"I'm going to get called for Tower selections. Four years is all I'll need."
Those were Shae's last words to her family when she departed for the Royal Guard Academy. The death of the eldest left a vacancy at the prestigious school for the Wesslan family and, with all of her older siblings having found their calling, only Shae was left to take the spot.
When she arrived, she fell into the structure, into the culture, carved a name and place for herself.
A place to use those terrible skills her dead brother instilled in her.
A place that could guide her anger and violence to a more noble cause.
A place where she had a purpose-
-mayhaps even hope?
It was the one good thing that that bastard ever gifted her.
Not that she would ever thank him.
Shae… hates using her Arts.
Not because it causes her pain like it does to some in the Regiment- not even because it shortens her lifespan further, but because… its voice becomes that much louder. When she uses her Arts… it feels like she's being pulled from herself, on the outside looking in as it takes over. She'd gotten away for so long without needing it, but once the Regiment found a way to exploit her talents, there was no way to simply say "No ma'am, I won't do that."
Turns out there's a multitude of ways to use someone who could make sound stop- especially when those who would use it just so happen to be the cloak-and-dagger sort.
Killing a few people in broad daylight, just for a very specific example.
"Get your shot ready." Machete whispers, "I've got the one on the left."
"Right then. Whoever pops theirs first gets the middle?" Thera whispers back.
Her partner nods while putting in his ear plugs, and Thera follows suit. He'd tap her with his tail next, the sign to put up her Arts field first, and they'd take the shot as close to simultaneous as they could. Thera takes a deep breath and lets the icy sensation of it grip her, Fangs slithering to the fore of her mind as the Originium in her veins comes to life.
Two thunderous rifle reports, the immensity of the sound easily making it through the ear protection. Like firing indoors, only worse- like firing in a tiny, enclosed space where there was nowhere for the sound waves to get out.
Because they couldn't. To Machete and Fangs the sound was cacophonous, but to anyone outside of Thera's Arts field, there was no sound at all. And for the poor sod in the middle of having a smoke and chatting with his compatriots, it is like his two buddies both just collapsed suddenly, their blood smeared against the bricks behind them
And unfortunately for him, Fangs is efficient on the bolt and trigger. He must have just registered what had happened, adrenaline overcoming the shock as he sucked in a deep breath to scream… and that's when Fangs put a bullet through him, too.
That final shot is still reverberating in the tiny Arts-bound space when Machete gestures for them to start pulling back, The mission was to get to the overwatch position before nightfall– this was just a brief target of opportunity they came across serendipitously.
Three more targets of opportunity scratched off the list.
-three extrajudicial killings; guilty until proven innocent.
Eye for an eye.
-who was sure on the intelligence though?
They fuck with the Regiment, they bleed. Simple as.
-did they positively ID them? Anyone could have planted those bombs-
Fangs snarls one final time before being shoved back into its cage with the fading of Thera's Arts.
"Wuzzat, Fangs?"
"Banged my fukken shin." Thera throws out an excuse knowing that Machete wouldn't give a shit– and he doesn't. They had a position on the Old City Wall to get to.
But their handiwork left prints though; who else in Derry used bullets? Who else could kill so easily in the no-go zone and get out? Those three bastards were just up and left for some poor fucker to find as a message.
'We're here. We're watching. We're waiting for you to fuck up.'
Rifles packed away, nice and concealed in a long luggage trunk, once again playing the role of civilians as they hiked their way through Derry. Ambulance rings and distressed shouts started to rise to match the black smoke of the nearby barricades, but the team were already gone, heading up High Street right between the rebel and Army roadblocks. In all honesty, that was the most danger Thera felt in County Trent as they hustled past the cross-street towards the Abbey, knowing crossbows from both sides were trained on them even though they held their hands above their heads.
Under the old archway of that massive stone wall was another civilian beckoning them to hurry, the kind of solidarity that came from the overly-trusting. He helps the both of them by grabbing some of Thera's "luggage" and rushing them into the walled cathedral site.
"Bold of you to try and cross between the barricades." he says with a whistle, setting their bags down.
