• Helicopter blades whorled loudly, causing even the most projected voice to be nearly inaudible. “Do you think it’s really true?” One brutish beast asked the one next to it, barely audible even as he yelled with his booming voice. “About the girl? Do you think she’s really done it?”

    “Done what?” The other one asked back, his entire body covered in black fabric, including his face, “She’s done loads of stuff. I don’t know which thing you mean.”

    “You can surely guess,” The first one surmised, shrugging slightly in his bulletproof armor. When the other didn’t reply, he elaborated. “I’m talking about Peter. Did she really catch Peter single-handedly?”

    “Well, me and a couple of others were there too.” He was obviously implying some of their kind, not the fragile humans. “But she did all the work. She’s dead clever, you know that?”

    “Now I do.” He answered simply as the helicopter made a sharp turn, and they had to grip onto the thick leather straps (with which they should have used to secure themselves in the first place) in order not to fall out. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand.” The same hulking Ery projected again.

    “Yeah?”

    “Weren’t those two kids friends at one point or another?”

    “Oh, no. Peter tricked her into thinking so, but he was always just trying to get her to do the work for him.”

    “How do you know all that, then?”

    “His interrogation, of course. He explained everything in precise detail. The poor girl. Being as clever as she is, I would have thought she’d notice ahead of time, and bust him right there.”

    “I guess not. But still, Ravado made a smooth move recruiting her.

    “Thomas?”

    “No, use your common sense. His son.”

    “I didn’t know he had a son. It’s good to know the family line is still going, then.”

    “To be honest, that girl kind of scares me.”

    “Does she? I know she’s intimidating, but we’re all so big. You’re even bigger, even.” He added consolingly. “If she tries to get at you, then you could easily take her down.”

    “Oh, could he?” This voice did not belong to either of the Ery, but instead came from the spot in front of them where a young woman had appeared out of nowhere. She was very pretty, and the skintight POCC uniform was very flattering on her, but she was still the image of authority. “Would you like to try?” Her hair was blowing around her head from the force of the chopper’s blades, and combined with her taunting smile, she was very intimidating.

    “No, ma’am, he doesn’t know what he’s-” But he was cut off. A small projectile, a thin, steel needle, had punctured his suit at the very top of his head, pinning him to the seat by the cloth that covered his entire body. She learned to do that at the POCC training camp. She could have chosen a sword, or a gun, but she liked flicking things better. Doing just that, she silhouetted him in thin needles, so he couldn’t move at all, stuck to the side of the interior of the helicopter.

    “And you?” She asked, twirling another needle in her fingers.

    “No ma’am.”

    She stopped spinning it, and she gently licked the lip of the needle, and a trickle of blood began to flow the moment she touched it. “These are sharp, boys.” She pocketed the metal and walked over to the pilot’s cabin, her hips swinging as she walked. “I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.” The Ery that crowded the boarding section of the vehicle were all in silence, sitting rigidly as the helicopter began to descend.

    “I know what you mean now,” Said the first Ery as he plucked out the needles from the steel wall behind his fellow.