The world around him looked like frosted glass. Vivid flashes of shapes and colors danced in fractal patterns before his eyes, coalescing into recognizable figures at the periphery of Henry's vision. He understood, deep down, that he was in a dream, but this was by far one of the most strikingly coherent ones he'd ever had. More like watching a movie filmed from a first person point of view than the hazy snippets one might normally remember. As realization slowly dawned on him, the scene shifted fluidly into something more grounded in reality.

He was running down an endless expanse of mountain trail. Rocky terrain surrounded him on all sides, and the soil that crunched beneath his shoes had a coarse, sandy texture to it as he ran. The motion was effortless; mysteriously out of his control but not exhausting in the least. Like his lower body was running on autopilot, and he was just along for the ride.

As he moved down the never-ending path with the form of an Olympic sprinter, he found that he could still, at least, look around at his surroundings as they whizzed past. Up above, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky, and the azure expanse shone down on him with warm summer rays the likes of which he hadn't known for months. A faint hint of orange was tinting the horizon while the sun hung just low enough for it to appear.

He was running toward the sun. And behind him, more people were following along the path he carved.

Some of the faces were indistinguishable, the details blurry and not allowing him to pay attention for too long before his eyes slid over their features. Others were in crisp, high definition, mostly people he knew or had met before. William, seemingly free of his paralysis, with his daughter close at his side. Cecil, leading a charge of uniformed soldiers that he could partly recognize and looking almost relaxed, for once. There were even a few Devils in the mix, too, but which specific ones he saw changed every time he looked away. The only noticeable absence was Guillaume.

And yet, amidst the shifting crowd, there was one other constant that remained by his side.

Layla matched his pace on his right, smiling faintly back at him as they all ran down the trail. Together, they chased the sun downhill, even as it began to set low on the horizon.

Just before he woke up, a second, inky black star began to rise up from below.

< -|- -|- >

When he jolted awake to one of the mages shaking him, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. Adrenaline flooded his body, snapping him awake instantly and forcing him to react to his surroundings before he could even process what they really were. If he had been thinking, he certainly would have given a more measured response. By the time he'd gotten a hold of himself, he'd already grabbed the man's wrist and was halfway through reaching for his knife.

Then his brain caught up with what he was seeing, and the tension bled from his system like water in a leaky hose. Robb looked startled by his immediate reaction, but was otherwise fine.

"Don't scare me like that…" Henry grumbled, groggily sitting up to wipe the crust from his eyes. "I almost cut you, that time."

Robb jerked his arm back from his loosened grip, gingerly massaging his wrist. "Sorry," he apologized, "But it looks like we might be here for a while. The wolf decided to take a nap just down the road."

The news nearly made him curse. All of his hopes had been aimed towards the wolf moving on in a timely fashion, but apparently this one had had other ideas. If it had indeed bedded down for some rest, it meant that they'd have to walk on eggshells for an even longer watch period.

The word 'suboptimal' came to mind. Their arrival in the outskirts of Hackney would simply have to be delayed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

It all boiled down to one critical advantage the beasts held. Well, two actually. Wolves were notorious light sleepers, but that wasn't what was most upsetting right now. What was was that werewolf hearing was freakishly good when it wanted to be. At a rough estimate, if they were to open the back door right now and it creaked audibly, they had about a fifty-fifty chance of being found out and turned into a greasy red paste. Henry might be able to cheat death via cloning and escape that way, but everyone else would be completely screwed. And, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that simply wasn't an option he wanted to consider.

"Well, not much we can do about that, unfortunately." Henry grimaced as he disentangled himself from his sleeping bag. "Get some rest, if it moves before my shift ends I'll let you know."

"Thanks, mate."

When each spoken word was a potential risk, however small, conversation was naturally pretty stunted and brief. Neither of them spoke a syllable more than they had to to get their message across, leaving Henry to gather his things in silence while Robb crept off to find an unclaimed bedroll of his own. All around the rest of the building – which could perhaps generously be described as a traphouse, its condition was so bad – similar hushed stories were playing out, as two thirds of their group traded places to lay in wait for another 4 hours.

