Despite this being one of the regularly scheduled meetings that happened every few days, emotions were running high in the administrative council of the Assembly. The emotions of each member of the council were varied, but few of them had the stoicism to remain completely unaffected by the matter at hand. Or not at hand as it were, despite everyone eagerly expecting the news. The council was proceeding entirely normally, and the subject they were all interested in had not been brought up yet. In fact, it almost seemed that certain parties were avoiding the subject entirely, which alone spoke volumes about the news not being great.

Finally one of the councilors of the white faction lost his patience. “Alright, we all know what we truly want to hear about, and the fact that certain colleagues of ours are not already crowing about their success means that things are not going to plan. So what’s going on? You’ve all been excited about executing this plan of yours, but now it seems the trap you laid isn’t working.”

One of the green councilors cleared his throat and got up. It was customary to stand while addressing the council. “Well, saying that the plan is going perfectly would be a lie. It seems we’ve hit a bit of a snag.”

“What kind of a…snag and how big of a disaster are we looking at? Your plan already carried a lot of risk even if it worked, but we approved it because of the potential benefits. Don’t tell me at this point that you missed something obvious.” One of the blue councilors expressed her disapproval. Not everyone had been enthusiastic about the plan the greens had presented.

“Well, I’m relieved to say that we aren’t looking at a disaster, not yet at least. As you’ll recall, our plan called for the dragons to make a break in our border defenses, allowing a portion of their forces and hopefully several of their elders into our lands. We even hoped that a chance like this might lure one or two of their ancients to drag themselves out of their comfy nests to appear personally. Once they were inside our defensive perimeter, we’d slam the door shut behind them and kill or capture anything caught in our web. The two forts we planned on being lost fell as planned, but the dragons have not utilized the obvious breach to rush into our trap. To be more specific, the dragons were stopped at Io, so all they managed to take were the two border worlds.” The green councilor explained.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but Io is the choke point the dragons were supposed to rush through, right? That world was one of the reasons this sector and those specific worlds were picked for this plan. They presented an easy place to prevent their escape, while also leading mainly to worlds we can afford to lose for a short time.” One of the yellow councilors asked to clarify. The yellows had not been active in making this plan, so they were a little fuzzy on the details. The yellows, in particular, disliked the civilians being threatened, but a short occupation by the dragons would not allow for the damage to become too severe unless the dragons went out of their way to destroy everything. And that would be a somewhat wasted effort without gain.

“That is correct.” The green councilor confirmed. He had been forced to take the responsibility to explain the current situation to the others as he was the most junior of the councilors among the greens. He disliked being the last in seniority as he got all the shit jobs without any of the credit, but that’s how things worked.

“That world is completely undefended according to my information. Are you saying the general in charge of the sector mounted an effective defense there against all odds? Or did the dragons notice that the forts they captured were fake and realized this was a trap?” The yellow councilor continued his questions, though this time requesting information that all of the others wanted to know as well.

“Hashtur?” The green councilor redirected the question to his companion that knew more on the subject.

Another green councilor got up. “The fake forts were created with utmost care by the blues. It would take multiple weeks of careful study to tell the difference even if they were not damaged in the battle, which they were according to our information. The real fortresses are still successfully hiding and remaining invisible in the skies of those two worlds, ready to slam the door shut when the signal is given. The dragons made a couple of attempts to take Io, but they were rebuffed each time. Now they seem almost skittish to try again. It is possible they realized that this is a trap, but more likely they met harsh enough resistance to set them back on their heels.”

“Skittish?” One of the brown councilors asked incredulously. “Who did you send to defend that area? I was under the impression that the general sent to take care of the defense was supposed to be incapable of holding that area. Did you send the elites of the green faction instead? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? Did you let the pride of the green faction get in the way?”

The green councilor once again cleared his throat and redirected the question towards the reds. “The general was picked under the recommendation from the red faction and they have called in one of their agents to give a better report. This agent is more familiar with the people sent. She can give a detailed report and answer questions.”

Usually these sessions were announced either as open, in which case anyone could observe the proceedings, or as closed, in which case only the councilors were allowed present. This one had been declared closed, yet the reds had brought one of their non-councilor Lords to the meeting. This lord walked to the center of the circular room to address the council. The person was hiding her face and features, but her form and voice revealed her to be female.

“The two people sent were general Aetius and a friend of mine general Verus. Verus is a popular holy warrior mostly there to act as a bodyguard and a helper for his friend and ally Aetius. He is fairly strong but not to the extent where he would sway the result one way or another. His presence showed that we were somewhat serious in our defense without actually committing enough forces to actually defend Io. Aetius is a solid general, ideal for a static defense, but he doesn’t have enough personal power or tactical brilliance to pull off a surprise like this. I have spent enough time with both of them to guarantee this to be a fact.” The woman remained at the center to answer any questions.

