contributors: clarisse, ginger, harley, raelin, isla

★彡[ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ʜᴀꜱ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴇᴅɪᴛᴇᴅ ʙʏ: ɢɪɴɢᴇʀ]彡★

Aeyva Talle rolled out of bed, stepping onto the soft area rug underneath it. She had awoken to her aunt's call of "Aeyva! Breakfast is ready!" Cadence Talle was many things, and tolerant of lateness was not one of them. Then again, as leader of the Black Swan's hidden defense team—a name that Forkle had used in passing that just sort of stuck—Aeyva would have had to learn to get up early anyway. Her aunt was just preparing her for the world, really.

She loved her aunt—and the Black Swan—but sometimes she longed for the pale pink crystal walls of her home, Airshire Manor. Where her parents lived. She had to pretend every day that she didn't mind living with her aunt to improve her skills as a Polyglot, when in reality, sometimes a girl just needed a hug from her mother. But Aeyva was not just any girl. She was a rebel, playing in a messy game of war, and war did not wait for children who wanted to rest in the arms of their mothers. War told them that if they wanted to live they had to grow up.

Aeyva looked out the window, pushing thoughts of her parents and the chessboard that was the Neverseen and Black Swan's war to the back of her mind. The first gray light of dawn was beginning to peek over the horizon. She flipped her head upside down and ran her fingers through her chocolate brown ringlets, which she'd lathered the previous night in ridiculous amounts of conditioner, a nightly practice her aunt would never have to understand—must be nice.

She righted herself and looked in the long full-length mirror that stood in the corner of her bedroom. Her sharp blue eyes stared back at her. People often told her she looked like her mother, but really, she knew she was her father's gender-bent clone. The same thick brown hair, the same piercing eyes the color of the sky on a bright and cloudless day, the same pale skin and rosy cheeks.

Her heart ached with the loneliness that came with the inability to see her parents. She could visit them, of course, but her life had changed in so many ways. Foxfire was still shut down, but free time was hardly a privilege Aeyva was allowed. She led a team of girls whose main purpose was fighting the Neverseen to protect the (rather irresponsible but undeniably invaluable) Moonlark. No one was really sure what the defense team's original purpose was, but at this point their job description was dirty work. Along with the training that all the other girls did, being the leader meant she had to strategize, flip through files, research Neverseen members and their affiliates. It was a task that weighed heavier on her every day, ever since... well, ever since the last leader had broken.

Aeyva swallowed hard.

She shook off the thoughts and dressed herself, then walked across Riverdrift to eat with her aunt. They made small talk about anything but her responsibilities. They practiced a few different languages, switching seamlessly between them every few minutes. Under the mentoring of her talented Polyglot aunt, Aeyva had become just as impressively good at it as she was at her second ability—descrying, which she'd mastered at Foxfire under the tutelage of Councillor Terik. She'd always felt honored to have such amazing mentors... even though it meant she never really saw her parents anymore.

She had training at eleven with the rest of the squad. They worked at a top-secret Black Swan hideout called Bruxvale, that even the Moonlark probably didn't have clearance to go to. Aeyva smirked at the thought. The team was all girls, and most of them had been sort of rescued by the Black Swan. A lot of them had significant connections to the Neverseen or were missing parents or had been exiled.

Her Imparter buzzed on the table. She grabbed it thoughtlessly but its message gave her pause. She stood abruptly, gathering up her bag which was resting on the floor. Her aunt shot her a glance, raising an eyebrow.

"Is everything alright?"

"There's a new mission. Forkle says it's urgent."

"Well, enjoy yourself," Cadence grunted. She wasn't all too fond of the Black Swan but Aeyva knew that she appreciated her work.

Aeyva stepped onto the deck, into the sunlight, her mind spinning with ideas for what had happened. The message had given her a familiar feeling in her stomach—the feeling that something momentous was soon to happen. It didn't feel positive. The warm rays shone down on her, and she pulled out her personal pathfinder, given to her by the Collective.

The crystal glinted in the glare of the sun, and Aeyva's eyes found the crystal facet to home. Real home. Not Riverdrift.

With some effort, she pulled her gaze away.

Aeyva's slender fingers spun the crystal, lingering on the facet to Airshire for a beat too long before rotating it to Bruxvale.

