Bane of All Unreason

Being a Faerie prince isn’t exactly as good as it sounds. For one, there’s far too much responsibility. Even when the monarchy is technically only a figurehead, you just have far too much on your plate. Today, Owain au Airgetlam’s original concern had been whether to allow Anderson Robotics to expand into the New Avalon market. It wasn’t likely to create any jobs, due to the automation of the company, but those Saker robots might still help bring the small country—which still kept plenty of paper records, and was right up there with the Japanese market in keeping the Walkman alive—into the modern era.

It was a concern that was quickly replaced when his bodyguard’s head exploded in the middle of a sentence.

It happened after the group of three men stepped out of a Way and into Seattle, Washington and walked down the empty street in broad daylight. A crack came from a rooftop a block away, and Owain and the bodyguard himself had just enough time to see the concentric circles of magic slow the bullet. It twisted in the air, sparks of gold dancing madly, before it pierced the ward and popped the guard’s head like a balloon full of chili.

The second guard reacted quicker than humanly possible, but so did the shooter. Only half his head stained Owain’s night black spidersilk suit.

Even when the royals don’t have de jure power, people still want to kill them. He’d been trained for this all his life. As a reflex when the first bullet was tearing through his luckless guard’s forehead, he pulled together strings of magic with his fingertips and spun a stronger ward that could withstand a stronger hit. Even with the speed of the sidhe he felt ponderous, ducking back into the alleyway while the second guard fell.

It wasn’t until he’d actually gotten out of the line of fire and crouched behind a dumpster that everything registered. He nearly pissed himself.

“Get it together, Owain,” he said to himself, the words coming out with an echo as the confines of his barrier changed the acoustics. “You’ve trained. Just get back to the Way.”

Easier said than done. He poked his head out from cover only to see two figures coming down the alley dressed in padded black armor and masks. When they spotted him, they silently pulled black leather wrapped tubes from their belts and flicked them. Flechettes of metal tumbled out and came together into the rough shape of single edge swords held together by crackles of electricity.

Down the other end of the alley, where he’d need to go, he could see two more figures mirroring the first pair. No escape. Could he fight his way out? He’d had the training, with his mentors even going so far as to stage attacks. One glance at the bodyguards and it was pretty clear this wasn’t one of those. Another glance back the way he’d come.

Maybe there was an escape. He rushed forward, gathering up aetheric energy, pulling it into himself. The attackers didn’t seem to expect that, and one of them raised their weapon defensively, while the other started running forward to meet him. He wasn’t going to fight them, not here. Instead he took a sharp turn, giving a wide sweep of his arm and letting out a word of power.

A door, half hidden by refuse and graffiti, swung inward, and Owain ran through it before it could slam shut again. He’d busted the lock, so it swung limply. With half a thought he turned, nearly tumbling over debris, and made another quick hand gesture, holding the door in place only slightly ajar. It wouldn’t stop anyone, but it would slow them down and give him time to hide. He could deal with one, maybe two attackers. If he could get a weapon, at least.

Well bred sidhe noble that he was, the darkness was visible to him, though everything was colorless shapes. If his attackers weren’t human either, it wouldn’t provide much cover, but some was better than nothing. Or if they had more than just those fancy swords.

“How the fuck did I piss off cyber ninjas…” he muttered to himself through panted breaths.

Best thing for it was to stay low. Get behind something. The floor was covered in crap, what looked like empty shoe boxes. He was in a back room of some kind.

While Owain took stock of the terrain, his pursuers slammed on the door, trying to shove it open. It didn’t budge, but he still jumped. There was another door, and he hurried through it, ending up in a ruined department store of some kind with boarded up windows. It had already been stripped of anything useful, but there were still display counters where jewelry or perfumes used to be, and empty clothing racks, some of which were overturned. Better than that were the shelves. Plenty of places to hide.