Of course someone would ask the obvious, and one of the whites did. “So if the generals were not the key to a successful defense of Io, what happened?”

“The generals took the standard measure of drafting all the combat faction Lords in the area to support the defense. This was as we expected. What was not expected was the presence of three powerful reds to get caught in the draft. Those three have been the key to the defense of Io. According to our sources, the strongest of the trio is at the top end of rank twelve immortals. To prevent information from leaking, most of the Lords not involved directly in the operation were not informed, and those three apparently fell into the group that was left out.” The woman explained.

This brought out a lot of internal discussion among the factions. “What were the three reds doing there? I know the reds don’t like to answer such questions, but that sector isn’t exactly known for being a vacation spot and you should have known better than to run operations there with the current situation being what it is.” One of the greys finally voiced what most of them were thinking.

The reds, as usual, refused to answer and no one had expected them to. One of the greens got up to reply. “General Verus asked that question. The answer he got was that they liked the cuisine in the area.” The man’s voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. That caused general mirth in the councilors despite the serious situation. The answer was simply that absurd.

“I think we can all agree that the reds are not the type to take vacations to indulge their desires for cuisine. And they certainly wouldn’t pick that spot even if they did.” One of the whites declared with a laugh.

“Be that as it may, this might still work. I suggest that we send one of the reds to call back their wayward members, no matter what the reason for their being there is. If we force the faction leader of the reds to recall them, then they will have to obey no matter what.” One of the greens suggested. She gestured at the woman at the center of the room. “This woman is friends with Verus and Aetius, so she makes for a believable messenger. Now we just need a good excuse for them to suddenly remove the defense they managed to hold so far, so that the dragons will not be too suspicious.”

The rest of the evening was spent arguing possible plans and the eventual details.

---------

Verus approached Araqiel who was currently in charge of watching over the gateway for any signs of activity. The quite clearly angel looking woman seemed the most balanced individual of the trio of reds, so Verus and Aetius usually approached her whenever possible. Araqiel would then deliver the information to the other two. Moirai had seemed fairly well adjusted for a red as well at first, but that notion had been disabused as soon as the tiny woman went to battle. She was much crueler than even the mountain, and the mountain at least had the excuse of…well, being a mountain. Dee was just plain scary.

“Where are the other two?” Verus asked without preamble.

Araqiel looked at the man with some amusement. She had noted the fear the two generals showed her companions. Wise men all things considered. “Moirai is resting while Dee is trying to explain the mountain why we shouldn’t just attack the dragons instead of staying here. The mountain is rather intelligent but has surprising gaps in her knowledge. Gaps like how divided fronts work. As far as I understand, concepts like that are a little difficult to express in a way that the mountain can understand it.”

“Ah.” Verus decided it was better to not ask any further. The less he knew about the mountain the better. “I need you to call them here, if you would be so kind.”

Araqiel now focused her attention on the man. “Well, this is rare. You don’t often seek for the two of them.” Still, she did as she was asked and it didn’t take long for the other two to appear.

“What’s going on?” Moirai asked a little grumpily due to having been woken in the middle of her nap.

“In about twenty minutes the gate will activate and I need you all to not attack those coming through.” Verus explained.

“I’m not sure why you needed all three of us for that. You’ve had agents come through before. Usually you just inform the person in charge of keeping watch at that time.” Dee pointed out. She had also noted that for some reason no agents came through when she or Moirai were keeping watch.

“Yes, well, the problem is that Araqiel already forgot to inform you once when I gave the message to her just before you swapped shifts. You nearly blasted my messenger. And this time my friend is coming.” Verus explained, with a peculiar tone to his voice.

“Oh? What’s this? Your friend wouldn’t happen to be female, would she? And she wouldn’t happen to be the reason for the god you serve would she?” Dee’s interest suddenly perked up. She recognized the peculiar tone in Verus’ voice, and that tone belonged to a man speaking of a woman he had feelings for. Mostly unrequited feelings in fact.

“What, what? This suddenly got a lot more interesting. Our little Verus has a girlfriend coming for a visit? How luxurious” Moirai suddenly also got interested.

“That’s general Verus for you, and she’s just a friend.” Verus replied embarrassed, before calming down a bit. “Besides, that’s not the real point. The message mentioned our friendship in case the dragons managed to overhear, but in truth, my friend is a Lord of the Assembly just like us, except she’s rather high up among the reds. You might even know her, Aurelie Sanguin.” He almost stumbled over the word ‘us’ due to his suspicions, but managed to hide that fact.

The trio made non-committal sounds that didn’t quite make it clear if they had heard the name before or not. Reds usually didn’t reveal such details, but these three reds performed their obfuscation in a way that it was clear they were doing just that. Verus continued. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t come here without a good reason, and I’m guessing it has something to do with you three. So get ready.”