"Just trying to get out of Derry… heard the Army is letting civilians shelter here?"
"Oh aye, supposedly they ain't gonna march on the cathedral, but you know how those Vicks are, right siblíní?"
Thera freezes the moment she hears the Taran, the man's eyes turning sharp the moment it had slipped his mouth. First instinct was to cast her Arts and go for her shanker…
" Guh rev maw aw-gut, brawthair." Machete answers, panting heavily as if the jog had him winded. Took his flat-cap off to wipe his brow before reaching a hand out to the scrutinising local.
The gesture is received heartily, the kind of forearm gripping and back-slapping friendliness that did little to defuse Thera's heightened state… but the chatter between Machete and this Taran seemed so natural as they slipped in and out of dialects.
"... you and your lass better get to the cathedral then, afore the Gray-and-Tans come to bathe in our blood again."
"Much thanks, kin." Machete nods, "owe you a pint when you get back from your watch."
The Taran man smiles and waves, and it's only when he turns his back to them that Thera can see the weapon tucked into the back of his beltline. Before Thera can ask the obvious question, Machete's taking off with their concealed weapons, scurrying towards the Apprentice House down the road. They'd scout from there, figure a plan to get on the wall with their rifles… but the moment they stop, Thera has to pull him aside, her Arts making their moment nice and intimate.
"What was that?" she hisses at him, hand clenched tight on his shirt as she drags him face-to-face.
"Filthy fukken traitor, aye? Kinslayer and the like." Machete snipes back, moving to break her hold but stopping just shy of going for her wrists. Thera does him the favour, letting go before it comes to shankers being drawn on one another.
"Trust is hard to come by, but it's like I said before, Fangs. If anyone is to blame, it's Dublinn. Sooner we kill them, the better."
Thera stares him down, watches his jaw clench tighter and tighter-
"...not what I'm on about. What's this about me being your lass, eh?" she snarls.
Machete's eyes go bug-eyed-surprised for the first time ever, and Thera can't hold in the chortle, jabbing her finger into the commando's hardened chest. For all his usual sharpness and bluster, Machete relaxes and grins back at her.
"Not in a million years, Fangs. I like my women more…" he gestures crudely to his chest.
A sharp glare shuts him right-the-fuck up, just in time for Thera to drop the Arts before Fangs decides to come out to play. They'd go about probing the Apprentice House, finding that it was the main station for the militia that was running Free Derry despite the Abbey supposedly being neutral grounds. Putting a pin in that, they scout the different stairwells that would lead up to the parapets but stop just short of actually trying to make an ascent while there were more watchers like the helpful "civilian" from before. Everyone is plainclothes, but still secreting away weapons– parallel thinking, even if the sides were a wee-bit uneven, Thera muses.
"Excuse me, kin, where's a safe place to bed down?" Machete asks, Taran accent thick like molasses, yet gravelly like a river's bed as he spoke to a pair of Felines moving hastily towards the gate that they had bluffed through.
"The Abbey is mostly full. Squeeze in where you can- it's the safest place."
Fangs held Shae's wince back. No place in Derry was going to be safe soon. There was only so long she and Machete could get away with appearing panicked and confused, especially if they were to wander. The moment they got to the Abbey was the moment that they'd really be stuck in it. It'd be harder to hide the rifles, and the chance that someone from the community would recognize them as outsiders rose exponentially.
Drop the luggage, grab the rifles, and make for the wall quick. Between Thera's muting and Machete's concealment Arts, the pair manage to slip into the stairwell, but each second takes a hidden toll on them. The mission ahead would require more Arts –more Originium– so the climb up to the parapet was done the good-old fashioned way, with a trained light step. They move with as close to complete silence as they could do unassisted. Only hand motions as they pause to sound check at every floor, every door, every hallway.
Exhausting work, but it is meticulous for a fucking reason.
Get to the hide, set up a shooting position, and just sit tight. Don't breathe when a sentry passes through; just make a mental note of the time, the frequency, the disposition of them to establish a pattern while camouflaged against the coarse stone by Machete's Arts.