A commotion came from the back room and the door was finally dealt with. It had been a quick spell, nothing to really reinforce the door, just hold it in place. And from the sound of it, the ninjas had simply cut it to pieces. Owain could hear them stalking through the store, boots crunching on glass and the trash of squatters. He could see them through the shelves, spreading out to look for him. One of them made a beeline towards the entrance, where light peeked through the cracks in the boards and stood near the door.

Owain groped around on the tile until he found something heavy enough. An empty beer bottle. It’d make for a terrible weapon, but a great distraction. Unfortunately if he wanted to move around stealthily, he’d have to drop the extra strength warding spell. He couldn’t chance the distraction and loss of sound that accompanied it, and it might throw off his aim. He held his breath as the spell dissipated with a sigh. It was barely audible, but given the situation it could have been a fart in an elevator. Thankfully none of the figures carefully combing through the aisles noticed it.

Making sure none of them was looking in his direction, Owain let the bottle fly, chucking it to the other side of the space, away from an unmoving escalator. That was the goal. The bottle tumbled through the air better than expected, and landed right through a glass display case still mostly in one piece. The shattering glass echoed through the space, and suddenly all four heads turned that direction.

They weren’t such amateurs that they all instantly swarmed that area, but they still cautiously advanced. Meanwhile Owain scrambled across the room until he made it to the escalator, avoiding as much of the garbage on the floor as possible. It was easier when he got close to his target, away from any of the busted glass and strewn coathangers. By that time they already realized they’d been duped, and were back on the hunt.

One of them even got to the escalator before Owain could. He started moving up, hoping to get a better vantage point. Owain swore in Modern Celtic and ducked back behind a counter as the ninja nearly spotted him. He waited for his stalker to make it to the next floor before creeping up after them. Crawling up a broken escalator was not really a pleasant thing, but he took comfort knowing the tall sides would keep the others from seeing him.

At the next floor, the ninja slashed through a cardboard display stand with their sword and kicked away the pieces, which were slightly singed from electricity. Owain took a little pride in frustrating these bastards. He also couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of that weapon, and crept up on the ninja hoping to catch them off guard.

Taking out someone without being spotted is an art all on its own. First you have to make sure they don’t hear your footsteps. Having to match the pace of a walking opponent is especially tough. Owain almost managed it, but the scrap of glass on the tile underfoot gave him away. The ninja turned as Owain lunged, but he was too close for a good hit with the sword. He’d hoped to just get them in chokehold, but that time had passed, and now it came to blows.

Owain got a grab, but the ninja shook him off, and tried to shove him back into sword range. He grabbed again, swore, and the ninja dropped the sword, opting instead to punch him in the face. With a hook of the leg, Owain took the ninja’s balance away and they fell backwards into a shelf. Another punch to the face put stars in Owain’s eyes, but he didn’t let up, and headbutt the ninja in the chin. That provided enough of a distraction that he could grab their other arm and twist. He probably could have gotten them in a grapple if the shelf hadn’t fallen over from their struggle.

The ninja wasn’t playing fair, and Owain was kneed in the crotch. More stars. Suddenly he wasn’t on top anymore, and he had a forearm against his throat, his head on the ground and his ass against the shelf, and was being punched repeatedly in the face. New constellations were forming. He groped around for something to help him and tried to spit in his opponent’s face but nearly choked on a wad of blood instead. He found something on the ground, and wrapped his fingers around it, then slammed it into the ninja’s face.

It was the handle of the sword, the blade retracted again. It was a leather wrapped bar about a foot long and thick as two thumbs. The business end had a short, square tsuba with sharp edges. That was enough to bloody the ninja’s eye, and get them to stop beating Owain’s face. The distraction was enough to get his knee up under the attacker and shove them off. Which also ended up with Owain himself going ass over end as they fell all the way off the shelf.

