Loki ducked underneath a short jab from Chadwick as he smiled softly while continuing their banter as they walked towards the Missile Combat Crew Commander's (MCCC's) office.
"Are you being serious?" Chadwick asked with surprise as he watched Loki dodge his punch effortlessly.
"Yeah, pretty much. We have a strict training regiment to enhance our reaction speeds. I should be the fastest among us. But Belmont probably isn't very behind."
"Really?"
"...eh." Loki said, making a so-so gesture with his hands.
"Hmm…and what about that other guy, Sergeant Ronald Weasley… if that's even his real name and designation…"
"He's a newbie. But he's probably still better than you in a lot of things…"
Loki was about to speak more but he paused as his eyes turned to look down from Chadwick to the other end of the corridor they were walking in.
"Someone's looking..." Chadwick kindly mentioned as his grip on the rifle tightened. Nothing too drastic, but after hearing Loki's plan about being the bait and just the general situation of the Launch Facility currently, he couldn't leave himself unguarded.
As such, even though talking to Loki seemed to have calmed him down before, the eerie darkness that had dimmed the corridor's end as it curved around a bend caused him to feel, slightly, nervous.
"Heh. You're up Sarg." Loki said calmly, continuing walking as if whatever was about to step out of the darkness was just another person.
Chadwick's eyes lingered on Loki's back for a second, noticing that Loki had noticed something too, the obvious signal that something was wrong about the situation, but Chadwick also noticed how nonchalant Loki was about it all and stepped forward himself as they continued walking down the corridor in silence.
Their footsteps echoed in the mostly empty corridor, since everything this deep was now heavily guarded not by regular patrols but by the strictest of checkpoints.
Even so, Chadwick could swear he could hear the sounds of heavy breathing sounding out from right behind the bend.
His eyes narrowed, as his pupils shrank with each step towards the bend. Not because of fear, but because the sound of heavy breathing only grew harsher and harsher.
The darkness visibly fluctuated, causing Chadwick to look at the lights for a second before snapping them back towards the bend as the heavy breathing grew deeper and deeper.
His footsteps weighed carefully, each strike of the heel of his boots growing softer and lighter as they walked deeper, more measured and calculated as he prepared himself for any action.
His eyes constantly flicked between the darkness in the bend and the lights while his mind started to sharpen its focus like the edge of a knife.
And finally when his pupils were reduced to the size of pin pricks, they stepped across with Loki leading the turn.
"Free-" Chadwick raised his rifle shouting for the people on the other end to stop whatever they were doing and raise their hands up but his words got caught in his throat.
"Huh?" Came the voice of one of the confused guards standing silently while holding his own rifle, bewildered that their boss was holding them up.
He nearly switched off the safety but managed to hold back at the last second when he recognised Chadwick.
The other guard seemed equally confused too, but his focus was on Loki instead, his eyes sharp as he pushed away the surprise of being held up by his Chief. While turning to Chadwick, he tightened his grip on his gun as he spoke up.
"Sarg?"
Chadwick's partially raised rifle dropped slowly as he looked at Loki with confusion. While Loki appeared completely oblivious to the entire situation and simply shrugged at him, as if to say, 'Get on with it will you? We need to move ahead.'
Chadwick suppressed the growing confusion of his own senses that had warned him quite severely just a few seconds prior as he spoke to officers he knew in passing.
"We need to meet the Commanding Officer of the wing. Everything has already been cleared from up above."
The officer raised his eyebrows, looking at his buddy before turning to look at Chadwick and then at Loki.
"Can I see your ID and authorization orders?"
Chadwick nodded, pulling out a bundle of papers from his kangaroo pouch as he handed them to his officers.
Loki in the meantime caught his breath a little.
'Phew…'
'It's getting a little hard to keep splitting worms and making so many marionettes.'
'I almost wasn't able to turn them in time.'
'But still…this seems like a waste, these guys are merely Rose Bishops.'
'I can't keep separating worms just to control them…'
'Can I do something better?'
Loki thought for a bit and when an idea struck him, his eyes softened.