Don't say a damn word.
Don't think a damn thing.
Obey. Sit. Wait. Be the good little soldier.
There will be time for catharsis soon enough.
"Snipers at work…" Machete whispers as he sets himself comfortably behind the scope. Recessed from the old battlement's loopholes, they only have to rotate around the circular room to have a perfect view down Fahan Street, Waterloo, and most importantly, the High Flats estates. From one of the old archer slits, Fangs flashes a mirror aimed towards the Victorian Army barricades at the end of Waterloo, waiting for the return signal from Stiletto. Between her and Machete's infiltration, Claws and Baselard's sniper team over on Westland and Rossville, and the excision teams, there wasn't going to be a damn place for Dublinn to run once the army came knocking.
And come knocking they do; right at early sun-up, right when the wretched glow of the coming sun rears its unwanted self on the bruised-blue horizon. Armoured vehicles lead the van, driving into the rebel barricades at full clip, steam cannons firing scalding, Originium-tainted jets of steam at anyone stupid enough to get near as Gray-and-Tans poured from the dropped ramps. Machete kicked Fangs, thinking her asleep, but Thera doesn't think she's closed her eyes once since they set up the hide. Too paranoid of being found, too anxious, riding an adrenaline high stretched out over ten hours like the worst kind of lingering hangover.
She watches the soldiers storm the trash-heaps and cars make-shift into roadblocks, climbing over the proverbial parapet and into the breaches. Batons and shields at first, arrests made in the mad, confusing scramble. It's only a matter of time before something cooks off. A flash of orange light has her reflexively pull away from the binoculars to preserve her sight- a transport that had managed to push past a barricade had set off something. A few heartbeats later Thera catches a glimpse of a parked car going off in a fireball beside some Gray-and Tans- their mangled bodies tossed like lumps of flesh. A sharp escalation, blades and bolts soon-
"Ready up." Machete whispers, hand tightening on the stock of his rifle.
"Eyes are out and scanning. Standby." Fangs replies cooly. The rebels react, flowing out from the nearby homes and businesses, but those are just the standard plain clothed rioters- the real prizes come out from the High Flats. Uniformed in black, trimmed with yellows and golds, masked up with those multi-eyed yet featureless shrouds.
"Dublinn, Flats-" it announces.
"Eyes."
"They're… directing?"
"Looks like it."
"Engage?"
"Nae. We shoot, we spook them. The closer the army gets, the more might come out to either run for it or commandeer the actual fight."
More importantly, they needed to cover the excision teams during the confusion. The sniper teams most likely wouldn't catch a prized target out in the open, unless they happened to get flushed out into their line-of-sight…
So Fangs watches, monitoring, making mental notes as the battle ebbs and flows. Citizens armed with farming tools and old rusted surplus weapons weren't going to hold back proper Victorian soldiers for very long. Even with the explosives, even with the occasional ambush of crossbows and firebombs, it's an hour at most, maybe an hour and a half before the army's pushed to the final set of barricades that secure the High Flats from the streets, but they can't fully encircle the block with Fahan and Waterloo streets still locked tight. What would Dublinn do? Stand and fight or flee to the shadows like the rats they are?
A tactical error to those who underestimate Her soldiers.
A trap for those who don't.
Sensing the coming crescendo, Fangs puts the binoculars aside and puts itself behind its rifle.
"See the tall bloke, horns, red gloves?" Machete asks, giving Fangs a quick sideways glance.
"Seen."
"Caster. Priority."
"Affirmative."
"Sarkaz probably."
"Probably."
"Three bullets centermass if you don't crack the gourd on the first."
"Affirmative."
"Movement, High Flats back door-"
"Seen."
The excision teams were starting to move in and close the noose as well- or at least make it look that way.
"You have your priorities?"
"Affirmative."
"Earplugs in then. Time to get to work."
That is what it has to be; work. Each punch into the shoulder, each puff of pink from one of those masked traitors is another person shuffled off the mortal coil by her one and only proficiency. Dublinners are the first targets, their rank and file too similar to Victoria's own. They don't cower, they don't run from the storming Grey-and-Tans nor flinch under the withering fire, but instead find cover, regroup, and manoeuvre.
