-Unknown?

John lost track of how long they were stuck in that corner. Gunfire, screams, and the distinctive sound of magic elongated the time, making John imagine what caused every last noise that pierced through the gaping hole in the door as well as the several long cuts that appeared in the walls of the room as more rays of crimson shot through the wall. With little else he could do, John tried to make them as small as he could, clutching to Seras and doing his best to shield her, wishing he had a way to heal her.

The silence came after what could’ve been fifteen minutes or about thirty seconds. John didn’t move for a long time after that, untrusting of the strange calm that washed over the remnants of the laboratory. He didn’t want to leave the only spot that he’d found any sense of safety in, too aware of the warmth and wetness of Seras’ blood over his body to risk her life further. Even after he glanced to the security cameras and witnessed both vans peeling away, he was too afraid of Tricia’s hostile outburst to leave the sanctity of the saferoom.

Until, through the many holes bored through the now ill-named room, John heard a single wail followed by loud and intense sobbing.

Even that would’ve only been enough to grab John’s attention, but some of the monitors and cameras inside were still functioning, despite the small war that had been waged there. And on one of the feeds that still remained, curled up in the corner amidst a desolate wasteland of tech and bodies, Tricia was leaned up against a wall, crying her heart out.

"Stay here, Seras. I'm going to go-"

"N-no!"

Seras clung to his arm tightly as he tried to extricate himself, but it wasn't fear in her eyes. It was a deep concern.

"She's dangerous, Master!"

"They said the same thing about you, Seras," John pointed out, fighting the urge to wince at the hurt in her eyes. John put his hand on her head gently and tousled her hair, giving her one final pat before extricating himself from her grip. "And I don't believe it about either of you. If she wanted us dead, she could have unleashed that ability before - it's my stubbornness and lack of faith in her that put us in danger. I'm going to go make sure she's okay, but stay here. That's an order."

Seras had already halfway raised herself off the ground to follow, but at John's final words she froze in mid-rise. After a moment where she looked like she couldn't decide whether to pout, argue, or give in, Seras finally flopped herself back against the wall, returning her hands to cover her wound.

"Yes, Master."

"Once I get some mana back, I'll heal myself, then I'll order you to drink as much as you need to heal those wounds."

John strode to the doorway and undid the latches that he'd been able to secure before they hid at the far end of the room; it was only about half of them, but they'd still held despite the door being impacted multiple times - save the one that had been cut clean in half.

The door made a rough jarring noise against the floor as its damaged hinges ground it against the floor, but Tricia made no movement except to curl up even tighter. Rather than their usual efficient and focused behavior, the drones that had survived the extended combat seemed frazzled, almost as much as their creator. They were either vainly attempting to clean up the sundered bits of the laboratory, performing futile tasks on experiments that were sometimes only partially intact, or attending to their master. No amount of beeping or scanning lights appeared to ease her sorrows.

"Tricia?"

"Go away! It's not safe here, it's broken, I broke it again!"

"Again? Have you been attacked like that before?" John asked, glancing around the lab.

"Not my home… my suit. It keeps happening. I've upgraded it so many times, but it's happening more and more often now. I can't keep up with it, I'm out of control."

John glanced down at what she was wearing. Other than a thin strip of elastic where a skirt had once been, nothing remained of her ordinary clothes. Instead what she apparently wore underneath, the latex black suit John had seen poking out earlier, was covering almost her entire body. Well, sometimes. John thought at first his eyes were playing tricks on him, but as he glanced over her skin, he saw the suit constantly in flux. Holes opened and closed, tears formed and were sewn back together, and soft flickering lights appeared around her collar in broken intervals.

"What does that matter? Is it keeping you alive? If you join the party, I might be able to-"

"I wish it were that simple. If it fails, I don't die, everyone else does. Everyone around me."

"Tricia, I think you need to explain, because I'm a little scared and very confused."

"Everyone is scared of me, even Moira, even the Order. They just keep me around because they want to use me as a weapon."

"I'm not scared of… okay, I'm a little scared. But I'm here. Just let me help," John said, willing his Charisma into action. "Why are you so worried about your suit breaking?"

"You- you really don't know anything about me? Moira didn't tell you what I am?"

"No, she didn't. How about this - you were so busy doing your experiments, I barely got a word in edgewise. I never got to ask you any questions. I think by how many abilities you had me demonstrate, I should get at least ten, right?"

Tricia smiled, then sobbed a little and lost it again almost immediately. "I had… rather hoped you had forgotten about that."

"Not a chance," John returned with a matching smile, leaning down until he was at her eye level. "So, first question. Why are you so worried about this suit ripping if it isn't helping you survive?"

