AnnouncementHere's a bonus chapter in celebration of Father's day. As not one myself, and it almost being 10 years since mine passed away, i don't have much that i need to do today, so here is a little something i can share. (too bad this isn't a Magneto chapter, but i wont change my story on a whim like that)Chapter 16– A Life’s Work

  China –Bloody Swine, Bar and Fighting Arena- 08-10-22 (06:30 PM)

  Takeda Tomoko

  Tomoko frowned as she watched Wong make his way to the arena. The bear had transformed into a man while he waited, telling her he was either a Mutant or an Enhanced, though in truth there was little difference between the man’s two forms. ‘Well maybe the other one had fur instead of hair.’ she corrected herself.

  As Wong climbed down into the arena, Ami rejoined her. When her concealment spell flickered, the man sitting on the stool beside her frowned at her, till he shook his head and went back to drinking his, well whatever it was he was drinking. ‘It's definitely not tea.' Tomoko noted.

  The sorceress could tell that Wong was exchanging words with the man he was about to fight, but with all of the cheering and shouting, she couldn’t make out what the man was saying. Ami climbed closer so that she could chirp into her ear asking. “Want me down there so you can hear them?”

  "No, I don't need to hear his bravado," Tomoko told her familiar.

  Shortly after their exchange the rge hairy man, began his transformation into his bear state. His fur concealed what little the man wore. Then the two men were fighting. The bear-man is trying to get in close, but is still unching a couple of swipes with his cws, meanwhile, Wong is trying to keep him back with thrusts with his staff.

  Tomoko saw little appeal in the fight so far, especially enough to justify the crowd's volume.

  The first exchange of blows ended with Wong bsting the bear-man back with an astral bst. It was quite showing and brilliant, but the sorceress knew that the attack had little real substance, just the burning that the active mystical energy would cause. However, she had to admit that the bst did give the other master enough distance to wind up and smack the bear in the side of his head with the staff.

  “Is it fair that he is using magic against that man?” Ami asked her.

  Tomoko took a moment to watch the next bout of punches and staff strikes before answering. “He is clearly superhuman, so I suppose Wong is justified in using his magic against the man… I am more worried at what the Ancient One would say, if she knew that he was openly using some of his mystic arts in public.”

  “Ohh, yeah he might be in trouble if that was the case.” Ami agreed.

  Not wanting to be here all night, Tomoko reached out with her magic, pulling life and water-attuned energy to her. She saw that Wong noticed the shift in mystical energy, as he went back to a more defensive fighting style, as he tried to locate the other spell caster, instead of trying to knock out the bear-man. Still, the sorceress did what she wanted, turning the sand near the bear-man's feet into mud.

  Then she got up and moved towards the door that the other sorcerer had emerged from, already knowing that the fight would soon be over. The building shook when the bear tripped and fell onto his back. Wong capitalized on the other man’s accident, leaping high into the air and nding on the bear-man’s gut, as the air was driven out of the man, Wong trusted his staff into the man’s chin.

  “(Winner! Wong the Swine’s Ace turns the tables on the Ursa from Russia!)” Tomoko heard the speaker say even after the doors closed behind her.

  She knew she had to dispel her concealment spell to open said doors, as physically interacting with anything would break the spell, but the back area was far less poputed than the main section of the bar.

  Tomoko looked to her left and right. The few people back here were either injured fighters, or the people tending them. So she wasn't sure who to bug about directions to Wong's changing room. However, the man himself saved her the trouble when he suddenly burst through the doors behind her.

  He blinked twice before muttering. “Master Takeda?”

  She bowed politely to him as she greeted him. ”Master Wong.” Ami even chirped twice in her own style of greeting.

  “You had me worried. I thought… never mind what I thought. What are you doing here?” Wong asked her as he started to rex, and shift his hold on the staff.

  Tomoko bowed again as she said. “I need some information, Order reted information.” Wong seemed to sweat at the mention of their order.

  "Oh, well come on then," Wong said, before gesturing off to his left.

  The various fighters that could and all of the staff greeted him or praised his fight as the two of them passed. Eventually, the other sorcerer led her to a room that he dispelled a spell on the door of, before entering.

  “Can never be too careful.” He muttered as he held the door for her.

  Ami leaped off of her shoulder and circled the room before settling on a light hanging from the ceiling, while Tomoko took in the room's furnishings. The pair of weapons racks she understood, she even kind of understood the vanity with the lights and makeup desk. However, the disheveled and unmade bed got a raised eyebrow from her.

