One moment, I am violently pushing my hand through the vacuum tube so I can all but punch the white bone beneath. Snarling in frustration at the second it takes for the airlock to release me. The next, I’m stumbling forward into an enclosed and dark space. Banging my head against something I can’t see and falling to the ground with a cut off shout of confusion mixed with pain. My feet betraying me as I try to catch myself and find the floor is no longer the smooth surface of the van that I’d just been standing on.

  “Is that her?” The voice comes from outside the dark space I find myself half collapsed in. Any reply I might have wanted to make covered by the same stamping of shoes that drowns out my own, mostly self-directed, swearing. Next time I get teleported, I need to make sure I’m not trying to lean on anything that’s not coming with me.

  A light shines down on me from somewhere above before I can get my feet back under me. The blinding glare having me throw up a hand as I try to blink away the spots it burns into my vision. A hiss of pain slipping from between my teeth as my senses swim for a moment and I have a near overwhelming urge to ask just why people keep shining bright lights right in my face. A low growl, deep and inhuman, cuts off any such thoughts.

  “Code?” I hold off answering the question a moment to try and still the mad beating of my heart. The guttural drag of a voice having only the barest hint of a feminine lilt that does little to reassure me as I try to spot its owner just to the left of the light. Swallowing down my frustrations and suddenly roaring fears both before I try to reply. Some deep part of my mind wholly convinced that stumbling over the code right now will see me swallowed without a chance at correction.

  “Orange Cord Sixty.” There is no pause this time. The light, definitely a high-lumen torch, blinking out before I’m even done speaking. Plunging me back into blindness just as I’d started to adapt to the light enough to make out the three figures behind it. Thankfully, the darkness that returns is not as total as before. An opening behind the three figures, who I’m guessing are the retrieval team I was told about, letting a small amount of light into the cave from somewhere beyond the oddly shaped opening behind them.

  “You’re Jacket? Rosch’s hammer-space girl?” Noticing how I haven’t been trussed up for dinner, I carefully climb to my feet. Grabbing onto bits of the cave I can now see outcropping around me for support as I go thanks to my legs still shaking with fearful adrenaline. My eyes perhaps not as well-adjusted as I’d thought when I go to grab for the wall and then almost fall over on finding it’s about a foot further away than I thought. Luckily, I catch myself on a dangling stick of oddly shaped rock and so manage to keep my feet. A second embarrassing fall would not be the best first impression.

  The thought of first impressions, and the awful one I’ve already made with Mail Order, has me doing what I can to wipe my expression clear. My face likely still showing some hint of the deep surprise, and deeper worry, that the sight of so much natural stone has created. My nose twitching uncontrollable and once tight throat growing scratchy as I notice how the air smells of moss and clean water. The ever-present burning stink that fills the third circle entirely absent and, even as I strain my ears to their limit, I still cannot make out any hint of the eternal hum that fills all parts of the city. Not something I should really be surprised by as, given the whole continents artificial, I can’t imagine many places in Throne that look like this.

  I pull down a steadying breath, and with it the lion’s share of my nerves, as I look away from the potentially horrifying sight around me and across at the figure who’s just spoken. Brushing myself off and straightening out my clothes in an attempt to buy time as my eyes focus enough to be certain that it really is three separate people spread out in the relatively small space before me. The area seeming even tighter than it is given the woman who just spoke is almost two metres tall and muscled heavily enough to bench press a bus.

  “Yes. Time was tight so I don’t know everything but I understand there’s an item you need help transporting and some Heroes who don’t want us to do so?” I have to fight down a small panic attack as my eyes finish adjusting to the low light partway through the introduction and I finally get a good look at my welcoming party.

  The woman who just spoke is the only one I recognise, even if only from a few hours prior. The general shape and colouring of the monstrous lizard Supe who interrupted my day out now looming not more than a metre or so away. The same slit yellow eyes looking down at me from a face caught halfway between skin so black it’s almost blue and a rising tide of deep viridian scales. The bulges I’d taken for stapled or gene-enhanced muscles revealed to be sloping mounds of lizard flesh that are protecting her modesty in place of the clothes I can see no sign of.

