Anna had made up her mind.
She wriggled back into her pink Hello Kitty hoodie, zipping it up to her chin. The rain still drummed on Camelot's canvas, steady and patient. She was just about to crawl for the tent flap when the inside of the tent flashed white.
Anna flinched.
"Oh, what now—?"
When her eyes cleared, Strong was already holding a familiar bunny-eared bottle in both hands, the plastic warm, the milk inside glowing soft as a tiny sunrise. He had somehow summoned it without even sitting up properly.
He latched on like a pro, cheeks puffing, eyes half-closed in bliss.
Anna stared.
"Wow. Okay. Right. I guess that solves your breakfast."
Strong ignored her, busy with the important business of being a one-day-old demigod drinking triple-potency super milk from a bunny bottle.
Anna sighed.
"Well, lucky you. I still need to eat," she muttered. "And before you summon food for me, just… don't. Braveheart and Sir Egg and the Nine probably want food too, and I don't think it's right for me to be eating without them."
She flopped onto her back, staring up at the tent roof.
"They said they'd come to Hope Estate after their job," she went on, thinking aloud. "But we're already in the city. So maybe we should go find them instead. Maybe they're close. Maybe they're having breakfast somewhere. Maybe they need a queen's guidance."
That last part cheered her up.
"But how do we even find them?" she groaned. "The rain is awful, everything is far, Hope Estate is miles away, and I am not walking all that way in wet socks."
She chewed her lip for a second, then snapped her fingers.
"Unless…"
Money.
Food.
Knights.
Family feast.
An idea slotted together in her head like toy bricks.
"Okay," she decided firmly. "New plan. We'll find the others first. Then we'll go eat. All of us. Like a big happy family. Or, no—like a queen throwing a feast for her knights. Braveheart and Sir Egg and the other crusaders. That's the plan."
She rolled onto her knees and peeked out through the tent flap.
"Sheepy!" she whistled. "Here, boy! Come!"
To her mild shock, Sheepy answered immediately.
He burst out of the bushes, paws splashing, and skidded to a stop right in front of Camelot, sitting down neatly as if he'd rehearsed it a thousand times.
Anna blinked. Normally Sheepy was a lovable idiot — good at following, but slow on the thinking and easily distracted by butterflies and smells. Now he was… attentive. Sharp.
And the rain had done something strange to him.
With his fur plastered to his body, she could see the shape underneath for the first time in proper daylight.
"Whoa…"
Sheepy was muscle.
Not huge, not horse-sized or anything, but packed.
His shoulders bulged, his back was thick and solid, his legs were like little pistons under the wet fur. He looked less like a fluffy mutt and more like someone had hidden a small tiger inside a dog costume.
"Damn, Sheepy," Anna whispered, impressed. "You too? Did Strong's weird powers infect you as well?"
Sheepy just grinned his dog grin, tongue lolling, eyes bright. He wagged his tail once, staccato and eager.
An idea landed in Anna's brain like a meteor.
"We need transport," she said slowly. "Hope Estate is far. The city is far. Walking sucks. But you…"
She pointed at Sheepy.
"You're fast, right?"
Sheepy barked once. Clear yes.
Anna's eyes glowed.
"Right. Good. Perfect. Okay. Stay there."
She scrambled back into the tent, grabbed Strong's Hulk towel-blanket, and huffed as she dragged it out.
"Come here, fluffy war machine," she said, patting her leg.
Sheepy trotted obediently inside Camelot.
Anna draped the Hulk towel over his back like a superhero saddle. Then, heart pounding with excitement, she scooped Strong up — bottle and all — and gently placed him on Sheepy's back.
Sheepy didn't flinch. Just stood there, calm and solid, like this was the most natural thing in the world.
"Oh my God," Anna breathed. "Strong, you're riding Sheepy. He's like your war horse. This is SO COOL."
Strong hugged his bottle and blinked, pleased with everything.
Anna's brain did another dangerous thing: it came up with an escalation.
"…Could I also ride him?" she murmured. "I mean… maybe…?"
She bit her lip, then decided yes, obviously.