“Should we do something about this?” Moirai asked Dee quietly while they waited.

Dee considered for a moment before answering. “Not just yet. I think this is a good chance to see if we can bluff our way among the Assembly. From the sound of things they’re not sending more than one person and we should be able to deal with that if things go badly. Running away might be a bit challenging in our current situation, but we always have the option of using my portals.”

Verus’ timing was quite accurate as the gate activated slightly less than twenty minutes later. Moirai decided to mess with him a bit. “Hey Dee, you did mention to the mountain that we should not attack the person coming through, right?”

Dee caught on to the joke immediately and played along. “Oh, that would have probably been a good idea.”

Verus looked at them with a horrified expression, which went away as the two women broke into small grins. He simply made an exasperated sound instead of trying to retaliate. The gate flashed at the same time, allowing a humanoid clad in the Assembly robes through. The robes covered her from head to toes at first, but the woman pulled down her hood as she approached Verus and the waiting trio. The others had little reaction to the woman wearing the red sash, but Verus and Dee were both affected for very different reasons.

“Aure!” Verus greeted with a wide grin and arms spread open for a hug. He was disappointed though as the woman had stopped as soon as she laid her eyes on Dee. Both Dee and the woman had a similar reaction for the same reason, and they could both see that. They had both used the technique taught to the elites of the Assembly to look inside the other person and see what they truly were. And they found something very surprising.

“That’s a clusterfuck of races if I’ve ever seen one.” Dee mumbled, using the same term she had used for her own heritage before, something that Moirai did not miss. Moirai also narrowed her eyes in suspicion while looking at the obviously demonic woman.

The woman had an amused grin on her at the normally pejorative term. The woman knew it had a different meaning when used by someone like Dee. “That’s a little rich coming from you. Sister.”

Most of the woman’s body was hidden by the robes that the Assembly Lords used, but it was quite clear that she bore certain similarities with Dee’s old form, though the differences were stark as well. Where Dee used to be covered by a very short white fur, this woman had a clear skin of the same white tone that Dee’s tails were still showing. She had the white fox ears that Dee had, but she was not the same kind of demi-human Dee had been. Instead, she was more of a humanoid with certain animalistic features. Those animal features also seemed to have mainly come from different races than the ones used with Dee.

The woman had two long and thin horns growing from the base of her ears. The horns were more demonic than draconic in nature and were the same silvery white color as the hair that covered the woman’s head. Both the tail that swished behind the woman and the hands that peeked from the folds of the robes were covered in what looked like chitinous armor plates of the same color as her skin. The chitin on her arms had a wicked looking spike protruding from the back of her hand, and her tail ended up in what could only be described as a blade reminiscent of those used in certain types of spears.

“Sister?” Dee asked in a slightly questioning tone. She had a suspicion that the woman in front of her had been created by either the same group Dee had been created by or one very similar. Still, the term sister seemed a bit…

Some emotion flashed in the woman’s eyes but was quickly hidden again. “We shall talk in detail later. For now, I need to discuss some strategy with Verus and Aetius. Speaking of, where is our missing general?”

Verus had not noted anything wrong with the term sister as Lords belonging to the same faction often used such terms of endearment to increase the bonds inside the faction. The greens thought of each other as brothers- and sisters-in-arms. The term used simply proved in his mind that his old friend knew these three and had just subtly acknowledged that fact. The reaction by Dee and Moirai was a bit odd, but perhaps they had not wanted their covers blown or something. Reds were a little odd like that. “Aetius is still planning our future defense. We can find him in the command post.”

In fact, Aetius had wanted to give his friend some private time with the woman his friend so obviously had feelings for, but had not considered that Verus would call in the three reds. Aetius could be a little dense like that. Aurelie suddenly urged Verus to lead the way. “Then let’s go immediately. I have news that will change those plans completely, so he is wasting his efforts.” She turned to Dee and her two companions. “You should come along as this has to do with you as well.”

The trio obliged but lagged behind a bit. “Sister?” Moirai asked a little worried.

Dee shook her head, though not knowing herself why exactly. “I can’t tell for sure, but I’m pretty confident we were created by the same group. And she knows it. She can see inside me just like I can see inside others. Oh, by the way, Araqiel, that means she knows you’re an angel. I don’t know if that will be important in any way, but there’s no point in denying it if it comes up. Just so you’re aware.”

Araqiel looked a little worried and plenty confused. Her knowledge of Dee’s background was limited and the events just now had thoroughly confused her. “I’ll remember that. I’m going to need some explanations pretty soon though.”

“You and me both.” Dee stated emphatically. “Hopefully we will both get some answers soon.” She gestured towards the new arrival in a meaningful way. The woman had said they would talk later and Dee planned on holding on to that promise.