  Somehow, of the three Supes crowding the space, she is not the strangest looking. To the lizard woman’s right a boy around my height is chewing loudly on something foul smelling as he rolls back and forth on the balls of his feet. His hands stuffed into the pouch of a purple hoodie obscuring everything above the loose crash pants on his legs. The light at his back too low for me to make out any details of the picture that looks to have been hand painted onto its front.

  Not that I pay too much notice to him as my gaze flicks up to the snug looking motorcycle helmet covering his head. The torch that previously blinded me slung against the helmets side where a pair of other tubes give the covering a lopsided shape. He flicks his chin up in a lazy greeting towards me but remains silent as the… thingon the lizard shifters other side speaks first.

  “Just the one hero we think but yeah. Say, you didn’t bring anything to eat, did you? Saurian the only one who’s gone out but all she brings back is scop and bread.”

  “And water.” The throaty addition from the woman in the centre, Saurian, doesn’t seem to impress the barely visible pile of knapped stones and gravel in the vague shape of a person. It’s- her(?) voice throwing me off as it comes from the spot a mouth should be. The tone better suited for a commercial than a cave and even somewhat upbeat despite coming from a jagged surface of slate grey stone that shows no sign of lips.

  “I- uh, have a little food but... I don’t want to be rude, but what can you eat?”

  The sound of a bubble popping comes from under the boy’s helmet. The noise drawing my now confused attention away as he mumbles something in Japanese that has Saurian turning to the pile of stones with a low, clicking growl. Her unblinking gaze flicking away from me for the first time and taking with it a weight I hadn’t truly noticed. My shallow breaths growing stronger and heartbeat starting to calm as the tenseness in my shoulders loosens with a sudden rush.

  “Schiz. Stop using your Power on her.”

  At Saurian’s order, the cave around me disappears all at once. My vision swimming and balance thrown off as my other senses become suddenly uncertain. My thoughts immediately turning to worries that I’ve somehow been teleported again. However, before I can do more than retrieve my axe and take a half step backwards, the world comes back into focus and I realise what’s happened.

  A mix of wonder and renewed fear flowing through me as I look around at where the narrow confines of the cave have been transformed into a long and far more spacious room. One made of metal with oddly sloped sides and a series of chrome cupboards pressed up against each wall. The cave outcropping I’d thought I had missed revealed as never there while the low stalagmite I’d grabbed now seen as a hanging loop of red cord my hand is awkwardly clinging to. One of many that run the length of this strange room still poorly lit by the same yellowish light coming from behind the three in front of me. A wave of reassurance flowing through me as I note how the hum that has underpinned every moment of my, and everyone else in Thrones, life has returned.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  My eyes pay no more attention to the changed scenery and restored smells though, my attention snapping down to where the talking pile of rocks had been but where now a familiar face looks back at me. Heart lurching and mouth going dry as I find the unmasked face of Amelia meeting my gaze with a knowing smirk.

  “Amelia? Wha- how?”

  “Schiz.” Saurian’s rolling growl has Amelia flinching in a very un-Amelia way. My hackles rising as the hints start to land and, with the same sudden swimming as before, Amelia’s face is replaced with that of a masked stranger. Her smirk gone at once as I watch the remnants of a startled expression fade away from a heavily freckled face. Her identity protected only by a flimsy looking domino mask that must be attached through some form of glue. The twin pony tails of her wheat-gold hair and buck teeth helping to complete the incredibly out of place farm girl image. One that is somewhat spoiled by both the mask and the black eye swelling half her face as well as the torn, burnt and otherwise thoroughly ruined MEA branded suit jacket and pencil skirt she’s wearing.

