘Puppeteer’ was smirking, a tint of pity sparkled in his eyes. 

The lunch moved onto the dessert course. Black Forest cake with whipped cream and fresh fruit slices. Caterina stared at the green fruit slices that have tiny black seeds making a closed circle around the yellowish green core. She had never seen this fruit before, perhaps this was an exotic fruit of the world before the Apocalypse. 

“Another weird fruit from your collections, eh? What is it this time?” The brunet poked his fork at the fruit slice, perhaps pondering whether to pick the seeds out or not. 

“It’s kiwifruit. One of the very popular fruits in the past.” Kaempfer exhaled some cigarette smoke. “-Most cultivated and exported by New Zealand, the fruit was then named after the country’s native bird, the kiwi bird, for both shared the same round, brown and hairy feature. But do you know that the fruit wasn’t native to New Zealand?

-Then where was its origin? Must have the same weather as New Zealand to grow it, correct? 

-Of course. The fruit originated from central and eastern China. The original name means ‘macaque peach’.” The ‘Magician’ took out one hairy brown egg-shaped fruit from his pocket and gently put it onto the table so both his guests could see it. 

“After being introduced to Westerners, the fruit became so popular and was brought to New Zealand, where it was mass cultivated. From a fruit that was used mainly as medicine, the “macaque peach” got altered genetically to adapt in the new land and fit with the majority’s taste, it became “kiwifruit”. Not only its usage was changed but even its nationality and name was too.” Kaempfer stepped towards the window that looked out to the Danube river. “If I now tell you that this fruit was originally from Oceania, you would probably believe that.”

Lohengrin boredly stabbed the fruit with his fork, watching the lime green juice seeping out from the punctured holes. “But the fruit was still the ‘macaque peach’ to its native country, I supposed?”

Caterina looked at the fruit, at an angle, it did look like a hairy ape curling into a ball. Once she read about the discovery of the dinosaurs, giant lizard-like animals that used to roam the planet even before humanity came to existence; all that was left of them were fossils, bones that would never be able to tell all the stories they had. And just like the dinosaurs, this fruit was completely lost to this age’s knowledge. 

How did the dinosaurs come to extinction? - A catastrophic meteorite crash, natural disaster. 

How did the “macaque peach”/”kiwifruit” come to extinction? - That…

“There is no longer anyone that can recognize this fruit as ‘macaque peach’, ‘Marionettespieler’, for they were all wiped out during the Apocalypse, their country’s territory amongst the Terra Incognita.” Kaempfer replied to the question of Lohengrin, still looking out the window, whether he was reminiscing about some faraway past or just enjoying the sparkling water of the river at this hour of the day, no one knew. “But no matter what, the fruit at the core would always be what it was, no matter what names it was called, what lands it was brought to, who it was served for… Don’t you agree?” 

The silence filled the room and no one was looking towards another person.

It kept going on like that for several minutes, then the ‘Magician’ made a loud clap of hands. 

“I believe lunchtime is over, lady and gentleman. Let’s get onto the business part, shall we?” 

…

..

.

Location: ??? - “Nyviv uzu PFL veu reu Z svxze?”

Time: ??? - “Whxl bm xoxg ftmmxk?” 

He was sinking. 

But he wasn’t suffocating. Did he even breathe to begin with? 

The atmospheric pressure increased gradually. 

Ambient noises formed around his skull. 

Was there someone calling for him? Or was it just the sound of his own skull cracking? 

Faces with glitching facial features flashed before his eyes. 

The sight of a burning ship slowly faded as he descended further and further below. 

His organs started to fail, from lungs to brain, to kidney then cardiac arrest; blood vessels started bursting. It felt like his whole body was breaking apart and decomposing. 

At one point the pain may end. 

It didn’t end. 

The pain didn’t end. 

If there was a God, they would make it end. 

.-.. . - / .. / -... . / -.-- --- ..- .-. / --. --- -.. .-.-.-

Chapter Text

III

Location: Londinium 

Time: “26 days to SkyFall”, 8:00 am

Abel woke up when the sunlight peeked through the curtains. It seemed to be sunny today, probably a good weather day. 

He got up and changed into his “priest” clothes. It was altered to have Albion’s coat of arms but the rest of the old design stayed, even his rosary. He had got used to the new life in Albion, acting as an honorary guest of Her Majesty. 

