Charles Fiable: The REAL Tragedy

Charles listened to what the Grand Mage was told by this Ingvar Verdslig guy. His eyes widened. He wasn't meant to be listening in, but he was a detective. He did that sort of thing. He hurried over to the room he had just left. he had been heading to the toilet, but he half-forgot his personal needs at this news. His best friend was still alive. He burst in where Frivolidad was speaking to Metallique. The gaoler hadn't been there when Fiable had left, and they exchanged greetings.
"I know where Jasmin is."
Moineau looked away. "He's dead."
"I've just heard otherwise, and even if he is, Surgele won't do anything with the information of his whereabouts. He's following Orage's command, not taking action, which gives us a free reign."
Frivolidad shifted in his seat, frowning. "And you know the location..." he sighed, "but do you have a plan? Or a way to get there?"
"Well...it's in Australia, granted...but Norwegian and African Mages were taking part in that conversation as well. We could end up building a veritable unauthorised army and do not forget we have a teleporter on our side."
Moineau raised his head slightly. "Pourri?" He looked surprised. Probably because Fiable was usually a very by the book sort of person. Apart from listening in on Elder meetings, of course, which he had started doing shortly before Orage had been nominated for the council.

-----

Twist wasn't happy. He had to call for mortuary services twice in one week, and this time for his best friend. He had found the body first and had to tell B-J her brother had been killed. That was the noise in the background as he cleaned blood off his floors once more. She was screaming obscenities at Rasputin and Garnet. Grieving mostly. Maybe he would try that. Actually, he was pretty sure Esra had been his last friend. He stopped scrubbing at the floors and wondered briefly if his father had agreed to this.

B-J curled up on the corner of her bed. Garnet and Rasputin were leaning against a wall, looking a little shocked and flustered. The girl had stopped screaming at them now. It had started when both of them had tried to advise against striking back at Mevolent. "He was my brother..." She moaned into her knees. Neither boy knew what to say to that. Vrestreni's brothers had hated each other, him included, and the three of them had tried to kill one another on numerous occasions. Dorado was an only child. Maleficent raised her eyes and glared at the two of them. "They ordered the death of my little brother. I want to get back at him."
"A direct attack would get you killed, so what do you propose exactly?" Vrestreni asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Captured Elders!" Dorado blurted.
Ras rolled his eyes and turned his head ever so slightly so he could give a sideways glare to the redhead. "What?"
"You're aware Elders are being captured, right? I know a guy in Australia who told me about it. He's one of the guards...well, was, but he's a bit dead now. Old friend of mine, old, old friend, even older a friend than Mort and Jay. Known him longer than I've known you, B-J."
"Get to the point, please." Ras said through gritted teeth.
"He told me to come visit some time, gave me the exact place we would need to go. Better luck couldn't exist, eh?"

-----

Fiable looked at his assembled 'unauthorised army'. Frivolidad, of course. Pourri, a South African man who seemed suspicious of Fiable, Lionel the murderer and a German girl with purple hair. A man stepped outside the base, leaving the door ajar, but standing right by it. He removed the kerchief from in front of his mouth and nose and lit up a cigarette. Pourri smiled and began walking over, gesturing for the German girl, Rabe, to follow. They strolled up to the man, seemed to talk to him for a few minutes. Lionel had a map and they hopefully looked like a group of hopelessly lost tourists until Rabe struck the man. Pourri did the same. The men all watched as the girls fought the large man. Rabe was easier for him to strike, but every time he went to strike Pourri, she disappeared. If he tried to anticipate her appearance, the German girl would move in and strike to distract him. It was pretty good teamwork, especially as, as far as all the men were concerned, the two women had never spoken or fought together before. "That was impressive." Perseus stated as they joined the girls at the door.

