Fighting the Union was so depressingly predictable. They took humans and turned them into weapons, and the thing about weapons was that they didn't think. Even the ones who were left with slightly more of their faculties intact so they could work on a team at all were so utterly predictable it made him glad they usually didn't consider themselves human anymore, but something grander, better.

That meant it wasn't his species they were making look stupid.

The first two, the ones who were already dead. Cerberus was supposed to be elite, an elite team, and they were so confident they just charged in, thinking they could take an actual team who had been a thorn in the Union's side for close to a millennium.

And of course they headed right for Urokai, because Urokai insulted them and the modified human was a doctor, not a 'real' scientist, someone who cared about others and was therefore 'weak,' and that meant that if they took out the noble Frankenstein would what, just cower and go with them?

When he'd sent Hugin to take a bite out of the larger one, going intangible and sticking its head into his chest, the smaller one hadn't even tried to get it off him. Yes, Urokai was giving him a hard time at that point, but if he'd saved his partner from Hugin, then Urokai wouldn't have been able to focus on only him. He'd been so focused on saving his own skin that he hadn't processed the fact that would be much, much easier if his partner's skin was intact.

Frankenstein didn't even have to move during that fight, unless you counted dramatically holding out his arm for Hugin to launch from, pretending it was a real bird, which it did more often than not. He had to wonder if it was the influence of the noble energies that made Hugin so committed to its aesthetic instead of forming itself into any shape that was convenient. His tests had shown very conclusively that there wasn't anything making it stay in the form of a bird.

As for Cerberus, which could maybe have taken a cue from its namesake and emulated the pack hunting behavior of canines, they hadn't even called for backup, when if they had any sense they'd have waited for backup before taking a clan leader on.

During the fight he'd kept expecting the red-headed one to show – it wasn't until afterwards that Yatarl reported that she'd been shot in the back by Yuri and hauled off for experimentation. Which, well. Union. They couldn't even wait until after their mutual target was safely defeated to start turning on each other. Maybe it was the fact they were so dismissive of humanity that kept them from availing themselves of humanity's millennia of accumulated wisdom on subjects like tactics, and realizing that 'divide and conquer' was a damn stupid thing to do to yourself.

The larger one had at least made the connection that since Frankenstein was Hugin's summoner, killing Frankenstein might make the bird disappear before it finished killing him. Futile at this point – his soul wasn't very strongly anchored to his body after what the Union did to them both, so Hugin had its talons in so deep that removing the bird would yank it right out of the man's body. He was still alive and conscious because Hugin was biting off pieces of his soul before killing him.

Union victims… destroying their personalities – the 'I' – destroyed most of the soul that was manifested by that 'I.' When they woke up afterwards and started to observe things again, pieces grew back wrong. Frankenstein didn't know if Hugin removing the metaphorically-diseased soul pieces before the soul vanished did anything, but the bird was made of pieces of human soul so it might know, or at least sense, something about them, and Frankenstein wanted to think that something could at least ease the violated souls of the dead. Or keep them from being pulled into a blood stone upon death. That was his best guess – that whatever kept those souls injured was caused by being connected to the blood stones and their hosts of mad, imprisoned souls.

He might have attributed the self-defeating behavior of Union agents to a death wish, some remnant of the people they used to be desperate to escape the Union, but the sad thing was that dying and being pulled into a blood stone was no improvement, only a different kind of slavery, unless the stones could be stolen from the Union and brought to Raskreia.

The hum of the red crystals that hovered in rings around the blue crystals flanking the Lord's throne had a definite sound of up to something, but he rather hoped that Raskreia had spent some time considering a way for them to take revenge…

It said something about how unchallenging this fight was that he was splitting his concentration like that, he thought, frowning at himself as he withdrew a couple of vials from a pocket and threw them up in the air. It also didn't help the Union slaves that they knew just how painful their deaths would be if they managed to kill him instead of capturing him and they had absolutely no experience with how to fight without hurting the opponent.

It would have been most efficient to just let Urokai handle them both with Dragus, but the noble was sticking to aura blasts instead of summoning his soul weapon. This was an opportunity to eliminate Cerberus and make sure the Union didn't have any units with enough continuity for institutional experience, so they were prolonging the fight even though that meant prolonging the collateral damage.

Rousare arrived with the children in tow around the same time the leader of Cerberus – although she really wasn't much of a leader – arrived with the Tenth Elder. Rousare, being properly brought up (and well educated, if Frankenstein did say so himself) introduced himself and the children, which led to the woman saying she was disappointed that the head of the Loyard Clan wasn't here because her scythe was totally better than Death Scythe.

Frankenstein could have respected that if it was a deliberate attempt to draw the Loyard heir into a one-on-one fight, but clearly the woman hadn't considered that there might actually be consequences for insulting other people. After politely applauding Seira's victory, Frankenstein was honestly considering heading home and leaving Rousare and Urokai to work out what they could get away with doing to this elder, when he sensed a familiar aura heading towards them.

This would be Raizel's first time meeting a Union elder. "Don't kill him," Frankenstein said when the blood field was thrown up. "Make him deactivate the bioweapons traps he's placed – no, all the ones he knows of."

The clan leaders couldn't count on their mind control being good enough to cause action instead of inaction without being detected by the nobles in the Union, but Raizel was the Noblesse. "Can you do it?" Frankenstein asked, because they'd known for centuries that Raizel's power, and the window between his awakening and when the Union found out he was awake, was their best chance to bring them down.

Raizel nodded.

They made it home early the next morning to find the latest batch of rescued experiments hanging out in the common area.

