Johannes Volkner bid farewell to days of peace. It was going to be his last day before entering the distorted, artificial timeline that the Director had so eloquently described in her briefing. And yet, he wasn't ready. By all means, he was nowhere near ready. The reality that he had five hours to prepare himself for life or death combat against Spirits finally set in, and he found himself haggard, working up a nervous sweat as he and Jill walked down the hallways to the mess hall. Naturally, the foods that could be rationed in space were somewhat limited, though less than one might initially assume. With the work of Heliopolis's alchemists, it was possible to perform basic agriculture even on the moon, leading to a pleasant surprise. Rather than a list containing entirely dehydrated high nutrient packs, there was a surprisingly normal list of foods stocked in the kitchen, albeit one very low in meats and other animal products due to the inability to raise livestock in their current locale.

  To her credit, Jill seemed to be holding mentally sound, not just from the incident earlier but also in the face of modern foods and kitchenware. It was unlikely she'd ever seen anything like this in her lifetime, but she resolutely sat herself down with a surprisingly large portion of stew and garlic bread. Grimacing, Johannes grabbed some bread as well, if only to have something to fill his stomach despite the lack of appetite his current mood presented. "Jill, can you tell me anything about what happened earlier?"

  She simply looked up, an oversized bite still firmly in her mouth, taking several seconds before swallowing it. "What, at the briefing? I think I can explain what the Director was saying, yeah!" With a cheerful chirp in her voice, she seemed wholly unaware that anything had been amiss at all. "Nevermind, there was something a little off, but I don't think it's that important." She raised an eyebrow quizzically at him, but didn't further the conversation topic, wholly content to continue stuffing her face instead. It was like the girl had never seen bread before. He didn't realize it, but his jaw had dropped slightly in awe of how quickly she was continuing to consume.

  Soon enough, the two had finished their meal entirely, insofar as it could even be called a meal on his end. There were still several hours left before official deployment, and that somehow made it all the worse. Once more, Johannes found himself in his room, checking his gear over a second and third time to ensure that it was absolutely ready. He wasn't just purposelessly drifting anymore, he was playing with his life and patently aware of that fact. In this time, he had noticed something different about Jill. At some point or another, he was made all too aware of a small, old style oil lantern hanging at her hip, dangling and looking far too small for what it was. He understood, at least in some measure, what he was looking at. An Artifact, one of the two forms of 'trump cards' that Spirits often had access to. Many Spirits had bound themselves or their deeds with important objects, magical or otherwise, which their metaphysical imprint laid into and made a part of them.

  While he had no idea what special abilities, if anything, that little lantern might be capable of, there was one factor that each and every Artifact had in common; their construction made it easy to store a much larger amount of magical energy within them than should be possible for an ordinary object of the same type and size. After getting Jill's permission to take her 'lucky late night lantern' from her for a bit, Johannes focused himself and his nervous energy on that, pouring magical energy into the lamp until there were a scant few minutes remaining before the departure. The two left, and made their way to the departure room, the only room of Heliopolis which was officially under the moon's surface. It was heavily warded, and totally sealed except for in the short times when it would be needed, with a solid wall of what seemed to be sleek basalt stone covered in ornate carvings acting as the 'door' to provide entrance.

  Each of the other Caller candidates scheduled for the first deployment was already present, and Johannes realized that he could not trust Director Solar. They had limited magical energy reserves, yet wasn't this far too few people? The man in the pristine suit, who he'd thought had called two Spirits wasn't present, yet the two he had believed to be that man's Spirits were both here. Outside of their presence, there was the bomb-suit man and his Spirit, who Johannes had tactically positioned Jill far away from, Wilhelm, the always-displeased girl who had covered her head in the briefing, and the red haired youth, as well as their Spirits. Neither Daedalus, Thoth, nor the Director herself had even come anywhere near the deployment room, and they only had five out of the fifty-four Caller candidates who had not been made part of the supposed 'A Team'.

  Were they really that strapped for resources, then? Was he just being entirely and completely paranoid? It didn't help that they could see and hear everything he discussed as a result of the various implantations. Heliopolis's higher ups had full transparency from him, but he had almost no transparency from them. Looking around, he could see that Wilhelm was similarly nervous, tapping his foot in an odd rhythm, while the bomb squad man simply had his arms crossed. The two Spirits who had arrived seemingly with no Caller were chatting about 'getting to leave home', which immediately struck him as bizarre, but he didn't have a chance to ask about it.