  “Nap here, do you?” She asked him.

  Instead of answering he cleared his throat and returned his staff to its pce on one of the racks. While his back was to her, Wong asked. “So what is you needed?”

  She started with. “Master Keacilius visited me.”

  "Oh, was he hoping you would have his back should he mess up again? You know that he has been poaching Disciples from other masters. Bad business that." Wong stated as he moved to an end table beside the vanity.

  The end table had a portable stove that Wong used to boil some conjured water in a teapot.

  "I was not, and he was not alone. Laxman Ortani was with him." Tomoko added. She watched him as he prepared some tea leaves.

  “Who?” he asked as he added sweeteners to his own cup.

  “He was once a fellow Master, who was exiled for practicing Necromancy.” She said to remind him.

  “Oh right, the Indian… I remember now. Does Keacilius want to get himself exiled?” Wong asked as he finally turned to face her.

  "No, he sought him out because Ortani is one of the few of us who can actually speak Mage. This leads me to why I came to see you." As Tomoko expined she watched Wong pour the boiling water into the two prepared cups.

  "Oh, right you wanted to ask me something." The other master muttered as he stirred one of the cups.

  “Earlier in the year, you went with the Ancient One and fought alongside the Mage, did you not?” She eagerly asked him.

  "I did," Wong admitted.

  “Keacilius was also there?” She then asked.

  "He was, probably the st noble thing he has done for us," Wong said before walking over and offering her one of the cups.

  Then when the man sat down, Ami compined. “Nothing for me?”

  “Oh, sorry little one.” Wong apologized, and then they quickly got another cup set up, but only with fresh water as opposed to their tea.

  Tomoko smiled when her familiar glided over and started drinking from the offered cup, before taking a sip of her own refreshment. ‘Moment of truth.’ She thought before asking. “Keaciius says the mage bound someone as a Servant near the end of the battle and that you would agree that he did.”

  Wong frowned and gathered his thoughts before saying. "I don't recall Nath'aniel doing anything like that, but then again, I was fighting some of the Sun's people's Enhanced so I couldn't tell you all of the magic he cast."

  Tomoko stared at the china man with her mouth open.

  A part of her had wanted to believe what they had told her. That someone had finally succeeded. To be sure she asked again. “You are certain you didn’t see him with a woman? One that otherwise would have supposedly died. But he managed to save, that’s what Keacilius had cimed the mage had done.”

  The other master was taking a sip of his own tea, so it took him a moment to answer her this time. "Oh, the mage definitely did that. I thought at first that they might have been sisters by how close they looked, but when Nath'aniel had the Ancient One carry his staff, and he picked up the dead body, I had a clearer view and realized that they couldn't be sisters, not with how unaffected she was by the sight of the body… Hells the woman didn’t even really seem to acknowledge that the body was even there when the mage carried it out with him.'

  "Wait the newly healed body of hers was a Servant's? Damn, I didn't even get a chance to ask if I could spar with her… You think the Ancient One would let me put in a request to fight her, as our group's request for Entreatment Day?"

  ‘He didn’t even realize that my life’s work was being accomplished so casually beside him.’ Tomoko stared in complete disbelief at how much her fellow master had missed during his own battle. Her hands shook as her mind returned to her, so to calm her nerves; she took another sip of her tea. Yet her hands poorly obeyed, spilling more of it onto her kimono, rather than get it in her mouth.

  “Are you ok?” Wong asked her clearly confused by her sudden change in behavior. Ami even had flown back over to her shoulder.

  Tomoko took a deep breath, before answering. "No, Master Wong, I am not really ok. But sadly there is little that we can do about it. Now if you excuse me, I need to have a word with the Ancient One."

  Both masters stood up, and bowed to each other, before she stepped closer to the disheveled bed, and opened a portal back to Kamar-Taj. Once through it she took a deep breath of the mountain air. Something about the pce always calmed her.

  “It’s ok, at least now that someone got it to work, maybe you will too.” Ami softly told her.

  Tomoko pet the top of the bird’s head, before setting off for the Ancient One’s wing of the school. She nodded and bowed at the various masters and disciples that were winding down the end of their day, as she moved through the venerable halls of Kamar-Taj.

  Once near her destination, the Japanese woman took a series of breaths to calm herself, the st thing she wanted was to get into an argument with the Ancient One. Before knocking she gave Ami a bit of instructions. "Poke me if I get out of line in here."