"Want some tea?" M-24 asked, holding up a half-empty glass pot. From his craggy smile, he was happy with this batch.

"I wouldn't mind that at all," Frankenstein said, removing his coat. "Raizel?" he asked, turning around.

"Close your eyes – don't look at the kitchen," Urokai said, sliding past him. Frankenstein immediately complied.

Tao laughed ruefully. "I was trying to make pancakes, and…"

"And their training in how much strength to use only goes so far." Frankenstein heard Urokai pat him on the shoulder. "I'll get it off the ceiling. So, interested in cooking now?"

"It's a bit more than an order of operations, isn't it?" Tao sounded lively enough. "Really, a recipe isn't a program, it tells you what you need to know to come up with a plan of attack, or write a program."

"You always need to come up with a plan when meal planning," Urokai agreed. "Making several things with different cook times, and even nobles can't be in two places at once. Most nobles, excuse me Rael."

"Rael, what are you doing here?" Rousare asked, happy to see Rael, who was the younger brother to half the clan leaders.

"I was in Taiwan and Munin wanted to visit Frankenstein."

Hugin had nibbled away enough of Ragar's soul to make a soul weapon. Since it wasn't a typical soul weapon and was made before Ragar entered eternal sleep, Munin had about as much of a personality as Hugin and stayed manifested more often than not. It worked out well, for the sake of keeping Rael company.

"Frankenstein," Raizel said, and Frankenstein took a cup of tea from him without needing to look, sensing where Raizel's hands were. "Thank you," he said, turning his head to smile at both Raizel and M-24. He took a sip of the tea – a herbal blend. Not a combination he or Urokai would have picked – it was nice to see that they were doing things their own way, and confident enough to share them with others. Although if they were still feeling their way into this, it was normal for someone learning to want others' opinions and no one ever stopped learning, if they were wise. "Very soothing," he told them – it was clear they'd looked for herbs with calming instead of energizing properties.

Oh? He turned closed eyes to the right and smiled. "Congratulations, Takeo. How do you feel?" He wondered for a moment if Tao and Takeo made the contract while they were gone on purpose, but probably not – Tao had wanted to make the contract, Frankenstein's guess was that they'd only delayed it as long as they had so Tao could get used to it and know how to help Takeo adjust to the bond.

"Fine, sir." Frankenstein was glad this wasn't the deference due a scientist, just Takeo being a polite young man. "It really is something… like family."

No, Frankenstein told himself firmly, he wasn't going to give Takeo a lecture on his theories about contracts. This wasn't a classroom and Takeo hadn't asked. "They're only this positive if both people truly wish to be connected – but that's true of any relationship," was what he did say. "I knew Raizel for decades before we made our contract – it was almost a formality at that point, but there's something to be said for the formalities." Treating important things with their due seriousness.

Tao and Takeo had a true contract – easy to sense that Takeo reached back when Tao reached out and Tao had allowed Takeo the liberty when they both felt like the other's soul.

He smelled the air – Urokai was chopping apples. Apple pancakes? That sounded good.

A celebratory meal with the children, drinking tea to the end of the Union. What a pleasant way to spend a morning.

"Aww, you're not going to let us help?" Tao asked lying on the couch, head propped up in his hands.

M-21 looked up from where he and M-24 were trying to get the hang of chess.

"Absolutely not," Urokai said firmly. "I don't trust the Union to train you right – especially not to oppose the Union itself! It's good of you to want to help, but let the adults handle it."

"But I am an adult?" Tao reminded him, tilting his head to the side and pouting cutely.

"Lukedonia considers humans legally adult when they have sixteen years of life experience."

Which… none of them had. M-21 and M-24 were around a year older than Tao and Takeo, but that still wasn't much.

"Even if you did, you're still not trained," Urokai said, tossing Tao a cookie. Tao rolled over so his hands weren't beneath his body and snatched it out of the air, munching on it happily.

"But I want to help destroy the Union," Tao whined, doing his best to look sad.

"Destroy the Union?" That got M-24's attention too.

Urokai sighed at himself. "We weren't supposed to tell you so you didn't get involved, but I just can't keep secrets, especially from a contractor."

Tao grinned.

"Really, Raizel's taking care of it, so there really isn't much for the Central Order Knights, Werewolf Warriors and Rsya – that's the human refugee organization, because nobles can't give orders to humans so they needed their own chain of command – to do." Urokai sighed, sounding a little vexed. "They're going to be so disappointed… Well, I suppose they will be assaulting the bases once the Union can't retaliate with bioweapons – and absolutely not, you're not joining the assault."

"Why not?" Muzaka asked. "There should be enough bases to go around. M-21 and M-24 are strong enough, and I'm sure we could get the other two up to snuff. We could take them along with us, wherever we end up assigned."

"There's a difference between being strong enough to survive charging in and able to execute a real plan efficiently enough to keep the Union from liquidating the test subjects, Muzaka." Urokai bared his fangs for a moment before glaring, but he hadn't hissed while the fangs were out. It seemed more like a 'shut up, don't give them ideas,' than actual anger. "And we're probably going to stay assigned to protecting Raizel and Frankenstein, which means staying right here." Red eyes blinked. "You are already guarding the school," he reminded Tao.

"I guess that's freeing up Yatarl and other people for the attack," Tao said, swallowing the last of the cookie. "I don't mind bringing down the Union by staying here and playing Counterstrike."

M-21 didn't either. Bringing down the Union while M-24 stayed here, safe, was what he wanted, as much as he wanted to be the one to tear Crombel's face off. He'd probably have to get in line.