Carefully, she swung one leg over Sheepy's back, then the other, until she was sitting behind Strong. She wrapped her arms around the baby's middle, holding him steady.
Sheepy shifted his paws to brace, but didn't even wobble.
Anna's jaw dropped.
"Sheepy, you're AMAZING."
Outside, the rain pattered.
Inside Camelot, a six-year-old girl was sitting on the back of a muscle-dog with a one-day-old demigod in a Hulk towel saddle.
"Yes," Anna said, grinning wide. "Let's do this. Let's go, gang."
She pointed dramatically toward the tent flap.
"Forward! To adventure! To… food! And knights!"
Sheepy, as if he understood every word, surged forward. He ducked out of the tent, trotted through the bushes, then stopped at the edge of the clearing to sniff the air, trying to decide which way "adventure" was.
"Wait," Anna said suddenly, tugging his fur. "Hold on, Sheepy—wait."
He paused instantly.
Anna frowned, thinking.
"We forgot something," she said slowly. "Before we do anything, we still have those rifles, right? And all that ammunition."
Her eyes slid toward the bushes near the mat-box house — to the place where the AK crate and ammo boxes lay hidden under tarp and branches.
"We can't just… leave it all here," she whispered. "Can we?"
Sheepy tilted his head.
Strong sucked on his bottle.
And Anna's brain—six years old, full of cartoons and chaos—began running through options.
"What if someone finds them? Then we'll be in SO much trouble. Maybe the police will take us. Or Mum. Or… or maybe the bad guys will take them. And then they'll have guns too! No no no, we can't let that happen."
She crossed her arms dramatically, thinking.
"Okay. Strong could summon more people to help us carry the boxes… but then those people would need transport, and beds, and food, and that's too much stuff to think about right now."
She puffed out her cheeks.
"No. I need a better idea."
Strong blinked.
Sheepy sneezed water.
Then—
FLASH.
A puff of blue System-light sparked under the tent flap.
Anna turned slowly.
"…Strong?"
Strong held up his empty bottle, shrugged, and said,
"Hmm."
Another FLASH.
And suddenly there was a plastic sled on the ground outside Camelot.
Bright red.
Meant for children.
Strong had apparently decided to help in the only way he understood: by manifesting random solutions.
Anna's jaw dropped.
"Oh, my, god. Strong, you're a GENIUS."
She hauled the sled into the bushes, dragged out the AK crate, and with surprising ease (thanks to her Hunter stats), she lifted the heavy wooden box and plopped it onto the sled. Then she added the two ammo crates on top.
It shouldn't have been possible for her—or any six-year-old—to lift that weight.
But Anna wasn't thinking about that.
Anna was thinking about adventure.
Next came the rope.
She tied it around Sheepy's chest like a makeshift harness.
"Sheepy, stand still! No—not shake! Stop—okay, good boy!"
She tied a big knot.
The sled tugged.
Sheepy didn't even flinch—just grinned.
"Perfect," Anna said, hands on hips. "Now Strong—front seat. Sheepy—pull the war-sled!"
Strong, still drinking from his bottle, was plopped onto Sheepy's back like a tiny warlord riding his first steed.
Anna climbed on behind him, hugged him tightly, and pointed ahead like a general.
"FORWARD!"
Sheepy obeyed instantly.
He blasted out of the bushes in a single leap, sprinted over the leaf-choked riverbed, and launched himself to the other side in one heroic bound.
The sled, on the other hand—
WHAM.
It flew after them, hit the bank, bounced once, twice—
CRASH!
—then skidded hard onto the footpath.
Anna was not as stable as Strong.
"AAAH—!"
She flew off Sheepy backwards and landed flat on her butt with a spectacular splat of wet leaves.
Strong?
Still on Sheepy.
Still drinking.
Still giggling.
The crates stayed perfectly in place—so heavy they barely budged.
Anna groaned, rolled onto her knees, and muttered,
"Stupid physics…"
She pushed herself up—and froze.
