"I do not want her here!" Harriet yelled at the top of her lungs as she pointed at CJ.
Solomon and his gang had just entered Ursula's fish and chips, where both Uma and Harriet were already waiting with their respective gangs. As he walked through the doors, Solomon already heard that an argument between the two took place and when he entered, Harriet immediately burst.
"Excuse me?" Solomon said, feigning politeness but his eyes were dark.
"Her! What are you even doing with her? Why is she here? I do not want her here!" Harriet shouted.
Solomon saw how Clay blew CJ a kiss from behind Harriet's back and how CJ simply replied with a scowl of her own.
"First of all, she has a name. And secondly, I take whatever members of my gang I desire to these meetings." Solomon said to the point.
Harriet tried to get her breathing under control. "Look, you getting her out of trouble and reimbursing the things she stole from me is one thing. I don't know why you would even want to do that, but you probably have your own selfish reasons. Imagine my surprise however when I hear that she has not only joined your gang, but that you take her to the meetings as well! I won't stand for it!"
Solomon slowly started walking towards Harriet. He saw the members of her gang slowly reach for their weapons and smiled to himself. At his right, Uma was simply admiring her nails, appearing to enjoy seeing her two rivals bicker.
"What is the deal here Harriet?" Solomon asked.
"That is not something I so desperately want to tell you, horns!" Harriet spat back.
"Uma has Harry in her gang. Why does it matter so much that CJ is in mine?" Solomon asked simply.
This comment made Uma sit up straight with a dirty look, but Solomon simply gave her a small wink.
Harriet only sputtered. "It's-, She-, We're-!"
"What are you trying to say Solomon?" Uma asked.
"Well, if Harriet here had such an issue with one of my subordinates I want to know why. I can naturally guess that it's because they are related, but that still does not completely answer my question. See, Harry is in your gang Uma, but Harriet seems to not have an issue with that. So why is it so important to you that CJ, and only CJ, will not be here? If you have a good reason, I might just consider it, might! So, what is the reason?" Solomon asked.
Harriet gave her younger sister a foul look. "You can guess why!"
Solomon grinned. "If anything, really, CJ has a proper reason for not wanting to be in the same room with you. I'm not certain if you've told Harry what transpired between you two before she joined me. Have you?"
"What happened?" Harry asked as he looked between Harriet and CJ. "What?"
Neither of them looked Harry in the eye, so Solomon answered.
"Your little sister had been stealing from the market to survive for some time, when good old Clay and some of his goons finally managed to corner her in her hideout. After having shot her up pretty good not to mention." Solomon explained.
"WHAT!?" Harry roared as he sprang up from his seat.
"Oh, it doesn't stop there." Solomon intervened, he was enjoying the situation. "They had orders from Harriet to bring her back alive, but not in what state. If I had not arrived to stop them before they had started, who knows what they might have done to poor CJ. Care to elaborate Clay?"
Clay was about to speak up before Harriet shushed him.
Harry had walked up to Harriet and now stood nose-to-nose with her.
"She's our sister! Our blood! And you give your people permission to basically go all out on her! That is low, even for you!" Harry spat in her face.
"She stole from me." Harriet replied. "You know damn well what punishment stands for that! I won't make any exceptions simply because she's family, it's not like she has been acting like it anyway."
Harry looked ready to hit her, but Uma came between them and gently took Harry by the shoulder and moved him back to his seat. "Let her rant on Harry, don't pay any attention to it." She whispered to him.
A tense silence between them followed soon after until Solomon broke it.
"Well, as you see Harriet, I cannot allow you to demand one of my subordinates to be removed, only I can. And as you just clearly stated, I will not make any exceptions simply because she's your family since you obviously do not consider her as such. Shall we carry on now? We have a lot to discuss."
The rest of the attendees seemed kind of shocked by this announcement. Due to all the familial tensions that were just present, everyone seemed to have forgotten why they had actually gathered.
The gang leaders had in fact called for a meeting to discuss the way things were standing with the production of weapons and other necessities for war, as well as to make more precise plans concerning the actual invasion of Auradon.
And so, the gang leaders and their most important accomplices took their place around a group of tables Uma had pushed together. Harriet sat with Anthony Tremaine and Clay Clayton, Uma with Harry Hook and Gil and Solomon sat in between Zevon, CJ Hook, Mad Maddy and Ginny Gothel. At first, everyone stayed silent, so Solomon decided to break the tension himself.
"Any updates on the sword production?" He asked Harriet, who was mainly in charge of the production and enhancement of weapons.
"We have more success with renovating old swords than producing new ones. We simply do not have the necessary steel in stock, so we have been mainly focusing on trying to take the rust of old blades and sharpening them again." Harriet replied.
