He could not turn around in time to avoid her sword entering through his back. Then with some increase weight she was able to bring the sword down then up, cutting him into two pieces. He fell to the ground with a scream. There was a moment while his regeneration tried to recover him but it was not enough and he returned to a card.

The attack had been a full weight power attack from above him. What could that attack do that the current attacks they were doing could not? It was a question that a swordmaster could answer. The first attack would have skewered him, the later attacks would just cut him. Skewered from behind, that made things easy to understand. If she had done that he wouldn’t be able to move freely and he wouldn’t have been able to easily attack her.

The fires engulfed him and she could see the bones blacken and then burn, crumbling to ash from the heat of the fires. Then he was gone, consumed in the fires. When the light died his card began to flutter to the ground.

Rose turned to join the battle that was surely happening inside the battle. Then her leg gave way again. All her energy began to evaporate as the lost control over the burning red crystals which vanished one by one. She needed to go in there and help but this time she couldn’t muster the energy.

“The names of heroes in a card game seems to be a rather bad thing to base your morality on.”

“His cause is pure?”

“Pure? Pure rubbish maybe. Any cause which involves killing people to get what you want could hardly be considered pure.”

Berardo continued to batter at Angel and Angel kept was the one who was now being pushed back. What his opponent did not know was that he had snuck the Bead of Gravity into his mud mace. He had some control over how its weight grew and used that to make the mace a dangerous weapon.

Now there was still a little luck that needed to happen. Cockatrice needed to be at home. It had been too risky to leave somebody watching the place.

Berardo had orchestrated the time ensure that the Destiny Burst store had already closed for the evening when they made their attack to make it more likely that he would be at the place.

Charmer had said that be was fairly regular in his schedule when not off being Cockatrice so the chances that he was home at this time was high but not guaranteed.

Berardo continued, “Then after the attack I visited the Destiny Burst store. That time it was manned by an actual Maker, not just a normal clerk like I had seen before. He didn’t seem like he would normally man the store himself unless something unusual was happening. It was an offhanded comment, a mention that the normal clerks weren’t available.”

The trip to Diane’s house was uneventful. The place they arrived at as a little unexpected however. It was a small mansion. Property was at a premium in Listorna so even small houses were expensive and this house was rather big.

There was a button on the gate which Berardo pushed. A moment later Diane’s voice came through. “Come in, I unlocked the gate.”

“I had another question about packs.”

“Go ahead, although I’m not guaranteeing that I will answer it.”

“How do you feel about selling people?”

“Ah, this question. You ask about the morality of selling heroes. It is a difficult question but I think the real answer is a different question. Why do you think heroes are so weak?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think that heroes are controlled by their Dreamer and that if the Dreamer wanted to control them they could?”

“Well, I Dreamer could keep them in card form. That would stop them.”

“Oh, Alexander, sorry, I’ve been busy working my case.”

“Of course, of course, but you should take breaks sometimes. How about we grab a quick drink? Relaxation is good don’t you know.”

“I really need to..”

“Yes, yes, yes, of course. But first the drink.” Alexander grabs him around the shoulder and pushed him down the street and into a local bar. He held up a couple of fingers to the barkeep who pointed at them toward a couple of bar stools.

The ground around us disappeared freeing them from the trapping spell. Berardo should have thought of doing that initially but the fear had prevented him from strategizing.

Cockatrice knew what had happened and six of the heroes he was controlled vanished. “Awaken” he called and the remaining five heroes regained the power that they had been missing. Five was a number that Berardo could think about handling.