  Her familiar chirped a noise in understanding.

  Then she raised to knock and proceeded to rap the solid wooden door a few times, before waiting. After some time, the door opened, and from deep in the chamber beyond she heard their grandmaster say. "Come in, I am just starting the water for tea if you would like a cup."

  "Thank you Ancient One, but I just had a cup and would rather just share some words with you," Tomoko said with a half-smile on her face.

  The bald woman returned her own smile and greeted her. "Master Takeda, this is a surprise. Given the time of year, I would expect you with your grandkids. Is not their birthday soon."

  "Yes, well I received some rather disheartening news and was hoping we could talk," Tomoko said as she watched the door close behind her.

  “Of course. After all you have done for the Order that is the least that I can do for you. Come sit." Her mentor gestured towards a cushion beside the fire she was using to boil water.

  As the master made her way deeper into the room, she heard the Ancient One crush up some snack or another and leave it out on a pte beside the regur collection of cookies and treats. Tomoko could feel the desire through her bond with Ami that the bird wanted to nibble. So before sitting, she offered her finger out for the bird to hop onto, and again brought the little bird to the crumbs prepared for her.

  Both Master and Ancient One smiled at the happy hops the bird did after taking her first bite.

  “Eat too much, I may have to put you on a diet Ami.” The Japanese woman warned her familiar.

  The little bird swallowed before compining. “No, I like my food.”

  The familiar's compint brought a ugh to the two women.

  Then the kettle started to whistle as the water came to a boil. So the Ancient One moved to pour herself a cup of tea, Tomoko frowned at the odd red and purple leaves that her leader used to make tea out of.

  While the other woman prepared and made her tea, the Japanese woman started to expin why she was there. "As you are aware, I passed on the position of Defender of Hong Kong so that I could focus on my own magical research. However, it has come to my attention today, from two separate sources, mind you. That someone else has succeeded where I have been failing over the st decade."

  "If I recall correctly, you were researching the Servant Thesis were you not?" Her mentor asked.

  "I was, and I hear that the surviving mage bonded himself one back in March," Tomoko grumbled and crossed her arms.

  “Yes, that would have been his second one.” The Ancient One muttered while rehanging the kettle.

  “Second?! He has more than just the Lancer.” The sorceress snapped at her mentor.

  The bald woman sniffed her tea, before answering. “The Founder also has an Assassin.”

  "So not only has he figured it out, but he has repeated his results already," Tomoko grumbled before biting her thumbnail in anger. After her mentor took a sip of her tea, the Japanese woman asked. "Have you settled on who is going to represent us on the upcoming Entreatment day?"

  The Ancient One took another sip before answering. "While I have, he has not been informed yet. Why, do you think you might be able to convince the Founder to show you what you missed? That he might teach you how to make people into weapons? Because that is what a Servant is in the end, a sword and a shield for the magic user."

  “Haven’t you ever had a dream of your own mentor? Something you just had to strive for.” The Master snapped at her order’s leader.

  The bald woman sighed before admitting. "Yes, and two weeks after my seventeenth birthday, I watched my vilge as it burned to the ground. Then while trying to get my revenge, I heard a rumor and despite all of the hardships I had to suffer, I eventually made my way to Kamar-Taj, and my dream completely changed… in hindsight, it seemed very small."

  “But I am guessing in the end you still got your revenge.” Tomoko guessed.

  "Actually I never did, the noble house that was responsible and burning down my vilge and killing my friends and family still exists to this day. As I said, once I came here and took my first step onto another pne, my past became very small to me." Her mentor admitted, before taking another sip.

  “And since coming here, how many have them have been fulfilled?” She pressed, hoping to get her way.

  “A few, some very recently.” The Ancient One admitted. The two women stared at each other before finally her mentor sighed and said. “Very well. Given that Master Standingbear wanted the Founder's insights on a matter of history, I suppose the two of you can go. He gets the questions, and you will make our request. That just leaves the third person to go with you."

  Tomoko reached over and petted the now content Ami as she stated. "Master Keacilius, he was the one that brought my attention to the mage's success with the Servants, and he believes that he has sort of insight with the man to win our case for the request."

  “Master Keacilius, really? I didn’t see that when I used the Eye. Good for him, if he finds a new path for himself.” The Ancient One actually sounded surprised by that piece of information.