A.N. My first ever completed long story.

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Here goes nothing, I thought, as I slid my sword Athena from her scabbard and stuffed the piece of paper into my pocket. The cave entrance was right at my feet, according to the diagram on the paper, but blocked by the hazel trees' roots and dirt.

I got to work clearing away the worst of the dirt with Athena. Lady Nimue, or the Lady of the Lake, had enchanted my sword so that I could change it to any weapon I wanted, so long as it was mostly metal, and it never became blunt and could not break. As it turned out, a shovel qualified as a weapon. Who knew? And if I lost it, Athena automatically returned to her scabbard in a few minutes.

Merlin had given my older brother Peter a shield, Aegis that made the bearer completely cut-proof and was indestructible. It changed size to fit whoever held it, and so did Athena, though that was probably because both Peter and I were still kids and would grow. On top of that, it had a face on it that could scare virtually anything, and it could change into a wristband. But it hadn't helped when…

Whoa, not going there. I had more important things to tend to.

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Athena seemed to want to cut through the thick roots and brambles blocking the entrance of the cave, so easily she was wielded. Then again, it could have been my fourteen-year-old body finally having learned to swing the darn thing properly.

Who am I, you ask? I am Agent Matilda Chase, the last hope of Britain, and the last surviving agent of Operation: Camelot.

I finally cut through the roots and I put Athena back in her sheath. Going on my hands and knees, I crawled into the cave.

I found myself in a large, dark cavern. Pulling out an extremely slow-burning candle, courtesy of an ex-scientist, I lit it and looked around the cavern.

All one thousand six hundred of the Knights of the Round Table lay sleeping in a circle, in full armor no less, and on a couch in the middle slept the big cheese himself, King Arthur Pendragon. At his feet were mountains of gold and silver.

I scanned the cavern. There was supposed to be a bell somewhere.

My eyes fell on a huge brass bell the size of my head, hanging right over the entrance I had crawled through to get into the cavern.

This is it, I thought, the moment I wake up King Arthur and save Britain. I'd better get rewarded for this.

I reached out and touched the bell, which immediately gave a low, clear note.

King Arthur stirred and woke. "Is it time?" he asked.

I curtsied as best as I could in my oversized jacket and capris. "It is time, Your Majesty. I am Agent Matilda Chase, sent by Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, and Queen Morgana Le Fay."

At once torches placed around the room that I had not seen before all lit by themselves, and the Knights of the Round Table came out of their centuries-long slumber.

There were creaks of old armor and sleepy moans as the Knights stretched and moved about in their ancient armor. I just waited patiently as they sorted out the kinks and chinks in their armor.

Finally, the Knights and King Arthur all finished their stretching and noticed that I was there. And that I was a girl.

King Arthur scanned me. I felt like a prize chicken, being checked for flaws. "The great Merlin must have a hidden purpose that is beyond us to send us a young damsel."

I bit my lip to keep myself from protesting at being called 'a young damsel'. In fact I was, not that I enjoyed it. "He actually sent my brother Peter with me, but he has left the mortal realm. I am to lead you to London, Your Majesty."

While the Knights gathered up their stuff (shields, daggers, and in Sir Percivale's case, what I think was a pouch full of darts), I filled King Arthur in on what was happening now in Britain, what my mission was, and why we needed him and his Knights. King Arthur was not happy to hear about Mordred still being around, needless to say.

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At last, everyone was ready to move.

I crawled out of the cavern first. The Knights waited until I was on my feet outside the cave to crawl out, for what reason I'm not sure. It took a really, really long time for all one thousand six hundred knights to crawl through the tunnel, and in the end we just enlarged the tunnel. I wondered why Merlin hadn't thought of giving us magical dynamite or something so we could get out faster.

I took the time to plan our route. After a bit of verbal Ping-Pong between me and some of the Knights, we figured out that we should take the easier, albeit longer, route back to London. Mordred had thought it would be fun if he blasted the whole of Wales back into how it was like in his time, so it was almost entirely forest. The Welsh, poor guys, didn't stand a chance. A lot got turned into animals and trees. We had no idea what happened to everyone else.

I unclipped my first medallion from my necklace, a gift from Queen Morgana Le Fay. I had three medallions, enchanted of course. The first summoned horses and alerted Merlin that we were on our way. The second set up a camp with enough food for everyone, so we didn't decimate animals on the way to London. Both could be used for as long as the quest lasted. The third could only be used once, when the quest itself was in serious danger, or it could kill me. Very slowly and painfully.

I tossed the medallion high up in the air. The sunlight glinted off the bronze medallion and as it returned to my hand, one thousand six hundred and two horses stood in front of me.

I smirked when I heard the surprised gasps from the Knights behind me and I turned. "It's from Queen Morgana Le Fay. We weren't going to make you walk all the way to London," I said. "It'd take too long."

We set off, riding across the hundreds of kilometers to London.

We managed to cover around forty kilometers, I think, by nightfall, then we had to stop and set up camp.

Most of the Knights immediately got ready to go hunting. "Oi, there's no need!" I yelled, reaching for my second medallion.

I tossed it high up in the air, and as the fading sunlight glinted off the gold of the medallion, I don't know why, but I felt peaceful. At rest. Like I had already completed the quest, and now I was safe.

I brushed off the feeling as I clipped the medallion back onto my necklace. I am not safe until the quest is over, and cannot be at rest until King Arthur is on the throne.

Despite myself, I smiled in satisfaction at seeing one hundred and sixty-one campfires, all except the first one having enough food and drink for ten people. That one had enough for two, though I didn't plan on eating in front of it.

One thousand six hundred and two tents had been set up, one for each person, each with their coat of arms on it. Mine was a lion holding a silver sword against a blue background, the symbol of my quest and of the resistance. Okay, this is definitely cool. Iceberg-level cool.

I grabbed my plate and dove into my tent while the Knights looked around in wonder.

Popping my head out of my tent, I called, "The food disappears in an hour, so you may want to eat fast!"

Eventually, the message sank into their skulls and the Knights grabbed their plates. Thanks to the magic of the medallions, the plates (and the uneaten food) disappeared by themselves, and we crawled into our tents.

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Sir Agravaine took first watch that night, and about an hour or two after I fell asleep, I woke with a start. Athena, usually tucked against my side (sans scabbard, I'd learned early on that keeping a naked broadsword by your side when you were out in the wild was a good idea), was gone.

I threw on my beaten-up leather jacket and hunted about my tent for my sword, thinking that I had accidentally tossed it somewhere in my sleep. When you have skin like the Nemean lion's because of a wristband-shield you're wearing, you tend to do that, because after a while you stop being afraid of getting cut.

It was then that I noticed the grass that was squashed flat near the foot of my sleeping bag, in the shape of a man's, or more specifically, since it was unlikely there were any other men in the area, Knight's boot.

I rolled my eyes and crept outside, zipping my jacket tight on the way out.

Who should I find but Sir Agravaine, his back to me, swinging Athena about. The sword always returned to my side within a few minutes, so he can't have had the sword for too long before I woke up.

I stalked over to him. "When you are done waving Athena around, may I have it back?"

Sir Agravaine turned around so quickly, I had to duck to avoid getting my head cracked by my own sword. Aegis prevented my skin from being pierced, it just didn't prevent bones breaking.

"Cripes, it's just me!" I exclaimed, straightening up. As I stood up, I felt a sudden weight on my left hip and sure enough, Athena was back at my side. Sir Agravaine's hand was empty.

Said Knight looked completely shell-shocked. "How… What…"

I waved it aside. "It always returns to me after a few minutes, so it can't be stolen."

"My apologies, Agent Matilda," Sir Agravaine said, finally regaining the use of his tongue.

"No problem," I said. "Goodnight."

I turned and went back to my tent.

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That night, for the first time in a month, I dreamed.

Peter put his arms around me as I shivered in the cold British winter, sharing whatever little warmth he had with me. I smiled, the abruptly sneezed, and I snuggled closer to my brother.

A young woman with straight blonde hair cut in a bob and big blue eyes, wearing a long grey coat and a beret, heard me sneeze and knelt in front of us. "Oh, you poor dears. Where are your parents? Are you lost?"

"Don't know, Miss. We never knew them," Peter said, telling the truth. I couldn't remember anything. At all. Peter said it was because I was lucky enough to hit my head hard enough for me to forget everything bad.

The young woman nodded. "I'm Thalia. What's your name?"

"Peter and Matilda," I said. "He's my big brother."

"And a very good one, I'm sure," Thalia said. " I know where you can get warm and eat. Come on, I'll show you."

Peter looked suspiciously at her. At ten years old, he was a lot more streetwise than I was. "Where? If it means we have to go back home we're not going."

Thalia shook her head. "No. You don't have to go back home. It's where I work."

Peter hesitated, then got up, pulling me to my feet.

Thalia took my hand. "Let's go."

She led us along a few streets, until we arrived at a large Greek-style building. It was built out of red brick, with limestone casing blocks, and the steps were made of granite. It looked intimidating and regal, the sort of place where one would expect to meet maybe the King or something.

We were led inside, and after a talk with the receptionist, Thalia said that we could stay, but we would have to run errands and stuff like that.

As my (underage) guardian, Peter agreed immediately.

And we have been there ever since.

At first, and up until I was twelve years old, we just ran errands and fetched coffee and papers. In return, we got a place to stay, a world-class education, and, because Thalia became our legal guardian when we couldn't find our parents, a pretty decent childhood.

Then several things happened at once.

Mordred, the original bad guy in Arthurian legend, had in fact survived being run through by Excalibur. He had inherited magic from his mother and it saved him in the nick of time. It had kept him young for centuries while he healed, until, now fully healed and strong enough, he came back, and using his magic, seized power from the Government, becoming a dictator.

Just to be sure, he massacred the entire royal family and every single aristocrat in Britain.

Everyone working at Headquarters was put under house arrest, Peter and I living with Thalia.

Merlin, Lady Nimue, and Queen Morgana Le Fay returned in secret, and the Resistance was founded. Operation: Camelot began.

Peter and I, with Thalia's consent, were taught survival skills, and the use of weapons.

I was given Athena and the three medallions, and Peter was given Aegis.

After stocking up on supplies, Peter and I left for Wales.

To Wales to find King Arthur.

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The next morning, as was my routine, I packed up my sleeping bag, wrote the date (February 15, the day after Valentine's Day) in my notebook, strapped on Athena and packed.

After cleaning up, I headed to a spot far away enough that I wouldn't be disturbing the Knights and yet could keep an eye on them, and changed Athena to a guitar, a little luxury Lady Nimue had given me after she learned that I played guitar. The Knights were still asleep.

Checking that my nails were long enough - I lost my guitar pick about a month into Operation: Camelot, so now I just used my nails as picks - I rested Athena on my knee and started playing 'Love Generation' by Bob Sinclair, one of my favorite songs.

By the end of it, I was so into it, my eyes were closed and I was singing softly. I only noticed that I had been stamping the ground when my heel started to hurt. I winced. Definitely not something that you want to happen when you're going to travel for the next several hours, never mind if it is by horse.

"You play well, for someone so young," a man said.

I nearly changed Athena back to a greatsword, already holding the neck like it was the hilt and the head the pommel of the sword, before I realized that it was just one of the Knights.

"Thanks," I said. I moved over on the boulders I was sitting on to give him some space. "You're Sir Gawain, right?"

"Correct," he said, taking the hint to sit down.

"Want to hear something else?" I asked.

"Yes, thank you. It has been far too long since I last heard music," he said.

I put Athena back on my knee and started playing 'Chasing the Sun' by The Wanted. It was pretty catchy, so it was a bit of a favorite, though it was a pain to get out of my head. Then again, that happened with every other song I heard.

When I finished, I said, "I'm a bit out of practice, but I can probably still play by ear. Anything you'd like to hear?"

We spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to allow a Knight with almost zero musical talent play an ancient song and let me listen so I could play it. We stopped when the rest of the Knights woke up and started yelling for Sir Gawain to shut up or they'd shove his sword somewhere it was never meant to go.

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Later that day, after we ate but before we went to sleep, I was asked to play for the Knights.

I hazarded a guess and thought that since music was a universal thing, I could probably play something like 'Gangnam Style' by Psy and get away with it.

I clipped my capo, a kind of guitar accessory if you didn't know, onto Athena (still a guitar) and started playing. I actually started smiling after the first ten or so seconds; music always did that. Without knowing it, I started to sing the Korean words, though I didn't actually understand them. But like I said, music was a universal thing. No understand, no problem.

It soon settled into a routine. Travel, eat, watch me play, sleep. Travel, eat, watch me play, sleep, except for Sundays, when we took the day off. Even then I still played and dueled with the Knights, to get practice using a sword.