His comrades who survived the Ark’s strike all left the Vatican to pledge loyalty to the Queen of Albion. That included all the remaining AX agents and brother Petros from the Inquisition. Though the whereabouts of the Duchess of Milan along with Gunslinger and Black Widow were still unclear. Esther once told him that intel from Germanicus reported some people looking fairly similar to those three appeared at the port a short time after the annihilation of Rome but Abel refused to believe those were really Duchess of Milan and her two guards. Why would they be on Germanicus’s land? But even the Professor confirmed them to be alive because he was with them in Milan when Rome was hit by the plasmonic laser, so they would still be alive even if they went missing not long after that. Tres would never let Caterina be assassinated that easily. But they wouldn’t have anything to do in Germanicus, would they? 

A knock on the door pulled Abel out of his thoughts. Who even…? 

“Nightroad, I know you are in there.” A thick Albion accent spoke from the other side of the door. “Come out and have breakfast, Her Majesty didn’t see you at the table and she was worried.” 

Abel recognized that voice with ease. 

“Yeah yeah just woken up, I will be there shortly, thanks for the call, Professor.” He replied while putting on the trousers. 

“Oversleep again? Are you feeling alright there, Nightroad? This has been going on for a while now.” The middle-aged man outside asked with a frown in his voice. “I think you do really need a check-up.”
Abel hurried to finish dressing (because there were too many pieces to put on) and opened the door, only to be greeted with the smell of smoke. 

“I think you are the one that needs a check-up more than me, Professor.” Waving his hands dramatically, Abel stepped out of the room. “-You are near your 50th birthday, old man, stop smoking for the sake of your lungs. 

-It’s rude to call someone ‘old man’, Mr. Nightroad, whether they are really old or not.” The Professor swung his walking cane, which then ‘accidentally’ hit Abel’s right knee. 

While Abel doubled up to cover his knee, the brunet breathed out the cigarette smoke then put the very well-polished pipe back to his mouth. William Walter Wordsworth, the man who was once a promising brilliant genius from Londinium University, now had finally been back to work for his home country, though no longer with the spark of joy he used to have. Abel had been secretly observing the man, but while having been re-adapted into the normal life of Albion, Wordsworth’s mental state didn’t seem to improvise, if not to say it had got even worse. 

He seemed up-mood for today though, probably had an idea for what to do in the meantime.
“You have plans for the day, right?” Abel got back up and smoothened his clothes. 

“Hmph, you suddenly became observative ever since regaining your memory, Nightroad?” The Professor puffed out some smoke and fixed his neck tie. “Out of the blue, the Queen had the idea to cook dinner by herself and she wanted us to go buy the groceries.” 

And Abel couldn’t stare at the brunet with more intensity. 

“-You aren’t serious, Professor. 

-I am, as you can see, completely serious.

-No you aren’t. How could Her Majesty say that she wants to cook by herself after all these years? 

-How could I even know? I was surprised too. But she looks very determined. So determined that if you give her a cow she would wrestle with it for milk right away. 

-Urghhhhhhhhh… She hasn’t been cooking for ages, the first and last thing she ever made for me was peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Of all people, you should have tried to stop her from that idea! 

-Nuh-uh, I am a gentleman, Mr. Nightroad, I am completely unable to deny such a pure-hearted wish and request.” 

And with that, the Professor knocked out Abel on the boxing ring of argument. 

Abel would have rolled his eyes to the back of his skull if he could, yet he took a deep breath and nodded.

“Well we should get going then. I hope we don’t look weird wearing full three-piece suits just to buy groceries.”

… 

The sun was shining, birds were chirping.
It was a beautiful day in Londinium. 

In fact, it was too beautiful to just go out and buy groceries. 

“My belief in your story is starting to fade, Professor.” The taller man mumbled, pulling a foldable mini cart - the newest invention of Professor Wordsworth - full of groceries along. 

They both turned their eyes towards the mount of groceries on the cart, it looked like hoarded food for the whole winter season. 

“I do admit we may have bought too much. Let me check the list again.” The brunet fumbled around his pockets before pulling out a wrinkled piece of paper and straightened it a bit. “I think we bought like triple the amount required?” 