The crystal locked in place.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Cloud wrung out her wet hair with a towel and looked up at herself in the mirror, meeting her own grayish-blue eyes. The ones that earned her her name. The house was quiet. It always was.

The house had been quiet since Gethen had stopped coming home. When he was publicly discovered. When was that? Five, six years ago? It could have been a decade or months. She didn't really remember.

He used to come home sometimes. She used to see her brother.

When she left the bathroom, she was wearing a dark tunic that reached midway down her stomach and a pair of loose cargo pants belted at the waist, a jagged dagger strapped to one arm. Ready to go to training. Training for what? The Collective hadn't told the girls their next mission, only that they were going to have one. There were so few Black Swan members they'd met. They were always forced to work behind the scenes, and it was frustrating. Frustrating that hardly any other members even knew who they were. Frustrating to be so close to the Neverseen and still unable to feel like they were truly doing any work.

Cloud had fought the Neverseen, sure, tons of times with the other girls. But she felt like the team wasn't doing enough. The Neverseen were still winning.

The last time they'd battled directly with the Neverseen, Gethen had asked her how she was doing and how her week had gone, like everything was normal. Like he wasn't a criminal. Like he hadn't abandoned his family for the creepy anti-human cult he hoped to lead. She didn't tell him their dad had disowned his last name. That she hated too, because that repulsive man and his equally repulsive young wife now had the same name she did. Disgusting.

She entered the glass elevator. Petrichor was a tower. It always rained where Cloud lived, hence the name, and she liked watching it drizzle as she ascended the side of the tower. It was lonely living in a tower. What was the point? It was usually just her, Dad, and Seraphina at home anyways. But elves loved showing off their wealth.

"Tower, tower, tower," Cloud mumbled to herself as she ascended upward, tugging her fingers through her hair.

The elevator came to a slow halt and she stepped out onto the 24th floor. "Tower, tower," she said quietly as she walked across the floor and to the kitchen. She slid her hand along the side of the counter and turned on the sink to listen to the water.

"Good morning," she said, then turned it back off. She pulled food out of a fridge that was nearly four times as wide as she was and sat down at a beautifully decorated but lonely table to eat.

"Where's Daddy?" she asked in a high-pitched voice.

"Probably at work," she answered herself.

"Seraphina?"

"Seraphina sleeps real late," she said.

Her house remained silent. Sometimes her father threw parties, but that was just as repulsive as the resounding silence. She turned towards the kitchen again and jolted when her brother was standing at the stove. He wasn't wearing a Neverseen cloak. He looked as she remembered—shorter hair, clean-shaven, dressed like he was heading to a respectable job. The false caricature she'd once thought was Gethen.

"Everything is going to change," he said, but it wasn't his voice—it was someone else's. A voice she didn't recognize. Suddenly he was everywhere, and other members of the Neverseen were there too—even Umber, who couldn't be there, because she was dead—filling the room with shadowy hands that clawed at her, whispering, whispering the same thing over and over: Everything is going to change. Cloud clutched her head, squeezing her eyes shut, begging for the voices to go away.

And then they were gone.

All of it faded into nothingness again. Cloud hugged herself, trying to decipher what her unconscious mind was trying to tell her. There was a moment of silence that stretched on for far too long, and then she couldn't take being in this house anymore.

She pushed away her food, her hunger replaced by frustration and loneliness. She wanted to hurt someone, to stab something. That was the only thing that helped. Early training suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

She pulled her Imparter out of her pocket. "Hail Avilyn Ember." Avilyn connected almost immediately; she either rarely slept or just woke up very easily because Cloud could almost always count on her to distract her with wrestling or knife-throwing. Usually they didn't see eye-to-eye on most things—Cloud was spontaneous and rarely serious and spent her spare time planning practical jokes with Adalea and Faelyn while Avilyn was responsible and a careful planner who typically played the role of Aeyva's second-in-command. But in an organization of rebels a close friendship didn't need agreement; just shared bloodlust and trauma. That was exactly what they had.

"What's up?" Her pale-haired friend and training partner always looked effortlessly immaculate, even if she'd just woken up. Once at a rather silly sleepover the whole team had voted on which girl was sexiest, and Avilyn won unanimously. Her beauty was hardly paralleled even among other elves.

"Are you going to Bruxvale?"

Avilyn frowned. "This morning?"

"Yeah."

"Well, we don't have to show up until eleven."

"But are you coming earlier?"