Right at her feet, impressed deep into the mud, was a massive bootprint, filled with rainwater and sludge. The shape was wrong for anything she knew. Wider. Heavier. Like a soldier's footprint. Or a knight's.
Anna brushed her fingers across the edge of the print.
And something inside her clicked.
A faint shimmer passed across the mud.
The footprint glowed briefly.
And suddenly Anna "saw" the direction it pointed—like her eyes were following a thread on a map only she could see.
More footprints glowed ahead.
Big ones.
Smaller ones.
Armoured ones.
Footsteps going up the path.
Under Dean Bridge.
Toward the city.
Anna gasped.
"Oh! They went that way!"
She had no idea she had just activated her Hunter's Tracking Instinct.
To her, it just felt like obvious information the world wanted her to know.
She scrambled back onto Sheepy's back behind Strong and patted Sheepy's sides like a tiny queen mounting her fuzzy war-steed.
"Sheepy! Follow those tracks!"
Sheepy barked once—sharp, confident, ready.
The sled creaked.
The rope tightened.
The crates thumped into place.
And together—dog, girl, baby demigod, and an illegal arsenal—they charged down the footpath toward Dean Bridge and toward Edinburgh.
Sheepy thundered down the riverside footpath like a small, muscular reindeer pulling the world's most illegal Christmas sleigh.
The AK crate and two ammo boxes clattered loudly behind him.
Anna sat tall on Sheepy's back with Strong in front of her like a baby backpack, one arm around him, the other pointing forward like a general on campaign.
For the occasion she would have liked to have had her sword and crown, but she had sadly forgotten them. Her trusty backpack was also left behind as was a lot of things, but she liked it his way. She in fact felt more adventurous and light like this.
And soon enough as they came into the main walkway they met people. The first was a man walking his Labrador.
He stopped dead.
His dog stopped dead.
Both stared.
Sheepy — enormous, soaked, and rippling with muscles he never had yesterday — pulled a sled full of weapons while carrying a six-year-old girl and a blonde baby drinking from a bunny bottle.
The man whispered:
"…what the actual f—?"
Anna waved cheerfully.
"GOOD MORNING! Don't worry! Just delivering Christmas packages! Totally normal! Totally legal!"
The man clutched his dog and backed away like he'd encountered a cryptid.
Next came a jogger—a Lycra-wrapped woman in her twenties.
She slowed, stared, then just stopped to watch. "My god," she muttered. "I think I need to drink more caffeine. I'm beginning to see things."
An older couple waddled by with matching tartan scarves.
The woman gasped and clutched her husband.
"What is—what IS that child riding?"
Her husband squinted.
"…A sheepdog, dear."
"That is NOT a dog. Dogs do not have calves like that!"
Anna waved again, smiling wide like a guilty angel.
"Don't mind us! Just running errands! Nothing special! And we are definitely not dragging a crate of weapons along with us!"
Which, unfortunately, was a lie.
A loud lie.
Because the sled behind her went clunk-clunk, clunk-CLUNK, in the unmistakable rhythm of very armed.
Strong didn't care.
He suckled his bunny bottle, blinked peacefully, and basked in the System's next wave of notifications like a baby listening to nursery rhymes.
It started soft — like raindrops tapping the inside of his skull.
Back at the bank, people were dying in horrible ways.
And now the System was telling him about it again.
> [SOUL SYSTEM — KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (male, bus passenger, homeless, 38)
Cause: burns + smoke inhalation
Credited: +1,200 SP
Strong didn't even twitch.
He just switched hands on his bottle, eyes half-lidded in contentment.
The voice inside his head meant as much to him as the rain around them —
soft, distant, and hardly noteworthy at all.
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (female, bus passenger, store cashier, age 42)
Cause: thermal trauma, entrapment in burning vehicle
Modest retirement savings detected; owned apartment identified.
Calculating approximate total value…
Credited: +70,000 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (male, bus passenger, medical student, age 22)
Cause: burns, blunt trauma
Soul value: decent.
Liquid monetary assets: minimal.
Calculating combined value…
Credited: +2,600 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (male, bus passenger, station chef, age 30)
Cause: conflagration + structural collapse
Soul value: acceptable.
