Chapter Text
Violet once again has a dream about Myrmidia.
“I feel useless.“ Violet complains. “I have no knowledge of magic like Agnes and Valerio, I am a mere soldier not fit for the world of monsters.”
She encourages her: “Violet, you are indeed important, all you have to do is to lead men to victory against the enemies of humanity!”
“But how will I do that?” Violet asks.
Myrmidia pauses.
“Not to worry my little hawk. With my power bestowed on thee, you will be the help this city and world needs for salvation.”
Violet felt a surge of divine power within her. For in response to Violet’s self-doubt, the goddess grants Violet the Miracles of Myrmidia.
“How do I use this power?” Violet asks.
“Simple.” Myrmidia explains. “Believe in yourself and believe in me, and it will come to you as naturally as it does for a hawk to fly. Now go and wake up!”
Violet wakes up and prepares to leave the apartment quietly. Having obtained the divine power, the more aware she was of how it works and who can use it. Thinking back, the closest to what she felt now within her were the rituals that she has seen were that of purification that Agnes performed and that of trickery Yasmin performed. There was also Tenshi, but she was less a type of divinity and more of an emissary that heaven would send. Since none of them, much like Violet, were of this world, it was clear that this power was separate if not outright contradictory to it.
“Hey, Violet!” someone called out to the half-aware Violet.
She turned around and saw Garrett holding her axe.
“Good luck, you’ll need it.” says Garrett, giving her Witchcraft.
“Thank you.” Violet said as she took the axe, and left.
Violet goes to Rider’s house, but to her surprise he is already rearing to go out of what she assumes to be guilt and boredom.
“Why did you choose to go now?” she asks.
“I really needed a good night of sleep and a solid plan.” he says. “And now that I got a good night of sleep and a plan that both Yuki and Munchkin approve, I will save my boss!”
He then reaches out for his bag and says: “And I have a spare uniform for you as well, if you feel up to the task.”
“Of course I do.” Violet says, taking the uniform.
“I think you will need to get my help.” Rita says. “Garrett said that you will need my help when we encounter the Deathmaster again, because he is waiting for us at the final destination.”
“How do you even know that he is there?” Violet asks.
“Trail of blood and three heads on pikes, all high-profile targets.” Munchkin comments via radio. “That is how I got to make key cards and you got the alibis to be there after all.”
“But there is one thing bothering me.” Rita says.
“Worrying you, pray tell?” asks Munchkin.
“‘Fate of the city will lie in the hands of the Chief that topples the great scientist.’ were the last words of a seer that was slain by Snikch the night before.” says Rita. “Allegedly she had some power in prophecy due to being the rival of our seer Valerio, but what’s also possible is that he wanted to convey this message on her behalf.”
Rider remained seemingly undaunted, however, and said: “I am still going, for I have the duty to see this through.”
He was afraid, but he was hopeful that the assassin would not be concerned with his actions and he would manage to avoid him.
The two of them, with Rita following them close behind, went to the infamous prison’s staff entrance.
Rider is stopped by Golgfag himself.
“I warning you, I will eat any problem that comes in.” he warns Rider. “Your identification please.”
“He’s with me!” says Faye, rescuing Rider from further troubles. She then whispers to him: “Now I and Tony are even, remember to tell him that.”
“Of course I will.” Rider says to Faye.
“Who is this?” Nightingale asks Faye. “I don’t remember ever seeing him before.”
“Crap! I don’t think I can get past the adjutant!” Rider thought to himself.
He then says: “Well, you see, I am new here and Langley asked me to come here.”
“Oh, really?” she says. “I’ll be sure to let her know.”
Rider may have bought himself time, but he had to hurry before he would get himself in far greater trouble.
Violet meanwhile gets beeped on despite putting the gun and axe for inspection, and a Maneater ogre that inspected her finds that she merely had metallic arms, letting her go, but keeping the axe at the entrance.
Before Nightingale could question Violet, Rider distracts her by inquiring: “What do you think about of Golgy here and ogres in general? I was told they are quite fascinating creatures.”
Nightingale remains silent for a moment and then proceeds to give a reply: “Well, I must admit that they are quite good at what they do and that Faye was right to hire them. Whatever force created them it is clear tha-”
Rita just walks in, and Nightingale stops, who promptly forgets about Rider and Violet and instead focuses on her.
“You have a lot of nerve showing up here.” she tells Rita. “State your business, or I will be required to make you leave.”