"It's not for helping me survive, it's for helping me live," Tricia whispered, casting her eyes from John. She focused on the floor, eyes staring a thousand miles away at the broken and shattered tiles covered with debris. "I'm a Gorbachev. We have more volatile emotions than most sapient creatures, and they can manifest in truly terrible ways when unchecked. Those eyes that you saw come out when I get too angry. They are the manifestation of my worst emotions - rage, anger, and hatred among others"

"So you made yourself angry and summoned up those eyes?"

"I didn't…" Tricia trailed off, tucking her head between her knees. She barely spoke up, and with her head down, John almost missed the follow-up.

"I didn't make myself angry. I just am. Gorbachevs are supposed to have powerful emotions, but they level out as more eyes open, and as we grow older, more mature. I never did either of those things. There are eyes for building, creating, improving, restructuring, seeing things that others cannot, and dozens of other uses. But I only ever opened an eye meant solely for destruction, for wrath.

"To make it worse, my emotions have only gotten stronger over time. I used to be able to control my anger, at least direct it at my enemies when it was too great to contain. Now any threat can set me off; it was only because you were in danger I was able to contain it for so long. I have attempted to improve my technology, but the more trauma I experience, the worse my lack of stability seems to grow. I can no longer advance my suit as fast as my anger seems to; I have to operate my suit at nearly its maximum capacity to deal with a simple inconvenience."

"I had no idea you were dealing with all of this, Tricia," John muttered. "So you have no idea why things are different for you? What about your family?"

"I have theories, hypotheses, but no concrete evidence," Tricia admitted, shrugging her shoulders. It was an awkward motion with her head still clutched between her legs. "I was told by the members of my bloodline that the odds of me opening any eyes at all were infinitesimally small. They did not even inform my family that there was a possibility of awakening. Perhaps that has some bearing on my inability to control myself, but they have told me many times that any Gorbachev who awakens a single eye is fully capable, and there have been few other cases as myself."

John tried to imagine what she was going through but came up short. She didn't even name her parents - she referred only to her family line, as if they were some monolithic organization with no proper face or front to the group. Maybe they were.

"Where did they go?"

"I don't actually know. The last thing I heard from them was that I needed to prepare to defend myself and that there was a bounty placed out on several key members of the Opekuny. They had few leads on the origin of the bounties, but they had their suspicions - the Opekuny is… was a powerful **** in the Abyss. They innovated on magical and technological fronts, often combining the two. My drones and research still pale in comparison to some of their achievements, though my advancements in hormone manipulation, magical suppression of emotional processing, and some of my fine-tuning of dopamine production were leagues ahead of their biological divisions."

"That sounds a lot more like the Tricia I know," John encouraged, kneeling down to glance between her legs. Tricia glanced up at him, and though her face remained sad, she dared the briefest touches of a smile again. It was one of the few genuinely happy looks John had ever seen from the blonde woman. "When was the last time you heard from them?"

"About- about three years ago," Tricia admitted, sighing. "There was a man who has been looking after me, another Gorbachev - his name was Jacob. He brought me that message and then never returned. He checked on me somewhat infrequently as it was, but for them to go so long without communicating means they've either gone into total hiding to avoid whoever or whatever was after them or they are- they are no longer capable of communication. If they went into hiding, it means the Gorbachevs may be targets. That's why I am so secretive of my identity."

John thought about offering to help her - but what could he do? All of Tricia's massive intelligence hadn't been able to correct for her problem, there was no way that John could overcome it with a random idea. This was a problem that he couldn't imagine solving with a bit of Dungeon power-leveling. Sadly, so far that was his best skill.

"So, why do you hate Moira so much? Even in the middle of that fight, you cursed her out, but she says you're a contract mage working for the Order, so I don't see why you'd work for her if-"

"I don't have a choice," Tricia spat, slamming one of her hands into her knee. She pulled her head up angrily, and John flinched back just a little bit. Seeing him react like that made Tricia purse her lips, turning her head toward her shoulder to avoid his gaze as she continued in a more evened tone.

"I signed on with the Order after I lost contact with the Opekuny. I had just been attacked at my last home, by a now-defunct organization known as the Red Bastion. They were kidnappers, extortionists, and blackmailers. Poor ones, but they had enough men to nearly overwhelm my drones. One of them grabbed me by the arm, tried to pin me down- I don't- I don't like being restrained. I screamed, and the next thing I knew, my lab was in ruins. The men were dead, disintegrated mostly, and Moira was standing over me. She told me they'd found me lying surrounded by half-vaporized corpses after the Order noticed a magical battle.

"She offered me a contract, said that if I would swear fealty to the Order they would help protect me. I was frightened, and I knew that Jacob and the other Gorbachevs weren't close enough to help me. They arrived the next day, but if I hadn't killed those men, if they'd taken me… I would've been gone long before they arrived."