The halls were long and winding and smelled of sawdust. Each footstep echoed at an alarming volume. There were next to no guards. Those they did encounter were already unconscious. Fiable frowned. "This isn't good."
"What isn't?" They all turned and saw a redheaded man next to a black-haired girl. The man was wearing some ugly shirt, the top half blue, the bottom half white, the bit where they met an uneven, random dyeing. Over that was some nasty custard-yellow jacket covered in sky blue gridding. The girl was wearing a man's white chequered shirt over a strange white dress. She smiled at them. "Hello."
Fiable took on a defensive stance. The redhead laughed.
"I'm Garnet, this is B-J. I take it you're not guards, which means you're probably here for the same purpose as us?"
"Perhaps..."
"We're going to set the captured Elders free."
"You have a motive for that?"
"Spite, mostly." The girl glared at her companion and he laughed.
"Mevolent ordered the death of my brother. We didn't need an excuse to act against him, but he gave us one anyway."
The French Detective relaxed. "We work for Sanctuaries. We're helping our colleagues."
"What about that?" The redhead pointed to something just as it disappeared around the corner.
"What was it?" Rabe asked, craning her neck to see.
"A child, I think..." He started off after it and the girl grabbed his arm.
"Garnet..." She said in a warning tone.
"Lay off, what do you think I'd do?"
"You do like killing things..."
Garnet pulled a face. "I don't kill children. I'm a sick person, but children and animals are out of bounds for me."
"Animals, I believe." She replied darkly, remembering the fuss her friend had kicked up at Twist's after being given a dish with meat in it. As the duo began to bicker, Frivolidad and Metallique went to investigate this supposed child. They came back escorting Alice. Pourri tried to get to her daughter, but the girl was intent on helping save her father. Apparently Lydie would just teleport her back again. The group, now joined by Alice, B-J and Garnet, moved along, looking for the place the Elders were being held.

-----

The Sanctuary was pretty chaotic when Ravel and Mist returned. Only one man stood still, not rushing around or yelling commands and requests to other people. The most he did was send an occasional dirty look to someone who barged him and asked passing staff if she knew where he could get a glass of water. Erskine smiled a little, only a half-smile. "Saracen...I have to say, I didn't expect to see you anywhere near here..."
Saracen met his eyes and did not return the smile. "Didn't expect you to be so cheerful."
"Why? What happened?"
Rue gave him an odd look. "No-one's told you?"
"Get to the point. I'm tired. Told me what?"
"...Ghastly and Anton..."
Ravel paled a little. "They're not dead...are they?"
Saracen didn't meet his eyes. "Ghastly was found last night, actually. They think he suffocated. Anton was stabbed. Some doctors were phoning a bunch of names on his contacts list trying to get a next of kin. Or something like that." He shrugged uncertainly. "That's not what I'm here to talk to you about, though..."

Mist walked away from the main room, trying to ignore and get away from the chaos. She had just gotten back for the love of God. She locked herself in her office and relaxed in the chair for a while. A crappy end to a crappy month. Actually, that thought got her thinking a bit more. This month had been missing something. She nudged her bag with a foot and sighed, reaching in and pulling out a little cardboard box. She turned it over in her hands a few times and sighed again. "Please be negative..."

-----

A guard dropped. Perseus rested his hands on his knees and tried to get his breath back. Moineau was pressed against the wall, looking pretty pissed off. The two of them had been separated by the others by a little ambush. The gaoler stormed forward, rummaging roughly through the fallen enemy's pockets for a key for the locked door behind him.

The door was flung open and the Elders looked up, some curious, some just tired and annoyed at being disturbed. None of them recognised the two men who had just come in...at least none of the ones awake. Moineau quickly located Orage and woke him. The French Elder would explain they were trustworthy. Jasmin shook him off and the gaoler cursed and kicked him. "Wake up!"
"Ngh...five more minutes, Moineau..." He realised something and sat up. "Moineau?" Next he saw the wide open door. "Well...this certainly is interesting..."
"Some Norwegian guy told us where the elders were...so yeah..."
Skisma grinned. "Faster than I thought."
The French Elder got to his feet, gesturing for the others to stand with him. "These two are more than trustworthy. I think..."
Perseus chuckled as Moineau looked offended. "You think? Of course we're trustworthy!" He gave the bigger man a shove and grinned. "Alice and Clarice are okay, by the way."
Jasmin grinned back and gestured for the other elders to follow. As they left they felt their magic return to them. Stupid bound room.