"When are you coming?"

Cloud stood and gathered up her boots from where she'd left them on the couch the previous day. "Right now."

Avilyn sighed. "Fine. I'll get my stuff," she said reluctantly.

Cloud ended the call. Her pathfinder was in her other pocket. She inserted the pale pink crystal she used for Black Swan hideouts. It flashed a beam onto the ground.

She stepped into the light.

It didn't take long for Avilyn to show up. She was dressed head to toe in black camouflage as per the usual: black crop tee, tight black leggings, and sturdy ankle boots. She had put her long, strangely snow-white hair in a high ponytail. She'd never explained how it had gotten that color but Cloud dyed her hair all the time—at present it was a bright candy-blue—so she didn't have reason to question it.

Cloud was juggling knives—her preferred choice of weapon besides her ability—when Avilyn arrived. Cloud had a casual, fun approach to training that sometimes could be a little too lax. For the oldest of the team, she sure acted like the youngest, but whatever worked worked.

All the girls were incredibly talented and intelligent, even if it lay beneath the surface. Sometimes pretty far beneath the surface.

"Wanna practice skills?" Avilyn asked, reaching back to pull out a long silver sword which was tucked expertly into her ponytail. She flipped it in the air, catching it easily before snapping her fingers. The sword disappeared with a shimmering glint. A Conjurer. A Polyglot, as well, but that ability she rarely used. Cloud was a Mesmer.

Her background was complicated and the details that Cloud knew were scattered, but whatever she'd gone through had made her an incredible sword fighter and a brief spell at Exilium had probably contributed to the fact that she was one of the most proficient at elf skills out of the whole team.

Cloud grinned, which was always a little scary because it made her look kind of crazy. Which she was. "I forgot to show you. I can do something new."

Avilyn raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

She set down her knives on a table and stepped closer. "You know body temperature regulation?"

Avilyn didn't think she liked where this was going. "What about it?"

There was a twitch of movement in Cloud's face; a gleam in her eyes and a curl of her lip, and Avilyn suddenly felt very cold. She needed a coat ASAP. The cold spread through her body like wildfire, if wildfire was negative ten degrees. Avilyn shivered, rubbing her arms, and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.

She tried to regulate her body temperature, but discovered that was futile.

Panic crept up her throat.

Old memories resurfaced.

Bad memories.

Ones that she'd spent years burying at the bottom of her consciousness.

Then, just as fast as it had come, the feeling was gone. Avilyn let out a shuddering breath.

Cloud was smiling widely, looking at her expectantly.

Avilyn closed her eyes and reigned in her thoughts. "Helpful," she said, "but never do that to me again." Her voice was hard but calm; she kept the fear out of it.

Cloud's smile dropped. "I mean, Lyra can do the same thing except for real. All I did was trick your mind. But it's still cool."

"So you couldn't really hurt anyone with it."

"Right. But you don't need to be hurt if you think you are. The fragility of the elven mind is a fascination and a tool, isn't it?"

Avilyn forced a laugh. "Wow. I like it." She looked around the room. "Let's practice some telekinesis." A splotcher of metal and glass materialized beside her, but a vibration at her ankle gave her pause.

Avilyn frowned, pulling her buzzing Imparter out of her pocket. "It's Forkle. He says it's urgent." She shot Cloud a wary glance. "New mission."

Cloud jumped up and down and clapped her hands giddily, her demeanor shifting suddenly and unapologetically. "Yay!"

"Not yay. Forkle sounds stressed. You know that means he's gonna give us an annoying assignment that's a huge pain because he has a lot going on." But Cloud was already singing to herself and dancing around the room in circles.

*ೃ༄

Adalea Timber woke at the crack of dawn, cursing her internal clock and Aeyva for instilling it in her. "Five a.m., are you kidding me?" Adalea grumbled as she climbed out of bed, the time blinking at her from her Imparter. She made her way to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and tying up her long dark hair with the tie she'd left on her wrist the previous night.

She was certainly something unique, and not only because she had the horrible urge to wake at ungodly hours. Both a Vanisher and a Hydrokinetic, her family had struggled with controlling her dangerous combination of abilities growing up, and she had always seemed especially disastrous compared to her seemingly perfect younger sister Roxanna—who had manifested vanishing at an impressively young age and had never been as messy or anxious or distracted in classes. Then her parents, both Regents, had passed away on a classified mission somewhere in the Forbidden Cities, leaving both Adalea and Roxanna with a lifelong sense of loathing for the Council. That was when their paths had diverted. Extended family were eager to take in perfect Roxy but Addy? She was dangerous, reckless, and performed poorly at Foxfire. Off to Exilium she was sent, cementing her hatred for the Council forever.

