"Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."

― Ralph Waldo Emerson



M A K A Y L A



I was steps from a hover cab when a luxury craft dropped out the sky between the buildings with speed. I recognised the markings a few moments before a sharp pain suddenly ripped through my spine and electrified my body.

I grit my teeth and shouted into the night as I dropped to my knees. My comm flashed blue before short circuiting in my vision entirely. I was effectively dark to the outside world of comms.

Hands seized me at each arm and I swore unable to lift my head through the pain. The luxury craft doors opened to us and the men threw me in without delay. The door sealed behind and we were already taking off. I rolled my cheek against the fine carpet within and groaned.

A pair of boots spread wide near my head shifted.

I didn't bother to look up. I knew there was only one person that would dare–

"Get off my floor."

"What the fuck Prox–"

His glove wrapped around my throat and yanked me up into the seat opposite him. My eyes were wide and an anger rose rapidly inside me. I found my strength again and cut an elbow up to the weak point in his wrist. He dropped his hand but seized my arm with his other and drew a hidden blade angling it at my throat.

I watched his steel eyes with a cool look.

"Go ahead. It seems like you've been wanting to ever since I got back."

The rage dropped a touch in his eyes and he lowered the steel.

"Makayla. You've been fucking things up since you arrived." He growled low.

I laughed hollow and grabbed a glass from the side before offering it to him and plucking up an amber coloured bottle. Proximo held the glass wordless as I filled it and secured my own. I threw back the whiskey and leant back in the chair gesturing with my hand for him to speak.

He stared at me a moment longer before that half tattooed face finally broke into a smirk and he threw back his own drink.

"The woman I see before me is closer to Scorpion than I ever thought I'd live to see." He grunted, turning more serious as those lethal eyes ran over me. "Yet you still don't understand that your actions have consequences. Your very appearance in public... causes events to change. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He leaned forward on his arms.

I nodded slowly tilting my head. "You have no idea how close you sound to the Emperor himself."

He flinched before glaring.

"Your dead father and I never shared a thing–"

"Yet you tell me my actions and appearance have consequences." I smiled slowly, ignoring his death stare that used to intimidate. "Let's change things up a bit, Prox. Instead of the threats, the promises for change and other such bullshit–we can actually make something of this night."

"What." He grit out, tightening his hand on the glass.

"Your sister is still in the wind. I know Scorpion went after her and she was ready. So why don't we play a different game. A game with different faces. You must be tired of chasing ghosts as Division agents." I stated, leaning back and appraising him.

The shock was clear on his features. These were not the words he expected from an Emperor's daughter. They were the words of a calculating person. A devious one. A Division agent.

"You want us to go after Dazz in disguise." He mused.

"I want us to go in as Hades rebels. The question is if you need to run this by Scorpion, or will we just finish this tonight?" I demanded with no room for hesitation.

The shock drifted from his face until a dark smile overtook it. One that reconsidered. One that approved. One that looked almost like respect.

He offered me a hand. I clasped it and our forearms met.

"I know just the person for such a job." He stated over our arms. I returned the smile and refilled our glasses again hardly recognising myself but loving it all the same. There was a buzz alive inside me now. A power that controlled situations and didn't wait for them to spiral. Didn't wait for those worthless people to hurt Scorpion ever again.

It was time I did the saving for the Underworld's Queen.



* * * * *



"It's time you met Xafra."

"Who?" I asked, as we dropped out from the craft into the streets. It was busy and far from the centre. Hooded dealers and Division agents drifted between neon lights and smoke.

"Arms dealer. A specialist." He murmured, leading us through the streets with his stark red armed trench coat billowing behind.

It looked much like Japanese styling. Materials mimicked wood and fine crafted statues. But we slipped down a more covert alley away from the crowds. Down a wide set of stairs to a red door. Proximo pressed a bio scan.

It glowed blue quickly before the doors slid open.

A man was already waving away two heavily armed guards with an eager and formal expression and a trimmed beard shaped like a pyramid on his chin.

"Dear Proximo! Good fortune brings you back once more!" He drawled with one arm set behind him and a quick bow in a pristine suit. His quick eyes darted to me and took a fast analysis. "May I make your acquaintance Miss..?"

"Just Makayla, please."

