Chapter 26: Chapter 24: Agent Smith’s Big Day

It took Abana a few minutes to arrive after the fight ended. The shockwaves caused by their attacks were still reverberating through the continent, throwing up clouds of snow.

She appeared over the horizon, zipping over the settling snow as she headed toward Susan. The dragon herself was still lying where she had collapsed, now having turned so that she was spread-eagled and staring up at the sky.

“Susan, are you alright?” Abana shouted, skidding to a halt in front of her.

“Yep,” Susan said, shooting her a tired glance.

The normally unflappable woman was looking around with wide eyes, mouth open as she took in the wanton destruction around her.

“What… was that?” She finally asked.

“Archdragon fight,” Susan deadpanned. “Our bodies don’t require mana to work, so we can devote our entire output to other things. Like enhancing our breath attacks.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure,” Abana muttered, rubbing the back of her head as she took in the sight of the steaming fields and shattered mountain.

“Well,” her shoulders slumped, “let's get started fixing this.”

Susan’s head fell back to the ground.

“Goddamn it.”

“You break it, you fix it.”

“I know, I know.” She said, slowly turning over and getting back to her feet.

Fixing the continent was at least mercifully quick. Several enormous magic circles were all it took to restore the shattered mountains and plains. The only real worry had been the mass of debris shunted into orbit and the shockwaves caused by some of the impacts, but the Guardians had done their job well in warding the continent so the worst of the effects were contained. Susan was pretty sure the planet would see a fractional dip in temperatures for the following month, but nothing apocalyptic.

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It was only a few hours later that she was flying over the BSMP black site. It was much easier to spot now, as the entire top of the hill that had housed it was torn away like a bedsheet from a restless sleeper. The labyrinthine halls of the base were now exposed to the air, twisting through the earth like a hedge maze.

Then there was the center of the blacksite, where a singular room so large it resembled a dried lake sat. The tile floor was broken apart by a thousand cracks that radiated outward from the center.

Elizabeth and Nora stood at the center of the circle, next to the imprint of a fist embedded in the broken floor. An assortment of BSMP agents huddled on the far side of the room, seemingly hiding from the irate Elizabeth who glared at them from the other side of the purple suited form of Nora.

As Susan came sweeping in over her, her head snapped up. Then she was shooting into the air in a single leap that had her slamming into Susan’s head.

“You’re okay!” Elizabeth cried as she pressed herself against Susan’s nose in a facsimile of a hug.

“Well don’t sound so surprised about it,” Susan grumbled, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

“But Abana was saying you were fighting some sort of super dragon, and so I went to find the problem, but it wasn’t there so I asked your friends and they told me about this place, but then I started getting lost in the halls, and it took me so long to find the circle…”

Susan watched as Elizabeth trailed off, then sighed and raised her arm to pat Elizabeth on the head with a finger. Elizabeth frowned at this, and a lightning fast swipe of her arm batted the offending digit away.

“Sorry. But hey, I’m fine aren’t I?” Susan asked with a shrug, and Elizabeth’s expression turned stern in response.

“Oh yeah, well what is that?” She shot back, pointing a finger to Susan’s shoulder.

The scales there were still fresh, practically shining compared to the others which were stained with a mixture of brick, earth, and blood from the succession of fights over the night. A frown flashed over Susan’s face as she regarded the guilty skin.

“Let’s see what Nora’s up to!” She declared.

Elizabeth pouted at her, but didn’t say anything as Susan began drifting down toward the broken summoning circle below.

Regarding it as she drew closer, Susan could see the formation of runes used to summon Terminus. She felt a brief moment of relief as she read through the shattered golden lines and realized that the BSMP had not, in fact, used anything like Lupus’s insane, unguarded summoning circle.

The thing spread out below her actually had the proper safety features. Able to hold, teleport and return the summonee, it was a far cry from the suicidal stupidity she had come to expect from the organization.

She landed in the center of it, then looked down at the very center of the circle. There was an imprint of a fist there, buried several inches into the ground with the thousands of cracks that sundered the floor around her originating from it.

She slowly looked up from it and toward the missing roof. Then her eyes rolled back to look at Elizabeth, who sat on the top of her head facing away from her.

She readied to speak, but had to cut herself off when Nora turned away from the group of BSMP agents to look up at her.

“S-” her eyes flickered back to the agents, “Ruin, just the dragon I was looking for.”

“I am?”

Nora’s face scrunched up at Susan’s reply.

“Did she forget to tell you?”

“Uh, I guess so?” Susan shrugged.

“That girl,” Nora threw her arms in the air, “always too worried about the fate of the world, never even thinks about anything else!”

“That being?”

“Have you at any point renounced your U.S. citizenship?”

It took Susan a second to parse the question, the nonsequitur taking her entirely by surprise. She wasn’t entirely familiar with the laws, but-

“Don’t answer that!” Someone shouted, and she turned to see one of the BSMP agents, a sweaty man in a gray suit, marching over to her.