One thing led to another, and the Black Swan found Adalea and her newfound friend Phoenix Kolster at the school for rejects and recognized both their talent and rebelliousness. Adalea's life had never been the same after that.

And all of that brought her here. To a small storage hideout manned by a woman named Haleth Caddel, whose purpose in the organization was mostly intel, moving secrets and strategies along complicated grapevines. Here Adalea heard whispers of plans before her teammates did, particularly when visitors arrived for meetings in hushed tones. But what she really liked about this hideout was not the secrets, but the storage.

Adalea had a few odd fascinations: the Forbidden Cities, finding new ways to make people laugh, and technology. She'd always dreamed of manifesting as a Technopath but at sixteen, it didn't seem like that was going to happen anytime soon. From the kitchen she dug out a box of sugary cereal from the human food stash Haleth kept for her sake, and then she ducked into one of the wide and dark storage rooms, knowing she had an hour or two before Haleth would be awake.

She rummaged around for something close to ten minutes, pocketing spare parts and a few odd gadgets, before returning to her room. Inside she had long ago set up a workstation, which for now had unfinished tech strewn across it along with a screen mounted to the wall and a hovering keyboard. Most of the things she built were silly, for the purposes of pranking her friends, but sometimes she tried her hand at useful weapons under the guidance of Tinker, who had become a sort of mentor to this hobby. It had been only a week since she last visited, although she certainly went to Widgetmoor less frequently these days. It seemed the Neverseen popped up everywhere now and it was hard to focus on anything but fighting them.

Adalea spent some time fiddling with wires and trying to put together an experimental weapon she'd been working on that Mr. Forkle definitely wouldn't approve of which could send blasts of energy to repel forcefields. So far tests hadn't gone... quite as she planned, so she'd kept the project as quiet as possible. Every few minutes she would reach into the open box of dry cereal and eat a mouthful of it, because why sit down and eat a meal when you could be doing anything else instead?

When her Imparter dinged to tell her it was six, she abruptly swept together her things, stuffing them in drawers without much rhyme or reason, sealed up the cereal box and got up to prepare for the day. She changed into a black full-body jumpsuit with belts and straps for weapon-holding and put on her black combat boots before going outside to start training bright and early. Technically, she was supposed to always train with the other girls on the defense team, and it ticked Forkle off royally when she trained alone because 'you're supposed to learn a sense of cohesion and teamwork' or something stupid like that, but she didn't particularly care about Forkle's feelings. Or rules.

After a stretching session she set up a target and began hurling knife after knife, nailing the target almost every time off of muscle memory. To make things harder, she wrapped a strip of cloth around her eyes, tying it in the back, and began doing the same exercise blindfolded. She heard a knife knock into another with a shing and a soft clunk and suddenly her Imparter buzzed in her pocket.

She reached down to the side of her leg, unbuckling the pocket that rested there and tossing the Imparter in the air to catch it with her other hand, giving a small smile when she did it without fail. One couldn't be supremely skilled without getting at least a little cocky. With her other hand she pulled off the blindfold, tossing it on the bench where another collection of knives was waiting to be thrown and accepting the call.

"Hello?"

"Adalea. There's an emergency mission and I need you to leap to Bruxvale immediately—are you training alone?"

There was a pause, and then Adalea shrugged. "Maybe."

He looked like he was about to scold her, but then he just sighed and rubbed his temples. "You know what, oh well. Just get there and make it quick. This one's a doozy."

That sounded like fun. Forkle clicked off and Adalea slipped the Imparter back in her pocket, glancing wistfully at the target stacked with blades, picking up just one more and giving it a kiss. "Goodbye, my lovely children."

And then she flung it.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Lyra Cormier stretched as she woke up; her arms and legs were sore from the two and a half hours she had spent practicing her karate the previous night⏤seriously, her father should NOT let her hyperfocus. She cracked her knuckles, neck, and back, feeling immensely stiff. She got up, slipping on the slippers she had laid by her bed and walking to the bathroom.