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  The red haired man, more of a boy, broke the silence, adjusting the sword at his belt. "Uh, good to meet you all, I'm Pádraig. This whole thing sounds like the start to some movie or video game. Maybe I shouldn't be, but I can't deny that I'm really excited." Johannes wasn't particularly sure how to respond to that. Was Pádraig coping, or was he genuinely unaware of just how serious the situation they were about to step into was? Perhaps Johannes himself was the only one who felt that way. With a slightly nervous chuckle, he found himself responding, if only to attempt to calm himself down just a bit.

  "Johannes Volkner. It's good to meet you too, Pádraig. I hope that we'll get along well, and be long time friends." His smile was forced as he spoke, but the sentiment was real. It was good to have a bit of enthusiasm, especially in his current state, and if they were long time friends, that at the very least ensured that they had both made it out of this distorted timeline alive. Besides, Pádraig didn't seem to be a bad sort, and he could be a good influence on Jessica after everything was said and done.

  The Director's voice came over the intercom system again. "Departure in thirty seconds, stand ready for possible combat on entry." With that warning, his eyes widened as he drew Bellende Hunde. Would they really be thrust directly into the field of battle from the very first moment? Several symbols, some Johannes recognized as runes and others from entirely different cultures and magical foundations, began to light up along the basalt wall-slate. Rather than cracking apart, or sliding open, or any such effect that one might expect, the door retreated into the walls as if it were a shadow with light being suddenly cast upon it. Rather than a room beyond the threshold of the wall, what was left behind it was a shimmering orange and yellow quilt of energy, as if it was an eternal and roiling flame.

  Padraig was the first one to push through, practically charging through as the Spirit he had called, the tall samurai who had remained silent this whole time, rushed in behind him, ducking into the door. With his movements isolated compared to everyone else, Johannes was able to tell that he was of the Chokmah classification, the class known for wisdom and intelligent combative skill. Next to step in was Wilhelm, with a slightly somber smile, as if he had accepted an unpleasant gift. "Yoshinaka, we'll be fine, right?"

  Johannes couldn't help but feel his lip twitch as the samurai simply waved a hand. He didn't know the specifics, but Yoshinaka was a name he'd seen come up in relation to Yoshitsune at one point, when he was looking into various myths from around the globe to determine possible Spirits and raise his awareness. Not only was he most likely a warrior by trade, but Wilhelm seemed to be fully aware of his Spirit's strengths and weaknesses, which was far more than Johannes could say about himself and Jill.

  While he was busy ruminating, the samurai had already stepped in with Wilhelm, and the woman with the prosthetic as well as the apologetic man stepped in. The woman with the scarf whispered something just barely audible, and the knight nodded, beginning to head towards the portal. With the briefest of mental math, Johannes realized that at this rate, he and Jill would be left alone with the bomb suit man and the bombshell. He grabbed her hand, and before she could say anything, recklessly lunged for the portal. If she had wanted to stop him, she could've easily done so, or even thrown him over one shoulder and broken something, but she either trusted him to take her away, or was too surprised at the sudden action to realize and do anything about it.

  Yet... The world on the other side made him wish that he'd kept back with her. There was no falling sensation, or even as if he had stepped into a doorway. The second his body contacted the energy, he simply was elsewhere. The first thing to hit him was the noise. So many awful sounds that all layered on top of each other, to the point that he couldn't tell one from the next or up from down. Screams, flames, crashing, everything. The second thing to hit was a combination of the heat and the acrid smell. It was as if he had stumbled on a crematorium while it was still active, sweltering and burning with a combination of ash and death.

  Tears came to his eyes immediately as he nearly fell to the ground, caught entirely off guard. He had appeared in a small village, seemingly built as a colonial staging ground by the Spanish rather than being anything built by the native people. And that very village was set aflame, corpses littering the streets and smoke clouding his vision. He nearly retched from the overwhelming assault to all of his senses at once, when in the corner of his eye, he saw her. Jill was here, and she had already drawn both of her knives, lunging at a woman in thick, black armor, as if made from wrought iron with little knowledge of how to forge it. He could immediately tell that she was a Spirit of the Gevurah classification, much like Jill was. In her hands was a long sword made of similar metal, and her dark, red-brown hair was adorned with a crown of twisted spikes. In that moment, she looked like a religious, awe inspiring figure, but Johannes could not tell if it was a saint or a devil.

  Flame spat from her sword as it slashed through the air, and Jill seemingly disappeared from view as it did so. By the time his eyes caught view of her again, she was under the woman, rising up to stab at her as the situation set in. He needed to support her. He needed to help. Jill was more of a fighter than she appeared, but this enemy Spirit was clearly a warrior, and a single blow could be fatal. Not only that, but Flash of Inspiration was practically screaming at him, urging him to move and take action along its guided paths.