  “So… got any snacks?” My grip tightens on the axe in my hand as I glower at the now revealed Villain. Lips pressing into a thin line as the creaking of the weapons handle provides the only answer I feel like giving. The sound, and my tight expression, not seeming to register as her face splits into a toothy grin that shows off her too wide mouth and chipped teeth. Bright blue eyes sparkling with joy as she sticks her splayed palms and wriggling fingers out towards me without a shred of guilt.

  “Schiz, focus. I only told you to hide us until she gave the code. Apologise.” Saurian’s rumbling tide of a voice, and the flash of sudden primordial terror it creates, cuts me off for the second time before I can demand an explanation. Her attention seeming to have much more of an effect on Schiz whose sun-kissed face goes suddenly pale. Her eyes darting away from me to somewhere on my chest before she meekly nods her head with a mumbled apology.

  “Sorry. I heard wrong.”

  The steam of my building anger is knocked out of me by the flash of fear and my targets sudden switch in demeanour. Stubbornness insisting that I hold myself tense and ready for a fight before my concerns over first impressions have me stuffing down my pride and awkwardly lowering the axe. Still keeping it in hand but now hanging by my side as I step closer to the centre of the room where I’d first arrived.

  A series of clicking chirps from Saurian’s throat jerks my attention away from the hunched in girl whose eyes keep twitching to something on my chest as she chews her lip. Attention pulled over to where the group’s seeming leader is slowly getting shorter. The bulked-out lizard flesh sliding smoothly into and under the only marginally smaller frame revealed beneath. Her height dropping down to just over six foot as I quickly find myself struggling not to glance away from her eyes. Her modesty, and identity, now protected only by the nail sized scales that cover her skin closer than any but the most daring of clothing. From the look I’d briefly gotten before realising quite what she was doing, not all the muscle is a result of her Power after all.

  “Apologies for our poor greeting. We have been here quite a while now. I am Saurian. The leader of this crew. I can transform into a dinosaur monster and heal far quicker than normal. Also, I can be very scary.” Absent the partial transformation, her voice is a rich caramel stream of low burs that roll together into a wave that makes me feel warmer just by listening to her.

  A warmth that is swept away as she smiles wide on the last few words. Eyes of deep obsidian flashing back into yellow slits as her gums peel apart to reveal a row of bulging fangs too large for a human jaw. My heart, briefly lulled into calmness, goes shooting right back to trying to escape my chest the moment her transformation, and attention, is held upon me.

  I don’t get a chance to do more than freeze in half understood terror before her mouth and eyes shift back and my heartbeat starts to slowly return to normal. My body still sore from basketball, and all the running I’ve been doing, and so really not appreciating the sudden rises and falls of adrenaline Saurian is putting me through. And she is the one doing this. As panicky as I know myself to be, it doesn’t take more than one or two experiences to notice how sudden and unnatural the shift is.

  “My Power is not always precise. Best you get used to it now.” I nod stiffly at the explanation and bite my tongue to try and stop the acerbic reply that wants to slip out. My breath is still coming too rapidly to trust myself to speak anyway. The sudden shot of terror filled adrenaline also influencing my mind as I have to focus to push past the unthinking animal insistence that I need to run. Run or hide or fight, or else lie down and accept certain death. Those thoughts that slip through still noting how her demonstration also has the ‘unintended’ bonus, for her, of reinforcing just why she’s in charge.

  ‘Not that I’d planned to fight the three-metre-tall dinosaur lady who might be able to give me a heart attack with a glance but step-off.’

  “This is Stig. He makes gravity pull whatever way he feels like. For him and everyone around him.” The Japanese boy of few words continues his streak of near silence by showing almost no reaction to his introduction. Continuing to rock back and forth on his heels while a smell like burnt rubber and spilt oil comes from under his helmet. For a moment, I’d thought he might pull out an arm to offer me a handshake but Saurian is moving on before he can do more than possibly twitch a shoulder.

  “Schiz, you’ve seen already. She makes you hallucinate. One person at a time and there are limits. She does not control exactly what you see.” I try not to glare too hard at the now oddly glancing farm girl in her ruined suit. Her eyes now darting from my face to something just past me and then back again as her expression twitches into an almost smile. The meek apology she’d given me not feeling like nearly enough for what she’d done yet my own desire to be professional making up for the short fall. I’m here to make contacts as much as creds after all.