Savings: limited.
Estimating total liquid worth…
Credited: +3,600 SP
Strong blinked slowly, then whispered under his breath:
"Burn… man."
Anna stared at him.
"…What?" she said, eyebrows climbing toward her hairline.
But Strong was already listening to the next set of messages streaming into his skull:
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (female, breakfast waitress, age 19)
Cause: severe blood loss
Minimal personal value detected
Calculating…
Credited: +1,900 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (male, breakfast waiter, age 19)
Cause: severe blood loss
Low overall value + small savings detected
Calculating…
Credited: +2,100 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Civilian (male, professional beggar, age 28)
Cause: exsanguination
Minimal social value detected; hidden cash stash and unregistered cannabis grow discovered
Calculating…
Credited: +5,650 SP.
Anna frowned at Strong's blank stare.
"What is it now? Strong, you're babbling again. Are you trying to say banana? Is this banana time? I can get you a banana if you want, you know!"
Strong ignored her completely.
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Morag (female, 66), long-time cleaner
Cause: multiple gunshot wounds — unsalvageable
Medium overall value detected; pension + savings included
Calculating…
Credited: +2,700 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
MacLeod (male, 32), security assistant
Cause: crushing trauma from heavy boots + blood loss from gunshot wounds
Medium value detected + personal savings
Calculating…
Credited: +3,200 SP
> [KILL VERIFIED]
Derrick Singh (male, 24), junior clerk
Cause: severe blood loss, multiple penetrating injuries
Value reduced due to outstanding family debts
Calculating…
Credited: +1,850 SP.
Strong blinked slowly, as if all of this made perfect sense to him.
"Der… rick… kill."
Anna groaned loudly.
"Strong, noooooo. Stop saying kill! That's creepy! Say Mama! Or say Sheepy! Or—say cheese!"
Strong placed a thoughtful finger on his lips and said his universal response:
"Hmm."
Which, unfortunately, could mean absolutely anything.
They continued forward.
Sheepy's paws slapped the wet path.
The sled bounced.
The boxes rattled ominously.
Soon they veered off the walkway into a narrow break in the bushes.
Anna held on tight as Sheepy squeezed through, dragging the sled like a furry tank.
The narrow trail opened into an abandoned parking lot, the ground cracked and uneven, the paint faded.
Anna gasped.
Tracks.
She saw tracks.
Not mud this time —
but echoes.
Like ghost-shadows stamped into the world.
Large boots.
Medieval weight.
A dozen pairs.
She touched one and her mind flashed:
The white van.
Braveheart at the wheel.
Nine crusaders climbing in, armour clanking. In the back handcuffs and tape along with some other strange devices like a video camera.
The engine coughing to life.
The van rolling away into the city.
The vision snapped away.
Anna gasped and yanked her hand back.
"…Whoa."
She rubbed her eyes.
"Okay. I guess they went this way. Why do I know that? I don't know. I'm not questioning it. This is AWESOME."
She beamed at Strong.
"Strong, I LOVE these tracking superpowers! This is the best Christmas present EVER."
Strong smiled modestly through his milk.
Anna pointed dramatically toward the broken asphalt road leading into the city.
"Sheepy! This way! Follow the… uh… MAGIC FOOTPRINTS!"
Sheepy barked once — a sharp, fearless command — and charged forward.
The sled lurched.
Anna squealed.
Strong giggled.
And Sheepy galloped onwards.
Strong finished the last gulp of his triple-potency milk, smacked his lips, blinked in satisfaction… and casually tossed the bunny bottle over his shoulder like the world's tiniest, blondest warlord.
It bounced off Sheepy's back, hit the pavement, and skittered away across the asphalt with a hollow clack clack clack.
Anna flinched.
"Strong! Don't litter! That's naughty!"
Strong blinked and said, "Hmm," which he clearly meant as: It is done. The bottle has served its purpose.
They rode on.
Sheepy galloped with unnatural power, claws digging into pavement, the sled scraping behind them like someone dragging a metal coffin down a chalkboard.