And Abel could swear if he didn’t respect this man enough he would have thrown him to the Thames. 

“-That was all my allowance for this month!!! How can you be so cruel?!?!

-It’s not that bad, Nightroad, you can take one third of all what we bought.
-And what would I even do with those???
-Well, it’s all food, you can eat them raw if you can’t cook…”

People who were in the area stared at the scene of the tall silver-haired man wearing royal Albion’s coat of arms crying and shaking a shorter brunet like a rag doll on the side of the street, it was fair to say this situation was so confusing no one knew if they should call the police or not.

After a while sobbing and screaming, Abel took back his posture because talking to the Professor was like talking to a brick wall sometimes, besides, it would be really embarrassing if he lost an argument to the big-brained brunet again. 

William fixed his clothes and neck tie and turned to look at a newspaper stand, speaking nonchalantly. “Anyway, the Queen did say she would pay back all the cash paid for groceries…” 

Abel looked up at the middle-aged man with both disbelief and joy. What was that? All his money would be returned? He didn’t need to live in poverty till the end of the month? 

Lucky for him, the Professor was too hooked up in reading the titles of the newspapers displayed on the stand and didn’t see the pleading puppy face Abel made. However, just as Abel was about to say something… 

“ABEL NIGHTROAD!” 

A thunderous shout coming from the other end of the street made Abel jolt in shock. 

The source of the shout came over, passing the bulging eyes staring at him from the bystanders. The towering man with long light blue hair wearing a huge modified armor with Albion’s coat of arms strode towards the silver-haired, holding two huge bags of groceries with him like they were just cotton bags. 

“Why do you keep oversleeping like that? Do you know how Her Majesty was worried?” The man continued shouting at Abel as if talking normally wouldn’t have any effect. People around stopped staring at the man upon realizing who that was, Brother Petros Orsinis from the Vatican, now working for Queen of Albion as Her personal guard. Despite no longer working for the church, the man insisted himself to be addressed as Brother, saying “I swore to an oath and I would never drop it no matter what”. And just like keeping his oath, Petros continued his good work to help people in need on a daily basis, so almost everyone in the whole Albion country knew him whether they were the one he helped or the one he helped punishing. 

“I am so sorry! I really was just not feeling well these days! I didn’t mean to upset Her Majesty at all!” Abel did a really honest dogeza (a pose of overarching kneeling) to show his sincere apology. Only for Petros to stomp on his back with the metallic boot. 

“You pea-brained pathetic priest!” Petros clenched his fists, he didn’t bring his staff along as he was just going out for groceries or else this creature under his boot would get some heavy beating. “If you dare to make Her Majesty worried again, I will really skin you.”

With that, and Abel’s dogeza, and the sight of the foldable mini card full of groceries on a side, Brother Petros let go of the silver-haired. 

“Seems like we are both on the same mission. To buy groceries for Her Majesty.” Petros looked into the grocery bag on the cart. “You probably have bought all that I didn’t. We should head back so the kitchen can help prepare the ingredients before Her Majesty is back.”
Abel nodded and got up, rubbing his stomped back. He would really need some ointment for the bruise there later. Perhaps he could ask the Professor…

“Huh? Where did the Professor go?” He asked, looking at the newspaper stand and the middle-aged man had seemingly poofed into thin air.
A small note with cursive handwriting could be seen on the pavement, the spot where the Professor stood just a while ago. Abel squinted his eyes to read, ‘Need to go to the loo, see you at the palace later. - WWW.’ 

“Well I guess he left me. We should just head back then. Shouldn’t let Esther wait.” Abel turned to Petros, grabbing at the handhold of the foldable mini cart and started walking.
Petros frowned at that, he was confused for sure. He took a very quick glance at the newspaper stand to read the titles - there was nothing interesting, just some crime news, world news or some quotes from cheesy novels upcoming - before turning to follow the former priest back to the Edinburg palace. 

One page of a newspaper on the stand flew and landed right over the Professor’s note, the biggest title sounded like it was written especially for a certain someone. 

“Are you still living in that dream of hers?”

…

He ran as if he did not run, someone he knew would die.

When it hit him, it hit like a truck. 

“Are you still living in that dream of hers?” His eyes widened, starting to follow the direction of the pointing little hand sticker next to the line. 