'Ha! Such a nice idea!'
'Perhaps I should've done this all along.'
With their papers certified, Loki and Chadwick continued deeper into the Launch Facility with no one realising that the facility was slowly being converted.
The believers of one cult being stolen. And their mad god slowly turned madder.
They passed each checkpoint with similar efficiency.
Loki continued to enact his newly modified plan while Chadwick kept having his nerves played with.
Each time they neared a strategic checkpoint he always felt tense. And although none of the newer checkpoints had visibly twitching shadows he could still feel the same sense of danger tingle as he neared them before it vanished like a puff of smoke as soon as they finally reached the checkpoint.
…
"HU-h!?" Hermione nearly shouted out loud and only managed to calm down in the end since Tonks grabbed her hand while looking at the other officers around them warily.
"They're clean." Belmont nodded looking at Tonks who gave him a questioning look, "Firstly, I don't sense any of them having too much 'vitality' and secondly we were attacked by one earlier."
Tonks' eyes widened as she looked at Belmont speaking about it all so casually in front of the muggles. But he just shrugged and said something silly that didn't make sense to Tonks at all.
"We were exposed from our undercover mission so we had to explain a few things to them, like the fact that we're from the Headquarters and are professional Hypnotists who can read people and hypnotise them a 'little' to do our work. We have thirty more to take care of."
"..." Tonks' mouth hung loose immediately.
Hermione stepped in at that point, having gotten over her initial surprise and trying to bottle up the one she'd just received.
"Firstly, about the attack. We were attacked too earlier, but you're telling me there are thirty more of those guys!? How are you so calm!!?? Secondly, where's Loki!?"
Tonks standing beside Hermione nodded swiftly.
Her expression clearly speaking, 'How are these guys so calm about this!?!? Don't they understand the severity of the situation!? It's thirty Beyonders!!! There aren't that many Dark Wizards in Knockturn Alley on a good day for the Aurors to raid!!'
But Ron and Belmont were jaded.
"He 'hypnotised' one of them and then went down." Ron said pointing at the officers with his eyes and then pointing down with his finger before wanting to continue but Hermione interrupted.
"Performing the Confundus charm on one of them might not be hard for Loki if he puts his mind to it! But thirty of them!? At once!? And if there are thirty of them! There is surely someone higher here!? Right!? How are you guys so relaxed about it!? We need to go to him!! Now!!!"
But Ron chuckled, he then looked at Belmont and they turned back to look at Tonks and Hermione as they spoke calmly and sequentially, completing each other's sentences as if they were long lost brothers.
"He did it wandlessly and silently."
"And on what was at least a Sequence 6 if not a Sequence 5."
"But there's thirty of the….nn….m?" Hermione's head tilted sideways in confusion by the end of her sentence as their words sank in. Her brain fried as she tried to comprehend what seemed like a fairy tail.
'Did Loki just confound Ron and Belmont?'
"What did you say?" Tonks asked again, her ear widening a little, just enough to make the muggles doubt what they were seeing but Belmont and Ron knew so they said it again.
"He did it wandlessly, and silently…"
"...and on what was at least a Sequence 6 if not a Sequence 5."
If Tonks could, her mouth would've fallen to the floor.
Hermione similarly looked shocked and surprised.
Everyone, including Ron and Belmont, were once again left evaluating their life's power scale.
Were wizards always this strong?
Or did Beyonders just get weaker all of a sudden?
'....this….'
'Is this the power of the Mystery Pryer pathway?'
Tonks and Hermione looked at each other, seemingly having the exact same ideas as each other about Loki's mastery of his abilities and fell silent.
'If he can confound a Sequence 5….it probably won't be that hard to take on thirty Sequence 7's? Right?'
'...'
'Maybe we can do it too?'
Hermione had another weird thought at this point in time.
'Was it coincidental that we fell into this trap? ...did that man arrange for this to happen?'
'...should I ask Mr. Error for help?'
'....but….wouldn't it count as a wish?'
'But Loki…'
'Oh! I know!'