If she wasn't so full of contempt, Thera might have had some respect- at least until she remembers that those soon-to-be deaders are responsible for all of the Troubles. She works in concert with Fangs for the first time, the Originium thrumming as her Arts holds firm, not letting her tuck the beast back into its cage even if she wanted.
Her whole world is downrange, eyes wide open, looking for the objects of her ire.
Find one, service one. It focuses on movement, keened in when it catches glints of brass or the flutter of capes.
Keeps shooting until she's down to the last twenty rounds.
Pain from her very veins, tiny rocks that are slowly killing her, but as long as she kills them fast enough she won't get dusted before they do-
Machete grabs her by the wrist just as she's readying another clip. Neither can hear Fang's snarl, but Thera manages to yank back on the mental chain before it goes for the shanker. He makes a hand signal, and Fangs begrudgingly lets the Arts field drop.
A shuddering chill wracks Thera, her nerves aching, muscles spasming as she reaches for the suppressant injector in her first-aide pouch.
"Going too hard, Fangs." Machete whispers, pushing his own injector into her hand when she fumbles the pouch flap. Needle into the upper arm, the mix of stimulants and painkillers taking the edge off while keeping the adrenaline buzz going.
Who knows if it actually did shit for keeping the Oripathy at bay, but it certainly is doing its job at making her think so.
"Target's down." Machete answers the question before she's asked it, "scratched 'Redsteel' off the list. No sign of 'Redtail' or 'Purple Flame' yet."
"Excision will find them if they're still in Trent." Thera manages to croak, instinctively picking up her brass. Machete had already cleaned his space up. She doesn't need her binoculars to see that "Operation Motor-steam" was a success; the rumble of Cavalier Transports from the foot of the wall told enough, the shouting and screaming from the Cathedral just an ongoing ellipses to punctuate.
"Who got the HVT?"
"Don't know. One of us." Machete answers swiftly, almost disinterestedly as he slings his rifle and waits for Thera to finish.
"'s good. Least it wasn't one of Castor's. Trilby Ashers are more bark than bite."
Machete scoffs in agreement, helping Thera up to her feet. Still a bit woozy, but the pain in her spine's dulled down from the screaming searing to an attention-seeking pang. She'd have to get checked at medical when they got back to Acharnarry.
"You good, Fangs?" Machete asks with a hand holding Thera in place. Wasn't the firm kind of halt, but neither her nor Fangs has the fight in her body right now.
"Since when do you care?" she grumbles.
"..." Machete tilts his head, giving her a side-eye so hard she thinks his eyes would pop themselves from their sockets.
"All that whinging the other day. Changed your mind right-quick."
'Dublinn are confirmed targets, simple as.' she wants to say.
"Doing my job." is what she actually says, "The dead are dead and no amount of moaning will change that." Unceremoniously deadpan, Fangs feeding her the script as she slings her rifle over her shoulder and motions to leave. She can feel Machete scrutinising her, but she hears his chortle and sigh of relief.
A peek out the ramparts unveils a scene of controlled chaos over at the Cathedral. Multiple Cavalier transports blockade the gateways, steam cannons aimed down the streets. A mix of Grey-and-Tan's and mounted police officers ushering those inside the ancient Laterano building out and organising them into groups for processing- everyone with their hands behind their heads and forced to kneel. No telling who could be Dublinn, so the forceful hand errs on the side of caution.
Something in Thera tries to bubble up- some sort of sense of justice or honour, all before being reminded that that kind of thinking… is not for her, not right now. That was for knights of the Tower or the Grey-and-Tan who thought they were out there to better the world in Her name.
But can you really change things for the better with the point of a sword?
"Should take 'til the end of the day to process that rabble. At least if most of them aren't secessionists." Machete… sighs in relief? Relief? Fangs bares its namesakes, but with Machete behind her, he doesn't see. It's got his weakness pinned; a kinslayer who justifies his killing with the veneer of bettering his people. How trite- the one who pointed out Thera's hypocrisy was a worse one.
