"Caspian, have Research Group Theta go to the Societie's house," said Jessamine. "I'm going to discreetly gather the Societie leadership and meet you there."
"Yes, ma'am," her lover replied with a sarcastic smile.
Jessamine's only reply was a stern look as she hastily departed for the Academy town.
"What's up, Caz?" asked Lance, who had left his post and joined his friend near the path leading away from the airstrip. "That ship—was that who I think it was?"
"It was the King," said Caspian, "and he needs our help. Grab Gwen, Hope, and Natasha: we're meeting the Societie Royale at their house."
"I'm on it."
The events of that day may have been a shock to Jessamine, but to Caspian, everything was proceeding according to plan. He had been briefed on the assassination attempt by Elisabeth, who had even helped refine the insurgents' original strategy into one which would actually sow fear and discontent throughout Britannia. Critically, his sister had also helped devise a counter-strategy which would perfectly achieve the goals of the House of Blackstone.
Jessamine would soon discover the Academy Keep having been seized by the mysterious operatives—unknowing agents of the Blackstone family, every one—and would rally the Societie to rescue the King. With the amount of ex-military counted among the ranks of the Societie, victory would be well within their grasp, except they would be caught unawares by the turncoat students led by Pierre DuPont. Casualties were expected among all sides, which would only add legitimacy to this staged conflict that the Blackstone siblings had engineered.
Caspian would then enter, playing the role of hero and savior of the King, earning the goodwill and trust of at least two prominent Blessed Houses: the House of Pendragon, and the House of di Cadenza.
As for what came next—
Caspian smiled.
That's when the real game begins.
***
"How do you control a monster which could obliterate you with a thought?" asked Richard Blackstone, the question directed towards one of his highest-ranking operatives. They were watching multiple simultaneous broadcasts of the day's events, including a live feed of the Academy campus to which the general public had no access.
The question was of course rhetorical, but the man nevertheless asked:
"How?"
Richard smiled.
"By giving it something to which it can aspire," he said. "Don't get me wrong, I love that kid like my own son. But how can you parent a monster like that? With his power, he's closer to a god than a man—you can't use empathy, or sympathy, because neither of them are realistic for him. You can't threaten him, because he can simply erase any threat from existence."
"…so, instead, you use his own self-motivation."
"Precisely. The mind of a child, no matter how powerful, is always taking inspiration from its environment. A healthy diet of the right kinds of media can go a long way towards shaping their self-perception and individual goals; the trick, then, is to use media to shape those goals to match your own."
"And you figured out how to do that?"
Richard nodded.
"I started with the power-fantasy genre, and specifically stories focused on misunderstood or underestimated protagonists. I wanted him to begin to fantasize about those themes, and thus desire to realize his fantasies in his daily life—if he did so, he would place limits on himself without any action on my part."
"And because the limits are self-imposed, there's little risk of rebellious or anti-authoritarian behavior."
"You're catching on quick, I see. That's good. Everyone in our organization will report to him one day, and it's important that his lieutenants understand him as much as possible."
"You honor me, sir."
***
Arthur had been watching behind the cover of low mountain brush as the team of three assassins emerged from behind the semi truck. He made his doppleganger intentionally noticeable, but he was surprised when they didn't pursue.
A minute later, a high-velocity shot raced towards the clone from somewhere off in the distance.
Must be some sort of helicopter, Arthur reasoned. That's not good.
His original plan had been to use the carbon copy to distract the fireteam while he called down Excalibur it its kinetic energy weapon mode, but the helicopter took priority.
While the enemies were slowly advancing towards the remains of his clone, Arthur was doing his best to pinpoint the location of the helicopter. His night-vision spell: "Dilatetur lux oculis meis!" helped somewhat, but even then, he was searching for a needle in a haystack. The sniper was far enough away that neither the gunshot nor the sound of the helicopter's rotors reached Arthur's ears.
Arthur had a thought, and cast another spell: "Oculi mei videant in lucem invisibilem!"
This spell, Invisible Sight, shifted all electromagnetic waves in the target's eyes towards the spectrum of visible light, which resulted in the subject being able to perceive heat in a primitive form of infrared/ultraviolet vision. It was quite potent, which was why it was considered a military secret by the Kingdom of Britannia.
Even if the helicopter is silent, it must be generating heat.
Sure enough, there it was: a small but bright patch of light in the middle of the sky, quite a distance away but clearly visible through the use of magic.
Arthur glanced back to the fireteam: they were almost upon the downed doppleganger.
He raised his arm to the stars, imagining the sword in its heavenly rest.
"This vambrace is one of the most advanced magic tools our nation has ever created," Vivianne had said. "It's a control unit for the sword which interprets your will without the need for chants. It's basically a bootstrapped version of instinctive magic."
Arthur took a deep breath, and swung his arm in a downward arc until it was pointed directly at the helicopter.
Not even a second later, the helicopter was consumed by fire and fury.
"Alpha-One, this is Delta—Eagle is down, I repeat, Eagle is down!" cried the operator, standing over the dirt which had twice deceived them. "Unknown explosion on Eagle's position, observed remains falling into the forest."
"Roger, Delta, Command has confirmed loss of contact with Eagle. Team 2 is en route to provide fire support. Fall back and assume defensive positions."
"Yes, sir!"
"I told you we should have come better prepared," said one of the operatives. "We didn't have any other sources of intelligence aside from Macbeth—this guy's not messing around, but she made it sound like he wouldn't be a threat at all."
"Quiet," said Delta as the group pivoted to face the toppled trailer. "He's on the hillsides somewhere. Watch for movement, don't let your guard down."
With a flick of his wrist, Arthur returned Excalibur to low orbit.