''He' seems to be a shy God that doesn't know how to talk to others right! So as long as I inform him, I'm sure he'll send Mr. World or another one of his angels to help us if we promise to proselytize for him!'
'Ha! You're so intelligent Mione!'
"Aughh…Why're you smiling like that…" Ron asked in a low mumble, his body shivering as if he'd just seen his previous snarky narcissistic self in someone else, like he'd been shown a mirror to the past.
"So." Tonks said, looking at the muggle officers who were still looking at Tonks and Hermione with sensitive gazes since they hadn't produced any identifying papers, but since they were inside the base and had already passed the checkpoints and seemed to know Belmont and Ron, they decided that the two girls were alright, for now.
Belmont quickly caught on to what Tonks was trying to get at and explained, "Loki's plan for us is probably to evacuate everyone at the base just in case something goes wrong…and that's what we were going to do before you guys showed up."
Tonks nodded and added on her own point of view, "The facility is too large for you to handle it alone. Have you informed the base about this?"
"The Ministry? Yes. The Order? No." Belmont shrugged ignoring the pointed glare Tonks was giving him. But when it got too blatant he snapped pointedly, "You know those guys don't like 'freaks' like us."
"And the Ministry does?"
"Madam Bones never discriminates." Belmont retorted since he knew well enough just how biased the Ministry that faced the public was, but since he was an Unspeakable and fell under the purview of Madam Bones he spoke boldly about his highest boss whom he'd never even seen, forget meeting.
It was purely workplace pride or in Belmont's case, pride of the only other place he could call 'home'.
"Oh come on Bel. You know just as well that those blood purists-"
"Tonks!" Hermione interrupted, squeezing her arm as Tonk's hair started to dye a crimson red.
The sudden interruption and Hermione's painful squeeze let Tonks catch her nerves before Hermione's new words shot them tingling once again.
"Use Occlumency!" Hermione whispered urgently.
"Seriously Hermione!? You're telling us to do that? How could a Spectator be manipulated so easily!?" Ron spoke even before Tonks could reply.
Belmont was next.
"I see. So you were hiding your true colours all along then? Pretending to be a goody two shoes in front of Madam Bones to advance your pathway but ratting her movements out to the order behind the scenes!?"
Belmont was about to pull out his wand when Ron spoke with even more anger.
"You're right Belmont! We can't let them think we're dogs! Let's just leave! No need to save these filthy mudbloods!!!"
He was about to drag Belmont with him before suddenly, the officers all around them pulled out their rifles and took aim.
"Where do you think you're going? You've been talking all this nonsense about wands, Sequences and hypnotism all this time!! Do you think we're idiots!? I don't know what you did to get Sergeant Chadwick to believe you, but you can't be serious if you ever thought that we'd believe you!"
Several clicks resounded throughout the corridor as safeties flicked to hot.
"Hold o-" Tonks was about to try and calm everyone down but Hermione acted faster.
Her wand flicked as the officers and Ron and Belmont, all turned into dazed and confused zombie-like manifestations as she quickly turned to Tonks.
"Hermion-"
"Tonks. Listen." Hermione said, interrupting Tonks squeezing her arms harder as the woman's composure was visibly shattering.
Hermione hadn't realised yet, but Tonks' instincts were ringing.
Wildly.
A lot more wildly than when she'd fought off those death eaters that had attacked several muggle areas at the end of last year guided by the divination department's warning about not stopping such widespread activities which would only lead to a much larger failure.
She still remembered looking at Madam Laura back then, how her instincts warned her back then that something big involving Madam Laura herself was about to happen. Something sharp and something dangerous.
But right now her instincts felt like they weren't just warning her.
It felt like they were serenading her death.
A fact so certain that she felt like she'd found herself in front of the Veil in the Department of Mysteries and was about to walk through it.
'...'
But Hermione continued speaking.
"Something- Someone is causing everyone in the area to act strangely. I don't know who or how."
Tonks nodded mindlessly, the light of her eyes already dimming as she struggled to keep her emotions calm even after using Occlumency to clear her mind.