With deliberate slowness, she turned her head back to face Nora.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll have to check.”

She smiled at the sputtered reply that earned from the BSMP agent. He waited for her to turn back to him, but when she refused to acknowledge his presence he let out a huff.

“I would ask that you do not take any actions against the BSMP,” he said. “As the only governing body of magical creatures on the planet-”

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“Former,” Susan snapped.

“What?”

“Former governing body,” Susan said, then sighed. “Look, it's not like I can just leave you guys alone now can I? The Thunderbirds were one thing, but Terminus Rex has a track record longer than my tail. None of it good.”

She was met with silence. Up until this point the BSMP agents had been communicating in a low murmur, glancing between the Susan, the Guardians, and the demolished room around them. As Susan spoke, the noise cut off, the agents turning as one to stare at her. Even Elizabeth, still seated on her head, was now looking down at her again with a raised eyebrow.

“Well that’s good to hear,” Nora spoke up with a light smile.

“Really?” Susan asked, turning to regard her.

“Yes, I think we may have a common enemy.”

“Uh, what? No.” The BSMP agent sputtered out. “You, you can't-”

He froze as Nora turned to spear him with an icy glare.

“We can discuss the details later,” she said, “let's finish up here for now.”

She took a few steps over to where the BSMP agents stood.

“Before we get out of your hair,” Nora said, “we’re going to need all copies of the summoning spell you currently have.”

The head agent drew himself up as he met her gaze.

“We will not be able to comply-”

“This one is the only one left,” John spoke over him, walking from the back of the group and over toward Susan. “I already burnt or deleted our other copies.”

“John, you-”

“What?” He cut the protester off, “got rid of something we never should have had? You saw what happened to Antarctica!”

“The damage-”

“Was never going to match the projections!” John roared, “the fight last month was between normal dragons, and none of them even died!”

He finished, breathing heavily as he stared at the group, then turned on his heel and marched over to Nora.

“Anything else you need help with?”

Nora smiled then raised an arm, and snapped her fingers, and Susan jerked as her feet tapped against the ground. She looked down to see that Nora had teleported the entire ruined summoning circle away, leaving everyone standing on the bare concrete below.

“Nope, that was the last thing I needed doing,” Nora said, “How about the rest of you?”

John shook his head.

“My resignation is already on Rex’s desk.”

“I’m good, though I do have one last question,” Susan spoke up, then turned to look at John. “Where did you even get the summoning spell?”

“We discovered it when we were inventorying a small library seized from a raid a few weeks ago.”

“Who the hell keeps the summoning circle for an Archdragon in their library?” Nora muttered, and Susan looked away.

“A certain Vurhd, apparently,” John responded, and Susan’s head turned back to him glacially.

“Vurhd?”

“Yes?”

“Damn it.”

“What?”

Everyone turned to look at her, and Susan lowered her head so that she could put a hand over her eyes.

“John, Vhurd?”

The group kept staring at her, until a flash of realization came over John’s face. With stiff movements, he turned around and marched back to the group of BSMP agents. Both arms came up to grab the lead agent by the shoulders.

“Goddamnit Rex!” He said, shaking the man back and forth, “I knew that name was wrong!”

“J-John?”

“It was his name, just backwards!”

“Who’s?”

“The damn Demon King’s!”

“Oh- oh shit!”

“Yes ‘oh shit’ you idiot!”

As the argument continued, Susan settled on the ground. Elizabeth seemed mildly entertained by the confrontation happening in front of them, but Susan found herself turning toward Nora instead.

“So what makes you so invested in all of this?”

“Oh, it's nothing dramatic. I just grew up before all of these silly restrictions about hiding magic from the world,” She responded, eyes taking on a distant glint.

A pause followed, the silence filled by the shouting still coming from the group of agents.

“Alright, what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing much, just some paperwork and… oh I think they’re done.”

Susan turned to see the agents, now approaching her as a group. John stood at its head, followed by Rex, then the rest in a tight clump. As they finally got close enough to Susan to begin looking up at her, the group held back leaving John moving forward alone.

“Alright,” he said, then took a card from his suit pocket and presented it to Nora. “Here’s my card, call me whenever you need me.”

She took it, and gave it a look over, and then the card vanished into a hidden pocket in her suit.

“Great,” he continued, “With that done, I hope you all have a wonderful night. As for me and everybody else here, we’re going to go, get blackout drunk, and forget today ever happened.”

He turned and marched off toward one of the distant exit doors, followed quickly by the gaggle of agents.

“Things may be happening sooner than you think!” Nora shouted after him.

“As long as it's not tomorrow morning!” The reply echoed back.

Nora watched him go for a moment, then turned to Susan.

“Well, I have some things I need to work on now,” she said with a smile that sent a shiver down Susan’s spine.