SCREEEEEEEEKKKKK—SKRRRRRRRKKKKKKK—SCRAAAAAPE—
People on the sidewalks winced and covered their ears.
Anna tried to pretend everything was normal.
"Good morning!" she yelled to horrified passers-by. "We're just delivering packages! Like Santa Claus! It's totally legal!"
A man outside a bakery dropped his cigarette.
A woman pushing a pram actually turned around and walked the other way.
A teenager filming with his camcorder whispered:
"What the hell is that…? Is that… a girl riding… a dog… dragging a sled…? Mum?!"
Anna ignored all of them.
Strong, however, was transfixed.
Every bus.
Every lamp post.
Every car.
Every puddle.
Every pigeon.
Every bit of city noise.
He was drinking the world in like it was a new toy shop.
He kept turning his head, pointing at things with wet hands, murmuring:
"Ooooh."
"Aaaaah."
"Hmmm."
At one point, he saw a telephone box and gasped like it was a holy relic.
The sled, however, was not having a magical morning.
The plastic base was grinding away, slowly sanded down by the asphalt.
Chunks flaked off.
One runner cracked.
The sound worsened.
SKREEEEEEE—SKRRRRAAAAAA—GNNNNNKKKKK—
Anna glanced back, winced, and muttered:
"Strong… remind me later to summon… um… metal wheels. Or something."
But then she stiffened.
At first it was faint, faint enough to confuse with wind.
But then—
WHEEW-WHEEW-WHEEW-WHEEW—
Sirens were coming their way, dozens of them. Growing louder and ever closer.
Sheepy slowed, ears pricking. Strong tilted his head.
Anna looked up—and her jaw dropped.
At the next junction down the hill, the quiet morning simply tore open.
A convoy of police vehicles burst through the intersection, tyres hissing on wet tarmac, blue beacons punching colour through the rain.
These weren't the normal little panda cars that told you someone had nicked a handbag.
These were the ones that meant something truly awful had happened:
Two white-and-blue Ford Sierra patrol cars, lightbars spinning, boxy and furious, leading the charge.
Behind them, a Rover SD1 traffic car, long and low and shark-nosed, its V8 howl cutting through every other sound.
Then the vans: white Ford Transits with POLICE in big blue letters, windows wire-meshed, crammed with officers in dark uniforms and bulky public-order gear. You could see helmets bobbing, riot visors up, hands gripping batons and old-fashioned shotguns locked to racks.
Just behind those came a dark, unmarked Ford Granada, grey and anonymous except for the magnetic blue lamp slapped on its roof. Inside, men in shirtsleeves and plain ties wore flak vests over their clothes, pistols at their hips, faces pale and tight. Armed officers—the real kind, not from telly.
And then, unbelievably—
Lumbering at the rear of the convoy like something left over from another war—
A six-wheeled armoured personnel carrier.
It was painted a dull, military green that rain couldn't quite shine, with white POLICE and ARMY stencilled hastily along the side in block capitals. Steel plates curved over its wheels; a little turret with a blanked-off gun mount and a spotlight sat on top. Heavy wire-mesh screens had been bolted over the windows and turret to stop petrol bombs, giving it the look of a rolling metal cage.
It growled more than it drove, engine note deep and mechanical, each gear change sending a judder through the pavement.
A Saracen. An old Army beast dragged out of some depot and pushed into one more job.
Even the rain seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat.
The front Sierras blasted past first, wipers thrashing, tyres throwing sheets of water up over the kerbs. Through the glass, Anna saw uniformed officers with flat caps and white shirt sleeves, jaws clenched, radios pressed to their shoulders. One driver was shouting into his handset, the words lost under the sirens but his expression saying enough: shots fired, multiple casualties, get there now.
The first Transit thundered past close enough that Anna felt the spray on her face. Inside, through the wire, she glimpsed constables in NATO riot helmets, visors up but ready, round plexiglass shields stacked between knees, shotguns and long wooden batons clipped along the walls. Their eyes were hard and awake, already somewhere else—in a marble hall full of gunfire.