“A return to the “Great Detective Sherlock Holmes” apartment at 221B-Baker Street” There was another pointing hand, this time pointing up. 

“25 is the lucky number of today” The small leaflet stuck on the glass window of the stand. 

A shift of view point showed him the reflection of the background on the glass window. 

On the other side of the street, a group of people were waiting for the red light to walk past. Amongst them stood a man in black mourning suit with glasses. He didn’t recognize the man until said man lifted up his top hat, showing his eyes behind the glasses. 

Long, narrow and sharp jet black eyes, looking straight at his own eyes in the reflection of the glass.   

William felt his heart racing so hard it could burst out of his chest in an instant. But then the gloomy man turned away and started walking towards the direction of the Thames instead of passing the street. 

So William Walter Wordsworth quickly stuck a small note on the pavement where he just stood and started running. 

“I’m not letting you slip away again, Butler!” The Professor bit his lower lip while rushing to where he believed that man would be. 

Panting while climbing up the stairs, all he hoped for was that the ghost he was chasing would still be there when he arrived. It was like running a 100m race but the distance was multiplied by 10, and now the stairs. Why did they buy this apartment on the 4th floor of the building back then? And now he realized this place was abandoned for years after the whole scandal broke out, so there was a lot of dust. Heavy panting was already bad, now with dust, it became heavy coughing. 

For one second, William wished he could have magic to teleport from here to there in a blink of an eye but then he swatted that thought away and climbed the last step to the fourth floor. 

The apartment was just right there, in front of him now, the door slightly opened. He remembered every single detail, from the doorknob to the shoe rack. There should be a small carpet right behind the door to welcome him (if no one stole it already) along with a hangar that he polished with the coats and hats he wore in the day. Actually it wasn’t just him, there was the other owner of this apartment too. 

The man that he should see upon walking past the door now. 

Raising his hand towards the doorknob, William realized he was shaking, trembling even. It wasn’t because of fatigue for sure, more like because of anticipation mixed with hesitation. Was he ready to face that man again, after all those years searching and chasing? If he was in a passive position and that person came to see him first, catching him off guard, that would be more tolerable than this. However, he had come this far, there was no reason to turn back.

Thus, the Professor took a deep breath, grabbed the doorknob and determinedly pushed the door open.

The carpet was still there, covered in dust. The hangar was still there, on the right side, dusty but overall not damaged anyhow, a black top hat and a black coat was hung on it. Nothing in the flat was changed according to William’s memory, they were just old and dusty and… abandoned. 

“Like me.” William whispered as he put his coat and hat onto the hanger, the sight of them having a partner made his heart clench. Why did it become like this?!?! 

Walking into the living room, the middle-aged man saw a tranquil scene that looked like a movie record from the past. The room was lit up by sunlight from the opened window, giving it the sepia color. Old tattered curtains gently swayed with the morning breeze. On the couch, a glassed young man with short black hair was sitting with his legs crossed elegantly, holding a newspaper in his hands. It was as if he just stepped back in time, 25 years ago.

“You seem to enjoy making people wait, Wordsworth.” The young, unaged man spoke, lifting his heavy jet-black eyes from the newspaper and glanced towards the middle-aged man standing like a statue at the entrance. “But that’s okay, we have all the time in the world.”

Chapter Text

IV

Location: Londinium 

Time: “26 days to SkyFall”, 12:00 am

The smell of burnt butter bread coming from the kitchen of the Edinburg Palace could be smelt even from the entrance gate, along with the fire alarm ringing and black smoke flying out the window. Maids running in and out with fire extinguishers, chefs using all they had to put out the fire and smoke. Her Majesty was standing at the door with a beet-red face, covered by a bunch of bodyguards while a certain silver-haired guest sat at the table with parts of his clothes burnt, holding a cup, watching the lively scene around. 

It was as expected, a disaster. 

Around an hour ago, Queen Esther happily put the raised dough of her “self-invented” recipe of butter bread into the oven, arguing with her bodyguard, Petros Orsini, that the amount of unsalted butter she kneaded into the dough was completely reasonable. Abel Nightroad was sipping a cup of over-sugared tea, reminding her that the oven may need fixing since it had sparked several times earlier when he used it to reheat some pies. Eventually they settled it down to the point that it would just be a “You only bake once” event so it wouldn’t matter much. 