Lyra grabbed her hair brush and began brushing out the knots that had formed in her long pink hair overnight.

Her dad had been furious when he found out she had dyed it without his permission, going on a rant about friends being bad influences, but Lyra refused to change it back to the boring brown. The bright color reflected her personality much better, aligning well with the glittery makeup she wore. She began to braid her hair, remembering that the girls had planned a group training session that day. As much as Lyra loved her friends, she wasn't the biggest fan of group training. She had always worked better alone.

Lyra finished up the braid and walked into her closet, viewing her collection of training clothes. She eventually settled on a summer yellow tunic and black leggings, both with lots of pockets. She pulled on her favorite soft brown boots and headed down stairs where she could smell the breakfast the gnomes had cooked.

When Lyra got downstairs, she saw her father munching on a blitzenberry muffin and reading from a stack of papers that he was quick to slide from her view when she sat down across from him.

"Mornin' Lyra," her dad greeted her with a warm but closeted smile. He'd always been secretive about his work and it had led Lyra to make up a number of her own theories about what he did. "Mr. Forkle arranged a meeting with you and the girls. Said it's an emergency. Something about that Sencen boy," he told her between bites.

She held back a sigh and sat down grabbing a muffin of her own. Keefe was always getting in trouble that the defense team had to clean up; last she knew of him he was in some sort of coma after the battle at Loamnore. Something about magsidian and stellarlune; Lyra had spaced out a part of the way through Forkle's explanation. She wasn't exactly an avid listener.

After eating, she collected a few supplies and tossed them in a bag. She hated having to go to Bruxvale early when she could be wandering around the house doing nothing instead, but whatever.

Cloud, Avilyn, and Adalea were already there and chatting with each other by the time Lyra arrived. Adalea looked suspiciously sweaty, like she'd been training all morning or something. Avilyn looked picture-perfect as always, and her eyes scanned the room, giving a small smile-nod-wave when she noticed Lyra. Cloud looked surprisingly sober for once, but of course, her mood fluctuated by the minute.

Lyra walked over to say hi. One by one the other girls showed up. Their missions were all over the place; sometimes they were battling ogres to protect a camp and sometimes they were spending hours scrolling through the elven registry for research on their enemies. Needless to say, research assignments were nowhere near as fun or exciting as direct combat.

Lyra wasn't entirely sure if their team was created out of pity for the poor, excessively talented teenage girls that had turned up on the Black Swan's doorstep, or if they had a specific purpose, like protecting the Moonlark or something (because they typically seemed to be involved in that). Either way, she was grateful that it took up most of her time. It made her feel like she was part of something. She was motherless, siblingless, and her dad was always busy, which made her alone a lot. Not that she minded, being alone was nice. But there was a difference between being alone and being lonely and she had become very familiar with it.

When Aeyva arrived, she did a quick runthrough to make sure everyone was on the same page, checking the task list posted on the wall.

"Phoenix, Lyana, you covered sword-shining duty?"

"Yep."

"Faelyn, you filled up the fridge?"

"Sure thing, boss."

"Cloud, mind break status?"

"Perfectly manageable. Ish."

"Good. And is anyone else having worse problems than usual...?" Aeyva waited for everyone to shake their heads before moving on. Elves weren't built for combat and the mental health of everyone on the team was something she had to constantly monitor. They'd had minds shatter in the past. Girls sent to Exile never to be seen again.

"Kayleey, any medical issues?"

"I'm doing fine," she said tightly, crossing her arms a bit tighter over her chest. Kayleey Villarreal was known to have prolonged periods of poor health, which was unusual for elves, but then again, no one in the defense team was particularly normal... if they were they probably never would have joined the rebellion.

Aeyva shot her a glance but nodded. "Adalea, did you do the weekly camera report?"

Adalea froze. "Oh... yeah... I forgot about that."

Avilyn groaned. "I knew it. It's fine, Aeyva, I took care of it just in case she missed it—again." She and Adalea had a brief staredown, which Adalea ended pretty quickly by immaturely sticking out her tongue.

"Okay," said Aeyva slowly. "And your report?"

"No new activity as far as I could tell. Things are rather dry at the moment."

Aeyva shrugged, stretching her arms over her head which were a bit sore. "Alright. That's all. Now we just wait for Forkle."