The unmarked Granada followed, more deliberate, tyres cutting a clean line through the water. Two men sat in front—plain suits, shoulder holsters, faces that had seen this sort of thing in training but never in Edinburgh. One of them had a Browning pistol laid across his thigh, finger rigidly off the trigger, knuckles white.
And then the armoured car.
It came rumbling by like a very slow, very angry train. The road shook faintly under Anna's hands.
In the open back doors, she saw soldiers in green webbing and steel helmets, rifles slung across their chests—proper, long grown-up guns, not the stubby shotguns from telly. Some had their heads bent over radios; one was peering through the mesh slit with eyes hard as flint, trying to match the street outside to whatever someone was screaming into his earpiece.
Every face inside that convoy was the same flavour of tense: scared, ready, already braced for blood.
But as they passed her— as they passed Sheepy, hulking and rain-slick, and Strong, pale and blond in his one-piece clothing that was but a shirt, and the red plastic sled creaking under a crate of very illegal rifles, and the Hello Kitty hoodie, and the baby drinking from a bunny bottle on the back of a dog the size of a compact bulldozer—
Those expressions cracked.
They stared.
Wide. Confused. Borderline horrified.
A constable in the passenger seat of the lead Sierra twisted in his belt, mouth actually falling open.
One traffic officer in the Rover mouthed: "What the hell—"
In the back of the first Transit, a young cop in a riot helmet leaned forward, visor half-down, and shouted over the engine to the man beside him:
"…Is that a— is that a girl… riding a DOG?"
A soldier in the Saracen, rifle across his chest, squinted through the mesh slit, then slowly shook his head like a man refusing to accept a hallucination this early in the day.
Anna waved energetically, as if this were the world's strangest parade.
"HIIIII! Don't worry! This is totally normal! We're FINE! Have a good day!"
Strong waved too, copying her flap for flap, bunny bottle clutched in one fist.
Sheepy barked once, deep and proud and heroic.
No one slowed down, but heads stayed turned, necks craned, eyes following them even as the convoy roared away, blue lights strobing off wet stone and shop windows, sirens swallowing the street whole.
For a few seconds after the last axle of the Saracen had rattled past, the smell of diesel and hot brakes hung in the rain like a ghost.
The armed convoy hammered up the road toward the city centre, sirens knifing through the stormy air. Water fountained from their tyres; blue and amber lights smeared themselves across every wet surface—shopfronts, parked cars, bus stops, the stone cheeks of buildings that had seen other wars.
And Anna, Strong, and Sheepy?
They kept going in the same direction.
Not fast as engines—not as loud as sirens— but steady, determined, trundling along in the wake of the police and the Army, unknowingly following the exact route that led straight to St Andrew Square.
Straight toward the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The battleground.
The screaming. The fire. The crusaders. Sir Egg's rampage. Braveheart's unfolding nightmare.
All of it waited just a few blocks away.
Anna raised an arm and pointed grandly forward, riding Sheepy like a six-year-old war queen going to market.
"Let's follow them, Sheepy! They probably know where Braveheart is!"
Sheepy barked once—as if to say sound logic, my queen—and sprinted after the convoy's fading echo.
Strong giggled, clinging to her hoodie with one hand and jabbing his other tiny fist toward the distant flashing lights.
The sled screeched, cracked, and protested with every bump, leaving a faint plastic scar along the road.
Passers-by watched with open mouths as a child, a baby, a muscle-dog, and a sled full of guns raced deeper into Edinburgh.
And thus, by pure accident, pure innocence, and pure madness, Anna, Strong, and Sheepy rode proudly toward the centre of a disaster that would change the fate of Scotland— and the world— forever.
****
[SOUL SYSTEM — PURCHASE CONFIRMED]
Bunny Sippy Bottle — 24 SP
Enhanced Human Milk (x3 potency) — 240 SP
Plastic Children's Sled — 40 SP
Total: –304 SP
New Balance: 1,268,227 SP.
Final Balance Calculation:
1,268,531 SP
– 304 SP
= 1,268,227 SP
****