And now the whole kitchen was on fire, chefs and maids screaming, the castle was being surrounded by civilians and journalists. All that was just because of a burnt butter bread.  

…

“I can’t fathom how two men of high education like you two wouldn’t see that too much dough in a baking tray is the problem.” Said Duchess of Erin, as she settled down on the couch in the living room after thanking a maid for the tea. 

“I tried to remind Her Majesty that it was a lot of dough, I just didn’t expect it to lead to a huge fire in the kitchen.” Petros fumed, voicing his defense. He did try after all.

“And I told her to be aware of the oven too.” Abel sipped the rest of his tea then turned to the maid, asking for another cup.   

“Please stop, I got it, okay?” Esther sighed, rubbing her temples. “I really should have paid more attention to the dough and the oven as well. I went a little wild with the recipe, and I underestimated the oven, lesson learnt.” 

With that, the Queen of Albion sat down on the couch, folding her arms and looking very annoyed. The butter bread wasn’t just a sudden idea, she had been wanting to make it since the time her comrades in Rome moved to join her here in Londinium, she just couldn’t find a free day to actually make it. Now that she had free time, yet she ruined it herself. 

“Ugh.” The red haired lady palmed her face and crouched her back. If she could vanish she would. “I really want to cook something for you all… But I am so bad at cooking…” 

A frilled fan brushed at Esther’s hand and made her jolt a bit. 

“You aren’t bad at cooking. You are a disaster at cooking, Esther.” Jane tapped the folded hand fan onto Esther’s head, although gently, there was some sort of annoyance in the gesture itself. “If I were you I would just order a gigantic birthday cake from the most famous bakery in the city and call it a day. But you want it to be special, don’t you?” 

Esther looked at Jane with a very confused expression. This woman, “Calamity Jane” was notorious for being cruel and apathetic, but now she just gave a convincing conclusion about human emotion over a cake. 

The Duchess of Erin chuckled and tapped the hand fan on Esther’s forehead again. “I believe everyone appreciates your effort, your Majesty. But remember, if you are not good at something, just ask someone else to help instead of burning the kitchen down.”
Esther blushed like a beetroot, speechless at what Jane told her. It’s true that she needed to learn more than just how to reign a country. 

The tranquility was interrupted by Petros shouting at Abel to not eat the burnt cake and Abel wailing that he was starved to death he could eat charcoal. 

…

Location: Turm

Time: “26 days to SkyFall”, 5:00 am

Dietrich walked through the long, seemingly endless corridor, stepping down the spiraling stairway, his left hand tapping along the wall. He suddenly stopped midway, on the 37th step of the stairway, knocking on the wall 3 inches above the handheld. A gentle electrical hum reached his finger tips, and a very small button was uncovered from a hidden tile on the wall. 

Dietrich’s lips curled up with satisfaction as he pressed the button and a secret door opened.

Not everyone in the RCO knew about this door, not even the Ipsissimus himself, but in all honesty, Cain had no need to know. Therefore, in the end, only two people knew, Dietrich and of course, the owner of the room behind this door. 

Today Dietrich was in a good mood, so waltzed in the door, whistling the tune of Moonlight Sonata. One would expect a secret room to be filled with skeletons that weren’t meant to be uncovered, however, this secret room was very clean. 

In fact, if you knew its owner, you would know that this was no secret room but an office. 

“Isaaaaaaaaaaak!” The brunette called out with a lazy tone. 

No response.

Dietrich poked his head into the main room. The fish tank seemed to have been fed lately and the colorful fish were swimming leisurely around. Documents and reports stacked up neatly on the desk, the cigarette tray was empty. The side, the table with testing devices and a set of lab kits were tidied and cleaned, Dietrich could even see his face reflected on the metallic surface. 

Everything looked to be in their own designated place. 

Only the owner of this office was nowhere to be seen around. 

“Going somewhere again?” Dietrich made himself comfortable on the long couch that was probably used as a bed by the Magician whenever that man needed to conduct long-time experiments in this room. 

Some dark blobs started forming from the shadows in the room, and Dietrich just stared at them. Those were Schatten Kobolds, Isaak’s little funny things that were trained to guard whatever their master told them to, at least in this room, their task was just guarding. 

