“If you think that Atlas will bow to threats from a foreign agent, you are most assuredly wrong,” Mister Ironwood said.

Akelarre stared at him and held back a sigh. Neo, on the other hand, didn’t have nearly as much restraint. She rolled her eyes all the way round and made a big production to show how little she thought of the man’s counter-threat.

Akelarre could sympathize, but as a proper princess she had to at least pretend to be polite to the big scary general. “Look, Mister Ironwood--”

“General, Ironwood. Headmaster of Atlas Academy and leader of Atlas’ proud military.”

“Uh-huh,” Akelarre said. She looked around, taking note of all the soldiers in their crisp white uniforms that stood out starkly on the colourful streets of Vale and the grey, knight-like robots standing amongst them. There were Huntsmen too, all in shiny gear and with strange weapons, though they, at least, were a little farther away. “Okay, so lay it out for me logically. Because I’m not seeing it.”

The general’s brow twitched. “What are you on about?” he asked before shaking his head. “No, nevermind that. Get on your knees and allow us to cuff you. Come peacefully and we can avoid any trouble.”

Neo elbowed Akelarre in the ribs, then wiggled her eyebrows at her.

“No Neo, I won’t allow you to handcuff me to anything,” Akelarre said. Neo pouted and made a few quick gestures. “No, we won’t kill them and wear their skins either. That would be impolite. We’re foreign dignitaries right now, and that would send the wrong diplomatic message.“

The short woman sighed, then perked up then made handcuffing gestures before pointing to the general and his soldiers.

“They probably do have dungeons,” Akelarre admitted.

Neo nodded, then made even move gestures.

Akelarre felt her face going red. She placed a hand over Neo’s to stop her signing and looked around to confirm that everyone was, in fact, looking at them. “Neo, you can’t ask that kind of thing out in public... m-maybe later.”

Neo perked an eyebrow.

“We, we’ll see about grabbing some handcuffs too.”

Neo smugged at the soldiers.

The general’s fists clenched and he growled something under his breath while gesturing forwards. A pair of his soldiers detached themselves from the rest, slung their rifles over their backs and moved towards Akelarre and Neo.

“That’s a bad idea,” Akelarre said as she watched the soldiers pull out handcuffs from their belts. ““I’m trying really hard to deescalate things here, Mister Ironwood, but you’re not helping. We could be friends.”

“I doubt we have that much in common,” ironwood said.

Akelarre shook her head. "We have plenty in common. You lost your arm too! See, we could have been Amputee-buddies. We both have armies. You’re a general and I’m a princess, which both means we’re pretty high up in our respective governments. We could have talked about... taxes.” She sighed. “But then you just had to threaten me in the middle of the city. Like I said, I’m not seeing it. This entire thing isn’t very logical. Don’t you think it would be best to try and talk it out."

“That’s exactly what we’ll do,” the general said. “But we’ll do it in a place where none of Vale’s citizens are threatened.”

“You’re the ones with guns here,” Akelarre pointed out. “My Grimmsects only eat the people and things I tell them to eat.”

The two soldiers had nearly reached Akelarre and Neo. “Cuff them,” Ironwood ordered.

“Yeah, no.”

Neo spun on one heel, and twisted into a lightning vertical split that ended with her booted foot cracking against the jaw of the soldier trying to reach for her. He fell with a gurgle even as she straightened herself and grinned at the others.

Akelarre’s soldier wasn’t so lucky.

A dark form dove out of the sky with a loud, joyous ‘Queee!’ and like a hawk wasp picking up an innocent spider, the soldier was torn off the ground and dragged into the air with a rapidly fading scream.

Akelarre had to hold back a grin as she felt all the little bugs crawling across the soldiers and huntsmen tense up.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. My hugglebugs would never purposefully traumatise anyone.”

“Shoot to incapacitate!” Ironwood roared as he brought an arm around to point at the girls.

Three dozen guns clicked.

Neo blinked, then snorted.

“You shouldn’t laugh,” Akelarre admonished. “It’s not their fault they can’t get a shot off. I heard that it can happen to anyone.”

Neo pointed at Ironwood, then let her finger droop.

“I’m sure it can be fixed,” Akelarre said. “Atlas is supposed to be super technologically advanced, I’m sure there’s a solution for your occasional misfire problem.”

Ironwood’s fists clenched by his sides until he reached out and snatched a rifle from the hands of one of his men. With a few quick motions he took apart the housing above the gun and stared into its innards.

Akelarre’s many, many small Grimmsects stared back.

“She’s jammed our weaponry,” he said. “Prepare for melee. Huntsmen, you’re up!”

Akelarre sighed again. “It’s always like this. I try to convince them not to fight me, and yet they never get the message.”Neo, I think it might be best if we made a run for it. I’ll have my hugglebugs distract them.”

Neo pouted.

“No, even if you fought them, and I have no doubt that you could, you might get hurt and we wouldn’t get anything from it. I’d rather let the general win this one and return to our date.” Neo’s eyebrows shot into her hairline and Akelarre suddenly looked away. “N-not that it was a date-date, of course,” she said.