Garnet raised the dagger over his head, ready to strike a killing blow on a defenceless guard who was currently begging for his life. "Please! Please...I have a family...I'll switch side if you don't kill me! Please!"
He looked like he was considering it. "I don't half love the feel of blood running out through my fingers..." He went to plunge it in but someone grabbed the handle.
"Garnet, no!" B-J screamed.
"Let go, oh Queen of Hypocrisy!"
"We spare him! Especially in front of the child."
"I've seen people die before." Alice muttered. "Can't screw me up any more than I already am."
"Shut up, you." B-J snapped, attempting to wrestle the blade out of Garnet's grip.
"The kid said I could kill him!" The killer argued back, trying to get the knife back, or into the petrified guard.
"Drop it, Garnet!"
"Leggo! It's mine!" He nearly dropped it. In regaining his grip, it was turned so the blade was facing little Alice. She frowned and backed off slightly.
"Just give over!"
"You're not taking it off me! You can't dominate my life! If anything, you owe me!"
"I do not!" She heaved and he fell and heaved back, causing her to fall. Something warm gushed over their hands. Dorado gave an outraged growl, opening his eyes and seeing red. It took a while for his mind to register that the red was blood. He saw a twitching foot by B-J's head. A child's foot. Alice's. Sitting up and releasing the knife, he saw the damage done by those two last pulls. A deep slash in her throat and a shallower one in her chest. "No...No!" he screeched, shooting to his feet, hands flying to his mouth. He remembered the blood and held his hands as far away from him as possible, trying to shake the blood off, still screeching. A door had opened as he screeched and the Elders stood there looking at the dead little girl, the screeching man and the girl holding the knife. B-J herself finally registered what had happened and threw the knife away. "Oh my god! No! Garnet!?"
Garnet was having an emotional breakdown in the corner. Children were very out of bounds for him. He had a thing against killing anyone under forty. Something to do with forty-three being the age that screwed him up and drove him to killing people in the first place. Jasmin had rushed forward to his daughter by this point and was now cradling her. Maleficent saw the floor begin to crack by Dorado's feet and ran round behind the French Elder and made sure her 'friend' brought her with him. Then they could go have a breakdown together.

-----

Elder Huzzaro missed being able to sleep peacefully. He thought back on the days he would be able to sleep a full night, before he met April or became an Elder. April was having a go at him now, coming home late, smelling of Julie's perfume...that wasn't something he could help. Julie was a bit of a clean freak. She sprayed the stuff in any room she entered. At the end of the day, everyone smelled of Julie's perfume. April never believed that, though. If someone didn't believe the truth, what do you tell them? Then again, he kept a lot of secrets from her. If she ever found any of those out, of course she would never let anything go. God, she was annoying. "April." He moaned.
"And another thing, Chester, you never do anything nice for me anymore or get me any nice surprises!"
"I got you a bouquet of flowers on an impulse just two days ago."
"They were wilting."
"Oh, they were not!" He sat up, glaring. "You keep whining and every time it's complete nonsense! Go to sleep. I have to be up early in the morning. You know how demanding my job is."
With a sort-of snarl, April rolled over so her back was to her husband, grudgingly attempting to get some sleep.

Elliot was just about to fall asleep when April shook him. "Chester...Chester, I think I heard something downstairs..."
He groaned and sat up again. "You're tougher than me. You check it out. I'll get halfway downstairs and forget why I'm out of bed because I see a mirror or something..."
"What if it's a mur-...maybe we should both check it out...together, you know?" He nodded and followed her down the stairs to where a light was on for some reason. He pulled shadows to the friendship bracelet on his wrist as unnoticeably as possible as they found a man rummaging through his personal work drawers in a sort-of study. "Hey!" April called. The man whipped round and sent a blast at her. Huzzaro's eyes widened and he grabbed her, shadow walking back up the stairs. She started screaming, unfortunately knowing nothing of magic. The man came after them. Elliot turned, kicking the man in the chest before sending a fist of shadows at him and shadow-walking past, back to the study-living room-thing. He threw open a drawer as April screamed to know what the heck was going on as he grabbed some important files for the Sanctuary. The man fired again and he pushed his wife out of the way, bringing the shadows up slightly too late as a defence. He spun from the impact and hit the worktop. Once again he sent a fist of shadows into the man, taking him off his feet, then scrambled to his feet, grabbing April and shadow-walking through the wall, to the car...his lovely wife screaming in disbelief the whole way. He had something Mevolent's men wanted...he was so screwed.

((I wanted to bring Elliot back...and the mourning of the fake death of Jasmin is what brought the death of Alice...you inspired my evil!...Have I been working on this chapter for a week or something? Also Mortis kills everything and enjoys killing everything, Garnet loves killing anything over 43, but is okay killing anything above 20 if he must, Jayden doesn't enjoy killing but will kill. The three murderers. Ending message terminated.))
((Actually, no. Excuse any OOCness in the Saracen Rue bit, I know nothing of the character. Just that he exists and was a Dead Men member. That is literally all I know right now.))