The creatures turned their heads in sync towards Dietrich, as if sniffling at his scent. Even with many years being around these things, Dietrich still couldn’t feel at ease. They could be calm and behaving at one moment then the next second they were already at the target’s neck, with their shark-like teeth bared. Dietrich didn’t like things he couldn’t read. 

Well, that would be hypocritical, despite all things, he did like the Magician. 

But that man had always been an exception. 

The black blobs retreated into the shadows after a while, surely they recognized the Marionettespieler and he was a frequent visitor to the office anyway. The young man’s eyes wandered around the room, the cigarette scent was still lingering, the Magician must have been in here in less than an hour ago. 

He sat up and rubbed his chin. 

Didn’t Kampfer say he had no reason to scheme for anything else as the “Skyfall” operation was progressing? 

…

Location: Londinium, a certain abandoned apartment 

Time: “26 days to SkyFall”, ??? am

“A miniature wormhole.” The Professor pointed the tip of his cane at the spot in between the black eyes of the person sitting on the couch. “That would explain why no one had ever been able to catch you.” 

The raven haired man continued to flip the newspaper in his hands. 

“Actually, no.” His eyes, black like the deepest depth of the ocean, skimmed through each line of the page with a blank expression. “How I didn’t let myself get caught is a different story.” 

Some more pages flipped and he reached the end of the newspaper. William didn’t put down the cane, facing this monstrosity wearing a human face, one wrong move could mean death. 

The sharp black eyes slowly turned to look into William’s eyes. 

“You know what I can do yet you still think that cane of yours could do anything?” A light head tilt. 

“Better give it a try than die doing nothing.” William gritted his teeth. 

The raven chuckled with amusement, pressing his head forward so that it touched the tip of the cane and William’s breath hitched. A provocation. 

But his fingers were frozen in place. He had no fear, nor reason to not shoot this man to death. The question, however, was whether this monstrosity would die or not.

Of course, up till now, the answer was still “no”. 

“Repeating the same action and hoping for a different result is the work of an idiot.” After a long silent while, the man spoke up while leaning back to the couch. “You had witnessed it too many times, enough for you to know I won’t die after a bullet shot. Don’t bother wasting your ammo on me.” 

“And yet you aren’t here to kill this old man either.” The brunette still clenched the cane in his hand tightly. “I would be dead before I even reached this apartment if it was your original intention.” 

They both smiled. 

“What is it that you want?”

Chapter Text

V

Location: Vienna

Time: “25 days to SkyFall”, 7:00 am

A black car moved through the empty street. 

It was raining heavily today, unless someone really had to come out, there was no reason to step into the downpour. 

Water splashed at the front windshield of the car, but the driver didn’t show any annoyance as he continued driving.

“How are we going to process this, Lady Catherina?” The driver spoke in a monotonous tone.

“Just as the Magician ordered.” The veiled person in the back passenger seat of the car replied. “We are moving to Prague.” 

Catherina straightened her back a bit, her cursed health condition made even moving around a tough labor. She remembered when she first arrived in the Tower, or as they called it as “Turm”, all the members of the Orden sneered at her mockingly. Of course they had the right to, they had just won a huge victory back then - destroying both the Empire and the Vatican in a short amount of time. And just like the rumor, Caterina had never met with Cain ever since she joined the Orden. Only the Magician was there, sending out orders and guidance from the leader. She thought about all the intels of the event in Vienna several years ago, and those may make sense. In a way, there was no sign of Cain controlling the Orden, only Isaak, so anyone who followed the Orden would just know about Isaak’s presence and never knew Cain. But if they ever knew about Cain, they would think that Kampfer was monopolizing Cain’s power to gain benefit for only himself. The inner fight between the Orden members was inevitable, however, the reason behind it was somewhat unclear. 

“According to Nightroad’s report, Kampfer murdered Balthasar von Neumann and had been replacing him for more than 50 years… Was it necessary to play that role for that long, just to achieve chaos in less than half a year and nothing really successful coming out of it?” Catherina rubbed her chin in thought. Of course it didn’t make any sense, but it was Kampfer so if it made sense for him then it probably didn’t make sense for other people. 