"But…" Hermione said. And then paused.
It was a pretty long pause, or at least it felt so since Tonks' head started to ring again.
She suddenly felt like she'd found hope.
As if Hermione was a drop of cool water on a hot summer day that could quench her blistering thirst.
And so the light in her eyes fired back up.
'Yes!'
'What was I doing!?'
'Giving up!?'
'No! I can't do that yet! How did things even come to that?!'
Tonks' head spun with a million questions and a million more answers, each worse than the last since it meant that whatever was happening wasn't just affecting their minds and couldn't be blocked out by simply using occlumency.
This was a High Sequence Beyonder ability!
'It's an item right…'
'Probably a high sequence item…'
'Definitely an item…'
'It has to be an item…'
Even while Tonks was internally despairing, another part of her mind made her pay strict attention to Hermione speaking quietly.
"...I have a way!" Hermione finally revealed and then continued, "But I need you to…believe in me…"
"Huh!? Why are you asking me for permission!?!? Let's inform everyone we have to inform first!! So that we can immediately request backup!! This situation seems like it's getting out of hand quickly!!!" Tonks nodded, not understanding why Hermione needed her 'trust'.
But Hermione stayed firm, her hands still clenching Tonks' arms with great strength as she spoke next.
"The spell on these guys will break down in another half a minute or so. I need you to keep them away from me. Alright?"
Tonks nodded.
Hermione stared deeply into Tonks' firm eyes and finally put aside her doubts about what she was about to do next.
She too had already realised that simply using Occlumency wasn't cutting it since for some strange reason, her ability to control her emotions was slipping.
She'd feel angry at Ron for failing to control himself one second before she'd quickly feel disgusted about him even looking at her with his unintelligent brain the very next.
And so once she had even the remotest sense of confirmation from Tonks Hermione quickly knelt down while leaving Tonks to guard her back since things were quickly spiraling out of control.
Tonks turned around almost immediately, not caring what Hermione was doing. It seemed like she was pulling out an altar, probably to summon a messenger and communicate with someone.
Whoever it was, hopefully it'd be a High Sequence Beyonder, strong enough to save them.
'Did Miss Laura get Belmont's message?'
'Will she arrive here herself?'
'Perhaps Madam Bones will be here too?'
A surge of happiness entered Tonks spirit for a moment as she thought of Amelia Bones but then the imbalance in her emotions only grew stronger, like riding a tall wave only to fly off its crest into the depths of the raging waters.
'No way…this can't be important enough for Madam Bones to show up herself…hopefully it isn't important enough for Madam Bones to show up herself.'
'But…I should ask Hermione to teach me this spell later…'
'Quite useful…I don't think even the confundus charm's so strong…being able to send so many muggles and Beyonders in a daze. Especially Belmont too..since he's a Sequence 7 and he's still in a daze…'
'It'd be quite fatal in a heated battle since even a momentary lapse would allow me to suppress them with my Brand of Restraint.'
'Oh! Ron seems to be breaking out of it first!'
'Too bad I can't tease him about it again…Hmm…but if I trap him in an arm lock…that'll have him blushing like an idiot won't-'
"I"
"I pray for the power of Fate."
"I pray for the power of Errors."
"I pray for God's loving grace."
"I pray for God's great powers to help 'His' devout follower in this trouble for she promises to spread word of his miracles all around."
"Beetle grass juice, a herb that belongs to the domain of Error, I pray for you to bestow powers to my incantation."
"Twilight dew, a fragrance that belongs to the limbo of time, I pray for you to bestow powers to my incantation."
Tonks froze.
Her eyes widening while she turned around slowly to look at Hermione.
The words registered fully only a few seconds later.
'Tha-'
'...'
'That's not a spirit messenger summoning ritual!'
Suddenly the word 'trust' resounded in Tonks' mind.
'But that's an Evil god!' Tonks argued with herself, her hands trembling, her limbs turning cold, as her spine shivered with a stinging chill. 'It was an evil god on whom a bounty in the Ministry existed for messing with the Minister's office!'