"Will there be enough for every warrior?" Uma asked. "Pretty much all our gang members are already armed, but we can't really go up against fully armored soldiers wielding kitchen knives and sticks."
"I like my stick." Gil said awkwardly, which caused him to get slapped on the back of the head by Harry.
"If we can manage to get a better provision in iron, we will be able to expand the manufacture and probably have enough for everyone." Harriet replied.
"How about maces, spears or axes and the production of arrows? Any news on that?" Solomon asked.
Harriet snapped her fingers and Anthony slid her a small notebook riddled with numbers. "For arrows we have temporarily changed production from iron to stone, in order to produce more swords. It's a similar story for spears. Mace production has been stone since the start and I see no reason to change that. We do not really have any axes, they simply take up too much iron."
"No, no! The arrows must remain steal! Stone arrows are too inaccurate and won't be able to penetrate Auradon armor!" Uma said.
"I had to make a decision and it was either swords or arrows, I chose swords. When it comes to fighting it will most likely be close combat anyway. How is your shield and armor production coming along, by the way?" Harriet asked Uma.
Uma briefly looked into a small stack of papers offered by one of her subordinates. "Slightly behind schedule, we have been reinforcing the primary shields with a secondary layer of oak wood, but we are starting to run out. I don't think anyone wants a shield you can cut through with a butter knife, so I have halted production for now. As for armor, we simply do not have the materials. The most I can do at the moment is reinforce leather armor, but that won't offer much protection."
"It will probably make do. Most warriors on the island have never learned to fight in steel armor anyway. How many soldiers do we have in total at the moment, by the way?" Solomon asked Ginny, who started to hastily read through her notes.
"Ehm, two-hundred and eighty-six according to the latest update." She said.
"Should we expect that number to rise?" Solomon followed up.
"Maybe slightly, far more if we could get some trolls to join." Ginny replied.
"We still aren't sure whether or not they'll flock to Mal if they would get the opportunity." Uma said. "We should leave them out of any calculations for now."
"With the current number, do we have enough weapons to supply everyone?" Solomon asked Harriet and Uma.
"Actually yes. If we count out a number of people that become archers, we should have enough swords and other hand-held weapons for the rest." Harriet said as she scanned her notebook.
"We will need some time with the shields." Uma said. "Though there naturally are the archers to take out of the equation and some warriors that prefer to fight without a shield."
"That's good, but we should still try to enhance production." Solomon said.
"Why?" Harry asked. "Who do you expect to join?"
"When I activate the cauldron, there might be an entire undead army." Solomon said sarcastically.
"Oh. We kinda thought they would come out of the ground completely armed and stuff." Harry said as he pointed at Uma and himself.
"I'm not certain whether that will happen or not." Solomon replied. "When my father activated the cauldron, he had a literal army of skeletons in his castle, sadly we don't have that luxury. I'm not willing to risk it though so we better have enough supplies just in case. What about cannonballs, how are we standing with those?" He asked Harriet.
"We pretty much only have the ones already in storage. There is no steel Solomon! You want us to make all this weaponry but not give us the sufficient materials!" Harriet complained.
"I cannot just conjure up new materials! The only way to get more is for me to take some out of Auradon. Getting caught doing that is not a risk I'm willing to take though." Solomon said.
"Can you not send someone else to do it?" Clay asked.
"How many times do I have to make this clear!? Only I can pass through the barrier! I cannot take anyone with me!" Solomon said loudly.
"We know that." Harriet said.
"Well, tell your pets so we can avoid stupid questions in the future." Solomon replied.
Clay was about to respond, but Harriet silenced him with a look.
"What about ships and boats, how is that part going?" Solomon asked.
"The Jolly Roger has been ready to sail for some time and the Lost Revenge is being restored to its former glory as we speak. I say we give it about a month more to make sure there are no faults. We have furthermore confiscated any vessel that could be useful for an invasion." Harry answered.
"Will it be enough to take an entire army across the bay?" Solomon asked.
"It might be a bit cramp, but I don't see why not." Harry stated.
"Any news from Auradon?" Harriet asked. "Anything that might lead us to believe they know what we're up to?"
Solomon turned to CJ. "Nothing, they still just show up every now and then with the food drop. Nothing points out that they might have any suspicions." CJ answered.
"That's good, we want our attack to be a complete surprise." Uma said.
"Do we finally have a concrete plan to invade Auradon, by the way?" Harriet asked.
"We're still lacking in detail, but the plan is still for me to head out into Auradon alone at first, do some recon and find a way to open the barrier." Solomon stated.
"There are two ways for that to go down." Uma said. "First, he can use that fancy button the king has in his fancy car. That opens up the barrier but does not bring it down. A plus point however is that it could also be used to summon the bridge."