"So what kind of contract did you sign, exactly? I never really signed anything, I just promised to-"

"A promise is all they need," Tricia sighed, shaking her head. "It gives them an appearance of legitimacy if they choose to exile you, imprison you, or just throw you to the wolves. They told me I would be called on to aid the Order. At first it was just the occasional request to assist with healing, after some of their members were wounded in a fight. Then I was asked to research cures to curses, and then the curses themselves. Eventually they started asking me to accompany their warriors on missions, presumably to heal them, but I always ended up being attacked and having to defend myself.

"Over time I realized I was practically becoming another one of their Knights. I wanted to stop, to avoid fighting and making my anger so much worse, but by that point the Opekuny had ceased all contact with me, and I had no one else to turn to. They told me that I was free to leave, but that they couldn't waste resources protecting 'every innocent mage in Springfield'. They told me I could either continue assisting or I would be on my own. I was so scared, so frightened, that I agreed. I saw… so many horrific things.

"Men burnt alive, tortured past the point of breaking until they were virtually braindead, shells of men. I saw a cluster of children flayed alive for their skin for a most unholy ritual to create a flesh golem from nubile skin and tissue, and so many other things that I started to lose myself in the bloodshed. She didn't stop sending me on missions until I killed one of their recruits after a Cabal sorcerer bound me and tried to secure me in the trunk of his car. That was the first time I lost control completely, and she hasn't trusted me since, except in matters of research and healing."

There came a sound from upstairs, distant but distinct. John and Tricia's eyes traveled in tandem to the monitors and witnessed a pair of Order vans - appearing as minivans in the watchful eye of the cameras - unload a set of heavily-armed Knights. They immediately took in the scene and headed for the broken doorway.

"And now? Now I will be **** to reside with her. I do not have the resources on my own to obtain housing without broadcasting my location; the Opekuny's multitudes of shell corporations and false identities are lost to me. The Cabal know where my home is, and they will soon relay that information to anyone offering them sufficient value. I have lost the only thing I have yet kept from Moira - my own living quarters. I have lost my family, my honor… and now my freedom. I will live and die a **** to the Order's whims, and perhaps because of her treacherous lust for power."

Tricia didn't get angry. She didn't seem frustrated, or ready to scream at Moira, as she had so often before. Her body language was that of a woman who was about to- oh, no…

Tricia shivered, shook, and then sobbed, all before a massive wail broke out, louder even than the one she had unleashed when first coming back to herself. She started to weep uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face as she realized all that she had lost in a single attack on her home. John had only met her a few days ago, but the pain she felt and expressed was so genuine his heart reached out to her. For a moment, he thought of Seras, broken in the woods as she considered all she had ever known to be a worthless - to her - piece of fiction.

John reached out to console her, but before he could touch her shoulder, his entire body was shoved back - not forcefully, not harmfully, but rather as if he were simply gliding across the floor. A shimmer appeared in the air where he was moved, a nearly invisible wall of **** that extended until he was almost four feet away from her, and the wall seemed to extend all the way around in a similar radius, stopping only at the wall of the lab that Tricia was leaning up against. Tricia was still crying hard, her body shaking with each wracking sob, but now she looked around herself in silent shock, taking in the strange energy around her.

On her forehead, an extra eye had grown, but this one lacked the stark crimson and ruby hues of the eye that had so nearly killed John earlier. This one had a deep, dark blue iris and pupil blended together, floating in a sclera made of a sea of mixed aqua, teal, and cyan colors that were literally flowing around it - the hues of both the inner and outer eye shifted and flowed across each other like rivers, gorgeous and yet unnervingly unnatural to look at. The eye's pupil too seemed to ebb and flow, the darker blues growing and fading over time, like so many tides. It wept uncontrollably, glistening tears flowing down Tricia's face and framing it in a beautifully sad way.

"Tricia, I thought you said you only opened one eye?"

"I- I don't know what's happening," Tricia admitted, struggling vainly to hold still as one of her drones hovered to move in front of her and scanned over the eye. "I can't pull down the barrier right now, and I just… it's all so overwhelming…"

Tricia continued to cry, both from her ordinary eyes and this new special one. John crawled forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with the invisible wall, placing a hand on it and staring at the young woman ugly-crying her sadness out, wishing there was something, anything really that he could do to make her pain better. All he could do was stare from the other side of a self-imposed wall.

"Tricia, what can I do?"

"J-just go, I have to do research, I have to process this all," she mumbled, barely understandable between sobs. Her face had become a mess of tears and snot, and she'd closed both eyes, leaving only the cool blue ocean of loneliness to stare back at John.

"But the Order is here, and I don't want to leave you alone with them," John interjected, quite aware of their role in creating this mess now, if Tricia was to be believed fully.

"I will be safe… this barrier seems quite powerful, even for the Warden's strength," Tricia spat between hiccups. "Assist them in removing as much of my equipment as you can. Anything to speed up their departure. I will accompany them to the Brighton Manor when I gain better control of myself. I no longer have any other options."