"Makayla." He tested the word with a ready smile. "I truly hope–"

"Enough." Proximo stated, walking briskly past. "To business."

Xafra rushed to his side instantly becoming the slick business man. He righted his jacket lapels and strange hexagonal tie before snapping his fingers at more guards ahead. I noted the heavy genuine oak doors they opened. I stared in open admiration and shock.

"Those doors..." I murmured.

Xafra threw me an appreciative look of knowing but didn't dare to extend more conversation beside Proximo's dominating stride.

"I need blades to her build. A new Vanguard and some plasma handguns."

"More concealed weaponry. I understand exactly what you will need." He nodded, noting things down on a holo screen I hadn't even noticed before. "Makayla, may I get your measurements?"

I answered all in excruciating detail without even needing to be measured. If Xafra was surprised he didn't show it. I had attended enough dress fittings to know my every number to the centimetre after all.

Rows of glowing shelves passed us with varying levels of lethality. I paused by a glowing set of plasma blades. The hot purple was ready to cut through any alloy and hummed with energy. I had to wonder how the weilder would sheath such a blade...

"–no tonight. We have business that needs attention now." Proximo retorted in a low voice. "Makayla! This way. The real weapons lay beyond." He drawled, nodding at Xafra as he pressed his wrist and doors slid back to another room.

I left the shelves behind and followed them cautiously.

The room was empty. Then the weapons dealer pressed his wrist again.

The floor moved in front of us. Hexagons rose from the ground in tall glowing rows. I stared as one long shelf presented itself to us with an identical pair of blades that I had seen Alex–

"Those are vantafish venom blades." I whispered, tracing the gleaming black blade with my eyes. Xafra cut me a quick look of surprise before composing himself quickly and nodding.

"Correct. Only one owns a set."

"I know." I finished, shaking the thought of my father receiving the taste of it first hand on that rooftop. Proximo cleared his throat and gestured to a set of five throwing knives made of a chrome metal I couldn't name. They looked like they could cut air itself.

"Those." He ordered, then pointed at two more dark daggers. "Those." He pointed with a bored look as Xafra noted quickly. "That." He pointed at an empty shelf and I frowned.

"There's nothing there."

"Is there?" He drawled, moving forward and quickly flicking the glowing shelf. Black rippled before us out of nothing and I stared in disbelief closing in on the thing.

"What in the..." I placed a palm forward and the body armour rippled into form. "Amazing."

"Thank you." Xafra said with a proud expression before Proximo turned his glare on him.

"Guns. Show me." He demanded.

It took less than ten minutes for Proximo to have me armed like an elite personal guard member. It took some people longer to order lunch... But Proximo was a man of need and action. One that saw tools and took them. It was no wonder he had the Underworld in shape beside Scorpion in so few years.

We left the weapons dealer. He gave a string of compliments to the choices and a promise to have more superior gear by the time we returned. Another wish of good fortune. I smirked as Proximo stormed back into the street with a new Vanguard rippling against his chest.

"I did wonder how you two made it out of the Imperial tower alive that night..." I muttered as we jumped into the fusion craft again.

"Vanguard's can take close to an entire clip of fusion rounds before they are compromised." He grunted. "If anyone shoots at me more than that I am losing my touch."

"I'll try to remember that when I get shot."

He threw me an amused smirk. "Oh, how Scorpion will take this news when she discovers you armed like one of our own."

"She won't need to know until we get the job done." I said simply, feeling my heart jump despite it. Those last words she said tonight...

"I fried your comms. She won't interrupt us tonight. So you have no distractions to screw this up, Xavier."

"When I show you how wrong your judgement is you will shut the hell up." I snapped.

He grinned and crossed his arms. "Oh, I will be watching closely, Makayla."

The thought briefly crossed me that this was all an elaborate test of his in some form... but no. My actions tonight had drawn him in. It was up to me to earn something more from him tonight.

"Let's get those faces and find this bitch." I threw him a quick look, judging his blank gaze out the window, "–no offence."

He turned to me slowly. Unrelenting.

"A blood betrayal earns a blood retribution. That woman is no longer my own to cause offence." He growled low, turning back to the city beyond as it flashed past us towards the faceless dealer where our identities and goals would change.

Where we would melt into comrades and men and women with shared ideals right before we took the heads off the snakes themselves. If Hades was with her all the better.