"Not our pay." Fangs says cooly, tucking its sneer away for now. "Not our worry."
There's the sense that she's said something off, something that puts an awkward chill in the air, but it just lingers as she and Machete descend back down to the ground. The pair move less like predators, but with far greater purpose once they take their crimson berets out and firmly affix them. They get stopped a few times by a mounted bobby or soldier who just saw the civilian clothes, people who didn't understand the meaning behind the soft covers. Explanation in just a mean look and the pointing at the unit emblem; that dagger-and-crown carrying a weight and reverence that, once noticed, makes whoever tries to halt them snap a stiff salute- one that neither Machete or Fangs returns.
Have to be aloof, have to be silent, have to appear as the hardest, meanest, most razor-sharp bastards in the whole damn army. It's how such a new unit cultivates the image, creating the myth of their efficiency and ruthlessness, and the quickly propagandised death of a target like "Redsteel" further adds to their growing list of known feats. It makes everyone ask in hushed whispers, "so what about the feats we don't know?"
Thera… doesn't quite know how she feels about it yet. Her pledge was to join the Tower, to work hard and with honour to ascend from a squire to a proper knight. To pilot Steam Knight frame in service of the crown, fighting with distinction against Her enemies near and abroad…
Fangs though? Fangs relishes it. Respect, authority, and fear without having to raise a finger or say a word. People instinctively know the kind of beast it is and give it a wide berth. Who cares about the spotlight when more meaningful work can be done from the shadows?
It's a struggle that haunts her all the way back to Achanarry. It's a debate that mutes the celebrations at headquarters. It's a conundrum that keeps her awake at night, eyes open wide to stare at the darkness of the barracks.
"Good work."
Words she'd craved her whole life, a simple enough draught to relieve the ailing heart and mind, just aren't potent enough anymore.
So she'll… have to work harder.
No… not harder-
Efficient.
They'll have to be efficient.
"Primary malignant tumour excised. Move to secondary and tertiary tumours before premalignants. Contain and prosecute."
"Affirmative, all teams move in."
"-for Her Light."
"-for Her Light."
"-for Her Light."
The huddled commandos exchange cold glances before steeling themselves. Between the four of them, the infiltration of the courthouse had been simple. Slid between the gaps between the undercover insurgent patrols and watchers, eventually breaching the building through the storage basement's connection to the holding cells for the trials that went on above.
Target was a secondary tumour that hid itself deep in the flesh of the local populace, burrowed beneath layers of both the willing and unwitting. Scalpel's Arts had her sinking into the concrete floor like it was a simple pool of water. She was undoubtedly swimming through the foundation of the next few rooms before returning to the team.
"Three in the deputy's office. Two in the magistrate's office. Two guards in the hall to the judge's chambers." she rattled off, each of the team painting the mental picture from the maps they had studied.
"And in the chambers?"
"Wood floor over the concrete. Couldn't tell you."
Kukri clicks his tongue, exchanging a look with Dirk.
"Well, bit late to put in a work order to get the tile we wanted. We make do." Dirk answers before passing a glance to the last member of the team who sits quietly in the back corner of the holding cell block; Fangs.
"Guards in the hall-"
"-have been ID'd. Victorian, but Dublinner payroll." Scalpel interrupts, doing her best to ignore how Fang's eyes dart to her next. They all know what the beast will say. They were lucky enough to restrain the bailiff and deputies without too much bloodshed.
"No other way in but the front, then."
"As far as we can quietly."
"Quiet isn't an option-"
"Violence of action it is then."
"Aye, violence of action."
The three collectively nod before motioning for the Feline brooding in the back to join the huddle. When Fangs steps, there's not a single sound from her boots, and when she nears the other commandos shiver slightly, the bubble of her Arts passing over them.
"How much distance from us to the targets?" Fangs asks, tone as cold as the northern frontier.
"Once you're up the stairs, just ten metres… give or take."
A shiver runs up its spine, a bit of excitement finally making it through addled nerves.