"How did your brother die?" Sir Gawain asked breathlessly after a round of dueling. He and some of the Knights had taken it upon themselves to teach me more than the basic swordfighting I already knew, so at the end of every day I trained, usually with either Sir Lancelot or Sir Gawain.

I froze. I hadn't allowed myself to think about Peter's death. Ever. If I did I was paranoid that I wouldn't stop, and the whole mission - and as a direct result Britain as we know it – would crash and burn. "A bear attacked us. One of Mordred's victims, I think. I scared it off, but Peter got beaten up pretty badly. Aegis only prevents skin from being pierced, not internal injuries. Died within the hour," I said shortly, pulling off my jacket.

My friend was silent for a while. "I am sorry," he said simply.

"Thanks," I said.

We went back to training without another word said.

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It took us a solid week and a half to get back to London. It was easy. Too easy, in fact. Surely Mordred must have found out, and we were walking into a trap?

There was nothing we could do, though, but keep going, until we reached London.

While I was wrong about Mordred having laid a trap for us, I was right about the fact that it was too easy. Something had to happen. Things always happened, it was almost a law.

That 'something' happened when we reached the old Underground, abandoned (Mordred didn't want people getting around too easily.) but then drafted into service as a headquarters for the Resistance. One side of the platforms were used as sleeping and living quarters. Each 'room', made by screens, faced the tracks, a meter away. Each room had a bunk or a sleeping bag, a chair, and that was it. The door was a flap cut in the screen, held close by buttons or whatever was handy.

The other side of the platforms were used as offices, an infirmary, a eating area, and a 'yard', basically a large clear area, mostly used for training.

Thalia was waiting for me.

"Tilly!" she cried, as I flung myself into her arms. "Cripes, you're back!"

My guardian held me in a rib-crushing embrace.

She was the first to pull away. "Where's Peter?"

My throat went dry and I looked away. My handler guessed. "Oh… I promise, we'll find him. We'll give him a proper burial, after all this is over."

Thalia hugged me again. "You've found them?"

I nodded mutely. "That's them," I said, nodding to the Knights some distance away.

Thalia patted me awkwardly on the back and curtsied to the Knights. "My name is Thalia, Agent Matilda's handler. Welcome to the Resistance's headquarters."

It was only then that I noticed several of the Knights had blanched. One of them was Sir Gawain.

Thalia was leading us to the rooms that had been prepared for the Knights, so I slipped back through the Knights to Sir Gawain. "What's going on? Why's everyone so freaked out?" I whispered.

"Your 'handler' looks exactly like Queen Guinevere. She even has the same voice," Sir Gawain whispered back.

"You have to be joking," I said.

Sir Gawain shook his head. "If only I were," he said sadly. "If only I were."

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"Citius!" Lauren snapped at me, the Latin word for 'faster'.

With an irritated grunt I slammed Athena into her sword, Perseus. We hadn't known about the Perseus/Athena connection in Greek mythology when we named our swords, and by the time we found out it was too late. Oh, que sera, sera. In other words, if it was meant to be, it was meant to be.

"You do realize speaking Latin isn't going to help you snag a Knight, right?" I asked.

My friend and first sword master pouted. It had been her dream since she was tiny to marry a knight or something. "They're Roman, aren't they?"

I snorted. "Lauren, they've been in Britain so long they're Brits at heart, not Roman. I'm not sure they even speak Latin. If they do, it's probably horrible."

"So what was it like in the wilderness?" Lauren asked, changing the subject.

I frowned. "Not something I'd like to repeat."

I gave Athena a quick twist and Perseus flew out of her hand. In the same movement I pointed Athena at her throat. "Yield."

Lauren pushed the tip of my greatsword away from her throat. "I yield."

I sheathed Athena and slumped on the bench, dripping sweat. "Sir Lancelot taught me that move," I said, grabbing a bottle of water from the cooler next to me. "Catch."

Lauren caught the bottle of water I tossed to her and uncapped it in one fluid movement. "Was he hot?" With so many Knights around, it was hard to tell one from the other.

I choked back a laugh. What else could I expect from Knight-crazy Lauren?

"Yeah, he was hot, and then some, I'll give him that. I heard from Gawain that he's a bit of a womanizer, though. He's had so many women fall at his feet, apparently, that he kind of expects it. Lucky thing I'm fourteen, then," I said.

"Or unlucky," Lauren joked.

I was about to roll my eyes at her when Jamie, one of the assistants a.k.a. odd-job workers ran up to us. "Agent Matilda we need your help! A fight's broken out between two of the Knights!"

"Where's His Majesty?" I demanded, already running in the direction he was leading me.

"He's in the fight! Come on!"

I heard the tell-tale sounds of fists and kicks being exchanged before I even reached the scene. Just what we need, a boxing match, I thought, slightly nettled.

Who else but Sir Lancelot and King Arthur were fighting, boxer-style no less. Several of the Knights were attempting to separate them, but to no avail. I saw Sir Galahad stumble away with a bloody nose and a black eye.

I tapped Aegis into a shield and forced my way to the front. "YOUR MAJESTY! SIR LANCELOT!" I shouted at them.

They turned and, I am not joking, screamed like little girls when they saw the face on Aegis. A dozen other Knights fell to their knees and one passed out. I focused on the fury I felt and let it take the reins. It was all I could do not to laugh as I tapped Aegis back into a wristband.

"WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!" I yelled, a bit more loudly than really necessary. It did do a good job of scaring them, though.

"Uh...Well...Um..." Sir Lancelot stammered. King Arthur had literally been shocked speechless.

Sir Galahad stumbled up to me, cupping his (I assumed) still-bleeding nose. "They were fighting over who should be allowed to court your handler," he said bluntly.

I felt the blood drain out of my face. I had known this would happen, but I had been hoping so badly that it wouldn't.

Unable to speak, I turned on my heel and pushed my way past the Knights and to my room.

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I paced my room restlessly. How had I not seen it coming? Thalia looked exactly like Guinevere. If either one of them won Thalia's heart, it'd be a symbolic victory, sort of like "Hey, Guinevere should have been mine."

I had to tell Thalia. It was her they were fighting over.

But then it could just complicate things. Oh, what to do, what to do? On top of all this, Thalia was dating someone else. I didn't fancy telling a King and a Knight that neither of them could have my handler.

I groaned and reached for Athena. I needed to listen to music, to clear my mind.

As if it was an automatic reflex I started playing my guitar. I was halfway through the song before I realized what I was playing: 'Baby' by Justin Bieber.

I smiled at the irony of me playing that song, where a boy was trying to convince a girl to date him, when Sir Lancelot and King Arthur were fighting over who could court Thalia.

I played a few other songs then stopped. I had made up my mind. I would tell Thalia.

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"Thal!" I called into the office.

"What?" my guardian called back, not even looking up from her pile of reports.

"I need to talk to you for a sec!" I said.

"I'm busy! Can this wait?"

"Fine, but we have to talk alone!" I yelled.

"Oh, alright! Come on in, and shut the door. I can listen while reading," Thalia said.

I obeyed and shut the door behind me. "Um, there's been a fight between King Arthur and Sir Lancelot," I began. "And I went to break it up."

"And?" Thalia prompted.

"They were fighting over you," I blurted out.

"What?" Thalia asked, looking up sharply from the reports.

I heard a 'clink!' as her pen dropped to the ground. "They were fighting over who got to court you, because it turns out you look exactly like Queen Guinevere, and even have the same voice," I said, picking up the pen.

"Hold on a second. You're saying that because I look like some dead Queen I don't even have any respect for, there was a fight between King Arthur and one of his best Knights?!" Thalia asked.

I replaced the pen on the table. "Yeah, that's about it," I said.

"Tell them I'm dating," Thalia said.

"Why don't you do it?" I asked.

Thalia raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh, alright," she said.

I wasn't actually around to see when Thalia told King Arthur and Sir Lancelot that she was with someone else, but I was well around for the aftermath. It's a bit hard to ignore Sir Lancelot training to death, especially when it happened to be near to my bunk in the HQ.

I figured out that Sir Lancelot wasn't too pleased with me ratting him out to Thalia about a week after the fight.

I changed Athena back into a sword, giving up any hopes of finishing the song I was composing while Sir Lancelot was training.

I yawned. I had been sitting on the top of one of the signs in the Underground, so now I slipped off it and went somewhere else to play.

"Tilly!" Sir Gawain's now familiar voice called.

I stopped. "What up, Gawain?" I asked.

Sir Gawain trotted up to me, red-faced from the cold of the Underground. "Teach me how to play guitar," he said.

"Um, okay?" I said. "Let me get my other guitar first. I'll meet you next to the offices."

I went back to my bunk to get my other guitar. I had two: Athena, and my original guitar. I had gotten used to playing on Athena so I didn't play on my original one at all.

"Oi! Watch it!" I yelped as Sir Lancelot nearly lopped my head off when I had to walk past his practice area on my way to the offices.

"Sorry," he said. I had a feeling it was insincere, but I didn't feel like pushing my luck, so I just scarpered.

I didn't mention the incident to Sir Gawain, though it must have been obvious that it was bothering me, because in the middle of the lesson, he stopped and asked me what happened.

I sighed. My friend was practically telepathic. There was no point trying to hide it from him. "I have a feeling Sir Lancelot isn't too happy that I told Thalia about what happened."

Sir Gawain snorted. "It took you this long?"

I flushed red. I was kind of asking for that jab. I'd convinced Sir Gawain, and most of the Knights, King Arthur included, to treat me like a boy rather than a simpering damsel-in-distress during the journey to London, after they were actually shocked to find that I could in fact beat a few of the Knights in a duel, without requiring them to be handicapped.

"Oh, alright. I'm dense," I said. "Still, it's not my fault Thalia isn't interested!"

Sir Gawain nodded. "True."

"And besides, I doubt he will be interested when he actually gets to know Thalia properly. Queen Guinevere was feminine and gentle, right?" I asked.

"Yes, as befits a Queen," Sir Gawain confirmed.

"Thal is only gentle when the situation calls for it. Other than that, she's pretty rough-and-tumble. I'm willing to bet that other than looks and voice, Thalia and Queen Guinevere have nothing in common," I said. "She can probably kick his butt in a duel if she wanted to."

We sat there in silence for a while. "I'll talk to Sir Lancelot," Sir Gawain said.

"No need. I'd rather see the look on his face when he finds out Thalia's a right lioness and not a delicate little thing," I said, grinning.

We went on with the lesson.

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Somehow or another, I ended up, along with King Arthur, as the 'face' of the Resistance. I as the martyr who had lost her brother to the cause, King Arthur as our hope for a new age.

I found this out when Thalia called me to the offices.

She was waiting with two women and a man. The man carried what I am fairly sure was a suit of silver armor.

The first woman, a thin, lanky twenty-something year old, carried a mail shirt, a blue tunic with what I instantly recognized as the Resistance's crest embroidered on it in silver thread, a pair of camouflage-print trousers, and combat boots.

The second woman, motherly-looking forty-something year old, carried what I just knew was a makeup box, any number of bottles of conditioner and hair serum and who-knows-what, and a towel.

Thalia carried what looked like a script.

"Lady Thalia?" King Arthur's voice asked behind me.

"Thals? What's with all the stuff?" I asked nervously. I knew a prep team when I saw one.

"Prep team," Thalia said in a matter-of-fact way.

The next thing I knew I was being shoved into the mail shirt and tunic, while Athena was in a new silver sheath somewhere in the room.

I counted. One, two, three, four...

Athena was back on my hip, much to the chagrin of Rose, the lanky woman who had been holding the mail shirt.

"I just fixed that!" she complained, adjusting my tunic.

Quite honestly, I couldn't see the difference the microscopic adjustment made.

"Rose! Move over or I'm never going to get this done!" Yvette, the motherly-looking woman exclaimed, nudging Rose out of the way. She applied a final layer of lipstick on me and went to torture King Arthur.

I checked a groan. It had been an hour since Thalia had finally trapped me in the room and the preparations were still not done. First, I had been scrubbed until I was bright pink and had a year's worth of conditioner dumped into my hair. To be fair I hadn't taken a proper bath since before I left M9 on the quest. Next, I had been attacked with hair irons and straighteners and whatnot until my hair was perfectly straight and shiny. Then, I had been shoved into the tunic, mail shirt, camouflage pants and combat boots. Now, I had just had my face slathered in so-called 'natural-looking' makeup. It looked about as natural as a traffic cone.

"Thals, I am so going to kill you," I yelled in the general direction of my handler.

"Let me be!" King Arthur protested, desperately trying to squirm away from Yvette, who was attempting, with equal fervor, to get the King to hold still and let her apply foundation on him.