“But you need all the help you can get, no?” Rita replies, knowing full well that she had no means to make Rita leave by force, and that she had far greater enemies to worry about.
Nightingale has to grit her teeth and accept Rita’s help, who is very pleased in return.
She reveals the theatrics were done to get Violet’s axe past security.
“Thanks.” Violet says and gets her axe back.
Violet’s presence unnerves Sinners, all of them fearing her by instinct. For everyone else, staff and more mundane inmates alike, she is either normal or outright pleasant.
Rider, looking around for his boss, to his surprise, finds that the prison looks remarkably tame.
“Artyom!” the soldier said to Rider on patrol.
“Wait a minute, there is only one person who could ever call me by that name!” Rider thought to himself.
“Dornan!” Rider yelled in pure joy and ran up to the soldier, hugging him.
“Let go of me you fool!” Dornan complained.
Rider lets go of him. “Sorry, I just had no idea if you were alive or not.”
“Moron, do that again and I will be the one who will kill you!” Dornan replied, trying to contain his anger.
“Of course.” Rider says, backing off.
“And stay out!” Dornan yells at him.
Dornan grumbles as Rider walks away. He finds Rita is with someone.
“Rita Rossweisse, pleasure to meet you.” says Rita to the pink-haired woman with glasses.
“Summer.” she says her name. “I hear that your battlesuit is a remarkable work of engineering, may I take a closer look?”
“Sure.” Rita replies.
Rita calmly lets her examine her from all angles.
“I am jealous of people like her.” Munchkin admits.
“I’m not.” Rita flexes. “Being an S-rank Valkyrie is far better than an S-rank Sinner.”
“Well, it is true that you are more powerful.” Munchkin comments. “And you do seem like a good agent, but we should avoid overstaying our welcome.”
Summer meanwhile looked dumbfounded.
“I’ll ignore that, thanks for letting me examine your battlesuit.” she said and left.
Rita hands Rider a keycard. She then tells him: “Take it, your boss is waiting for you.”
Meanwhile Nightingale, being extremely angry with Rita’s presence, serves scolding hot coffee to Chief.
“It is hotter than I wanted it to be.” Nightingale says as she hands over a cup of coffee to Chief.
“Thank you.” Chief replies.
“You, however, are very h-”
Chief screamed as she accidentally spilled coffee on her lap, underestimating how scolding hot it was.
“Oh no!” Nightingale screamed and rushed to treat her lap for burns.
Rita barges in. “I heard someone screaming in pai-”
She stops as Nightingale tries to stand up, hitting the back of her head on the desk in the process.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” Rita says apologetically.
“Get out!” Nightingale yells at her in rage and throws scolding hot coffee at Rita as she leaves.
Rita effortlessly catches it.
She then takes a sip as if nothing happened.
“Apologies, I am the one who usually serves coffee.” says Labyrinth as she passes by Rita. “Nightingale was insistent that she was the one who would serve it this time.”
“No, I am the one who should be sorry.” Rita says. “I should not pry in an affair where I am unwelcome by any of the parties.”
“Nicely done.” a voice behind Rita says.
Rita turns around, she sees a couple of young women, one of which had blue hair while the other’s was red.
“That’s Kelvin and Ignis.” Labyrinth comments. “They told me that they wanted to meet with you.”
“She wants to hang out with you, if you are fine with that.” Ignis says.
“I don’t see why not.” Rita replies.
Kelvin and Ignis hang out with Rita, making small talk about their days.
“Hello there, I wanted t-” says Cabernet as Rita punches her on sight, which only further endears her in Kelvin’s eyes.
Cabernet fell onto the floor, and Ignis gave Rita an angry look for making such a rash attack.
“I just wanted to invite you to a cooking competition.” she says, trying to keep her nose from bleeding.
“Oh, sorry about it then.” Rita says, being genuinely embarrassed… a bit.
Rita joined in with the duo to cook in a short competition with Golgfag as the head judge. It was his time for a second breakfast after all. Cabernet and “some random sergeant” were picked as assistant judges, both of whom did their best to get the best chefs on short notice.
Rita’s food receives unanimous praise, greatly satisfying Golgy and his fellow ogres.
Ignis was impressed by how well the ogres could handle her spicy food. When she approached one of them, she asked: “You look like you can handle spicy food pretty well, what is the spiciest you’ve ever eaten?”
“Lava.” the ogre replied.
“He’s a Firebelly, don’t worry about him.” Golgfag tells Ignis.