"I'll quiet them." Fangs affirms; but just what that meant was up for interpretation. Closing a ten metre gap in the time that it takes for someone to shout "Who are you?" was the kind of challenge that she revelled in. The team nods, readying themselves for the next minute that would define how the rest of the mission went.
Fangs hums the song in her head, the little ditty focusing on the Arts that made her very blood thrum. Every step reverberates through her very being like a crescendoing beat– and the tempo of it was only going to pick up as she ascended the stairs and waited for Dirk to pick the door's lock.
A nod that ripples down the stack, Dirk stepping aside as the green light.
Fangs silently explodes out into the hall, pushing her Arts as far as they could reach out. The two Felines standing guard to the judge's chambers reacted as expected- confusion followed by immediate threat. By the time one's taken the breath needed to shout, Fang's already two bounds in. When he opens his mouth to raise the alarm, he's on the edge of the Arts field.
"Intruder!"
The panic echoes, but neither guards seem to notice how their voices rebound back to them– they have more pressing matters as Fangs slams full-speed into the first, tackling them against the wall. Poor sod's head gets cracked against the wood hard enough to leave a mark, and he slumps to the ground just as his partner manages to partially draw steel… but Fangs is red-hot right now, reflexes like lightning. It's on him next, getting him by the wrist of his sword-arm and shoving the blade back in the scabbard.
"Reckoning time." it hisses, giving the traitor a Glasgow kiss that sends him reeling back against the wall. Hand on her shanker's grip trembling… but Thera holds it back. Self-control, if not for sparing Victorian blood, then because they needed intel.
The rest of the team catches up and stacks on the door as Thera finishes the restraints. Swift and violent, just as a commando should be, but Fangs is in a league of her own with just how efficient it could be.
"Who are-"
A sharp pain in the veins as the Arts flow, cast wide like a net as Thera hums that old, quieting lullaby.
"-you?"
The last word the judge speaks seemingly echoes off the walls, but he doesn't notice- not when Fangs is bearing down on him. Shanker drawn, it stalks towards the objective all wound up and ready for the sudden movement it anticipates.
The judge goes for something under his desk… and that is when Fangs catapults itself at them. Up and over the fancy wood, slamming every damn kilogram of Thera atop him. Fool went for a hand-crossbow, but didn't even manage to get the thing cocked as Fang's rib-digger comes slamming down.
"Fuck- interrogate first!"
"... I knew the loon was fucking loose."
"Here we go…"
Fangs meets the back-talk of her team with a sneer as they dash to try and pull her off the target… only to find her dagger slammed into the wood floor right beside the judge's head.
"I know the mission." Fangs snaps before turning her full, maddened attention on the poor fucker pinned beneath her.
"So if this traitor knows whats good for them, they'll start fucking answering before they let me loose again, right?"
Her words might not have reached him, but her glare does. She can see herself in his eyes, how her face pulls back to bear her fangs, how wide and bloodshot her eyes are from not blinking during the entire assault, how her pupils harbour a disquieting buzz to them.
"Fangs-"
She gives the deader a gentle but degrading slap on the cheek before "climbing" off of him. Well, her team makes it look like they're pulling the madwoman off of him, but Dirk gives her that wry wink and nod before stepping in to take over. Leaves her to sheathe the shanker and prowl the office like a looming, disquieting, omnipresent threat.
In actuality, Fangs slinks back to its dark little corner, lets Thera take over now that there is thinking to do. One half of the team conducts the interrogation, the other half hunts communications intelligence. Her check of the desk is thorough and meticulous while the interrogation drags. Locked drawers that give with a little bit of picking persuasion have files and folders lined neatly and inconspicuously. Communications from a cursory glance but some other intel-types would get the honours of having the time to read them. More interestingly there was a convenient slot for the hand-crossbow on the underside, and when Thera sniffs something suspicious, she starts knocking around the wood.
The sound gets the traitor's attention, his voice more clipped and nervous as he answers Dirk's questions, eyes darting over to Thera's poking and prodding.
"False panel in here somewhere." she calls out, knocking on a particularly hollow bit of what should have been solid wood. Kukri is over in the blink of an eye, helping Thera pull the drawers out and confirming her suspicions.