“Logically analyzing the event details, no logic confirmed.” Tres replied mechanically.

Catherina shook her head, she had to find logic in what Isaak Fernand von Kampfer thought. If she wanted to defeat the mastermind, she had to understand the mastermind herself. 

Although… 

“The sample of the medicine Kampfer used on me, was it still around?” She asked Tres and the cyborg nodded. 

“Affirmative, it is still kept in the old container in controlled conditions.” He held up a suitcase with many electrical locks. “General observation results: no change or deterioration on the substance detected.” 

Catherina nodded. It was an unknown substance of cream-like structure and texture that Kampfer handed her after she had settled down in the Order. 

“You probably won’t believe me but this is something that can help with your rare health condition, fraulein.” 

If she believed him she would be walking with her own hands right now instead of walking with legs. Whatever this substance was, Kampfer did apply a small amount of it onto her left wrist and her skin on that area somehow was the only part that recovered and no longer deteriorated like the rest of her body. She wanted to utilize it but she didn’t trust that it only helped her recover without any side effects, so she wanted to bring it to someone that could analyze it for her. But… That person who used to analyze things for her was now beyond her contact.

“We will need to find a way to contact the Professor.” Catherina sighed, leaning against the car’s window. “I hope he and the others are still doing fine…” 

“Affirmative, the Magician had reports on the Professor, Krusnik, along with some others. They were all spotted in Londinium, Albion, 16 hours 50 minutes 15 seconds ago.” Tres replied monotonously, giving information was one of his programmed missions. 

About 17 hours ago in Londinium… Catherina thought in silence. She had asked Tres to hack and monitor data files from the main CPU of “Turm” and they found that Kampfer would always leave traces of his travels up there. If there were reports of people spotted in Londinium, then Kampfer must have travelled there himself… 

“What is he scheming now…?” Catherina gritted her teeth in worry.

However, heading to Prague was a direct order from the Magician himself, as he told her in private after lunch on last Sunday’s noon. She couldn’t just move to Londinium for no reason, her cover would be exposed. 

The car continued driving, passing the border of Vienna. The downpour washed away all the traces of the vehicles moving on the road. 

…

Location: Londinium

Time: “25 days to SkyFall”, 7:00 am

Abel got out of his room and saw the Professor entering his room. The old man looked kinda tired and probably needing sleep but Abel was more curious about where he went yesterday. He remembered the Professor left a note on the pavement and just vanished, then brother Petros appeared and they brought the groceries back for Esther to make the cake, the whereabouts of the old man just slipped from Abel’s mind. 

“Hey, Professor.” Abel strode over. “You missed the cake Esther made.” 

“Morning to you too, Nightroad.” William yawned, putting his cloak and hat on the coat rack. “I heard from the maids, it was quite the disaster. No one got hurt, didn’t they?” 

“Well uhhh, yeah, no one got hurt.” Abel scratched his head. “But where have you been yesterday? You left a note saying you need to go to… where was that?” 

“To the loo. Abel, I know you are very old but I believe your biological features are far beyond normal humans, why are you developing amnesia?” The Professor chuckled and walked into his room, leaving the door for the former Priest to follow inside.

He turned on the lamp and went to water the plants.Without a fully equipped lab like the one he had in Rome, William turned to a new hobby of gardening. He took out a pack of seeds and placed the seeds on a patch of cotton on a petri dish, before pouring warm water in. Abel was very interested in plants but gardening was never his strong point, so he could only admire the plants that others grow, and he had been enjoying William’s plants for long now. 

“You seem to have new seeds. What are they? Same old plants?” The silver-haired Krusnik curiously looked at the seeds, for some reason he felt like he had seen those seeds somewhere, a long time ago. He may not be good at botany back in schooling years but he still knew some plants. These seeds…

“Actinidia chinensis. I bought these from a trader of exotic plants.” William carefully placed the petri dish with the seeds into the warm light box he used to sow the seeds. “You seem to know this kind of plant.”

Information rolled back to Abel’s memory, Actinidia chinensis , Chinese gooseberry, macaque peach, kiwi fruit. When the world was still in the time before the Apocalypse, the kiwi fruit was sold almost everywhere, before he was sent flying into space, Abel remembered having kiwi fruit as dessert once. It had a tangy sweet taste that he barely remembered but the image of the fruit was very unique to him. But as the Apocalypse occurred, all the countries that cultivated the kiwi fruit were destroyed, and since coming back to Earth, Abel had never seen or heard of that fruit once. Until now.