And wait they did, for a long while. The team took turns fighting each other in the wrestling ring to pass the time. Forkle was taking his sweet time for someone who claimed there was an emergency.

"Schizo, make me do a backflip," said Faelyn Einar, grinning. Cloud flicked a finger and she flipped in the air over the crouched form of Lyra, who she was supposed to be fighting, and Lyra barely had enough time to think Oh, crap before Faelyn had landed behind her and grabbed her by the shoulders, slamming her to the ground.

Lyra got up and dusted herself off, recovering quickly as they'd been taught to do. "I was not prepared for that," she laughed, shaking her head. These girls were idiots. But they were her idiots.

"There he is, finally," Kayleey said, pointing to the door.

Mr. Forkle rushed into the training room carrying his Imparter in one hand and a stack of files in the other, looking incredibly stressed. He wiped his brow and nodded to the Imparter.

"Yes, yes, all right; I'm getting them." He looked up and swept his frantic gaze around the room. "Ladies! Gather around, gather around." He gestured for everyone to come his way.

The girls shot each other odd looks, dropping what they were doing to come over.

Forkle hardly ever acted this freaked out, keeping a calm façade even in the darkest or craziest of times. Occasionally his mask of leadership fell, like when his twin had died or when Tam Song had been captured by the Neverseen, but even then, he stayed mostly together. He was always collected, even in tragedy, so the girls were more than a little concerned that he was acting like this. Whatever Keefe had done, it was bad.

"A new ability... and how are we going to find one kid in the Forbidden Cities?" he muttered to himself. He clasped his hands together and gave everyone a shaky smile. "Hello, girls. I apologize for being so late. It seems we have a bit of a situation."

Avilyn pursed her lips. "From how sweaty you are, the way you're acting, and your posture, I doubt it's 'a bit of a situation'." Lyra held back a snort and there were quite a few raised eyebrows and murmurs of agreement.

Forkle sighed and ran a hand down his face. "I'm afraid I am a lot less productive when there is only one of me, and I've been rushing around all morning. I have a new mission for you—an emergency mission. This was not at all planned."

Most of the girls perked up. Avilyn looked like she'd already guessed what the mission was and didn't like her theory. Aeyva looked calmly thoughtful—the pretending-not-to-be-stressed thing must come with leadership. Lyana Jasper, their youngest and arguably nicest, member, looked the most concerned for Forkle. Lyra was wracking her brain, coming up with a thousand different circumstances for what on earth was going on.

Cloud plopped down on the floor and crossed her legs, looking at Mr. Forkle expectantly.

"Keefe Sencen has manifested a new ability, and upon discovering it was dangerous, he decided it was a good idea to run away to the Forbidden Cities," said Forkle, looking both irritated and exhausted. "Your job is to locate and protect him—and to bring him back."

The girls whispered to each other. They knew who Keefe Sencen was; they'd seen him a hundred times. He was notorious for running away when things got too hard because he thought it was better for others, but it did nothing but cause problems. They'd never worked with him directly before, so this was new and interesting, but did they really look like babysitters? Many of the girls were almost offended at being given such a lowly task.

Aeyva, ever the level head, folded her arms. "Do we have a tracker on him at all?"

"Unfortunately, he appears to have removed all trackers." In hindsight perhaps everyone in the Black Swan should get a tracker embedded in their skin. Everyone was removing theirs to avoid responsibility these days.

Avilyn narrowed her eyes. "There has to be something. A trail for us to follow."

"Maybe I'll see where he is in my dreams," murmured Cloud in a singsongy voice, her head tilted to the ceiling and her eyes closed. Lyana laughed.

"Somehow I doubt that's going to be all that effective," Phoenix muttered, flicking a glance in Cloud's direction. Sometimes Cloud was totally nuts—although the visions she saw were not without their use.

"Can't the Moonlark locate him?" suggested Aerin Monroe. Forkle couldn't really expect them to run around the whole planet on a wild goose chase.

Forkle winced. "Sophie managed to get us... a general area."

"How general are we talking?"

"He's in the United States."

Cloud threw up her hands. "Well, that's just bloody helpful, isn't it? At least she got us a country! We have a few Polyglots, a bit of research on humans and a lousy understanding of English overall, and three million square miles! How prepared we are!"

"Four million," Avilyn corrected with the raise of an eyebrow.

Cloud lay back on the floor and started laughing hysterically. "Four million!"