"Leave the King his dignity, Yvette! I don't think the civvies'll like having a dandy King anyway!" I called, backing up King Arthur. I had no wish to see my future King humiliated.

Yvette huffed but left King Arthur alone.

Rose finally let me sit down. "Finally!" I said, stretching.

Rose squealed at the sight of my tunic moving slightly and quickly went to adjust it.

I rolled my eyes. "Rose, stop fussing. It's going to get ruined in five minutes anyway."

Rose pouted and continued with the arranging.

I eyed King Arthur enviously, in his fuss-proof armor. Lucky, I thought.

Sure enough, five minutes later, all of Rose's hard work went down the drain as I climbed up the steps to the stage for the rally. I was delighted.

Thalia had given us our scripts and by the time we reached the rally, we had them memorized cover-to-cover.

"I present you Agent Matilda Chase and His Majesty King Arthur Pendragon," Thalia announced to the crowd.

They instantly went wild, cheering and clapping.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my tunic, adjusting my cloak. Yes, I was wearing one. Jackets don't fit over mail shirts. King Arthur seemed to have gone into a sort of Zen-like trance, his face completely calm and regal at the same time.

We walked onto the stage.

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The moment I stepped onto the stage, my mind went blank. I completely forgot the lines I was supposed to say.

Thankfully, King Arthur was supposed to speak first, giving me a bit of time to compose myself.

"People of London," he began. Wait, that wasn't on the script! I thought.

"I stand here today thanks to the efforts of Agent Matilda, who has searched Wales for over a year for where I slept. She lost her brother during the quest, and yet continued to search. She did so out of love for Britain, and did not expect any reward."

I flushed red at that. I had in fact expected to at the very least get famous and praised as a hero, and get a few television interviews. Merlin himself had told me that at best, though, King Arthur would recognize me as a hero and give me a small reward, nothing more.

"Thousands of years ago, I drove the Saxons from Britain. Now, I drive Mordred and his lot from Britain!

"I ask, no, demand, nothing less than your full support. Divided we fall, but united we will triumph! To avenge the deaths at the Plain of Camlann! To avenge the deaths of every person that has died in rebellion of Mordred's tyranny! Do not let them die in vain!"

The cheering was so loud that I was surprised that Mordred didn't hear it all the way in Buckingham Palace, where he lived. "God save the King! God save the King!"

I took the mic from King Arthur.

"Let me be honest with you," I said. If King Arthur was winging it, so was I. "I was actually hoping that I'd get famous for bringing back King Arthur. I was angry and I was scared when I went to search for the King, and I promised myself that I'd never stop until I found him. That was what drove me on at first. When Peter died, his death was what drove me on. I wasn't going to let him die and let the mission go to pot. Now my drive is coming back to find my country, my home, in shambles. I'm not going to just sit by and do nothing. No, I will bloody fight! My friends and loved ones, people I had grown up with, killed by Mordred! We can't even go on with our lives, because of the Wolves!"

I swore to do what I had to in order to bring down Mordred. "I do not expect this from you, God knows you have families and loved ones to think of, but I hope for your support and loyalty to the Resistance. That is all," I said, meeting every person's eyes.

The crowd was silent, then someone started clapping, and soon everyone was. "Matilda Chase! King Arthur Pendragon! Matilda Chase! King Arthur Pendragon!" they shouted.

I put the microphone back on the stand and curtsied to the crowd, then walked off the stage.

Thalia nudged me towards the crowd. "Go on in. It's good for our rep," she said. "I'll go with you."

I obeyed, shaking hands with everyone I passed, making sure to talk to everyone who wanted to, keeping a pleasant, but solemn, expression on my face. King Arthur did the same. The only difference was that his 'look' was regal and calm.

Pretty much everyone wanted to touch our swords and armor, like they were holy relics. King Arthur and I obliged their requests to draw our swords. At least a dozen amateur photographers wanted me to pose with my sword, and made it known. Loudly. They didn't dare to ask King Arthur. I was merely a girl, a brave one granted, but he was their future King, the true-born King of Britain, their leader.

"Wolves!" someone shouted, and everybody scattered, running in every direction possible, leaving King Arthur, Thalia and I to deal with Mordred's 'police force' ourselves.

It was only two of them, but any sane person would run far, far away even then.

I wasn't sane. I had just sworn to fight to further the cause no matter what.

King Arthur stood on my left, Thalia on my right.

The first Wolf sneered, exposing his wolf-like teeth for which they were named. Upon joining, all Wolves had their teeth filed to sharp points and were tattooed, so that they looked like actual wolves.

The second Wolf rammed a magazine of bullets into his rifle.

My hand sneaked to Aegis behind my back. Thalia's elbow jabbed into my side as she discreetly slid her hand to her shotgun that she always carried in her long coat. It had a shortened barrel, but my guardian could shoot fleas at a hundred meters with that thing, never mind a head at fifty meters.

The Wolves aimed.

I tapped Aegis into a shield, hiding it behind King Arthur's large frame. I pretended to cling to King Arthur. "When I thay 'Now', get behind me, Your Majethety," I whispered, making sure my 's' was swapped for a 'th' to make sure it wasn't overheard.

He started to protest, but I said, "You are more utheful to Britain alive, Your Majethety. Pleathe, I do not wish to eckthplain to Merlin that I let the true-born King get killed."

He nodded in assent and I nudged Thalia's foot with my own, our arranged 'I'm ready' signal if something like this happened.

Thalia raised her shotgun slowly.

"Now!" I shouted, shoving Aegis in front of King Arthur, Thalia and I. I ducked my head down and pushed the King's head down as well.

There were two bangs, and two screams. Thalia was still standing.

"Run!" she bawled.

"Follow me, Your Majesty!" I shouted, already running full tilt to our meeting spot.

I looked behind me to check that he was actually following me. Thankfully, he was, clanking along in his metal armor.

I ran to the giant tree in one of the parks, christened by the Resistance as 'The Hanging Tree' as Mordred had actually hanged some of us M9 members there.

I could feel the blood draining from my face when I saw the tree. It still had the marks left by the ropes used to hang my friends and adopted family. M9 was a secret branch of the Government, training Agents like me. M16 was more of spies, the brains; we were the agents, part of the brawn. When Mordred had seized control of Britain, we had rebelled and paid dearly for it.

"Agent Matilda?" King Arthur's voice asked concernedly.

"I'm fine," I said. "It's just some bad memories."

I was spared any further questions by Thalia striding up to us.

"Anyone followed you?" she asked.

"Nope. You?"

Thalia shook her head no. "Let's go."

"Wait," I said, grabbing Thalia's and King Arthur's hands. "Your Majesty, remove your armor and your helmet. Remove Excalibur as well. They will reflect the light and give us away. Then wrap it in your cloak. I'll wear my tunic inside-out, take off my mail and Athena and wrap it in my cloak."

While they did this, I went to a nearby alley and stripped off my sword belt, tunic and mail shirt, leaving me in my bra and camouflage pants. I then flipped my tunic inside out to hide the silver embroidery and put it back on, then wrapped my mail shirt and sword belt in my black cloak.

When I rejoined Thalia and King Arthur, King Arthur had hidden all of his armor in his cloak, leaving only his tunic and pants. No boots, unfortunately. "You can go barefoot?" I asked.

King Arthur nodded and we went back to the HQ.

-------------------------

After the whole 'we almost got shot at' fiasco, it was agreed that in future, at all public appearances, King Arthur and I would be wearing bulletproof vests. We would hide it under our armor. On top of that, I would be on stage longer than King Arthur was. I could tell it annoyed him a lot, though he didn't say much.

This lasted until King Arthur actually got shot. Thank God, the bulletproof vest stopped the bullet before it did any damage. Nobody felt like risking his royal butt by having him at rallies anymore though.

I, on the other hand, kept making public appearances. Instead of making speeches, sometimes I just brought Athena along as a guitar and played a few songs and told them about my quest. At bars, in tennis courts, on pavements, in housing estates, I did rallies at them all. Not fun when I did them off-stage, though, because it meant Rose started screaming the moment I got back about wasted work.

I never used a script, though. No notes, no rehearsals. I just got up on stage and spoke. The only reason Thalia let me was because I kept forgetting the lines. Stage fright, I said.

The people that came to the rallies loved it, though. Almost every speech ended with shouts of "Matilda Chase! Matilda Chase!". I got gifts at every other speech as well. Once I got a full suit of armor. Twice I got mail shirts. At least five times I got food, because apparently I looked too thin.

I was becoming too popular not to be noticed. And we had a traitor in our midst.

----------------------------

"Tilda! Mail shirt. Tunic. Now!" Thalia shouted through the door of my room.

"Yes, ma'am!" I shouted back, sliding the mail shirt over my head. It was one of the shirts I had gotten from supporters. It was actually rather well-made. It turned out he had made mail shirts for historical reenactments.

I checked Aegis was still on my wrist and Athena was still on my hip (I had made a habit of wearing it constantly in the wild, and kept the habit even then.), then headed out the door to the meeting room.

King Arthur, representatives of every city who supported the Resistance – in other words, every single city in England, Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gareth, Sir Gawain, Sir Tristram, Sir Percivale, and Sir Kay were waiting in the meeting room, along with Merlin, Lady Nimue, and Thalia. Queen Morgana Le Fay was not there for some reason.

A few men in military uniforms, officers, possibly, were huddled on one side of the large circular table. Another, a general I guessed, was studying the map of Britain, deep in thought.

"Finally, the Mockingjay arrives," one of the officers said drily.

I ignored the Hunger Games reference and went straight to studying the map.

The map was incredible. Every hill, every pit, as far as I knew, was on the map. There was a small grave somewhere in the middle of Wales. I knew, instinctively, that it was Peter's grave.

"Any plans for the war?" I asked. I was making myself look stupid, I knew, but we needed both modern and ancient to work together in order to win.

"Mordred would want to do this the modern way, Your Majesty," the general said. "I know I would."

King Arthur shook his head. "No. That blasted pain would want pitched battle, the old way. Too arrogant and luckily, too much of a mother's boy to think with any kind of smarts. Swords and shields, not guns and tanks."

"Let's assume he wants pitched battle, Your Majesty," one of the officers said. "Where is the most strategic place to do it?"

We were all silent as we scrutinized the map. Sir Galahad suddenly pointed at a hill, far from densely-populated areas. "Here. The hill will give us an advantage. The multiple rocks will allow archers to fire in safety. As it is far from civilization, less civilians will be affected."

"That's pitched battle taken care of. What about plain old warfare? What will our plans be for the civvies? We can't have people like her," the general said, indicating me, "getting mixed up in the fighting."

"If it's that, Mordred will have a distinct advantage over us. He has planes and can do air-raids, we can't. He has bombs, we don't. Besides other things, too many innocents will die," Thalia said.

"I agree. Even my magic can only do so much," Lady Nimue said, nodding in approval.

"Old-fashioned it is," Sir Percival said.

"I'll go to the john to puke. This has chivalry and swords and shields written all over it," the officer who had greeted me sneered, leaving the room.

"Why you little..." Sir Gareth began. Sir Gawain shot me a look as if to say, 'You have to be joking' and flicked the back of his brother's helmet, diverting his attention. I giggled.

We continued the discussion without him.

As the discussion went on I became more and more uneasy. It wasn't something I could place; it was as if every sense that was screaming at me to get the heck out of there.

I went through a list of everything in the room, trying to decide what was making me uneasy. There were no bear-related things in the room, no disturbingly large weapons, and the room wasn't creepy. I trusted everyone that was in the room, except maybe the one officer who had left. They couldn't have been carrying weapons, anyway, because they'd been searched, and it'd be suicide to attempt bombing the place. The only remotely large or even heavy thing that had gotten past the search was the jerk officer's suitcase. It was surprisingly heavy and bulky for a suitcase.

The suitcase. Which he'd left in the room five minutes ago when he left.

In the corner of the room.

At my feet.

Crap.

I heard a distinct click from the suitcase. "Get down!" I shrieked, tapping Aegis into a shield and dropping to one knee to brace myself against the shock wave.

Thankfully, everyone listened and hit the deck, Merlin and Lady Nimue included. The Knights and King Arthur even had the sense to put up their shields.

I screamed as the shock wave slammed into my shield, shattering and dislocating the bones in my left arm and knocking me onto my back.

"Matilda!"

-------------------------

Everything was black. I felt a strange tingling feeling, then someone carrying me. In my semi-conscious state, I thought it was Peter. When I was small, and even right up to Operation: Camelot, I would sometimes, as my brother put it, conk out while maybe reading or watching TV, and when he found me, he'd carry me up to my bed.