“It… It’s impossible to find such seeds of that species in this age. How could…” Abel exclaimed, trying to make sense. “Perhaps that trader tricked you, there is no way he can obtain those seeds if they are actually Actinidia chinensis. But if those are real Actinidia chinensis, then you are seeing living fossils there.” 

“Huh… I see. Well, maybe we will know the answer when these seeds grow up.” William rubbed his chin as he observed the seeds. “Living fossils huh? I will have to do research on them later, which sounds to be a good project honestly.” 

“May I ask who that trader was?” Abel raised an eyebrow. He needed to know the identity of that “exotic plant trader” because he was sure the amount of people knowing about the kiwi fruit in this post-Apocalypse age was limited.

Only people who had lived since the time before the Apocalypse would know, and amongst the four Krusniks, two had been dead. Cain’s exact location was unknown, but he wouldn’t be that interested in plants to be selling plant seeds. And Abel himself surely couldn’t be selling those seeds to the Professor. 

Then who? 

“When I came out of the public toilet and went to buy some snacks, I saw him selling his goods at the Thames’ bridge. So I came over to buy some, and he introduced me to these little guys.” William simply shrugged. “Not sure if he was still selling at the location but if you want to find him, you could try heading to the Thames.” 

“There was no specific thing about him?” Abel kept on asking, this wasn’t going anywhere but he better tried than not. 

“Well he looked like a very normal gardener to me.” The middle-aged man walked over to the bed and let himself fall on it. “By the way, I need to take a nap… I had breakfast before I came back to the palace so you can just enjoy breakfast with the others, don’t wait for me.” 

Abel wanted to ask more but he thought it wasn’t that important because he could go to investigate that trader at the Thames later. Thus, he walked out and closed the door for the Professor and headed to the dining room.

Though… Why was the Professor needing a nap? At this hour? What did he do last night? 

Abel shook all those questions off so he could enjoy the delicious peanut butter and jam sandwiches. When one was hungry, they couldn’t achieve anything, so food first, work later.

…

Location: Byzantium

Time: “25 days to SkyFall”, afternoon, 1:00 pm

Ion Fortuna had just walked out from the meeting with the leaders when his grandmother suddenly popped up behind him, making him jolt hard. 

“Iooooooonnnn~!” Said the grandma who was too young for her real age. “You tried to cut your hair again, didn’t you?”
“Grandmother! Where did you hear that news? I was so busy I don’t have time to feed your fat cat these days let alone getting a haircut!” Ion groaned loudly, objecting the accusation. 

“I was just kidding.” Mirka Fortuna giggled at her grandson’s overreacting. “I came to check on you. And brought you a letter too.”
Ion frowned at the mention of a letter. Who would send him a letter at this time when contacting through telephones were more available? But he still received the letter from his grandma and took it out to read. 

“Prague. RCO spotted. Please hurry. EB”

The content of the letter was short but the information from it was really urgent. And to Ion’s surprise, he recognized the handwriting, along with the signature. Esther Blanchette.

They had been out of contact since that disaster in Prague several years ago, and he thought Esther would never make contact with him again. But this letter couldn’t be fake, it was her handwriting and signature, so something must be going on in Prague for real. 

“Grandmother, when did you find this letter?” He folded the letter and put it into his pocket. 

“Oh just a while ago, at lunchtime. Some kind of toy plane just flew over my table and dropped this letter.” Mirka recalled the event. 

Sounds very like Esther, Ion nodded. Then he would need to plan a trip to Prague soon, at least now that Prague was under the control of the Empire, moving there would be no big problem. 

…

Location: Londinium, a certain abandoned apartment 

Time: “26 days to SkyFall”, ??? am

“Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution - Anthony Doerr.” The Magician puffed out a line of smoke before putting the thin cigarette back onto his lips. “Something started in Prague…” 

“... should be resolved in Prague.” The other person in the room continued his line. 

They understood each other taciturnly, just like 25 years ago. 

The problem was never about time, it was never too late to fix anything. 

The problem was whether one would be willing to fix things or not.