Golgfag was content with Kelvin’s food save for it being too cold for his liking, Cabernet was nice to her cooking, but the sergeant called Kelvin’s food “raw!” and left the room in anger.
Kelvin cries a bit, with Rita consoling her, further endearing her in her eyes.
Meanwhile, before going in to rescue his boss, Rider gets a brilliant idea of playing poker against Iron and some of the staff members. He was there for more than petty winnings, however, he was there to smooth his way into getting information.
“Nice playing you Art, but I have to go.” one of the staff members who lost all his chips says.
To Rider’s internal dread, Zoya replaced one of the staff members at the table.
He tried playing as if nothing ever happened to blend in. To his surprise, Zoya seemed to be more sad than angry.
“So, Zoya, why so down?” he asks
Zoya tells about the feeling of powerlessness when fighting many foes lately, Rider even snoozed off during her speech of all the foes she faced until it came to her yelling: “I am going to kill that son of a bitch when he starts yelling ‘ITS HAMMER TIME!’ at me again.”
Iron tries to calm her down: “Zoya, you should relax, it was just a si-”
“I still am going to rip out the threat of whoever put that guy merely labelling as Harry the Hammer.” Zoya says.
“Valerio did it.” Eureka says, barging into the conversation. “Well, technically I and Sam were the ones who did it, he merely provided us with the statistics of all the foes he faced.”
“I see.” Zoya replies, still seething, and returns to poker.
“How did you even survive against Krell?” Rider asks, trying to make small talk.
“How do you know that name?” Iron asks.
“Reputable sources of someone who had his village terrorized by his master a century in the past.” Rider replies.
“I see, in that case I shall tell you.” Iron says. “I had done many surgeries in the past, including magical obsidian shards that aim themselves into the heart. Plus, as you know, Demon and Zoya are tough nuts to crack.”
“If the wounds were cumulating continuously via magical means, how did you even get rid of these obsidian shards?” Rider asks.
“Salva medicine, son.” Doctor Iron says with cheers from Anne in the background. “It beats even the hardest of medical traumas.”
“You don’t have any shortcomings, do you?” he asks.
“Well, you do see, short on budget… and that both me and Anne are often elsewhere.” Iron admits.
“That is true.” one of the staff comments.
“I know someone who can help you if you help him.” Rider proposes.“Can you cover for me?”
He then whispers his idea into Doc's ear.
She pauses. “Oh, him. Very well, I will cover for you so long as he holds his end of the bargain for as long as he lives.”
“Excellent, follow me.” Rider says.
Iron makes sure to guard the gate as Rider escorts Tony out of his cell using the jail key.
“Thanks for getting me out, Rider.” he says. “Now we are going to leave quie-”
Rider stomps on Tony’s foot, for he has to make the deal go through.
Tony continues, noticing Iron looking at him. “Hello, Doctor. I was just getting ready to lea-”
Rider then stops on Tony’s foot again.
Tony almost continued, but he got stomped before any words could exit his mouth.
“Sorry, reflexes!” Rider says to his unamused boss.
After the third stomp, Tony had enough.
“Excuse us for a moment.” Tony says as he takes his unusually hyper-assertive subordinate to a private-ish corner, and they then talk about what they plan to do.
When they turned around, Rider accidentally bumps into his old pal Dornan again.
Thinking quickly he gave Tony a simple command: "Apologize to the Doctor, now!”
Tony obeyed his subordinate, at least in order to retreat.
“What do you know, after some disastrous cooking I finally found our good friend Arty.” Dornan says. “And, to my surprise, he was stationed here by Langley directly!”
“Yeah, and where even is sh-” Rider says as he notices that he was touching Langley’s chest.
“Crap.” he said his thoughts out loud.
“I am impressed by your audacity.” she says. “But all that audacity does is make me respect you enough to give you enough to give you a chance to say your prayers. Goodbye.”
Before she could shoot, however, an alarm broke out.
Rider stood still in confusion as to why everything is more red and why he is still alive.
“What in the devil is that noise!?” Dornan yells out.
“It wasn’t me this time!” Chameleon replies, but it was less to do with Dornan and more of the judgemental looks everyone else were giving in her direction.
“You fool, there is a mutant giant rat with three arms right behind you!” Dornan yelled to Langley.
“Oh, come on! There is no such thing as a three armed giant mutant ra- oh.” Langley said as she turned around.
Rider took the chance and ran for his life, but he was far more afraid of Langley if she ever remembers that he exists.
Throt stood before her, and he was hungry.