"So this is what's inside."
Passing through the stone arch, Bernadette deviated from the path the other visitors were taking and followed a darker side passage — twisting, descending, ten minutes of walking until the blackness ahead was broken by the orange glow of a campfire.
Figures sat ringed around it.
Bernadette walked toward them with the badge in hand. As she appeared, no one so much as looked up. She found a vacant spot and settled in.
A few more arrivals trickled in over the next little while. Once the circle around the fire was complete, one figure stood. "Those who didn't make it — we won't wait. Follow me."
"Where to?" someone asked.
"The deep levels of the underground. I found traces left by our leader there."
The moment those words landed, hushed voices broke out across the circle.
The Mystic Order had fallen to its current sorry state — some members scattered across the world in hiding, some absorbed into the Intis Republic, the rest lurking like rats in the walls — largely because the leader had disappeared, followed by the successive disappearance of the high-ranking, high-sequence members. The newer recruits who had joined the Order since were, on the surface, members of an ancient and storied secret organisation founded in the Fourth Epoch — but in practice, they were far worse off than organisations established just a few years ago.
And now, someone was claiming to have found traces left by the leader. Their first instinct wasn't hope of finding him — it was the thought that if they could get their hands on his legacy, might they be able to take his place and become something powerful?
"Are you sure?" someone challenged.
The figure was calm. "I'm not sure — which is why I'm using this gathering to have you all come explore together. Anyone not interested is welcome to leave."
The moment he put it that way, nobody wanted to leave.
"This is peculiar," Vincent said. "For a secret organisation, even a fallen one, shouldn't there be at least some vetting? Anyone with a badge just gets in — no identity check at all?"
He paused. "Or did they already check us somehow, in ways we didn't notice?"
"No," Bernadette said with certainty.
"If there are no questions, let's go."
The figure moved to lead them forward. Bernadette spoke up. "Could you first describe exactly what traces you found?"
"..."
Silence, then: "Not long ago, I happened to go into the deep underground levels. I found some unusual traces in an ancient ruin. After later consulting my reference materials, I confirmed they were connected to our leader."
"What kind of traces specifically?"
He was working through his answer, composing it as he spoke — when he noticed that the expressions of the people around him had shifted. A jolt of confusion, and then he realised there was something new in his field of vision: a stick.
He reached up instinctively and touched it.
It was his nose.
Why is my nose so long?!
Bernadette laughed quietly. "You lied. You're guilty."
Crack. Crack.
Two whips materialised from nowhere and lashed across the man — leaving two vivid welts. He let out a muffled grunt of pain, snapped his fingers, and vanished in a burst of flame, reappearing ten metres away, then blinked away again in a series of fiery leaps until he was gone.
The others around the fire immediately reacted — but their first move was not to pursue. It was to scatter, eyeing one another with suspicion — especially Bernadette.
The moment Bernadette moved, she felt a sluggish resistance in her body.
A Marionette Master attempting to seize control of my Spirit Body Threads?
She stamped her foot lightly. An illusory chessboard erupted from beneath her, expanding outward in every direction to encompass everyone in range. Time for all of them stretched to an extreme — each person moving in slow motion.
Bernadette's gaze sharpened. A point of starlight condensed at her fingertip and she loosed it at one figure — the bolt pierced through, and found only a paper figure going up in flames, the real target having used that moment to jump clear of the chessboard.
The instant he reappeared, cascading rays of starlight descended, encasing him in a vast, transparent amber.
But Bernadette had already turned away from him. With a single snap of her fingers, a mass of emerald-green vines erupted and grew explosively outward, coiling around every person in the area. Those who attempted to escape by flame-leaping were immediately caught in cages of starlight, unable to channel their spirituality.
All save one — who was herded by the vines forward, directly to Bernadette.
"Is this one definitely his real body?"
Vincent had been watching the Marionette Master's entire sequence of tricks with something close to awe: first the apparent escape via flame, while a secretly planted puppet completed a swap — then an attempt to seize control of Bernadette's Spirit Body Threads — then, once discovered, another puppet exchange — and finally the deliberate "offering" of what seemed like himself to Bernadette, while the true escape happened elsewhere.
"A Sequence 5 Marionette Master can have at most three puppets. Including himself, that's four total. All accounted for."
Bernadette said this, and then the blood-red spear in her palm solidified and she flung it lightly into the darkness. The Spear of Longinus, carrying with it a force that levelled all in its path, crossed a hundred metres in an instant and shattered a distant silhouette.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The bound Marionette Master somehow wrenched one hand free and fired several Air Bullets at Bernadette. Then he turned his own finger on himself and pulled the trigger.
Crack. The man shattered into fragments of broken mirror — and using the escape bought by this, slipped through the scattered shards.
Mirror Transit.
The true body was about to vanish into the mirrors — when there was a quiet click: the sound of a spent match falling to the floor.
The next instant, everything dissolved into haze and then solidified again.
The Marionette Master was still there, bound by vines. He hadn't shot himself. He hadn't used Mirror Transit. Everything that had just "happened" was the death-throes vision of The Little Match Girl — a hallucination.
"Impossible!!!"
The Marionette Master barely had time to cry out before his figure exploded — shattering into countless mirror fragments, just like the Mirror Person Stephen had caught a few days ago.
"...Damn."
Bernadette uttered a rare expletive, and it was understandable. Being silenced a second time, right in front of her, and still being unable to understand what was happening — the frustration was considerable.
And worse: when the Mirror People died, they left no Beyonder characteristics behind.
Vincent said, realisation dawning, "So that's why he didn't bother checking anyone's identity — he didn't care. As long as he could bring them to the right place, have his Mirror People complete the replacements, everything else was secondary."
"Even the cautious and meticulous Mystic Order has had Mirror People infiltrate it. The situation may be considerably more serious than any of us imagined."
Bernadette turned to the remaining members still trapped in starlight cages. Were there more Mirror People among them?
In the end it didn't much matter — even if there were, they would only be silenced as well. Might as well sweep them all up in one go. She had barely completed the thought when her eyebrow twitched, and the peach-tree vines erupted again. By the time they settled, Bernadette was gone — along with three of the Mystic Order members.
To be continued…
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