Except Tonks couldn't lie to herself to panic.
Since even after her conscious mind had registered what Hermione had just done, her instincts telling her that this was the only way out hadn't dimmed in the slightest.
She could still feel it.
Hermione was her only option in this ever growing list of problems.
And so before anything else happened, Tonks' wand flicked out as she cast a spell without even looking at the target.
She trusted her instincts fully.
And so when her instincts warned her that Belmont was about to mount an attack against her, she flicked her wand and shouted, Impedementia.
…
Loki paused, only momentarily as he reached another checkpoint with Chadwick.
This was the fifth one.
Their next stop would be the MCCC's office.
He had passed by about fifteen Beyonders during this time.
Two at each checkpoint, plus people hiding inside shadows and some more in the stomachs of the minute clerical staff.
Everything seemed normal.
For now at least.
Or rather, until Loki suddenly heard the murmurings of prayers mid stride.
'Huh…?'
'Who's praying right now?' Loki thought, slightly annoyed.
'I should still check it out at least…maybe it has some more information.'
Using the Mentor of Deceit Beyonder Characteristics and the several Worm's of Time left behind in the Sefirah Castle right now, Loki quickly listened to the prayers.
'Hermione?'
'Why's she praying to me right now?'
'Wasn't she supposed to be with Tonks?'
'Did something-'
Loki's mind nearly froze when he saw Hermione.
Her spirit body was wrought with corruption.
The only reason his mind hadn't come to a total stop was because the corruption wasn't from an outer god.
Or even any other god for that matter.
It seemed more like a curse if all things were measured properly.
'So they did send in a Saint…'
'Or is it an Angel..? A Sequence 2 who can deal with such strong corruption?'
'And he's coming in from the top? So the plan that the lower level members knew was wrong.'
'So they did plan this taking my abilities into account.'
'Was it Grindelwald who came up with the plan, Dumbledore who arranged it with a coincidence or just the Aurora Order planning with Voldemort's knowledge about me?'
Each person knew different things about his capabilities or could affect him differently so he'd need to respond differently in each case.
'....'
Loki paused in the real world causing Chadwick to stop beside him and look at him with confusion. His hand tightening around his rifle, his finger on the safety as his taut muscles tensed fully.
But Loki's words-
"Where's the closest washroom?"
-slapped all the air out of him.
Chadwick almost choked but Loki looked so serious that he didn't know how to go against him. So he ended up escorting Loki to the nearest toilet that the officers on the lowest level of the Launch Facility used.
"Be quick will you." Chadwick said softly as Loki smiled and locked the stall behind him.
Within seconds Loki was in the Sefirah Castle where he crafted an illusory response immediately and sent it to Hermione.
The little witch found her gaze filled with the grey fog before it panned over to show Mr. Error leaning calmly on his table as he spoke in a completely even tone.
"I'm aware. Help is on the way."
Hermione calmed down almost immediately, not just because she felt reassured but also because Loki had just stolen all her corruption, including the corruption in Ron, Belmont and Tonks.
Along with all that he'd also blessed her with a worm of time, secretly of course so she wouldn't think that Mr. Error was a gross worm.
'Although….won't she end up becoming a worm too?'
'Ha! I'd like to see her face then!'
Once Hermione's vision cleared, Loki conjured up another illusion which he sent to Snape and Dominic.
Both of them had similar messages, the students of Hogwarts were in grave danger and were going to be involved in a battle ground between Angels at the Launch Facility they'd been sent to.
Finally, Loki crafted another illusion, this time sending it to Fleur instead.
Her message however was a little different.
It was from Mr. World.
"Miss Empress. I know of a few of your connections. I implore you to contact them and tell them that the Lord has a piece of information that would interest them. A student they care deeply about is in danger of being killed by an Angel."
Eventually, Loki sent a message to Walburga who he had previously touched through the Grey Fog when she'd prayed to him to temporarily advance to Sequence 3.
"Mr. World sends his regards. He has an instruction for you. When he gives the word, he wants you to kill…"