Before this conversation, she had been formulating some vague plans for how to deal with the BSMP. Her best idea had been to begin teleporting their important infrastructure to slightly less convenient locations, the middle of a volcano, perhaps. But that was mostly for her own amusement, and she had planned to save the actual plans to deal with them for when she was better rested.

But staring down at the wide that covered the face of the aging Guardian, a thought occurred. The BSMP had been doggedly working to screw people over for the better part of a century, to the point Susan might not have to do anything at all.

She returned a wide smile of her own to the Guardian, and a few goodbyes later the older Guardian was vanishing through a summoned pillar. The two sisters were left alone in the dark of the broken room.

Susan sat crouched above the smooth concrete of the floor. While Elizabeth sat cross legged atop her head, facing away from her.

“Sorry,” Susan said after a moment, the noise echoing back to them after a moment.

Elizabeth let out a ‘hmph’ and didn’t turn around.

“Elizabeth. Come on.”

“Hmph,” the reply came again.

“Elizabeth…” Susan tried again, and when no reply came her jaw clenched. “Look, I… it's not like I planned this to happen!”

“But it happened, didn’t it?” Elizabeth shot back, finally turning to face her.

“Yeah, so?”

“So ask for help!” Elizabeth snapped, standing and hopping down to Susan’s nose so she could glare down at her properly. “So you don’t get stabbed like last time, or blown up, or whatever made your shoulder like that!”

She finished with a shriek, hand pointed damningly downward toward the offending scales.

“But… but you might get hurt!”

Susan’s jaw trembled as she stared up at her sister. Elizabeth held her gaze, and her jaw firmed.

“Yeah, but you will.”

Susan’s mouth opened and closed gormlessly. The very idea of Elizabeth coming along with her for an actual fight brought to mind memories of burning fires and thick ash. Every cell of her body rebelled at the idea of her bright eyed little sister getting hurt.

But staring into the girl’s eyes, she couldn’t help but see the bright scales of her shoulders reflected in her gaze. Her mouth finally shut, and it was with a spine tingling shudder that she spoke again.

“Fine.” She said, then glanced away. The words felt like ash in her mouth.

“Good,” Elizabeth replied, and Susan looked back to see her with both arms crossed and a worryingly smug smile across her face.This promise was going to be hard to get out of.

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The front door to the house squeaked slightly as it closed behind Susan and Elizabeth. Flicking the lock behind her, Susan trudged over to the couch before collapsing onto it face first.

Elizabeth padded past her towards the kitchen, and a moment later Susan heard the clatter of cups and the faucet running. She then returned to the couch, where she plopped down next to Susan’s prone form.

“At least we don’t have to use the windows anymore, right?” She asked in the same careful voice she had been using since the end of their argument.

“Mnmph,” Susan mumbled into the couch in agreement.

By far the best thing to have come from being outed as beings of unimaginable power was the fact that neither of the Hill sisters were restricted by a curfew anymore. Being called upon to save the world at odd hours had its perks, apparently.

Of course Susan had immediately abused that loophole to spend several straight weeks attempting to decipher a rune, a thought that made her frown into the couch.

“Morning girls,” a cheery voice snapped her out of her ruminating, and her head came up in shock.

The time was- her jaw dropped at the sight of the clock.

“It’s six?” She mumbled in horror.

“Sure is,” Chay, who now loomed over the back of the couch with a grin, proclaimed.

“Nooooooo,” Susan’s voice trailed off as she pressed her face back into the comforting plushness of the couch.

“Nmorning,” Elizabeth mumbled as she drank from her glass of water, sounding equally exhausted.

Susan heard their mother ‘tsk’ at that.

“You two might be off doing magical guardian things, but you have to get some better sleep.”

Susan’s head came back up slowly, and her eyes met Elizabeth’s. They shared a moment of sisterly conspiracy, then nodded.

“Okay,” they chorused.

“Good,” Chay said, “I’d hate for you both to be too tired for our big day today.”

Susan frowned, and Elizabeth finally put down her glass of water with a frown.

“I didn’t hear anything about a big day,” she said.

“Really, I thought Susan was going to tell you.”

Susan’s eyes flickered back and forth in confusion, then froze in place as a vague memory flickered through her mind. Something she had been told, the words lost in the fugue of sleepless study of the 4th tier rune.

“I… forgot?”

Chay let out a sigh, and settled down with her arms resting on the back of the couch.

“The ‘take your daughter to work’ day, your father’s been looking forward to it for weeks now.”

“Oh. That.” She bit out, trying to avoid Elizabeth’s accusatory glare.

“Well at least you're both here for it,” Chay said, “I’d hate for us to go Gashadokuro hunting without one of you.”

Susan’s face fell, at the thought of going another day without sleep. A pleading look at Elizabeth got her nothing, her sister seemingly of the opinion that justice was being served.

“Yay?”