"Pete?" I mumbled.

"Hush, child," a vaguely familiar voice said.

I was put on a bed, and a blanket was pulled over me. Someone touched my cheek and I slipped back into complete unconsciousness.

"She's been unconscious for four hours. The magic should have healed her by now," Thalia's voice said, some time later.

"She called out for her brother. At least she's strong enough to do that," the same vaguely familiar voice said.

I forced my eyes open. Sir Gawain and Thalia were standing next to my bunk.

"What up?" I croaked.

Thalia grinned and gave me a glass of water. "You saved King Arthur's life, that's what's up."

"What on Earth told you that thing was a bomb?! And made you stand in front of it?!" Sir Gawain demanded. "Every bone in your left arm - shattered into tiny little pieces!"

I coughed and drank another gulp of water. "One, gut feeling and a loud 'tick!' told me it was a bomb. Two, I knew Aegis would at the very least disrupt the shockwave and make it a tiny bit less likely that you lot will get internal injuries, and because I'll be taking the worst of the blast, you won't get turned into mincemeat. Three, I'm completely cut-proof, so the only injury I'm in danger of getting would be internal injuries from the shock."

"Still, it was pretty freaking stupid," Thalia said. "You're lucky Merlin was there and patched you up."

"I get the point; I'll admit it wasn't one of my smartest moves," I said. "But hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"So do a lot of things." Sir Gawain leaned back against the wall.

"How long till I'm up and doing stupid things again?" I asked.

Thalia checked her watch. "Five… four… three… two… one. You can get up."

I rolled off my bed and straight onto my feet, a trick I'd learned when we had bomb drills at the old Headquarters. Yes, we had those. What can I say, we're paranoid.

I stretched myself. "Cripes, I am stiff. I was out for four hours, right?"

Sir Gawain nodded towards the door. "Yes. You should have seen the panic everyone was in! Their figurehead – turned into a martyr!"

"Don't do that again!" Thalia said.

"No promises," I said.

Thalia rolled her eyes. "As always."

----------------------------

"Explain to me, Gawain, why I'm riding kilometers away from London while wearing all of my mail shirts and your brother's helmet. And my jacket. And Athena and Aegis in shield mode, with at least five other weapons on the belt. And," I said, struggling to bend over, "bags of sand tied to my legs."

"Remember when you were measured head-to-toe?" Sir Gawain asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Half an hour of height, weight, leg length and who knows what else. Who can forget?"

"Do you know what that was for? And put up your visor, I can barely hear what you're saying."

"No," I said, flipping up the visor on my borrowed helmet.

"A suit of armor, numbskull." My friend pulled his horse to a stop. "His Majesty wishes to make you a Knight of the Round Table."

"WHAT?!"

Sir Gawain smirked. "I knew you'd react that way. Actually, you'll be a Dame, but it's basically the same thing, only a different name. Everything you're wearing's so that you get used to the weight of the armor."

I was completely speechless.

Sir Gawain chuckled and turned his horse back to London. "Come on, I think the smiths would've completed your armor by now."

I gripped Athena's hilt so tightly my hand cramped. It was all I could do not to ride my poor horse at a gallop all the way back.

By the time we reached London and had to return the horses to the medallion (It turned out the quest wasn't actually over until Mordred was defeated, or dead, whichever came first.), Sir Gawain had very patiently answered most of my questions about knighthood, and if I would have to stick to the code of chivalry or what or I had to go by some other rules (He wasn't sure. I was the first female Knight of the Round Table. Ever.), what weapons I would have to learn to use, the knighting ceremony, et cetera.

I always thought that putting on a suit of armor would be fairly easy, because in all the flicks I'd seen, the knight always seems to get dressed in under five minutes, and is up and waving his sword around before you can even blink.

Let me tell you, firsthand, that all that is a giant load of baloney. Maybe for an experienced knight and his squire it isn't, but for me, heck yeah it was.

First, you have the long clothes that are used to protect you from the edges of your own armor. Has anybody noticed that in a lot of flicks, the hero just grabs the nearest set of armor, puts it on, and goes to war? Then he always comes back with no cuts from his armor? Sir Gawain tried that once; he said he got more wounds from his armor than from the actual fight!

Then there's the padded tunic. What for, I hear you ask. Well, if you're basically wearing a giant metal can, one, it's going to be pretty heavy, so it'll be like carrying a hard, heavy object with no padding between you and the object. It's pretty uncomfortable. And two, ever thought about where the force from a sword hitting your armor goes to? The padding's to make sure you don't have a big fat bruise when you take off your armor.

Don't even get me started on the armor. You have to tighten the straps just right. Too tight, you can't move. Too loose, it gets in the way.

In the end, it took Thalia and me, including Lauren who volunteered to be my squire, a good half-hour to put on all my armor. Sir Gawain made me wear it for an hour the first day, then two, then three hours, until I got so used to it, I could sleep in it. Yes, I kid you not, sleep.

Then was on to using my weapons while wearing it. Oh, joy.

-------------------------

"Gawain, can I please put up my visor?" I begged as we dueled.

"No," he said, parrying one of my blows at the last second. "You must learn to fight with it."

"Agh," I groaned.

"I've fought like this for years. Don't tell me you, the only maiden Knight of the Round Table, are too weak!" he cried. "Or did our King make a mistake; that you are more suited as a damsel-in-distress!"

I felt anger well up. I was not a damsel-in-distress!

With an animal-like snarl I let loose. I wasn't exactly sure what happened, but I do know that my friend ended up spread-eagled on the ground, his sword two meters away, my sword was at his throat. "Yield."

Sir Gawain grinned. "I yield," he said, standing up. "I must say, Matilda, you have improved tremendously. I suppose it was the goading. Your soldier center is amazing!"

I put up my visor. "Thanks."

We ended the training, and I called for Lauren to take off my armor. You will be surprised at how eagerly my former sword master had taken to becoming my squire. I think it was because she was the first female squire in Britain's history. I was the first Dame of the Round Table (Or even Dame that would actually fight.), so we were both firsts.

I also now held the record for the youngest ever Dame in history, at the newly-minted age of fifteen. Not a lot of teenage girls go on quests to find King Arthur and nearly kill themselves shielding him and the Knights from a bomb.

The Resistance and it's supporters had gone mad when they heard I was to be knighted. Technically I already was a Dame, but for some obscure reason King Arthur insisted on knighting me properly, at the Abbey, once everything was over. If we won. If we lost, well, I'd be dead anyway.

I'd gotten, I am not joking, throwing knives, assorted daggers, and a new sword belt made of chain mail, all from supporters. Where they got them, we weren't sure, but they were all pretty good quality.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Lauren flicked my forehead. "Move your arms, milady. I need to remove the gauntlets."

I smiled sheepishly as I obeyed my squire's instructions. She was sixteen, so a lot of times I listened to her instead of her listening to me.

"Thalia wants you to go to another rally tonight, at ten. We're declaring war on Mordred tomorrow," Lauren said, helping me out of my armor. "So I'll have to come dress you at nine-thirty, and if you use this as an excuse to miss sword practice tomorrow, I swear I will give you the worst walloping that has ever been given."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, earning me a swipe from Lauren.

Sure enough, at half past nine, I heard Lauren call from outside my room, "Tilly! Let me in!"

I hid the history book I was reading under my pillow and undid the button holding my 'door' shut.

Lauren ducked through the flap, carrying my armor and padded tunic.

For the next twenty minutes we fumbled with straps and laces as I got dressed.

"Finally," Lauren sighed, when she fastened my sword belt around my waist.

As it turned out, all I had to do at the rally was show up, make a quick speech, and shake hands with some people. Sounds easy enough, but I'd forgot about the paparazzi. Half the media in London supported the Resistance, and that makes for a lot of photographers, each pushier than the next. In the end I just posed for one photo and scarpered.

------------------------------

"I have got to learn to do that one day," I said, eyeing the chessboard. Sir Gawain had put my king in check in under five minutes.

It had been three months since war was declared, and as King Arthur predicted, Mordred wanted battles the old-fashioned way. The past three months had been battle after battle after battle. We'd tried single combat, but Mordred proceeded to break the rules immediately, so it was back to battles.

I was usually near the sidelines, on foot, but the next day would be the final battle, the Last Battle Part Two. I'd puked the first time I killed someone, because the guy probably had a wife and kids and family, and it was a human life for crying out loud! I spent hours praying after each battle just to stay sane.

"To be fair, you haven't been playing since you were seven years old," Sir Gawain said.

I moved my king out of check. I did a bit of calculation. Sir Gawain was somewhere in his forties when he died the first time at the very least. "That means, about thirty-five years of practice?"

"Around there, subtracting the time spent on quests." Sir Gawain put my king back in check. "Check."

I scanned the board. "More like checkmate. Your knight will kill me if I don't move. And I can't move."

"True," he said, scrutinizing the chessboard.

He packed up the chessboard and gave me a Look. "Now for the real reason I asked you to play chess. I know Lancelot isn't exactly very fond of you right now..."

"That's a bit of an understatement," I said drily. He had actually gone out of his way to bother me, and even said, more than a few times, that I didn't know my place, that I shouldn't even have gone on the quest; some other boy should have. Even strait-laced Sir Kay wasn't like that, and he had trouble accepting at first that Thalia worked at Headquarters!

"But you have to be fair to him. He took it for granted that he would forever have Queen Guinevere. Now your handler has rejected him, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. He's taking his anger out on the most convenient person, and unfortunately, he blames you for telling Thalia," my friend said.

"I'm doing what you said and ignoring it. It's hardly my fault she isn't interested," I grumbled.

"True, but he still blames you. Even my uncle has noticed, and is starting to get annoyed. He's thinking about bawling Lancelot out, in front of everyone."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"We're staging an apology, at supper tonight. He'll apologize in front of everyone, though I doubt he's going to actually mean it. All I ask is that you go to Lancelot, at supper tonight, and let him apologize, then when he's done, at least pretend to accept it. King Arthur is less likely to tell him off, and it'll be easier on everyone. Lancelot's agreed to shut up," Sir Gawain said. "Remember your motto, natio supernus ego. Nation over self. Just doing this will help reduce the drama here at camp."

I sighed. I'd had that blasted Latin motto carved onto Athena's scabbard just after we left Headquarters for our first battle. I thought it was a good way to remind me of what was important. Now it was just a surefire way to make me do pretty much anything if only because I knew for a fact that the Knights could out-argue me in their sleep.

"I'll do it. But if this flops, I'm blaming you," I warned.

As if on cue, the horn sounded for supper.

I turned Athena back into a dagger and dashed outside before Sir Gawain could tell me to do anything else.

I went to our campfire and plonked myself next to Lauren, who was already there.

"What's the rush, milady?" Lauren asked, raising an eyebrow. Lauren had started calling me milady when Sir Kay had said it was improper for her to keep calling me by my first name. It had quickly turned into a habit to call me milady, my new nickname, much to the relief of Sir Kay.

"Escaping Gawain," I said, helping myself to some of the stew. We rarely used the medallions anymore, because Morgana had hinted that they would at one point turn to plain stone disks if used too often. King Arthur kept the first two medallions, but I kept the last; the one that could kill me if used without a good reason. I trusted King Arthur; I just trusted myself more.

Lauren smiled. "He told you?"

I snorted. "And used my own motto against me."

"I told you that having it carved was a bad idea."

"Shut up."

Within minutes everyone in our group had arrived. Our group of ten consisted of Lauren and four other squires, Sir Gawain, Sir Agravaine, Sir Oin, an obscure Knight, Sir Lancelot, and I.

"Dame Matilda?" Sir Lancelot asked.

"Yes?" I asked, my voice the neutral tone I had perfected whenever Sir Lancelot was around. I always saw him wince inwardly when I used it, but I didn't care.

"I apologize for my behavior of late. It has been rude and fit for not even a dog. I am not used to the concept of women being equal to men, and unfortunately, I have taken it out on you, the only Dame of the Round Table, and a girl eleven years my junior. I beg your pardon," he said. It actually sounded sincere, and I believed it for a second, though I knew it was all an act.

"Thank you, Sir Lancelot," I said.

We finished our food, and after drawing lots, Sir Lancelot's squire got stuck on washing duty. For the third night in a row.

"Sorry, old chap," Lauren said, patting his shoulder as he headed to the stream. "Bad luck?"

"Really bad luck," he muttered.

As usual, I sat on top of a pile of boulders to play a few songs for the Knights. As per King Arthur's request, I played party rock songs. Slow songs, love songs, and songs about family were no-no's, because it was right before the final battle, and it would be a bit stupid to play those as a result.

I washed up, crawled into my tent, and conked out.

