"What, you mean that Verdelet is going to come back, and turn what will be an nice, quiet, orderly, private battle between me and Barid and our private forces, and maybe Kimat if I can convince him, into a vicious, nasty, ugly, PUBLIC melee-a-trios? Why ever would you think that?"<br/><br/>The construct behind him coughed urgently, and he waved it off. "Of course we are expecting this to get ugly. Regardless of our differences, me and Barid were the sane pair, so threatening the fabric of reality isn't going to happen without the pirate queen coming back.<br/><br/>Also, you know Fate loves her little cycles, and all three of us coming back to finish what we started and<em><strong>I</strong></em>delayed is just her kicking me a bit. We are the end of a great cycle, and the winner of this fight is going to shape the overall appearance of the next one."<br/><br/>He gave Ashara a grin, that did nothing to hide the hardness in his eyes as he spoke of finishing it, or the almost inhuman eagerness at the thought of this cycle ending, one way or another. "Those kinds of portents, or should I start getting into the REALLY esoteric theories, like the metal men that destroyed the empire that all three of us fought to protect coming back to join the fun?"