  “And Rosch already gave us some details on you. Jacket, yes? You have a… ‘hammer space’ of some kind. One that can store anything regardless of size or weight?” Even almost entirely untransformed, Saurian’s attention feels like a knifes sharp weight resting upon my chest. The intangible tightness pulls my eyes away from Schiz, who is still glancing just past me while occasionally looking like she’s about to cut in, and back to the taller woman whose eyes are again boring down into mine.

  “Something like that, yeah.” I do my best not to shiver too hard as I force myself to meet her gaze. Resisting the urge to wet my dry lips while trying to prevent any hint of annoyance from reaching my voice. I really don’t appreciate Rosch telling people about my Power when I haven’t been told anything about this group myself.

  “It will need to be exactly that. Come.” Saurian doesn’t wait to see if I actually am following her as she turns to stride out of the slightly too small room. Stig somehow getting ahead of her and disappearing out of sight behind her larger form. In contrast, Schiz doesn’t seem to notice the other two’s departure at first. Suddenly snorting in amusement and then covering her mouth as her face reddens and she turns to find the other two gone. Confusion and annoyance plain on her face before a harsh click from Saurian has her just as suddenly turning to follow the other woman.

  ‘A dinosaur, a mute and a crazy person. Why does this sound like the start of a bad joke?’

  I take the opportunity of having no one looking at me to massage my forehead and roll some of the stiffness from my neck. Trying, and mostly failing, to force away the stress headache I can feel building there. Eventually deciding not to risk a sigh as I Pocket the axe, no way I can fight my way out of here anyway, and hurry to catch up to the departing group.

  “Well, I’ll do what I can. What’s the item anyway?”

  “Ha! Really? No one told you?” Still half blocking the door, Schiz explodes into sound and motion as she spins around to face me. Her steps bouncing as she keeps walking backwards down what I now recognise as a metal ramp. Hands behind her back and meekness wholly gone as her too wide grin is on full display.

  Half a word almost leaving her mouth before she glances just past me again, where there is nothing but wall, and cuts herself off with a deep scowl. Her smile wiped away as she grits her teeth and then hurries down the ramp and out of my way. The switch in attitude, twice over, making me take a moment to recover before I finally give in to the urge to sigh.

  Hurrying out of the opening and down the ramp, I look over to where Stig is watching on impassively from besides a wall covered in broken cables. Saurian drawing my attention away from examining any more of the room as she raises a finger to point behind me. The entirely human grin on her face somehow seeming scarier than the fang filled one she’d given me earlier.

  “You’re helping us steal that.”

  Happy to finally get a straight answer, I glance over my shoulder with a ‘thank you’ on my lips that never makes it further. Tongue freezing along with the rest of me as I find myself staring at the back end of a badly dented and mud-covered Verti-bird. A bundle of oversized greenery, badly burnt and long dead, still clinging to its undercarriage. The vines and ferns tangled in the ruined landing gear where the scrapes of an unwilling descent are plain to see. Its wings though are where my eyes are pulled. The stubby clips with their multi-position turbines barely fitting within the bounds of the room only thanks to being in an up facing position. One of them unlikely to work ever again given a gleaming sword has been thrust directly through it. The other though, both machinery and paintwork-wise, look’s to be in pristine condition.

  A fact which makes it very easy for me to see the MEA logo being proudly sported on its face.

  much earlier sequence of chapters as I did consider making this fic more of an anthology. The story would have only followed Millie while on jobs or otherwise being an 'active' villain and with everything else implied or skipped over. I thought it might be fun to see her life in snap shots rather than following everything and leave the reader to fill in the blanks for why certain people have appeared and others gone or changed.

  everything is a run'. If done well, then downtime should flow seamlessly into gigs and vice a versa.

  thanks for reading!