A foot long stick was more than enough, and Owain scrambled behind the ninja, wrapping it around his throat. The whole situation had been seconds, but the others would have heard that. The ninja in his arms struggled, but even if he wasn’t human that had been a tense exchange, and they’d already have to be out of breath. They grabbed at Owain and tried to pull away the sword, but it wasn’t long before they passed out.

Once they stopped struggling, Owain cracked them on the head with the pommel for good measure. That was super bad for you, but so was asphyxiation, and Owain couldn’t bring himself to care. He quickly hurried away, looking over the handle in his hand in the half-light of his vision. Just as he’d expected the other ninjas were quick up the stairs. Only two of them, though. The last one must have stuck near the entrance in case it was another distraction.

They checked their comrade with a quick once over, but didn’t seem too concerned. That they didn’t have the sword on their body was more pressing. The snippets Owain heard from their conversation sounded like Modern Celtic. What were faerie cyber ninjas doing trying to come after him? Were they separatists? Dissenters? Was there some opposing line of the royal family he hadn’t been told about? Was Anderson setting him up? That was a matter for the family spies to work out later.

The handle of the sword was better than nothing, but unless he could figure out how to turn it on it might as well be a handful of junk on the floor. It looked like it had a few switches, but everything was either unlabeled or impossible to read in the dim light, and he couldn’t chance playing around and making noise or light. He’d just have to hope he could turn it on if it came to that.

His two stalkers began to spread out, their own swords illuminating the cavernous room with irregular, flickering light. It was far too big to cover, which gave Owain the chance to slip between them while they swept to the edges of the room. There was one broken window leading out to the alleyway where the Way was, and if he could just get there he’d be able to get back home.

It was so close, but it was right in the open, with a clear line of sight from just about everywhere in the room. He could stay low, but he was going to have to chance being spotted. Unfortunately there was just a bit too much to keep track of, and he heard the crunch of glass beneath his Italian loafers. He winced, looking around, hoping it wasn’t too loud.

One of the ninjas yelled out, and the time for sneaking passed. Owain got up from his crouch, and rushed the window, which still had shards of glass hanging in it. He grasped the sword handle in his teeth and started making gestures with his hands, then threw up his arms, tucked his head in, and took the window shoulder first. The spell that came together was intended to help him survive the fall and walk away without limping, but it also helped when he cleared the six foot gap halfway down and slammed into the brick wall of the opposite building.

Taking a running jump probably wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he would be limping afterwards, as he bounced off the wall and onto the closed lid of a dumpster, tumbling down to the asphalt. At least he landed rightside up this time. His attackers were a lot better prepared, sliding down the opposite wall like expert traceurs, swords out.

Picking himself off the ground and maladroitly stumbling away, Owain fumbled with the sword’s buttons, flicking it and banging on the pommel. One of them worked, and the blade assembled itself just in time to block a blow. Two against one might just be manageable.

He kept his arm steady, the sword absorbing far more shock than anything Owain had ever used. He was definitely going to keep this thing. Next came a thrust, which he turned away, using the momentum to move and get beside the ninja. He made a testing swipe, but it was easily blocked.

The two of them came at him at once, and he had to dodge one blow and parry the other, nearly causing one ninja to swing into the other. There was no room to move here in this tiny alleyway, and corridor fighting was something he’d probably been taught at one point in time and never bothered to remember. 

With the garbage piled up in the alleyway it gave him much more leverage than he might otherwise have. The two couldn’t get beside each other without getting in each other’s way. Owain pressed the attack, pushing the ninja in front back into the other one. They were too professional for it to be too big a hindrance, but it still gave Owain the feeling that he could deal with them. One on one was much better than two on one. 

Owain pressed with another thrust of his blade, which the ninja parried. He’d been expecting that, and pressed back with his own blade, along with his shoulder, shoving him into his compatriot again, who had to step back to avoid taking a tumble. While the one in front was offbalanced, Owain rammed the pommel into his masked face, eliciting a muffled and wet cry of pain.