----------------------

"Agh, Laurie! Must it be so tight?!" I gasped, as my squire tightened the strips of cloth around my chest. My, ahem, endowments were being squeezed too tightly for comfort.

"Yes, if you don't want your assets bouncing around on your horse!" Lauren snapped back at me. "Plus, there's no other way they'd fit under your armour otherwise."

"Wasn't all the other times looser?" I asked.

"Yes, but you weren't on horseback all the other times," Lauren said. "And don't forget your suit just got an emergency repair, so it wasn't really tailored to you.

She finally knotted the cloth. "Just be glad we didn't let old Mrs Brown have her way when we left HQ. She was still whinging about you not using a corset when we left, just that she was trying to make me make you wear one."

I groaned. "Whatever. Just hand me my clothes and get me dressed."

My squire snickered and went in search of my armor while I put on the long clothes designed to protect me from the edges of my own armor.

First was the padded tunic, padding for the armor worn on top. Second was the chainmail, which I was pretty used to. Then was the sabatons that protected my feet, greaves which protected my shins, poleyns that protected my knees, cuisses that protected my thighs, and spurs. That was just the leg armor.

Then were the breastplate, backplate, and faulds, rings of armor that protected my hips, abdomen and lower back.

After that were the besagues, small round 'shields' that were laced to the mail at my shoulder to protect my armpits, the rerebraces that protected my upper arm, then the vambraces that protected my lower arm, and the gauntlets that protected my hands and wrists.

Then it was my gorget, which protected my neck, then my helmet and visor.

Finally, my sword belt with Athena and a regular dagger was fastened around my waist. I picked up a shield, a regular one, and strapped Aegis onto my wrist.

Lauren stepped back and admired her work. "Tight enough?"

"Yeah," I said, rolling my shoulders. "How long was that?"

My squire checked her watch. "Ten minutes."

I whooped. "New record!"

"Whatever, where's my chainmail?" Lauren asked, looking around the tent.

"I'm pretty sure it's in your bag," I said.

"No, it's on my sleeping bag," my squire said, scooping it up and putting it on.

I helped her put on her surcoat with my by now official coat of arms, a silver lion holding a sword on a blue background, identifying her as my squire.

A horn blasted loud enough for me to jump slightly.

The call to battle. I hugged Lauren and ran to join the Knights, Lauren fetching my horse before joining the archers. I had shamelessly blackmailed her into joining the archers by the first battle, where she'd be safe. Though she was older than me, I felt that I should protect her.

"To arms, men!" King Arthur's voice shouted.

I had some business to attend to first, though.

I slipped easily through the crowd of volunteer soldiers to King Arthur. "Your Majesty," I said. "I desire a private audience with Your Majesty."

King Arthur looked at me, his only female Knight and easily the youngest Knight of the Round Table, and nodded. "But it must be quick."

I nodded and we headed to his tent.

"Has one of the Knights been bothering you?" he asked.

I should have known that would be his first suspicion. Lauren and I were the only females in the whole camp of thousands. "No, Your Majesty. I merely ask a boon."

"What is it, Dame Matilda?"

"That you carry my brother's shield into battle. Aegis. It is indestructible, and the image on the shield can terrify almost any living creature," I said. "It has been enchanted by Merlin to always be the perfect size for its bearer, so even I am able to use it, and it's bearer will be invulnerable to wounds."

King Arthur looked thoughtful. "Was it not this shield that you used to separate Sir Lancelot and I during our fight? And the same shield which you put between the bomb and yourself? And do not call me 'Your Majesty'. Call me King Arthur, if you must."

"Yes, and yes, King Arthur," I said. "Please. I will use a normal shield, like all the others."

King Arthur nodded. "I will do it."

I smiled. "Thank you, King Arthur."

I undid the strap on Aegis while King Arthur put down his shield.

I helped King Arthur strap Aegis on. "Three taps will cause it to immediately become a shield. Five taps on the inside edge of the shield, and it will become a simple wristband."

King Arthur nodded. "I shall return it to you after the battle."

"Yes, King Arthur," I said.

"You may leave."

I bowed and left.

--------------------------

We assembled on our side of the battlefield, Knights (and Dame) on horses, everyone else on foot. King Arthur, mounted on his enormous black horse, rode to the front of the army.

King Arthur drew Excalibur, holding it up in a salute to the army.

"I am Arthur Pendragon, King of England!"

Cheers from us English.

"I am Arthur Pendragon, King of Wales!"

Cheers from the Welsh. Well, those that escaped Mordred at least. Not a lot.

"I am Arthur Pendragon, King of Scots!"

Cheers from the Scottish.

"And today, we will drive off the evil rabble that think they own it!"

Cheers to deafen Mordred's army, a few hundred meters away.

"Centuries ago, Mordred betrayed me, and I killed him!

"Now, I will do it again! And this time, I will completely purge Britain of evil!"

Cheers to shake the earth itself. "God save the King! Long live King Arthur!"

King Arthur stepped back and signaled for me to step up, or more accurately, ride up.

I drew Athena, holding it in the air like a salute; as King Arthur did. "Men! This tyrant called Mordred will fall! He will not rise again! He has caused too much pain and death!

"I am a fifteen-year old girl, yes! I shouldn't be here, on a battlefield. But this is what Mordred has forced me to do! He made me into a fighter! He made us into warriors!

"We will not suffer any more, no, we will fight! I fight to avenge my brother's death. I fight for my loved ones at home. I fight for the people who died opposing Mordred!"

I fixed my poker face firmly in place as I was nearly deafened by the cheers. "Matilda Chase! Matilda Chase!"

------------------------------

At fifteen, most girls are worrying about clothes and boys. Battles are meant to be romanticized to death; Knights are supposed to fight for King and Country and Justice and all that, shouting 'For the King!'.

Yeah, I'm not most girls. I was a Knight, and my battle cry? The one I shouted out loud was the same as everyone else's, namely "For King and Country!" Yes, I know, it is clichéd, but everyone agreed on that.

To myself? "WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING?!" Hey, I'm fifteen. It would have been cooler if I'd actually been something like "Natio supernus ego!" or "For my brother!", but really, if you're on a horse going at a full gallop, charging into a battle, your priorities tend to be a tiny bit different.

Ever been in a fight? If you have, you know that at one point you stop thinking and start surviving. In other words, you just do whatever the heck you need to do to get out of there alive and with all your limbs intact. You don't think, just react, working on instinct. Everything's blurry and sharp at the same time. You know when to duck to avoid that sword, you're using muscles you didn't even know you had to their maximum.

It's crazy. Which is exactly why I was doing it.

I screeched as I dodged out of the way of a sword, then ducked into my attacker's defenses and ran him through before he could react. My horse had gotten killed early on in the battle by an arrow, so I was on foot.

I don't remember much of the battle, mostly because I'd gone into what the Knights called a 'soldier center', when pure instinct merged with skill to turn an average soldier into a formidable opponent, and a formidable soldier into a virtually unstoppable force. A side effect is that what happens while you're in the soldier center doesn't usually get remembered.

I do remember that near the end of the battle, I was stumbling, dazed and exhausted. I had fought for who knew how long, hours at the very least. It had been a little after dawn that we went to battle, now had to be well into the afternoon, close to evening.

"Behind you, Tilda!" someone shouted, and I turned just in time to duck under a sword strike and slash at my new opponent.

As a greatsword, Athena is pretty good at getting through armor. It probably had something to do with the fact that she would always be as sharp as she possibly could be. Most of the time a few slashes are able to get through an opponent's armor.

This guy, however, was an exception. His armor wasn't even dented; Athena just bounced off like rubber.

His visor was down, so I couldn't see who he was. But when he suddenly retreated a few steps and muttered a spell I knew I was definitely in trouble.

I felt the weight around my neck ease slightly. Something flashed gold in the sky.

I screamed as an excruciating pain slammed into me and I fell. It felt like I was being set on fire and torn apart at the same time. I was convulsing; I couldn't control my limbs anymore, I couldn't see. I felt a warm, coppery liquid pour from my mouth, and the same sticky liquid pour from my nose.

"TILDA!"

I heard the clash of swords near me, then heard a crack, and the pain stopped.

A blast of cold air hit me and I heard a thud nearby. Someone slipped a hand under my shoulders. "Hey, Tils, you able to sit up, if I help you?" Sir Gawain's voice asked softly.

I forced open my eyes, tried to speak, then choked on my own blood. "Yeah."

My friend eased me into a half-lying, half-sitting position, resting against him. He only hesitated a second before removing my helmet.

I can definitely imagine how bad I looked from his reaction. I knew for a fact that there had to be blood all over my face, and if I looked half as bad as I felt, I must have looked like something Death sneezed on. Even though my vision wasn't exactly crystal clear, I could see his face well enough.

"Cripes, Matilda," he said. "That's what the medallion does to you?!"

I didn't say anything, just nodded.

Sir Gawain turned and shouted over his shoulder. "We have a wounded Knight here!"

I noticed he was careful to use the word 'Knight' though anyone who had so much as glanced at me could tell I was a girl.

"Hi, Sir Gawain!"

I never thought I'd ever be so happy to hear Sir Lancelot.

"Think you might be able to stand for a few seconds?"

Wordlessly, I nodded, and Sir Gawain pulled my arm around his shoulders and helped me to my feet. Sir Lancelot helped pull me up behind him on his horse.

Cue awkward moment when I realized I'd have to hold onto him for the ride to camp. If the fact that I was a girl wasn't enough, we hated each other just the previous afternoon, though we were supposed to have made peace. To hold, or not to hold, that is the question.

"Hold on to my belt," Sir Lancelot suggested, when he realized my dilemma.

I held on.

----------------------

Sir Gawain helped me limp to the medic's. Limp is being generous. He was practically carrying me.

My shield looked like a porcupine's back, with dozens of arrows sticking out of it, my shield arm had suffered puncture wounds from arrows that had managed to penetrate my shield, and my sword arm had been dislocated then cracked back into place earlier. I was sore all over, courtesy of hours of fighting, and I was covered in a pretty decent amount of my own blood. Did I mention my nose was still bleeding?

But I couldn't have felt better. We had won. We had won the battle, we had won the war.

The medical officer, however, disagreed, and it's a tiny bit difficult to argue when your left arm is being cleaned, stitched up, slathered in antiseptic and bandaged. When it has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It hurts! I got a dose of local anesthetic, but quite honestly, it's mildly disturbing to watch your arm get stitched up and not feel anything, so I went for the lowest dose I could bear.

Eventually, after a lot of tests and examinations, the M.O. decided that I could not be allowed to do anything other than walk, to avoid aggravating any possible internal injuries. I wasn't allowed to resume practice for another month, I wasn't allowed to wear armor, even chainmail, and I was banned from wearing my sword belt for two weeks.

I was bundled off to my tent. Lauren, already there, took one look at me and grabbed a basin of water, towels, and at least five different bottles of who-knows-what.

"What the heck happened to you?" she demanded, wiping the blood off my face.

"The Last Battle part Two happened," I said. "And I forgot about the blasted medallion."

Lauren shook her head. "What the heck."

She finally saw my hair. My swear word vocabulary was considerably expanded. "Take a good look at your hair."

She held up a mirror, and lo and behold, I looked like a younger version of Rogue from the X-Men. I said this out loud, and Lauren laughed.

"Hold still, your hair looks like a bird made a nest in it," Lauren said, putting down the mirror and grabbing a comb.

I yelped as she dragged a comb through my thick hair. Why did I have to grow my hair long? Oh, yeah, I thought having long brown hair looked good. Well, now long brown hair with a white skunk stripe in it.

"Sorry." Lauren braided my hair.

She untied the bandages on my arm. "I still can't believe you gave King Arthur Aegis."

"He's the King. If I die, I'm just another Knight. Nothing goes awry. If he dies, he's the only King we have. Everything goes belly-up," I said, gritting my teeth as she carefully pulled back the bandages on my arms.

Lauren gave me her, 'wow you're stupid' look. "These are gashes, not scratches. There's a difference, numbskull. For one, you'll have a generous load of scars from this."

"We won, at least, and most of the Knights are still living," I said. "And I get Aegis back."

Lauren shook her head. I caught the phrases 'irritating, stubborn mule' and 'doesn't have a speck of common sense', and what I think was 'idiotic optimist'.

"So, what badges of honor did you get?" I asked. 'Badges of honor' was our slang for 'wounds that will probably leave scars'.

Lauren winced. "A gash from an arrow on my left shoulder, the worst of it was stopped by the chainmail, though. Good thing I'm right-handed."

"Ow." I winced in sympathy. Between us we counted some ten or so battle scars.