No lights shone inside, aside from that small amount reflecting off the pale moon into the shattered windows of their hideout. They were just dust in the wind, not to be noticed by the dead world around them. And certainly not to be noticed by the creatures that dwelled within it.

Carefully, he made his way up to the second floor, where the best vantage points of the surrounding streets were. There were a few bright and early risers already waiting for him by the time he arrived, but it seemed that he was on the early side of things, for once. One by one, the rest of the watch trickled in, including two of the three mages he'd hoped to have a conversation with while he waited.

When he noticed their approach, he gave them a quick nod up to get their attention, then carefully approached them so as to not make any sudden, grating noises.

"Morning," one of them grunted. "Sleep alright?"

"Yeah. You?"

"'Bout the same."

"Good..."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

These two were Tech Domain mages. Compared to some others in the group, they tended not to see a whole lot of action, but when it came to engravings and how to get them working long enough to get old equipment working they were the best around. And it just so happened that Henry had some old equipment he wanted to get working again, while he waited.

"Hey, um… do either of you have any spare Tech mana crystals? I can trade for them, if you'd like."

One of them answered almost straight away, before the other put a hand to his chest and cut him short.

"Of course, how many do you-"

"Wait," the other murmured. "We'll give you some, but we aren't about to do this for free."

The one who'd spoken up first looked like he wanted to object, but kept quiet. Frankly, Henry didn't care either way. He had a few things on him that he could offer up for occasions like these.

"That's no problem. I have some Day crystals I've been keeping in my bag here. One for one sound alright?"

"Works for me."

Henry picked two pinky-length crystals from his bag, passing them off quickly to the other mages to complete the exchange. Ironically, Henry was technically on the losing end of a fair trade like that. These guys were practically capable of replenishing stocks of their own Domain in their sleep, while Henry had no such capabilities. Had he not scrapped some poor bloke's circuit breaker in one of the curse regions prior, this trade wouldn't even be possible.

But, at the end of the day, they were on the same team, and this was just a good way of looking out for each other. The two sets of faintly glowing crystals traded hands, and Henry gave them both a thumbs up before finding a seat in the corner.

Time to bring this little guy back to life…

Slowly, tooth by tooth, Henry unzipped the zipper on the bag he'd stored Evelyn's artifact in. It had been a while since he'd buried it, making him curious as to the condition it was found in. He had it on good word that it just needed a fresh power supply, but he wanted to make sure for himself, now that the clone who'd brought it back was gone. The hole in the zipper finally widened enough for him to withdraw it, and he reached a hand inside to retrieve it.

Fingers curling around the artifact, Henry withdrew a small toy robot. It was modeled to look roughly humanoid, and painted in a mix of flashy blue and metallic paints. It was posed to look like it was wielding a plastic sword nearly as tall as the toy was, also painted in a matching color scheme. It was no bigger than his forearm, and in the back there was a removable plate with slots for two Tech crystals of a standardized shape. To the untrained eye, it looked like any other toy figurine that one might find in a hobby store.

Henry knew better. Without hesitation, he popped open the hatch on the back and took a look at the internal receptacles. It was a bit smaller than he'd remembered; the crystals he'd gotten off the two mages weren't going to quite be a perfect fit. Fortunately for him, though they were close enough to the right size that with some clever angling, he was able to get them to make a solid connection with the ley lines inside. He pulled out the spent mana batteries, now a dull green-gray compared to the vibrant lime green of the fresh pair, before jamming his replacements into the slots with only a little bit of elbow grease.

He set it on the ground, and flicked the on switch. The small figurine twitched, and at first nothing happened. Hunched over his seat in anticipation, Henry waited impatiently as a small pair of lime green eyes lit up, first one, then the other.

After a few seconds, the toy sparked to life, moving just as fluidly as a regular human. A far cry from the clunky, articulated motions of the toy it posed as, and immediately enough to recognize it as an artifact. It bent low like it was about to jump for joy, a pre-programmed start response it performed whenever activated that was accompanied by a cheer and a jingle from the TV series the model was based off of.