"Here-" he taps the underside of a drawer's interior with the pommel of his dagger. There's no obvious mechanism to open the panel, not lever or key, meaning…
"Sealed with Arts." Thera grunts, not hiding her disdain.
"Yeah?" Kukri grins, raising a knowing eyebrow at her. Flips the dagger around, jabbing with the point until he finds the edge of the hollow bit. "Bet you're thinking it is a pretty clever hiding spot, eh?"
Kukri digs the tip in, sets it like a nail into the wood and readies his fist to hammer.
"W-Wait! I can explain!" the judge tries to squirm, but Dirk holds him firm.
"Had your chance, but all you gave us was winge." the Vulpo snarls, nodding for Kukri to open it up.
The judge flinches and writes like a beetle pinned to corkboard when the wood cracks and splinters, Kukri driving the dagger tip in before leveraging the thinner wood out of the way. Unmarked envelopes and folded papers fall free when the bottom drops out.
"Missives, Dublinn coded. Recent ones too." Kukri announces, gathering up the papers and leafing through them with the efficiency of an experienced bureaucrat. "Looks like some come from Wellington."
That name sends a chill up Thera's spine, makes Fangs come crawling up to the fore of her mind, but she holds herself in place; Dirk was responsible for the interrogation, not her.
"Just how stupid are you?" Dirk frowns at the judge, "You could've talked, been more valuable as human intelligence. Maybe even force us to have to extract your treasonous ass out of here."
"But- I know more! There's a s-safehouse! Downings Street-"
Dirk cuts him off literally. Hand over the mouth, dagger across the neck, the Vulpo's face dispassionate as he watches the life leave the judge's shocked eyes.
"Kind of fucked to give the poor bastard hope, Dirk." Thera snorts, gathering up more files and shoving the pack Kukri had provided as the traitor's body thrashed its last of its throes.
"Confirmed the other excision team's target as valid." he shrugs, wiping the blood off the edge of his dagger, "Only thing he'd be good for is extracting a confession and the public hanging to follow. Really this was more of a mercy, innit?"
"Sends a message regardless." Scalpel interjects coldly, "Those who turn against the Crown get the fucking knife."
The team idly chats while searching the last bits of the room, but Thera stands over the body of the judge, glaring down at the corpse as if it could still talk.
"So Wellington's in on it." Thera… or was it Fangs asking- demanding for more.
"That's for the M.I. snobs to figure out. We're just the excision of any cancers they find." Dirk tempers as best he can, but it is already in her veins, tugging at her nerves, trying to puppet her-
"Won't be us sent for a Duke." Kukri chimes in, "They'll make that public; especially if he's one of the bastards behind the late king's death."
She… It… is red hot. Muscles tense, hair standing on end, jaw clenched tight as her lips pull taut.
Fangs bared at just the thought of getting to drag her fucking knife across the neck of the traitorous swill that spawned the little shit that ruined her life.
"At least there's no next of kin after Wellington's gone. Her Majesty will have to elevate a new family to Wellington's place. All thanks to Fangs." Dirk grins wide and telling, that sly Vulpo smile that she hated.
His pointed joke makes her tail curl in disgust, but… he's right.
"I was just a few years ahead of you blighters." Thera manages to hiss the built pressure out as a cruel bravado. "About time the rest of Victoria caught on."
"Aye, Fangs, I'm sure that's what was on your mind when you ran his kid through."
"Trial by combat, and the little shit-stained bootheel was guilty." Thera snarled, trying to keep Fangs collared in the dark recesses of her mind- unfortunately that is also the place where all those pleasant memories lurked as well.
"A nobles' justice when the courts fail- right?" she tries to bargain.
A chortle, a dismissive "Aye, Fangs." and that is that.
…and that is that.
All of that hate released in one deep and contemptful snort.
And all that fills the void is ice-cold apathy.
That's what Fangs gifts her now after all this killing;
Indifference.
Cold, uncaring, indifference…
-and just the slightest hint of satisfaction.