“As requested.” Mavis said begrudgingly as she lifted the lid of the ornate wooden box, revealing a relic more than a thousand years old.

“Magnificent.” Jemma muttered, her eyes catching the glint of the precious jewel sitting within.

“It better be. It cost a fortune.” Mavis grumbled, in truth this wasn’t something that could be bought with riches, the cost of this gemstone was far greater, and it would like haunt Mavis for the rest of her days even if her plans were successful.

“With this, all our preparations are complete.” Jemma said, oblivious to Mavis’s discontent.

“Good, patrols haven’t ventured beyond these points,” Mavis said, pointing at a map beside the box.

“Your coven will begin the ritual at one of them, and my men will deter any interruptions until the target is secured, after which they’ll transport her to a secure location and throw off any pursuit.” Mavis finished, the witch wriggle her nose with distrust.

“One of mine will join them... To help cover their tracks.” Jemma suggested.

“Still don’t trust me?” Mavis grinned in challenge, barely keeping herself from ripping the old witch’s head off.

“No.” Jemma replied sharply.

***

“Lower your center of gravity and swing with your hips!”

“Focus on the link, don’t force too much information at once.”

“Tina! You’re not human anymore. Stop moving like one!”

“Kevin! They don’t need to know what your damned lunch tasted like or how tight your combat harness is.”

Natasha let out a breath filled with annoyance.

“Okay, everyone stop. We’re done for today. Hit the showers.” Natasha didn’t bother to wait for a reply as she marched out of the training hall.

She wasn’t above admitting it had been a rough couple of days for her, Sophia seemingly as stubborn as Aleks was dense, the latter having holed himself up in his caves behind an army of insectoid drones working on some godforsaken project, while the latter still fumed over the mistreatment of her patient.

Although Natasha could understand the damage, such trauma could cause, the girl honestly hadn’t seemed much worse for wear, going right back to her regular routines...

“Lucky little brat.”

Natasha’s routines had devolved into eighteen-hour days split between her work at the custodes training facility, strategy meetings for the upcoming gala, Clan administration with Katya and of course feeding Sophia whose hunger for energy had grown considerably as of late, made all the more difficult because of her boycott of their seemingly infinite food source.

So it had fallen on Natasha to find solutions, one among them was sneaking into the heavily guarded workshop with a variety of threats and bribes to the increasingly independent shadows to find the fanatically obsessive Titan and practically pounce on him like a predator hunting its prey.

She had to admit it had been quite fun the first couple of times, but with her increasingly strenuous workload, she’d often missed meals, having to go hungry but still provide her share.

Which had led to her becoming a little irritable.

As she was walking down the hallways to her next meeting, she felt someone catch up to her, but didn’t acknowledge their presence until the person in question spoke beside her.

“I’m all for the hardass drill instructor, but maybe you should take it a little easy on them. Most of them aren’t even a year old yet.” Clara said, her tone friendly and familiar.

“You’re not much older than them. Nothing wrong with expecting a similar performance.” Natasha replied stubbornly.

“Nat, you’ve been mentoring me personally for weeks. Maybe lower your expectations a little for the newbies. At this rate, they’re gonna crack and drop out.” Clara spun around facing Natasha while walking backwards, her mind easily reaching out to share Natasha’s vision, which she let her.

“If they can’t handle the pressure, then they shouldn’t be here.” Natasha retorted with a hard edge to her voice.

“And what about me?” Clara challenged as she halted abruptly, blocking Natasha’s path.

Natasha examined Clara, the top portion of her fatigues tied around her waist, wearing a tank top which did little to hide the pink patches of skin along her arms and neck that hadn’t fully healed yet.

“That was different. You were angry, awakened, and competent.” Natasha argued. “They’re not.”

“Can you at least give them a chance?” Clara sighed in defeat.

“I’ll try,” Natasha replied gruffly, walking past her.

***

“The checkpoint will be placed along the blocked off roads and no visiting vehicle will be allowed to deviate from the route provided to them. This should be made crystal clear upon arrival.” Hendricks explained.

Although the room was filled with high-ranking custodes, some having centuries more experience than him, they still listened as all of them knew warfare could change overnight, and although Hendricks was human and not technically a member of the clan by blood, his experience from the last two decades was more valuable than could be put into words.

“Air support will be fueled and ready should it be needed, and roaming units with changing patterns and timing will be patrolling the perimeter of the central valley and onward.” Hendricks paused to allow a question.

“Do we know whether there will be any anomalies present or active during this time?” An elder Custodes named William inquired.

Hendricks and the surrounding Custodes looked to Natasha at the other end of the table for an answer.

“Currently, we aren’t expecting anything beyond security details for VIPs, not unlike our previous live fire exercise involving... Codename Eve.” Natasha tried her hardest to keep her opinions on the subject of Sophia’s callsign to herself, but struggled as the sheer stupidity astounded her.

“Codename Eve was given both a Custodes detail equipped with Daylight rings and what I’m told amounted to over thirty Drone-Class anomalies and One Knight-Class,” Natasha finished.

“How would you rank these anomalies in regard to combat effectiveness? I don’t mean to insult, but I can hardly imagine they’ll match up to thirty seasoned Custodes in action.” William pushed as Voices of assent murmured throughout the room.

Natasha recognized most of them as members of the faction who had wanted to limit Sophia’s freedoms in favor of increasing her security as well as try to determine the reason for her miraculous pregnancy.