"The M.O. stitched it up, and I'm not to use a bow and arrow, or lift anything too heavy. That's it, though." Lauren retied the bandages and helped me strip off my long clothes and change to a clean set of clothes. "Tilda, you do realize that since your armor weighs around thirty-something kilos, I'm not supposed to carry that?"

"Lauren, you do realize that it's thirty-something kilos in total, right? And there are at least fifteen pieces? And that I can help you?" I asked.

My squire heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Alright. We'll get it after we eat."

--------------------------

Eating with a heavily bandaged left arm and a dislocated-then-cracked-back-into-place right arm was a lot harder than I thought. I nearly dropped my plate on the way to my seat, and the exhaustion wasn't helping. Lauren was somewhere over the rainbow, at the M.O.'s I assumed.

In the end, I managed to eat everything on my plate, put it in the bucket, and go to the tent to meet Lauren and help her get my armor.

My armor was in pretty bad shape. The armor for my left forearm, the vambrace, had more holes than a sieve, the backplate, breastplate, and a lot of my leg armor had multiple cuts that had made it through the armor. Everything was dented from when I fell off my horse.

"It did its job, at least," I commented, examining my left vambrace. "Although I think that's my third or fourth completely shredded piece of armour.

"Mm. It's a good thing you wear chainmail," Lauren added. "If not, you'll probably be minus one arm."

I cringed, imagining that. "Ouch."

"What are the odds this ends up as scrap metal?" I asked, indicating my vambrace.

Lauren cocked her head to one side, thinking. "Pretty high. I mean, that thing looks like some sort of chainmail; there are so many holes."

I grinned. "You ought to see my shield. It looks like a metal hedgehog!"

Lauren laughed. "By the way, that reminds me. King Arthur returned Aegis just now."

She rolled up her sleeve, revealing my wristband-shield, and took it off. "He was busy sorting out the whole surrender thing, so he asked me to pass this to you."

"Thanks, Laurie," I said, putting Aegis back on.

----------------------------

Later that night I decided to head out and watch the stars for a while before going to sleep.

I grabbed my long-suffering cloak, changed Athena to a small dagger, and headed out. I wasn't reckless or stupid enough to leave my tent without a blade, never mind that I had Aegis.

I finally found a good spot, spread my cloak like a mat, and sat.

I lay back on the cloak. My first rest in years. No battles, no fights, no fear. Everything was done.

I smiled and closed my eyes. It had been so long since that fateful day three years earlier when Merlin had told my brother and me that we were the only people who could save Britain. Even longer since Mordred had returned; the end of my childhood.

"I know you're there, Gawain," I said, without opening my eyes.

Wordlessly he sat down beside me on the ground, and, deciding that no-one really cared what was proper and besides no-one was there, he lay down next to me.

"I still can't believe that we won," he said. "That Mordred's finally gone."

"Same. I can't believe it's only been three years," I said absent-mindedly.

"Three years since what?" Sir Gawain asked curiously.

I only realized then that I'd spoken. "Three years since I was told that I and Peter were supposed to save Britain. Three years since I started my survival and combat training. And two years since I left for the quest."

"How old are you exactly?" Sir Gawain asked.

"Fifteen years and three months," I said.

"You were thirteen years old when you left," Sir Gawain said softly. I detected a bit of disbelief and respect in his voice. "Twelve when you started your training."

I nodded. "Yes."

"And your brother was seventeen. The same age as Galahad when Lancelot knighted him," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Yeah. It was pretty crazy," I said, smiling. "Looking back on it, I still can't believe it. Peter and I should have been in school. We shouldn't have been training to kill someone if we had to."

"No, you shouldn't," Sir Gawain agreed. "You should have been at your studies."

"Well, we all had to grow up pretty quickly," I said. "I certainly had to."

We were silent. "How did you bear it?" he asked. "Training to do something you shouldn't have to do, to kill, and to survive by yourself. Seeing your friends and loved ones all hanged."

"Who told you that?" I asked sharply. Only Thalia and Lauren knew I had in fact seen the M9 members hanged. Everyone else thought I had only heard of it, didn't see my friends slowly strangled, didn't see them die.

"Your squire, Lauren," Sir Gawain said. "I asked her why you hated the tree with the rope marks on it."

I deflated slightly. I remembered that day. Sir Gawain had joined me for a rally and I'd flinched when I saw the Hanging Tree. Stupid memories. "Okay. I got through it then, because I was angry and I was afraid. I wanted to escape, and if I had to go to Wales questing to do it, so be it. It helped that at the time I was still young and innocent enough to think of it like a grand adventure, like in the stories. By the time reality set in I was in the middle of nowhere in Wales."

He nodded, then looked up. "Do you see Hercules over there?" he asked, pointing to the sky.

I looked up to where he was pointing. All I could see was a bunch of stars. "No."

He pointed out how the stars formed a constellation and I could finally see. "Yeah."

"The demigod son of Zeus. He was said to have strangled two snakes sent by Hera to kill him, when he was just a tiny baby," Sir Gawain said. "He then played with them like they were toys."

For maybe half an hour I listened while Sir Gawain told me the stories of Hercules, which made me feel better because my luck wasn't anywhere near as horrible as his. We said goodnight after a while and headed back to camp.

-----------------------------

We returned to a hero's welcome. The first thing I saw when we reached the HQ? Three Wolves, tied back to back, around a column, surrounded by about a dozen smirking assistants. Jamie was wearing a grey Wolf cap. Obviously he was the ringleader.

Thalia laughed when she saw my expression. "When they heard that Mordred was killed, they grabbed the three nearest Wolves and tied 'em up as a welcoming gift. I checked their uniforms; it turns out the one in the center's the Alpha!" The Alpha was the Wolves' leader, second only to Mordred himself. Ah, the sheer badassery of M9; even the assistants get in on it.

"Nice job, Jamie," I said. "Taking down the Alpha."

"Are you joking? It was easy!" Jamie grinned. "They were dead drunk!"

--------------------------

To our amazement, Queen Morgana Le Fay owned up to having someone plant the bomb in the meeting room, and also telling Mordred about the medallion. She then offered to repair Britain to make up for it!

When Thalia heard about this, her first reaction was giving me her patented 'What happened that you didn't tell me?' look, then "Of all the cheek… That Morgana Le Fay."

I just went to the bathroom and washed the dye out of my hair. Before we reached London, we'd figured out how to dye my streak of white hair black, so it looked like I'd just dyed it for fun.

Thalia didn't even look surprised when she saw the white streak of hair. "I had a feeling the thing would leave a mark; personally I'm just glad it isn't a giant scar," she said. "At least you can dye this to your normal hair color."

Why wasn't I surprised? Thalia was seriously crazy-prepared, all the time. Just look at the first rally King Arthur and I had to do. She had brought along a shotgun, and we actually had to use it.

The next few weeks passed in a bit of a blur. Queen Morgana Le Fay did in fact restore Britain to how it was before Mordred came along, and then promptly kicked us Knight's and King Arthur's butts into Buckingham, for some obscure reason. I did hear something about clearing out Mordred's taint or something like that, I wasn't sure.

I had thought, rather naively, that after the battle, everything would just neatly fall into place. It showed how little I knew then.

There was the fact that there were still those that believed in Mordred, that King Arthur shouldn't have ruled.

There was the fact that Britain was not an absolute monarchy, what King Arthur and the Knights were used to, and to change it back to one would be complicated as heck, the last thing a country just out of a dictatorship needed.

There was the fact that a country does not simply return to its former state overnight. Sure, Queen Morgana had restored the architecture and stuff, but nothing could erase the experience, the memories. The Wolves and their families, anyone remotely associated with the Wolves, were all attacked; women and children, small babies.

"Please, London," I begged during one of my speeches, "Have mercy. They did what they had to do to survive. Could you help it if your father, your uncle, your brother, joined the Wolves, even if you didn't want them to? You of all people should know, they were desperate to make sure that their families were safe. You of all people should know what people would do for their families, willing to do anything on Earth for them."

"They're traitors, the lot of them! They deserved what they got! Murderers!"

"They didn't show us mercy!"

I swallowed, feeling tears prick my eyes. I never cried on stage. "Please. You know the stories; I saw half of M9 hanged with my own eyes. I was only twelve years old, and my adopted family and friends, all I had ever known, was hanged. Who did it? The Wolves. But you know that I am willing to do anything for those I love; I am fifteen years old and I have killed, without mercy, so that what remains of my family can live in safety. It's the same thing. The Wolves did what they had to do so their family would be safe from Mordred.

"I have murdered; you call it war; killed people with families and loved ones. I am the same as the Wolves. Do you see me? I am a human, with a family and loved ones, just like the Wolves. I have killed to protect my family and loved ones, just like the Wolves. If you must punish them and their families, who have done nothing wrong, punish me along with them."

"But you're different!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"How am I different?" I asked. "Come on, I dare you to contradict me. The only difference between me and your average Wolf is that I am seen as a hero for killing."

"The Wolves and the whole of Mordred's lot deserved it!"

"Will you listen to yourself? Imagine yourself in their position. You have a family and children. You are willing to do anything to make their lives safer. Mordred might kill them if you don't become a Wolf. You're starving, you're desperate. So even though it goes against your conscience, you do it. You murder to keep your family safe and warm." I pulled off my jacket, tossing it on the ground. "Look at me, Matilda Chase the girl, not Matilda Chase the hero. I have a family. I was willing to do anything to make their lives safer, and I still am. They might have been killed if I didn't go to Wales and then fight. I was desperate. So even though it went against my conscience, I did it. I murder to make my family safer. I am no different from the Wolves."

They didn't have anything to say to this. I just put my jacket back on and got off the stage.

-----------------------------

It took a long time for the former Wolves to be even partially accepted into society. There were still random attacks on them, and the Alpha? He didn't stand a chance. I wasn't particularly fond of him; I had seen him hang my friends with my own eyes on the Hanging Tree, but what happened to him shouldn't happen to anyone. Quite a few of the Knights, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain and Sir Percival included, actually vomited when they saw what happened to him. I was no exception; the punishment was absolutely barbaric. I was fairly sure the last time it was done was in in the sixteen hundreds to Guy Fawkes.

My face was as white as my streak of hair when I next climbed up on stage.

"Hey, Matilda, why so pale?" someone asked.

I swallowed. I couldn't reconcile the people standing in front of me with the people that had killed the Wolves' Alpha in such a brutal way. "I saw what happened to the Alpha. What I saw on the battlefield has absolutely nothing on this. Please, why do you do this?"

"He deserved it!"

"No one deserves that. It's why we got rid of that punishment ages ago. Even in battle we did not do such things," I said. I had a sudden wave of nausea at the memory. "I cannot speak anymore. Sorry."

I somehow managed to stumble off the stage and go home.

I think my reaction to the attack convinced them to leave the former Wolves alone.

"Yeah, let him have it!"

I ran in the direction of the shouts. Someone was in trouble, and I was a Knight. I didn't need to be told.

My hand reached for Aegis, ready to tap it into a shield in an instant. The hood of my jacket, by some fluke, managed to stay on my head.

"Please! Mercy!"

I ran into the alley. Three men had surrounded one and had obviously beaten him up. Said man was kneeling on the ground, begging for mercy.

"Hey!" I shouted. "What's going on!?"

The man in the center blanched when he saw me. The other three did not look pleased. "What's it to you?" one of them demanded.

"Why are you beating him up?" My sleeve was rolled up. Three taps, and I could scare them off.

"He's a Wolf," Jerk Two sneered, stepping away so I could see the man's tattooed face.

They didn't recognize me, that much was clear. "Didn't Dame Matilda say not to attack former Wolves? That she herself was the same as a Wolf?"

"She isn't here."

I stepped forward and flung my hood back. "I am Dame Matilda. Now scram!"

The three men's eyes went wide and ran they off with their tails between their legs.

I knelt down next to the Wolf. "What's your name? Do you need any help?"

The man swallowed. "James Brown, Dame Matilda."

"Just Matilda, please," I said. "What happened?"

"I… I was coming home from a friends – I wanted to call my family, and I didn't have a phone – when they suddenly dragged me into the alley and started beating me up," he stammered.

I nodded. "Think you can walk if I help you?"

"Should think so."

I helped him up, trying to be careful. Even with my best efforts, he had to stifle a hiss of pain as I helped him to his feet. "Where do you live?"

"A couple minutes' walk from here," Mr. Brown said. "It's not necessary; I can walk on my own."

I tried not to snort. Mr. Brown could crawl, but not walk, that much was clear. "Mr. Brown, you cannot. Even if you were, who's to say they won't try again?"

We went to his house.

I helped him to the front door of his house, then said goodbye.

"Wait!"

I turned, worried that he might have been injured worse than I thought, and walking had aggravated it.