“As ucht Lugh!” the second man spat in frustration, taking three long steps back, then breaking into a run, kicking off the wall, kicking off the second wall, and leaping over Owain. Now in addition to an uneven fight, he was trapped.

Without enough room to maneuver, Owain took the sword in one hand, making dramatic gestures with the other. Barely managing to get out of the way of one thrust, he swept his blade up just in time so that only his tie came away missing the bottom half, the new hem smoking and red. He finished his hand gesture just in time for another blow, which this time was slowed as it came towards him, buffered away by the air.

It still hurt, with the blade digging into his skin and sawing at him. The blade was rapidly vibrating in addition to coursing with electricity, but a blow that should have spilled his guts along the piss stained asphalt was halted enough that it only hurt. Pain was one of the things he was taught to deal with. So he’d just deal with it, and hope ignoring it was good enough. There was no way he’d avoid every strike.

So he pressed on, hoping he could keep his poise. He still couldn’t let his guard down, it still hurt like hell to get cut, still sent a jolt that tensed his muscles any time one of those blades touched him, he couldn’t do anything about that at the moment. But it did give him room to fuck up.

Room to fuck up is all you need when you’ve been trained by some of the best money can buy. Owain was able to press forward, and was even able to chance closing the distance, body checking one of the assassins against the dumpster. Something definitely cracked, and the man let out a wet wheeze before falling to the ground. All it cost Owain was a sharp jab in the back, though his ward blocked it enough that he was able to turn away before being skewered. The 

[OWAIN FIGHTS OFF THE TWO NINJAS, ONLY TO BE HIT FROM BEHIND]

[FADE TO BLACK]

For the second time this week, a black bag was pulled off my head, this time by the Janitors. Thankfully, I was a little more comfortable pissing them off.

I was sitting in an interview room with a balding man in a labcoat standing next to the steel table I was cuffed to. He was reading from a folder that was probably filled with embarrassing things about me, but I tried not to let that get to me.

“Hello, prince Nuada,” the doctor said. Nametag looked like Francis. I think he was trying to be intimidating, but the man with the P90 and blue helmet did a better job of that just standing there as unthreatening as its possible to be while wearing tac gear and holding a gun.

“It’s Creiddylad now, thanks, and I abdicated.”

Franky looked down at my chest in a cold clinical way that made me scrunch up in spite of myself. Jeez, doctors are always so creepy.

“Yes, I noticed you’d changed your face, and other things. But not your fingerprints. And you are prince Nuada, aren’t you? Prodigal son--daughter--of Gwyn ap Gwyn?”

“Oh come on, I’m like one of thirty, and its not like he’s the king of New Avalon or anything, there’s like ten or twelve of those.”

“Well, you did flunk out of Deer College,” Franky said, flipping through pages in the folder. “Must have had something to do with your inability to count. Still, what’s an actual faerie princess doing trying to break into our facility?”

“Sidhe”

“Huh?”

I sighed, “Sidhe princess. Abdicated sidhe princess.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, for one I have a name, so there’s that. Otherwise I’d have taken your face when you called me Nuada twice.”

Francis paused for a moment, then flipped through the papers some more.

“You have quite a record, you know. Both in the anomalous and mundane side of things. This dossier is from the UIU, in fact. Protests, suspected of sabotaging Marshal, Carter, and Dark warehouses. Says you were even in a sidhe gang for a few years.”

“We had a falling out,” I said with a wince. Like I said, a folder of embarrassing stuff. “Turns out I wasn’t a fascist and they were.”

“No, you’re anything but, Creiddylad.” To Frank’s credit, he seemed impressed by that. Or maybe just respectful of it. “Still, going back to names, I’ll be sure to add your new one to the list, but there’s another one here I’m sure you’re familiar with.”

“Back in college they called me a dastardly beauty. That on the list?”

“No, but Tywyllblaidd is. The UIU claims you’re the one known as ‘The Shadow Wolf’. Any truth to that?”

“