"So, we could just walk to Auradon?" Anthony asked. "Then why bother with the ships in the first place?"
"Because if we cross the bridge with hundreds of soldiers we will easily be noticed!" Solomon spat. "If we take ships we will at least have some maneuverability."
"He has a point." Harriet admitted. "If we cross the bridge we'll be sitting ducks and an easy prey to pick off. What was the other option to bring down the barrier?"
Uma answered before Solomon could. "If horns crosses into Auradon, he regains full control of his magical abilities. He has spent the past weeks draining the magic out of numerous inhabitants of the isle, logically, this should have amplified his power. If we're lucky, he'll actually be powerful enough to bring down the barrier."
"We cannot risk that! Say we gather all our forces for all of Auradon to see only to find out he can't do it! We'll have blown our cover and made preparations for nothing!" Harriet shouted.
"Don't hold us for fools, Harriet! We know this as well as you do." Solomon said darkly. "I will not call our forces together on a hunch, before we might put that plan into action I will have gone to Auradon and tried it out. Our actual invasion will be meticulously planned to give us the upmost chance of victory."
"Any plans on infiltrating Auradon will have to wait anyway." Uma said. "The search parties patrolling the seas for me are still there and Solomon cannot risk crossing the bay with them out there."
"When will they leave? Does anyone have any information on that?" Harriet asked.
"Their numbers have dwindled in the past weeks." Zevon said as he read through his notes. "There will probably always be ships until Uma gets captured or sighted again, but with some luck we might be able to schedule a time to cross when the bay is patrolled by the least amount of ships."
"My guess is we'll have to wait, at least for a while." Solomon said. "This also gives us the opportunity to prepare as much as possible. The longer we wait, the more we can prepare and the larger the chance of us being able to cross unnoticed."
"There will also be a larger chance of Auradonians finding out what we're up to." Harriet said. "The biggest element that can determine our victory is surprise. If we don't give them the proper time to raise an army, nothing of consideration will stand between us and Auradon City. If they find out what we're working on, they will set up defenses. They do technically have the home-turf in this war."
A silence followed as each person on the table thought about their options.
"We shall have to vote." Solomon eventually said. "Either we postpone the invasion, at least for a while, to prepare more and maybe uncover some new information, or invade sooner to keep the element of surprise."
"I don't see why they should find out in the first place." Maddy piped in. "They've never really cared what we've been doing here anyway."
"So, we should be counting on the fact that the Auradonians will continue to not give a crap about us?" Clay said. "That is a risk. Especially with all the villain kids currently over there. Who's to say one of them doesn't have an emotional breakdown like Mal and comes running back!? There are tons of reasons they could come sniffing their noses here."
"That is a good point." Harriet said. "We cannot delay much longer!"
"This is not your decision to make!" Uma said unkindly. "Nothing gets done without consideration of me and horns."
"Stop with the bloody nicknames!" Ginny said to Uma. "You better show some respect or suffer the consequences shrimpy!"
Harry and Gil both jumped up and unsheathed their swords, Clay reached for his shotgun and Ginny for her dagger.
"Enough!" Solomon roared and everyone in the room froze in place. "I don't like working with any of you any more than you do, but it is what it is. Now, we will vote and deal with the outcome whatever it may be. So, all in favor of no longer delaying our plans?"
Harriet, Anthony and Clay put up their hands.
"All in favor of delaying our plans and prepare more?" Solomon asked.
Uma, Harry, Gil, Ginny, Maddy, Zevon, CJ and Solomon himself put up their hands.
Harriet snorted in anger and stood up. "I sincerely hope you're happy with yourself, this will cost us victory." She said before storming out followed by her subordinates.
"She's threatening this entire operation because of her ego." Uma said. "She's a loose cannon that needs to be tied down."
"She's not a threat, at least not as much as you believe her to be Uma. She's not stupid, she'll stick to the plan if she knows what's good for her." Solomon replied.
"So, you really want to keep her around until we will actually begin our invasion? Whenever that may be." Uma said.
Solomon shrugged. "Who knows? We might have to act sooner than expected, we cannot plan everything right now without taking the outside world into consideration."
"What are you saying?" Harry asked.
"I'm saying that, as much as we like to plan and think things ahead, it might not matter when someone comes in between, and all our plans become worthless." Solomon answered.
"That's no way for a leader to talk." Uma said. "This is the reason we make plans, to assure ourselves of victory as much as we can. Don't start acting all grumpy now."
"When has he ever not been grumpy?" Harry added on.
Solomon gave them both a dark look. "Meeting over." He said before standing up and leaving the building with his posse.
Solomon couldn't help but notice that CJ looked over her shoulder at Harry for a second before leaving.