"Thank you," he said.

I smiled. "No problem."

----------------------------

"I have to what?"

Sir Gawain smirked. That jerk… I contemplated different ways of killing him as he said, "Jump into water with all your clothes on."

"It has been tradition for as long as any Knight can remember. The new Knight has to jump into water - usually the river next to Camelot - the day after their knighting, and in front of all the other Knights. We did not do it earlier because it was the middle of a war, and your wounds were still healing," Sir Lancelot said. He and I were friends now, after the Last Battle Part Two. Strangely enough he seemed to know exactly what annoyed me and exactly what I couldn't resist squealing over.

I put my hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "Alright. When do I do it?"

Sir Lancelot shrugged. "Any time, so long as it is at night. King Arthur does not mind, but he may not appreciate having the only female Knight doing this."

I pulled my shoulders back. "In that case, meet me at the lake at eight, and tell all the others. I'll jump into the thing."

Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain grinned.

"By the way, why jumping into water of all things?" I asked. "I always thought it'd be something like a two versus one fight or something related to fighting."

Sir Gawain shrugged. "A lot of us think it's to make sure we can actually swim, so if we go on a quest we can be fairly sure we won't die just because we couldn't swim. Imagine the epitaph: Sir So-and-so died honorably on a quest by drowning in a lake because he could not swim."

"Personally, I think it's just a service to the ladies of Camelot," Sir Lancelot said, smiling.

I giggled. "The first one seems a bit more likely, though the second one's possible."

At seven-thirty I put on a pair of Bermudas and a T-shirt, a pair of sandals, grabbed my natty old cloak, then headed out to the lake.

Most of the Knights and some of the squires were already there… And so was Thalia and a vaguely familiar African guy. He was tattooed as a Wolf. Thalia was holding a video camera.

"Hey, Matilda! Long time no see!" the African guy said.

"You remember Edmund, Matilda?" Thalia asked.

Edmund… Oh, right, Thalia's boyfriend. He was an M9 member, but until recently he was disguised as a Wolf, getting information for us, so I hadn't seen him since I was twelve.

"Hey, Ed!" I said. "Came here to see me get drenched?"

He pulled out an iPhone from his pocket. "I've my phone on standby!"

I grinned and tossed my cloak about a meter away from the lake, then started to take off my sandals.

"You have to wear your sandals, milady," Lauren called from where the squires were standing in a group, evidently having come to see me get wet.

"Alright, alright!" I yelled. I put my sandals back on.

"The lake's deep enough here for you to jump right in," Sir Gawain said, indicating where he was standing, about a meter away from me. "It's about ten feet here." 

"Thanks," I said, kicking my cloak over, walking a few meters back to take a running leap. On the count of three, I thought. One, two, three!

I ran and jumped right into the lake. I heard the cheers of the Knights and squires as I resurfaced. "Heck yes!" I shouted.

I swam back to the bank and Lauren and Thalia hauled me out. "Nice!" Lauren said, throwing my cloak around me.

"Thanks," I said, grinning like an idiot.

Sir Gawain and Sir Lancelot came over to congratulate me then. "How was the swim?" Sir Gawain asked.

I smirked. "Why don't you try it yourself?"

Before he could react I grabbed his arm and shoved him into the lake.

"AH!" He resurfaced and spluttered. "MATILDA CHASE!"

I was laughing too hard at the soggy Sir Gawain to reply. Suddenly, a pair of hands clamped around my waist and sent me flying into the lake.

I shrieked just before I hit the water. Water went up my nose and into my mouth before I resurfaced, coughing and sputtering. A smirking Sir Lancelot was standing about half a meter from the lake. That evil Knight.

As fast as I could, I grabbed his legs and pulled him into the water.

Soon it turned into a dunking free-for-all as Knights got shoved or pulled in by fellow Knights, and even the squires got in on it.

"Knights! What do you think you are doing?!" King Arthur's voice demanded.

Oh crap.

A.N. They used feet in the Middle Ages. Meters hadn't been invented yet.

-----------------------------

"I expected more from you, nephew! Encouraging the only female Round Table member to jump into a lake, watched by all the Knights and squires! And then going into the water with her! It is indecent!"

King Arthur had been chewing Sir Gawain out for the past five minutes, and this seemed a good time to cut in.

"King Arthur, I had agreed to it. I said I wanted to be treated like any other Knight, and as this was tradition, I did it," I said. "And I shoved Sir Gawain into the lake, then I got thrown in myself."

"Matilda, you are a maiden, though a Knight. Your honor, your reputation was at risk then," King Arthur snapped.

"King Arthur, there was no-one else there but the Knights and some of the squires. Thalia was there. Nothing could have happened," I said. "Quite honestly, if anything had happened, a good portion of the Knights would be in hospital right now and a few would be six feet under."

King Arthur sighed. "Nothing of this sort is to happen in future, understood?"

"Understood."

------------------------------

A.N. I had to put this in! I had a mental image of a Knight using Facebook and this kind of happened.

"LANCELOT STOP SPAMMING MY FACEBOOK WALL!" I shouted in the general direction of Sir Lancelot's rooms. There were thirty posts, all by Lance Lake (Lancelot du Lac = Lancelot of the Lake = Lancelot Lake = Lance Lake.)!

Cue epic spamming from twenty annoyed Knights. My server nearly crashed.

I scowled and got to work. This. Is. War.

"MATILDA!"

I smirked. Dozens of posts by Marian Jackson were now on Sir Lancelot's wall.

And cue the spamming by Gavin Ladiesman. I wasn't sure why Sir Gawain of all people had chosen that as a last name, but hey, it worked. There wasn't a single piece of fan mail.

I sighed and went to check Sir Percival's (Percy Carbonek) wall, then Sir Galahad's (his alias was his dad's idea) Gale Lake. King Arthur's was Arthur Pendergrast. Lauren's was Lily Squire. Tacky, I know, but she figured it was such a common name no-one would be able to tell which profile was hers. Her actual name was Lauren Mary Winters. Thalia hadn't bothered with Facebook.

About a third of the Knights had gotten email accounts and online profiles, along with computers, as part of King Arthur's effort to modernize everyone. The other two thirds could just about tell a spoon from a light bulb, so we didn't try. The Big Four, how Lauren and I privately referred to Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad, Sir Percival and Sir Gawain, were among the third that had taken to the Internet, Facebook in particular.

"Tilda! Butt off the computer!" Thalia's voice called from outside my room.

"Yes, mum," I joked, putting the computer on sleep mode.

Thalia and Lauren bustled in, Thalia carrying a military uniform and boots, Lauren carrying a set of modern armor. Within five minutes I was lacing up the new boots, making notes on how much I'd have to break it in.

"It's lighter than my original armor," I said, moving around once I finished lacing up my boots. "And feels better."

"I should think so. This isn't designed to be like a giant metal can," Thalia said.

The armor I was wearing was for the knighting, after my original one got shredded. It was modern armor, admittedly, but it was to show that it was a new age, and that King Arthur accepted it. Instead of using a sword to dub me, he was using the flat of his hand. Besides, since I was basically a soldier with a title (that's what a knight is, if you think about it), it made more sense if I had to fight again. Hopefully that wouldn't be for a while. A long while.

Lauren helped me into the armor, and it fit pretty well. The ceremony was in a week, after King Arthur was officially crowned King Arthur the First of Britain by Merlin.

I kind of blocked out what Thalia and Lauren were saying until I heard my name. "Yes? What'd I miss?"

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Zoned out as usual. We were talking about when we had to go to school."

School. I'd never been to school in my life. Thalia and the rest of M9 had taught me. Thanks to them, I knew, in theory, how to defuse a bomb, exactly where to hit a person to either knock them out or buy myself enough time to run for my life, and a good chunk of the lines from Romeo and Juliet (don't ask).

"I have to, don't I? No more homeschooling?" I asked.

"Yes. You have to set an example," Thalia said. "It's a private girl's school. It'll be close by, so you can bike there."

"And you can answer any quests that happen to come by," Lauren added with a grin.

I grinned. "Wonder how they'll react to me. Any particular bragging rights?"

"Wonder how they'll react to us, since I'm going with you. Fencing, archery, and the average O level results are all pretty good," Lauren said. "Quite a few of the alumni have become international and local celebs."

We kept chatting about the school well into the evening.

--------------------------

I was on a battlefield, about to face a knight.

The knight drew his sword.

Every move he made, I matched with my own. It was a dance, and one wrong step could kill me.

I disarmed him and ran him through.

He fell. His visor fell back, and a pale face looked up at me in disappointment and hurt. My father's light brown eyes, my mother's hazel hair, the same nose and mouth as me.

Peter Edward Chase, my brother.

"How… Why?" Peter asked, as I stumbled back, horrified, Athena still in him.

"You're dead, Pete. I saw you die with my own eyes two years ago, you can't be here, you can't be real," I babbled.

He stood up and drew Athena from his stomach with no apparent pain. "I am not here? I can't be real? Matilda, I am very real.

"Why did you not help me when I was attacked? Instead you claimed more lives, merciless. My baby sister, a murderer, even she admits it. Wielding a sword and a shield taken from a dead man."

He threw Athena at my feet. "We did this, the mission, to prevent bloodshed, we agreed. Instead after my death you participate in battles, and as a Knight, even. Where is my sister? She wouldn't have done this."

"Peter, we had to fight to bring down Mordred, you understand that, don't you? I used your shield because you yourself told me to take it. I was knighted, true, and I fought, but I'm still your sister," I said. "After Mordred was brought down I tried to protect the Wolves, stop them from getting killed."

"You shouldn't have. They killed M9, they killed just as they should have been, and you let them live? You even save the life of a Wolf you could have simply left to die?"

"They were forced to! And I couldn't have left him to die, I'm not that kind of person!"

"You are."

"Cripes, Matilda! Wake up already!" Lauren shook me slightly. "It's just a dream."

I shot bolt upright, my hand automatically going for Athena, under my pillow.

Lauren scrambled away from the bed, holding her hands up in surrender. "Jeez, Tilda! It's just me!" She knew what I was reaching for. When she was training me in self-defense when I was twelve (Believe me, you do not want to know how or why a thirteen-year-old girl knew how to fight like a pro.), she'd taught me to always keep a weapon on hand at all times, be it gun or knife.

"Sorry, Laurie," I said. "What?"

"I was going to do a surprise test today. See how well you can defend yourself in a pinch. Anyway, I came in, and you were thrashing about in bed. It was obvious you were having some sort of nightmare, so I woke you up," Lauren explained. "You said something about the Wolves?"

I forced a grin that I hoped was mischievous. "I'll kill you later. Well, I'm awake, so you can't do the sneak test today. Sword practice? I know it's redundant but I still like the feel of a nice sword."

Lauren nodded, leaving the room. "Alright. Usual training spot in twenty minutes. And if you nearly pass out again because you didn't eat, I swear I won't stop."

She paused at the door. "And, Matilda, if you ever need to talk, just know I'm here. You're a kid now, not a soldier. No need to act tough."

A kid, I thought. I was and I wasn't a kid. I was fifteen. But the way I saw it there probably weren't any kids left in the country, unless you counted the to. Blasted Mordred.

Mentally shoving my doubts into a dark pit, got out of bed and got dressed, strapping Athena to my waist and grabbing a snack bar from my chest of drawers. I'd learned the hard way that if I ate too much before training, I puked, but if I ate too little, then I got dizzy.

After training, we headed to the dining hall to get a real breakfast. I had a BLT sandwich (I just did two hours of sword practice!) and tea with a bit of sugar, Lauren had a giant plate of pancakes and coffee. As usual, she still hadn't taken off her helmet. "Too lazy to take it off then carry it up to my room," she said once.

Hmm… Evil plan forming…

In exactly twenty-four hours I was running for my life from my very angry pink-haired squire. "MATILDA CHASE! I WILL KILL YOU!" Thank you, food dye and the fact that Lauren never checks her helmet.

I ran out to the garden. I wasn't looking where I was going, and I crashed straight into Sir Lancelot who was dueling with Sir Gawain.

"Hey!" he yelled, dropping his sword to catch me. "What's happened?!"

"Lauren's trying to kill me! Gotta go!" I shouted, scrambling back onto my feet and running for my life.

"MATILDA!"

Oh man, that was closer now. I was dead.

Then again, she was far away from the main building, since I was, so that meant I could do a U-turn and run back.

I ran back, taking detours and random turns to lose Lauren, then ran back to the building.

I stopped at the lake to catch my breath. I had been going at a sprint for the past ten minutes. It was only because of adrenaline that I could even do it in the first place.