Tricia looked up, her reddened and puffy eyes a stark contrast to the calm blues of her new addition. She shakily shifted to her knees, crawling forward until she reached the edge of the Barrier. It shifted awkwardly with her movement, but with some visible effort, she kept it in place until she was sitting across from John. She reached out a hand and set it on the other side of the invisible shield from John's own, matching up their palms, only millimeters apart.

"You have… you have shown more genuine care for my well being than anyone since Jacob, John Newman, and that has been many years ago. I wish I still had the faith to believe that anyone could be genuine, but whatever your motivations are…" Tricia sniffled, **** back a sob as she pulled her hand back and leaned away from the barrier wall again, "…thank you. For at least these few false moments of being able to believe someone cares about me as Tricia, and not as a Gorbachev."

"Tricia, I-"

At last, the sound of footsteps reached the base of the stairs. John turned to see three Knights in full combat armor descending into the laboratory. He growled, with perhaps a bit more anger than he'd intended.

"Seras, come out here! It's safe!" John called out, pulling up his sleeve and equipping his blade for an instant, just long enough to draw it across the palm of his hand and unleash a decent stream of blood. He didn't care if the Order watched him at that moment. He needed Seras to be at full health and safe. Then he had something to take care of. He barked the order at Seras the moment she stumbled out of the safe room, then turned back to the Order as her lips touched upon his palm.

"Where is Moira?!"

---

"John, thank goodness you're unharmed… and your creation as well. Are you-"

"Did you lead the Cabal here?!"

Moira didn't seem shocked at the accusation, only raising a single eyebrow. That alone was a giant red flag to John - but she denied it all the same.

"I most certainly did not. I do not make a habit of risking the lives and safety of powerful Order allies."

"You could have warned me, at least - could have sent an illusionist or something with me! You know I don't know shit about magical war, or about espionage and avoiding being followed, especially - again - by magic. Instead you sent me off in a sedan straight out the front door."

"I already informed you of the dangers of leaving the Brighton Manor; I had assumed Tricia was capable of compensating for any lack of skill at subtlety you might've had. I see now that was a mistake, one I will not make in the future, but you make dangerous accusations for little reason, John Newman. Why would you assume I would do such a thing?"

It was true. He had no evidence, but Moira's stone-cold reaction made him wonder if he wasn't right all the same. Tricia had seemed certain in anger, in sadness, and even somewhat at her most level-headed that this was Moira's fault, directly or otherwise, and some of that certainty had bled over to John.

"John Newman, what has she told you?"

"She told me you made her do things she didn't want to," John admitted, moving past the matter of being followed, "and that when she tried refusing, you told her you would cast her out and not protect her. Tricia said you more or less **** her into being a warrior for you, when you knew that she had difficulties dealing with trauma and ****."

"I did only what I thought was best. She is a powerful healer - as you should likely have found out, if you suffered any damage. Are you alright? It is difficult to know, with your abilities. I cannot tell whether that is your blood or-"

"I'm fine," John spat, turning away.

"I have given you a great deal of trust, John Newman. Yet it seems you afford me very little. Did I not offer to allow you to avoid this war entirely, even offering you the sanctity of our Manor? Have I not provided you with the beginnings of your training and education as a mage to our mutual benefit?"

"Shit."

It was true. John was upset, his judgement was certainly not at its sharpest, but somehow Tricia's words rang true. Perhaps it was simply because of how **** she had looked, how open she'd felt after being closed off and emotionless for almost the entirety of the brief time John had known her. He believed her, but Moira had still been a great friend to him, still saved his life and offered him more than anyone but his own family had in his mundane life. He was angry at her. But he couldn't find it in himself to hate her.

"You have, it's true. But you also tried to convince me to turn living creatures into an army and were prepared to kill me when you thought I was a more powerful mage."

"Who I thought had attacked me," Moira interjected to defend herself.

"I just need to know who you thought what you were doing was 'best' for - Tricia? You? Or the Order?"

"I am the Warden of the Golden Rose," Moira said, grimacing. "I will always do what is right for the Order."

John put his hand on Moira's shoulder, returning the frown.

"I'm eternally grateful for everything you've done, for all the trust that you have shown… but I can't eternally trust you until you do what is right. Just right, no qualifications."

"Are you abandoning your promise so early, John Newman?"

John turned toward the staircase, began to descend into the lab. Without turning back, he called to Moira as he readied himself to begin the lengthy process of transporting an entire laboratory worth of equipment, some in multiple pieces.

"I have no intentions of abandoning my promise. So far, I have no reason not to trust the Order to do the right thing - the Order seems more than willing to put itself on the line for what is right. I just need you to be willing to put it on the line for the same."