The other girls turned back to Forkle. "As you all know, the Black Swan has screens on every major city in the world. If I see suspicious activity, I can let you know via Imparter. As the defense team you already have Forbidden City clearance, so I'm going to give you a list of coordinates to try. Gather your things and prepare yourselves, ladies. You leave tonight."

*ೃ༄

Aeyva pulled her long hair back and buckled her knee-high combat boots with purple straps (just because they were practical didn't mean they had to be ugly).

She finished packing her backpack: a couple changes of clothes, some basic hair and hygiene supplies, the throwing stars she always kept on her just in case, a water canteen, a blanket, her Imparter, and a rogue bag of Prattles she'd found laying around her room. She slung it over her shoulders. Her anxiety over the assignment was overwhelming. She would have to keep tabs on the entire group while going on what felt like a ridiculous wild goose chase. She took a few calming deep breaths. This was just another mission. She was just doing her job.

She scribbled out a note and left it on her bed for her aunt to find when she called her for dinner.

Sent on a mission. Don't know when I'll be back. I'm sorry.

She crossed her room and looked out over the water from her second-story window in her aunt's riverboat. The rushing water was the shade of sapphires, reflecting the perfectly blue sky.

Aeyva held her crystal up to the light, the one that would take her to Bruxvale, where Forkle had insisted the girls meet so he could give them final instructions.

As the world glittered into focus, Aeyva could see Cloud and Aerin in a corner, both with bags hanging on their shoulders, talking to each other with uneasy expressions on their faces. She jogged over, smiled, and said, "You guys up for some last-minute training?"

As always, the two elves grinned. "Of course!" they said in unison.

Aeyva grinned back, dropping her backpack and pulling two lethal-looking knives from sheathes on her belt.

"First one to hit a moving bullseye wins!" she said, smashing a large button that sent the targets into a frenzy of motion.

"You are so on." Cloud whipped out her own knives.

"You two scare me sometimes," Aerin laughed, pulling out two battle hatchets from her belt anyway. A flash of yellow glinted at her ears; she wore gummy bear-shaped earrings every day with no explanation why. It could have been nothing more than a strange fashion choice but Aeyva suspected there was likely more to it than that. The defense team was filled with tragic backstories that led to unusual habits and had no shortage of secrets.

They all threw their first weapon at the same time. All hit targets but none hit the sloppily painted bullseyes in the centers of them. Soon they had depleted their own stashes of blades and resorted to using the ones that the Black Swan provided. They weren't as nice, but all three of the girls were much too competitive to let running out of weapons stop them.

Finally, Aerin struck the red circle on a target shaped like a Gorgodon—a new addition to target practice—and the whole system rattled to a halt. That was the only thing that could stop the targets from spinning.

"Whoo-hoo!" Lyra had shown up when they were competing, and she was clapping, her pink ponytail bouncing up and down with each motion. "Go Aerin!" she called, laughing at the matching disgruntled looks on Cloud and Aeyva's faces.

Just then, Adalea walked in, braiding her dark hair over her shoulder and perpetually flickering in and out of sight, with Phoenix following just behind her, hilariously barefoot and going on about people constantly taking her shoes. Avilyn stalked in a few seconds after, glancing around with sharp eyes on usual alert, with Kayleey beside her tugging down her sleeves. She looked tired today. Well, she always looked tired, her eyes bloodshot or her posture slumped. Forkle never told the other girls why, but Aeyva had a feeling he knew. Being a Telepath, while a respected ability, wasn't enough to get you on the squad. You had to either be super powerful, have more than one ability, or be useful in combat.

They had all had powerful abilities and had spent months, if not years, honing those abilities to perfection. Aeyva's descrying ability often helped them prepare for attacks and predict when enemies would appear. Avilyn and Aerin were both Conjurers so powerful they could actually travel through the void instead of light leaping. Cloud was a Mesmer who often, Aeyva had noticed, used her ability on her teammates when they weren't paying attention. Adalea was an odd but useful mix of vanishing and hydrokinesis. Lyra could freeze entire bodies of water in seconds; Phoenix could fry a forest with her powers of electricity; Faelyn could harness and control shadowflux as if it were easy; Lyana had a unique and unregistered ability that allowed her to mimic the powers of other elves when she was near them. They also had another member, Celine Aquila, who was a Guster but was currently on a solo mission—she liked to do things independently.