Suddenly a foot kicked me into the lake. I screamed just as I hit the water, getting water in my nose and mouth as a result, and resurfaced as fast as possible.

A smirking Lauren was standing next to the lake, still pink-haired.

I scrambled back onto land. "We're even?"

"We're even."

---------------------------

A.N. Warning: Suicide is briefly implied, mercy killing is explicitly stated at one point.

"Tilda! Merlin wants you and me in his lab stat!" Lauren called.

"Got it!" I called back, my hands automatically going for Athena's scabbard and strapping it to my hip.

I stumbled to my rooms and fell into my bed, my mind reeling.

Your own time.

I was born and raised in the twenty-first century. I was not from the Middle Ages, but apparently I was and so were Peter and Lauren. Peter, Lauren and I were relics of an earlier age, brought into the modern day to defeat Mordred.

"You must return to your own time, with your King. Should you choose to remain here, you will no longer have your memory, but should choose to leave, you may not return."

Either way I lost Thalia, everyone, everything I'd ever known, except in the second case, I still had my work and Lauren, but also the gut-wrenching memories.

"Merlin, be reasonable. They are but children!" King Arthur protested.

"Not children, Arthur. Ask them yourself, you will find their views are very different from your own."

Lauren nodded sadly. "Yes. I have taken lives; even if I wished to, I can no longer pretend that I am a child."

I bowed my head. "I was, and still am, in the opinion that there are no more children in Britain, no matter their age. But I cannot leave my family behind, Merlin!"

"Then you must forget them."

I had turned and ran then, back to my room, then locked the door.

I couldn't bear to have to forget my family and friends, but I didn't want to leave them either.

I automatically unstrapped Athena from my hip and tossed her onto the bed.

I couldn't help but stare at the scabbard, imagining the deadly-sharp blade it hid. Sharp enough to pierce skin without a person even being aware of it. More than once I had put that ability to use on the battlefield, using it to mercy-kill the Knights who were too badly injured to be saved.

A thought popped into my head, just as quickly, I dismissed it, mortified that I would even think of doing something like that. I was not badly injured. I was bent, not broken. I would survive this.

But oh, what to do?

----------------------------

"Dame Matilda Chase. Squire Lauren."

I put down my cloth and slid Athena back into her scabbard, standing up and nodding to Merlin. Lauren, cleaning Perseus, did the same.

He didn't even hesitate before waving a hand at Lauren and I.

I had just enough time to think, "Why didn't I expect this?" before I swear, something slammed into my head.

"Where did Lancelot go?" I was back in my six year old body. I seemed to be wearing a silk dress embroidered with gold thread.

"He went to study with the Lady of the Lake," a vaguely familiar woman said, smiling. "He will become a great knight."

"Oh. When will he be coming back, Mother?" A ten year old Peter looked up at the woman.

"We don't know."

"I want him to come back!" I said. "Then I can play with him!"

"He will, Matilda. Some day."

"Queen Elaine, wife of King Ban of Benwick. You do understand what I ask of you?"

"Yes."

"Then let Matilda and Peter come forward."

There was a flash of light.

Peter put his arms around me as I shivered in the cold British winter, sharing whatever little warmth he had with me. I smiled, the abruptly sneezed, and I snuggled closer to my brother.

A young woman with straight blonde hair cut in a bob and big blue eyes, wearing a long grey coat and a beret, heard me sneeze and knelt in front of us. "Oh, you poor dears. Where are your parents? Are you lost?"

I woke up on top of my bed, Merlin smirking down at me. How I wanted to punch him.

"I trust you have regained your memory? It will certainly help you in your decision." Patience, Matilda. It is a very bad idea to punch the world's most powerful sorcerer in the face.

I grit my teeth and nodded.

Lauren suddenly groaned and rolled onto her side, sitting up. "What the…"

"I will leave you to your thinking." Think of puppies licking my face…

"Am I the only one that wants to punch Merlin in the face?" Lauren asked, cradling her head.

"Nope. It turns out, I'm Sir freaking Lancelot's big sister. Peter? Big brother," I said, mentally checking my Arthurian legend facts.

"Sir Kay's supposedly stillborn baby daughter Lauren Mary Winters at your service."

I was going to kill Merlin.

--------------------------

"Tilda?" Lauren asked, once we were sitting in our pre-Merlin spots.

"Yeah?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," I sighed. Up until now, my path had always been clear. Find King Arthur, get him back, protect him and the Knights, don't get killed, then relax once everything was over. Now? Not so much.

"Sir Kay's my dad," my squire muttered, taking Perseus in a death grip. "Does he know who I am? Does Lancelot know you're his older sister?" Like most M9-ers, Lauren never knew her parents, because it helped you whenever you had to do anything underhand if you had as few emotional attachments outside of M9 as possible. She had lived in a few foster homes, and when it became obvious she was almost obscenely smart for her age, M9 had discreetly taken her in. The Agent that went to take her in was named Mary Winters, so she ended up as Lauren Mary Winters. Me and Peter? Thalia's last name was Chase. It would have been Chaste if the nuns at the convent she was staying in had their way.

"I'm not sure. 'Presumed dead' remember? And Lancelot was a baby when he was taken away. He wouldn't remember me," I said. "Laurie, I have no idea what to do."

"Same. Go back, we break everyone's hearts but we keep our memories and our job. Stay, we break everyone's hearts but our own, because we don't remember anything."

----------------------------

"Tilda. Civilian clothes, leave Aegis and Athena behind. We're going out," Thalia said. It was the day after Lauren and I learned that we were Sir Kay's supposedly dead daughter and Sir Lancelot's sister, respectively. Thalia had found out, needless to say.

"Where to?" I asked.

"You'll see."

I pulled on the nearest pair of jeans, a shirt, and a hooded jacket. I gave Lauren Aegis and Athena, grabbed my bag, and left.

Thalia didn't say a word until we reached the place. It was the zoo.

"What're we here for?" I asked curiously.

"Remember when you were eight, and I promised to take you and Peter to the zoo?" Thalia asked, parking the car. "And I couldn't, because I had to go for a skills refresher course that took the whole day?

"Yeah," I said. Then it dawned on me. "Oh."

"You weren't happy," Thalia continued. "Peter wasn't either. You two refused to speak to me for a week. It was my fault; I forgot I had to go for that thing. Maybe I can make it up to you this way? Before…"

I leaned over and hugged my guardian. "Thank you. But I still haven't decided, you know."

"No problem."

We spent most of the day at the zoo, until our feet got too sore for us to keep walking. For once, Thalia's feet started to hurt before mine.

"I remember, when you were younger, we'd always have to cut a trip short because your feet were hurting, but you were too stubborn to admit it," Thalia said with a smile. "Now you're able to run seven, eight kilometres barefoot with no problem. Stupid Knight training, it's no fun challenging you now."

I smiled and we headed back to the car.

--------------------------

In the end, I returned to Camelot with Lauren.

Ex-Wolf Mr. Brown was kind enough to search out Peter's grave for me, and bought a proper headstone for him, inscribed with the date I provided for his death and the words,

"Here lies Peter Edward Chase,

died on the quest to bring down Mordred at the age of 15.

May he rest in peace."

I smiled, safe in the knowledge that my brother's sacrifice would not be forgotten.

When I returned to Camelot, in the last years of King Arthur's reign, I was warned that only Sir Galahad and Lauren would have any memory of the Second Battle of Camlamn, and I accepted this. I was introduced to Court by Merlin, as Sir Lancelot's older sister sent from the future, and made a Knight for the second time.

I soon became known as the Lady Knight, Lauren as the Lady Squire.

I had thought I would die at the Battle of Camlamn.

I was wrong.

-------------------------

Epilogue

When Sir Lancelot fled Britain with Queen Guinevere, he offered his sister Dame Matilda and her squire Lauren refuge. Dame Matilda refused but urged Lauren to escape, and in his stead, was arrested for treason and sentenced to death by beheading, much to the anger of many. The King met with her in the dungeons to tell her of her fate.

I raised my chin, forcing my face into a calm expression. "If I am to die, allow me just three last requests."

"Within reason," the King stipulated.

I nodded.

"Name your requests."

I took a deep breath. "One, that I be allowed my music, two, that I be allowed to write and leave my loved ones final letters, and three… Is that I be forgotten. That this will never be recorded. My squire cannot be allowed to take my place."

"Why, may I ask?" King Arthur asked in genuine curiosity. "Why would you wish to be forgotten?"

"Your Majesty, do you remember how Merlin said I was from the future?"

"Yes. The day you came to Court with Squire Lauren," he said.

I nodded. "I am. In the future you will return, and I will be the one to search you out and choose to return here, to serve. Should I know this is what I come to, I likely will refuse to return. But by doing this, ensuring I am forgotten, I can know that I will serve in future and that everything will happen the same way." I took a deep breath. "Your Majesty, I beg you, honour my request."

I swear I could see a brief flash of pain and guilt, then it was gone. The King nodded grimly. "It will be done."

Within minutes my guitar was brought down, sheets of parchment, ink, and a pen. I hadn't asked for it, but I got a box for my letters, and my seal and wax.

I started on the letters.

Lauren's was first, obviously. I didn't hesitate before writing.

"Dear Lauren,

If you are reading this, take courage. Remember what you said to me whenever I was protesting at training for the Quest? What doesn't kill you makes you a hell of a lot stronger, from lead to iron then to steel, until eventually you turn into adamantium.

Please, ensure I am forgotten, no matter how much it pains you to do this. If the future, younger me finds out that I end up dying, there's no way Young Me will return to Camelot, and to not return to Camelot is something I want to avoid.

I will face death with dignity. But do me a favor Laurie, and if you find out I did something spectacularly pathetic at the time of my death, spit on my grave for me. I want to go down as a world-class badass.

Squire Lauren Mary Winters, daughter of Sir Kay, veteran of the Second Battle of Camlamn and fellow M9 member, I am proud to have called you my friend and my squire, and I am honored to have had you as a teacher.

Be noble, be kind, and don't ever forget who you are and what you have accomplished when most people are still in school. And don't forget there's a reason I called you the owner of the biggest set of balls in the whole of M9, back when you begged to go with Peter and I on the Quest.

Lauren, however much you may want to take revenge for my death and even join the bad guys to do it, don't forget that my entire goal in life was, is, to bring down Mordred and keep him down for as long as possible. You anger is your ally and your foe. Control it.

Love,

Matilda.

I stopped, biting my lips in an attempt not to cry as the full reality of what was going to happen to me finally sank in. No, I will not cry. I lived like a badass and I will bloody die like one as well. May as well keep my reputation up. What else did I have?

Forcing my shoulders back, I sealed the letter, set it aside, and got started on my second letter, this time to Lancelot.

Dear Lancelot,

If you reading this, you must not blame yourself. My choice was my own, and I fully accept the consequences.

No, do not get angry because I 'am just a maiden girl who wished to serve the King'. I was brought up as a member of M9 and I served as a Knight. Death is an occupational hazard, and I willingly took it.

I don't blame you for anything, so you can clear your mind of that.

Do a few things for me, will you? The first is that you make sure I am forgotten. Please, ensure I am forgotten, no matter how much it pains you to do this. If the future, younger me finds out that I end up dying, there's no way Young Me will return to Camelot, and to not return to Camelot is something I want to avoid.

The second is that in future, do not tell me anything. You will understand what I mean later.

The third, is that you keep an eye on Lauren for me.

The last is that you don't blame yourself and/or refuse to serve the King. Just trust me.

Sir Lancelot Du Lac, I am proud to have called you my brother and my colleague, but you are still one very big pain at times.

And I so won that last sparring match.

Love,

Matilda.

I wrote letters to Sir Gawain, Lady Jane, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, anyone else I was friends with.

Finally with all the letters finished and sealed and placed in the box, I picked up my guitar for a last song.

I hesitated, wondering what song would best suit tonight, my last songs. Ah, I had it. Con Te Partiro, Time to Say Goodbye, the one I had absolutely refused to play since except when I was allowing myself to mourn like at Galahad's funeral.

I strummed a few notes, tuning it one last time, and got started. I was nowhere near talented enough to sing it, but play it and mouth the words, yes.

As I played I let myself imagine I was back in M9, Thalia, Lauren and Peter sitting beside me on the worn couch, smiling. Though this would be impossible, I imagined my family was sitting around me as well; my friends from M9, Sir Gawain, Lancelot. Everyone.

The next morning, I knelt on the grass and put my head on the block, refusing to show any sign of hesitation or weakness.

If I was to die, I wanted to face death with dignity and like a total badass.

I heard the whistle of Excalibur through the air, and a sharp pain at the back of my neck.

Then it was over.

A.N. Sorry, but I had to kill her off to stop myself from writing a crap sequel.