Grinning, Neo grabbed Akelarre by the arm, and with a crack like the universe wincing, the two of them disappeared just as a swarm of man-sized bugs tore out of every alleyway, rooftop and out from under parked cars with a joyous warcry of ‘quee!’

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Unnoticed by any of the panicking soldiers, a pair of Deathstalkers scuttled away, claws gripping onto newly acquired handcuffs.

***

They were being belligerent fools. Idiots of the highest order. Worse, they were disrespecting her.

“You think you can march in here with your pretty legs and just trample all over us?” One of the idiots said. He was wearing his jacket open to reveal a colorful shirt underneath. His legs were up on the table and his chair was leaned back carelessly as he eyes her up and down. “If you really want us, you just need to give us a little shimmy, you know?” he said with a grin.

The others were little better, all men, all on the younger side, all flamboyantly dressed as if they were ready to walk into a club instead of acting like proper criminals. She had expected a certain class of gangster at this meeting and was thoroughly disappointed by what she found.

These particular fools were hotheaded, kept afloat by their own ego more than any skill. She could have replaced a dozen of them with a single focused accountant for all they actually knew of business.

Adam stepped up beside her, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. “You seem to lack respect for Miss Fall,” he growled.

A few of the men snorted and one of them, a particularly vain specimen waved dismissively before talking, “Who let you out of your pen, bull boy. The grown-ups are talking. So be a good little cow and chew on some silence, yeah?”

Their laughter drowned out the pop-pop of Adam’s knuckles as his hand clenched. This was, Cinder realized, getting out of hand.

“Boys, boys, boys,” she murmured, voice dropping into a low, sensual cadence that had a few of them paying her more attention. “Adam here is the leader of the local White Fang. Perhaps dismissing him so easily isn’t... wise?” she said as she placed a hand on is shoulder, then ran it down, index first, along the length of his arm.

Taking a step forwards, she arrived on the edge of the conference room table, aware that the light was coming in from the floor to ceiling windows behind her. She had wanted to use the view to showcase what she could offer to the men, but they were little more than children playing at being gangsters.

“We came here with such a simple offer,” she began. “Join us, work for us, beneath us and we will reward you with riches beyond your simple imaginings. Or don’t. But if you refuse, it had better be to step out of the competition altogether, otherwise.” she placed a long, delicate finger on the edge of the table and twisted her aura a little. It sizzles as the wood of the conference table began to smoke.

“You think that just because you took out Wicker and his boys you can make us come here and threaten us?” the one who had his feet up on the table said. He removed them and sat ups straighter, leaning forwards to glare at her. “If you think we’re gonna bow to some upstart little gang just because you’ve got some animals backin’ you up, you’ve got another thing coming, gal.”

“Up...start,” Cinder repeated as if tasting the word. “You seem to think very little of us mister...”

“You should know my name,” he began. “You’re going to be moaning it soon enough. The guys call me--”

“I don’t particularly care about your name. I care about your manpower and your organization. It would be more trouble to replace all of you than it would be to take over your pitiful little gang. That’s the only reason we’re having this conversation,” she said.

There was a grumble at that, the gangsters not liking what she said. Then Cinder heard a faint but growing wail in the distance, a siren going off. She glanced out the corner of her eye and met Adam’s own concerned look.

Somehow, she knew that that was Acklarre’s fault.

“Look here, you bitch.”

“Insinuate that I’m any sort of whore again and I will burn off your manhood.” Her hand rose and then, with a woosh like an over being lit, caught fire.

A few of them backed up a bit, cowed, but most just scoffed at the display.

“We are not some rival gang,” she spat. “We aren’t even an organization from Vale. Trust me when I say that you wouldn’t even know where to begin dealing with us.”

“Get off your high horse. You might be pretty enough and the White Fang might, might be helping you, but the Knights won’t bend the knee just because you can threaten us a little. We’re tougher than that.”

Cinder closed her eyes for a moment. She was getting a stress headache from dealing with all the stupid and the faint popping of automatic fire in the distance, probably unheard by the auraless fools in the room, wasn’t helping

“I was told to offer you the carrot, as it were, and I haven’t actually begun to threaten you. But if that’s what you wish, I can certainly comply,” she said.

“Yeah, and what kind of threats do you think would work on us, girl? We aren’t cowards.”

There was a whump, like a bird running into a window.

She saw every eye widen and look past her shoulder.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Cinder turned to see that a man was pinned to the window. A man dressed like an Atlesian soldier. His nametag, pressed up against the window like the rest of his body, read Wilhelm. He was still alive, mostly.

A Grimsect, one of Akelarre’s, ran into the window around the man, six jagged, pointed legs spearing through the glass all around the solder before, with a ‘quee’ the Grimm pinched the scruff of the soldier’s uniform with mandibles the size of someone’s forearm, then it started purring.

“Help?!” the soldier screamed into the window while the Grimmsect behind him started to rub up against his body. “Help!”

The Grimm’s wings started to beat, drowning out the rumble of its purr, and with a final ‘quee’ it took off.

Wilhelm’s scream echoed through the silent conference room.

“As I was saying,” Cinder continued as if nothing had happened. “Our ability to threaten you shouldn’t be questioned.”