However, none of the custodes present had been permitted to attend the meeting of elders where this topic was brought up and very clearly rejected.

Maybe that was the reason for their cynicism.

“Maybe a demonstration would alleviate some of the doubts many of us are having.” William continued looking around the table for support.

Natasha couldn’t help but snort at the idea while saying under her breath, “Yeah, that’d end well.”

“I’ll inquire about the possibility of a demonstration.” She added facetiously, Natasha had no intention of ever letting Aleks inside this facility, she had a weird foreboding feeling that it would make nothing but trouble for her.

Thankfully, before anyone could call her on it, Mr. Hendricks continued the meeting.

“Next on the agenda is the recent addition to the guest list, The Listless Sisters Coven. There’s been interest from them surrounding our vacant position of Allied Coven.”

There was a knock at the door, interrupting Hendricks’ presentation. The signal jamming precautions of the war-room kept anyone from using their senses to feel out who or why they were being interrupted.

It wasn’t until the sound of nervous but polite objections of a Custodes drowned out by the platitudes of indifference that Natasha realized who it was.

The door opened, and Aleks poked his head inside.

“Heard you were having a meeting, didn’t mean to interrupt, just wanted to say hi, but this one kept pestering me.” Aleks said, gesturing to the nervous Custodes who was supposed to stand guard at the door.

“Mr. Titanos, perfect timing. We were just discussing your contributions to security at the gala. Would you like to join us?” William asked, with obvious ulterior motives.

“I’d be delighted, in fact a lot has changed recently, might be time we updated our protocols a bit.” Aleks said his smile predatory as he glanced around the table, a sudden pressure filling the room, like being at the bottom of a diving pool, even Natasha felt the constraint on her body.

And then, just as quickly as it had come, it disappeared.

Natasha knew Aleks was up to no good and out to cause problems, and so she wasted no time pushing out her senses to his mind. It was as simple and effortless as it had always been.

But as soon as the connection formed, she felt as if someone had dropped her in a bottomless ocean, its vast expanse unbothered with her puny presence.

She came back to herself slightly disoriented, Aleks now standing in front of her with a hand on her shoulder, his mind connected directly to hers now as he sent a silent message only to her.

“I will create a connection for you to find me, but not now.”

He moved past her towards the end of the table beside Hendricks.

“So. Where to begin?” Aleks said with a cheshire smile.

“We assume you’ll be providing ground support to important individuals or possible threats, your limitations will be taken into account, but as we move towards aerial threats and so on, you’ll likely find it harder to contribute, but please pay it no mind.” William said, arrogantly.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I will make sure to have a strong air presence along with ground units to exert force on any targets found. As such, I’d like a line of constant updates of any flight plans.”

“You plan to control the airspace across the entire valley with those two birds of yours?” William scoffed.

“No. They’re gonna stay with Katya.” Some of the Sentires at the table squirmed slightly in displeasure at the casual nature with which he referred to their matriarch.

Such was decorum, after all.

“No... I’ll be fielding some new troops, more diverse and specialized.”

“I’m afraid I don’t feel entirely comfortable relying on untested and unknown units for the security of such an important event.” William challenged.

“Maybe a demonstration would ease your minds?” Aleks said, his tone as if leading lambs to slaughter.

Natasha knew the people around the table. Hardened Custodes who had witnessed multiple campaigns against their clan and beaten them back each and every time.

She might dislike some, but they all deserved a modicum of respect, or at least thought they did, which is why they were easy to goad.

“Just our thoughts, Mr. Titanos.” William replied all teeth.

***

“We do not believe in a standard issue rifle.” The gunsmith spoke as he flipped open a carrying case of hardened polymer.

“But we do play favorites. Most of our inventory consists of heavily modified M16’s, although there ain’t much left when we’re done with them. It’s simply used as a base, caliber, textured grips, barrel, stock, trigger action, bolt, sights. Anything you can think of, really, we probably changed it.” He explained as he pulled out a stock issue M16 and a finished order beside it.

“Why use it as the base, then?” Aleks asked curiously from the side.

“Aesthetics.” The gunsmith said simply, and for the first time Natasha felt an emotion slip through that vast empty expanse she’d found herself in earlier.

Respect for a fellow craftsman.

The gunsmith didn’t acknowledge the emotion, except for a brief chuckle as he thumbed the runed ring on his finger.

“You have any experience in firearms, Sir?” The gunsmith asked Aleks.

“Beyond breaking them? No.” Aleks laughed with a self-deprecating shake of his head.

“Oh? Mishandling or rough use?” The gunsmith inquired as he readied the customized rifle and walked over to the nearby firing range.

“Well, I tried haphazardly channeling energy into a revolver while under fire, and it popped in my hand like a miniature grenade.” Aleks explained.

“Wait a minute...” Natasha said, realizing something. “That night at the Cecillia’s manor, your right side was blown to shit along with your leg, was that the reason?!” Natasha questioned, stunned.

Aleks didn’t respond, but the slight wince in his shoulders was more than enough confirmation, as Natasha had to stifle a laugh and quickly put on a more professional expression.

The gunsmith gave her a side eye before looking to Aleks, “Sorta cruel, this one, huh?” the gunsmith said in sympathy before handing off the rifle to Natasha and stepping aside.

“Wait, you’re gonna be my baseline?” Aleks asked, surprised.

“Of course, this was custom made for me.” She said before taking a stance and hitting her fist against a large button at the side of her booth.