It was a good thing he knew it was coming, otherwise they'd have been heard by the sleeping beauty outside for sure.

He poked the small toy robot before it could fully wind up, causing it to tip backward and flail about wildly on the way down. Despite not having a face that could make expressions, it appeared rather cross when it looked up at him from on its back.

Henry held a finger to his lips and made an ever-so-faint shh noise. It cocked its head to the side, confused but at least sitting still and listening for the moment.

"Really big guy outside," he whispered to it, deliberately keeping his words as basic as possible. "Be quiet, okay? We're hiding."

It hadn't really understood until those last two words, but pretended it did anyways. It nodded twice, before rising back to its feet and completing the interrupted start-up routine with significantly less fanfare.

"Future Suit Zarya, online!", it whispered.

The figurine raised its toy sword to the sky, striking a heroic pose as it announced its return in a small, childlike voice. Any doubts to the nature of the construct in the eyes of everyone else in the room were completely vanished. It moved too naturally, spoke too fluidly, and responded to the outside world much better than any normal magic automaton that churned out of Japanese toy factories on a quarterly basis. By all accounts, it behaved exactly like the character it was based on had decided to walk out of a TV screen.

He gave it a thumbs up, unable to keep the traces of a smile from forming in the corners of his mouth. It was that sort of lighthearted dedication that was all too rare amongst survivors. Were it not for the bad blood he'd inadvertently started with it from the day they first met, Henry could see a world where he'd brought it along with him on his journeys through Hallow London.

Guess I'm making up for lost time, then…

"So, um, I know we got off on the wrong foot before…"

It was a little embarrassing, talking to what at a distance looked like an inanimate object. Like, actually trying to have a conversation with it sort of talking. Already a few of the other watchmen were giving him funny looks for it, between risking glances at the sleeping werewolf outside.

At the same time, he really didn't give two shits about what they thought of it. After realizing it had been calling out Evelyn's name the whole time he'd tried to keep track of it before, Henry was positive that it was both sentient in some way, and connected to her past in some manner.

He was still beating himself up over the fact that he'd gone and buried it in a parking lot pretty much the first chance he'd gotten. Because it had been annoying him. Not even to a tremendous degree, just more than he'd considered to be worth keeping it around for. With such a glowing example of his character as that, it was probably a blessing in disguise that he'd never had a younger brother.

He pressed on.

"...But, there's been some recent happenings that made me realize that I was in the wrong. Completely, totally, fully in the wrong. I'd like to, ah… apologize, because the person who made me realize was-"

"Ev?", the toy robot interjected.

"Yeah, actually… but… but she's-"

"Ev!"

In a blur of motion, the pint-sized plastic figure leapt straight for his throat. Henry's eyes went wide with surprise, and he had only a split second to brace himself for impact.

"Gh-! Hey, let go of me, you little blighter!"

He struggled to get the diminutive figure pried loose from him. The element of surprise was squarely on the side of the toy, this time. The element of actually being harmful in any capacity, on the other hand, was not. It led to an awkward stalemate, both for how long it was taking and how muted the reactions from both sides were.

What did you expect? There was an 'ages 3 and up' sticker on the box these things came in for a reason.

It was like trying to wrestle a bunny rabbit. Honestly, he was more worried about making noise in the struggle than anything else, winning was that assured.

Though, not like that's making this ankle-biter any less ferocious!

He felt the chain around his neck jerk taut, as it yanked around on the pendant in its tantrum. The thin links dug uncomfortably into his skin, as he tried and failed miserably to get a firm grip on it so he could hold it at arm's length.

"Knock it off, will you?!", he hissed through clenched teeth. It didn't. The chain on the pendant snapped loose, and it scurried off deeper into the former smack den with Evelyn's crystal in tow.

What was that about…?

Henry didn't have much time to ponder. From the attic above, the tell-tale sound of a startled vampire shrieked out, followed shortly by theme music from the show the Zarya-04 mecha suit originated from.

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