So if Kayleey was only a Telepath, and not their strongest fighter or strategist, then something else had to be at play. Kayleey and Forkle, Aeyva knew, were hiding something. And she intended to find out what.

"This is a dumb assignment," said Faelyn loudly, throwing open the door. Speaking her mind whether or not anyone liked what she had to say was her favorite hobby. "We're just gonna waltz around an entire country, cross our fingers, and hope that some reckless blond kid shows up."

Lyana was following behind her, and she shook her head, sending her black pigtails streaked with white swinging. "All missions turn out to be fun, Fae, you know that!"

Aerin leaned forward on the weapons table, her eyes lighting up a bit. "Have you seen his jawline? We're totally taking the assignment."

"I don't think we're allowed to reject it," Aeyva told her with a frown. "It was a direct order, and none of us are on break."

"What is this, the human military?" Faelyn muttered.

"Hey, our research of the Forbidden Cities is finally going to pay off," Phoenix said, shooting double finger guns.

"I can't wait to try tacos," Cloud said enthusiastically, spinning a switchblade in her fingers.

"I can't wait to try burgers," Lyra added.

"Don't both of those have meat in them?" Lyana asked with an ick face. Lyra and Cloud both shrugged and Faelyn smiled.

Suddenly, the door to the training room banged open and Mr. Forkle stood in the doorway.

"Okay, ladies," he said with false enthusiasm. "How are you feeling?"

A mix of grunts, mumbles, and one "like you care", presumably from Faelyn.

Mr. Forkle sighed. "Of course I care. But I also care about Keefe Sencen. And the planet, of course."

"What's Celine's status?" Aeyva asked, sweeping her gaze across the room to do a head count of everyone.

"She's doing perfectly well and should be on her way at the moment to retrieve a chemical we located based on intel from one of our spies. The Neverseen and the rebel ogres working together certainly makes things... complicated."

Kayleey gave a soft laugh, holding up her Imparter. "She's fine, guys, this morning she sent me a selfie with the caption 'Feeling cute, might rob some ogres later, IDK'." This brightened the girls' spirits temporarily as they shot each other silly grins. Forkle's expression remained grim.

"Let's focus on the task at hand."

"Isn't this the part where you give us some big motivational speech?" Aeyva asked sarcastically.

Mr. Forkle gave her a look that said set a good example for the others. "I know," he said anyway. "I know you girls are strong, independent, and tough as nails. But that doesn't mean you should be reckless. Recklessness is what got us in this situation, and it's not going to get us out.

"So be careful. Don't take too many risks, because you know all too well the consequences. And I know taking lives is something that has been frequently pushed onto your plate, but avoid it if you can. Be responsible and listen to your leader. Communicate with each other and work as the well-oiled machine I know you all are.

"You will each be given a custom made pathfinder, each facet going to places that could be important to Keefe." He surveyed all of the girls' faces, as if memorizing them before they left. "So, ladies, you're off within the hour. Please be careful. Please be safe. And please know, we're all rooting for you."

After a long pause, Faelyn began clapping, extremely slowly.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

"Fan-tastic," she said flatly with an eye roll. "Aeyva, Avilyn, you two wanna help me with my skill training?"

"Sure," Aeyva said. Avilyn nodded.

"See you later?" Aeyva looked at Forkle, and he gave a nod.

"Feel free to train. The signal shouldn't come for another twenty minutes if all goes well."

So they spent that time working with their abilities, skills, and weapons, until a green glow lit the whole training facility. The girls all gathered around Forkle and he handed them each a cobalt blue pathfinder. He also gave Aeyva what was probably Keefe's file—information the Black Swan had collected that might assist them on their mission.

"It is set to the first location you are to search." Mr. Forkle handed them each a home crystal as well. "And this will bring you back here once you find him. But I warn you, the Neverseen have scouts everywhere. You are forbidden to return to the Lost Cities until you have found Mr. Sencen."

They nodded and, in unison, held their pathfinders to the light streaming in from the windows that lined the ceiling.

"Goodbye," Forkle whispered, and they all glittered away.

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

thank you so much for reading! the second and third chapters are mostly edited as well, but we need to proofread them a few more times before republishing. older readers - is there anything specific you'd like to see more of when the chapters get rewritten? like specific characters, foreshadowing, etc.?

anyway we have a battle to write for chap 23 so toodles! <3