Somewhere within the great library of Galzburg, a door slammed open. This was, for said door, something very unusual considering it consisted of about three inches' worth of solid, steel-reinforced wood.
A younger man was sitting at a desk beyond the heavy door, studying a thick book bound entirely in leather and metal while making frequent reference to a stack of other, similarly ominous books sitting nearby. He twitched briefly at the sharp report caused by the door's impact on the stone wall nearby, recovering just in time to catch the edge of the door-slammer's sleeve in one fist as it swept past.
The woman to whom the sleeve belonged half-turned to fix him with a very high-caliber confused blink. "... Yes?"
"This is..." He paused briefly. "How did you get this far into the Special Collections?"
"Ah, that." She raised the arm that he didn't presently have a death grip on, and scratched the side of her neck, tilting her head in a slightly inquisitive fashion. "I'm Professor Bernaste, academic agent of the Magometry Research Agency. I've been assigned to retrieve a certain volume from the third section."
He stood, and released her arm. "Oh. ... My apologies, I wasn't informed of your arrival. I'm Miles."
"Miles... Miles Vandis, correct?" Bernaste flashed him the very edge of a faint smirk, although admittedly she didn't seem to be making any expression on purpose―it seemed closer to being the default state of her face. "I was reading a translation you wrote―Morganna's notes, wasn't it?"
Miles smiled somewhat vaguely at the mention. "... Yes. Not my best work, but probably the most historically interesting. Shame, that. I'll show you to the third section now."
According to the principles of narrative causality, Miles and Bernaste had gotten no further than five yards from the desk before a large explosion resounded throughout the building. As though she had been expecting it, Bernaste promptly took off running at a speed which rapidly left him trailing behind in vain hope of catching up.
---
By the time they had gotten there (or rather by the time she had, as it took him considerably longer), most of the automatic anti-fire systems had already activated, leaving patches of the section somewhat drenched but not utterly destroyed. A hole gaped in one side of the roof. Bernaste stared up through it, examining the miniature patch of remarkably blank black sky visible through it.
"Huh," she noted, in a mostly absent-minded tone.
He crouched and began to sift through the remains of one bookshelf, which although slightly charred seemed to indicate the explosion was more one consisting of air and plaster from the murdered roof. "It's not here. That's why they had to--"
Bernaste was abruptly standing directly behind him, and a bit too close. "It? ...You look rather concerned, for someone working in the Galzburg Special Collections."
Miles stood again, dropping his hands to his sides and adopting a slightly puzzled expression. "It was... largely classified that it was here. Not something that would have leaked. We never really identified it, but there was something about it..."
The expression on his face became considerably more decisive, as Bernaste rolled her eyes. "You're being disjointed, Miles. Please, collect your thoughts and respond once you can form a complete sentence or two."
"We picked... it up after the death of a man named Victor Hanover. Died in a fire. He apparently willed a considerable collection of various books to the library―mostly your typical mad scientist research material, but with one or two things which seemed definitely... shall we say, 'exceptional'. Even in the Special Collections, things that manage that much power are uncommon." He crouched again to retrieve a torn piece of paper from the wreckage. "Item #22417, we called it."
She narrowed her eyes, turning away from him and glancing back over her shoulder, her tone dropping to new levels of slight condescension. "And why would someone want 22417, Miles?"
"As I said, it was a bit exceptional even for something in the Special Collection." He seemed to be imitating her tone with some intensity. "The sort of thing which drives people mad if they read too much in one sitting. It was placed under my care because I was one of the people with the highest chance of resisting."
Something underneath both of their feet made a slight cracking noise, which echoed across the third section's large, now-disheveled room. Miles emitted a slight strangled choke and fell to the ground, breathing heavily. Bernaste turned towards him again, crouching and looking vaguely concerned in a way which didn't exactly seem to suit her.
After a brief bout of coughing, Miles glared up at her with recovered strength. "That explosion. Someone stealing a book which could make the world end is your department, isn't it? Unless, since you didn't have identification, you aren't exactly legitimate..."
---
A burst of lightning seared into the roof directly to the side of the figure, causing an intense miniature storm of clay fragments and an intense acrid smell. In response, the figure drew a gun again and ran, lending its shots back towards the origin of the lightning the particular brand of inaccuracy generally found when people try to shoot while running for their lives.
Another lightning flash crackled between the bullets, then dropped them as the lightning's creator dodged the falling bits of molten metal and leapt across the gap between rooftops. He was met with another bullet, this one less than an inch away from his neck. An automatic attempt to dodge left him unstable, and he only just managed to stop sliding down the side of the slanted roof before any lethal consequences could catch up to him.
The figure dove off of the side of the slope quite purposefully, plummeting towards the street below. As the one who had chased it watched, it hit the hard ground without any blood or snapping noises normally expected from such an impact, and after a few seconds continued running without missing a beat.
After the figure had ran, its pursuer was left alone, standing on the edge of a sloped roof, staring down at the presently abandoned alleyway as a thunderstorm began gathering overhead. Ultimately, he cursed in the sort of half-hearted way used by those who don't often do so, and turned to face the direction from which he had chased the figure.
Bernaste appeared more or less directly behind him. He twitched slightly, then turned to level a glare at her in a way which suggested this wasn't unusual. "Darian. What are you doing here?"
"Nothing much, Tobias!" Bernaste smiled, obviously investing all of her superficial energy into looking cheerful. "I like to read, after all, and--"
"Don't give me that, Darian Trevelyan. You were going to retrieve that book before we could get to it. You arrived under a false name. If you weren't obviously here and not the person who I just chased off of this roof, I'd say you were the one who caused the bloody explosion in order to run off with it." Tobias turned to briefly nod to Miles, who was very much the worse for wear at this point and had probably been dragged to the roof forcefully.
Darian turned, surveying the blackened parts of the tile. "Doesn't look like you were doing too good of a job as far as apprehending the suspect." As Tobias sighed in irritation, she smirked at him. "Besides, I'm technically one of your agents. So, mind telling me why you wanted 22417?"
originated as a short fiction fragment for creative writing. possibly will be continued. Julien is also definitely her mother's daughter, or rather considering the meta timeline Darian is definitely her daughter's mother. lol, time paradox.
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