Once again, he raised his arm to the stars, and was about to use another kinetic energy attack to take out the fireteam when he had a sudden realization.
If I use that same attack against them, it'll destroy the road and put the last guy on alert.
I can't use brute force here.
I need to be smart; I need to be stealthy.
A thought flashed across his mind, and Arthur smiled.
That'll do.
He called down Excalibur from its lofty palace and held it horizontally some distance behind the assassins. He then twisted his hand and the sword began spinning, accelerating faster and faster until it appeared as nothing more than a disk of steel glistening in the shallow moonlight.
Delta raised his hand and made a fist; his fireteam stopped in their tracks.
"Do you hear that?" he asked, and his two companions shook their heads.
A faint whirring sound could gently be heard over the rustling of the wind. It was too high-pitched to be a helicopter, but not high enough to be a drone; it was also difficult for Delta to identify its location, but if it was indeed an enemy attack, there was only one place it could be coming from.
Delta made a circular motion with a finger and his entire team pivoted in place, guns at the ready.
He saw a flash of silver moving towards him, and his body instinctively stepped back in fear—but he wasn't fast enough.
Before his brain could comprehend what had happened, Delta had fallen backward, finding himself laying flat on his back. He looked back towards the silver blade and saw someone standing there; he looked up at the person, but there was no one.
The pair of legs slumped to the ground, unleashing a torrent of blood as the realization struck Delta.
He looked at his chest in horror, seeing only pavement and his own blood.
Rapidly losing both strength and consciousness, he slowly reached up to his neck and activated his throat mic.
"Alpha-One—fireteam, KIA—surprise attack—sliced in half—be—careful—"
It was now difficult to draw air into his lungs.
So this is what death feels like…
"It's been an honor, soldier," the lead assassin spoke into his radio.
He received no reply.
***
At the headquarters of S2 Magus Technology Holdings, Matthew Gödel and a team of analysts were frantically combing over every second of satellite footage they had received thus far of the attempted assassination of Arthur Trevena. His resourcefulness had been expected, but the degree to which he had been able to resist was frustratingly atypical.
If the operation was to succeed, there couldn't be any more interruptions.
"We've come up with a possible theory, sir," said one of the analysts. "There's a chance that the target may be in possession of Excalibur."
Gödel wheeled around.
"How certain are you?" he spat, barely concealing the rage in his voice.
"Around fifteen percent and rising, according to the battle metadata. It's the leading explanation for how Trevena was able to destroy a helicopter and take out three spec-ops soldiers simultaneously."
The president nodded.
"I see. Contact Mission Command, tell them to relay the following order to all units: Proceed with maximum caution, assume target is in possession of Ultimate-class weapon ID—Excalibur."
"Yes, sir."
If that's true, the outcome is no longer guaranteed, he thought. Vivianne Loche's movements are difficult to track, but she must've given him the sword relatively recently… I doubt he's had many opportunities to train with it.
Our guys have a chance, but they can't let their guard down.
Elisabeth Blackstone stifled a small chuckle, causing Gödel to turn to her in frustration.
"Is something funny, Ms. Blackstone?"
"No, Mr. Gödel, though it appears your intelligence has once again failed you," she replied. "I should hope there are no such failures in the second half of the operation."
He grit his teeth as his ire threatened to take control.
"Ms. Blackstone, I should like to take this opportunity to ask if there's anything we may have overlooked at Camelot which may derail our plans," he said, his tone anything but inquisitive. "I can tell from your attitude—you've been waiting for me to ask. So, go ahead. Tell us off."
Elisabeth only smiled.
"Everything will be fine," she replied.
Somehow, Matthew Gödel didn't believe her.
***
"Does everyone understand the plan?" asked Jessamine, and the Societie leadership nodded in response. She turned towards Caspian: "How quickly can your team be ready?"
"Most realistically, about forty-five minutes," he replied. "We have to get our gear from our armory and also verify that everyone is properly trained with their equipment. Combined with travel time, I estimate we can be on the battlefield in forty-five minutes."
Jessamine gave a small nod and turned back to the Executive Board.
"In that case, we'll move out immediately. Join us when you can."
"Will do."
Jessamine stood, addressing the entire gathered group:
"It falls to us to protect our King and Country. We must act quickly and with confidence if we are to succeed. Let's move."
The Societie house became alight with activity as the various members of the Executive Board began making last-minute preparations for the counter-strike Jessamine had just laid out. Weapons and shield generators were distributed; due to their role in maintaining campus security, the Societie had been permitted use of a personal armory in a hidden basement, which was now proving itself a wise addition. The Board organized themselves into companies and squads, each under the command of a senior Societie officer, and each with a different strategy for entering the Academy Keep without alerting their enemy.
They knew that they had to catch the enemy off-guard in order to win with minimal casualties, and Jessamine had designed their approach with this precept in mind.
The ultimate goal was to infiltrate the Keep and separate the enemy operatives from the King, then surround and eliminate them. The King was likely imprisoned in the very bunker he had sought as refuge: the Ravensleigh Vault, the secret chamber of knowledge Caspian had been seeking since his arrival.
While the vault itself was impregnable, the Societie estimated that much of the enemy force remained outside as guards—these were their targets. No rescue could be attempted while the enemy had direct access to the King, after all.
It was these conditions that led to the formation of the plan: the Societie would quietly move their forces into position, without attracting any undue attention, and then execute a coordinated surprise attack on the enemy agents.
Without knowing the enemy's capabilities and without time to plan or wait for backup, and under threat to the King's life should their movements be detected, Jessamine had decided this plan was the safest with the highest probability of success.
And with Caspian on our side, success is guaranteed, she thought.
Little did she know that Caspian had a plan of his own…