Chapter 2: II
Sauda hears the whispers as she walks past the soldiers lounging on the running track. Twenty-six years of learning to ignore the hate and disgust never prepared her for people or Demons whispering grand things about her. Admiration was new and uncomfortable.
“Seems like everything is running well,” Sauda says looking straight ahead and not at all the people staring at her.
“Captain,” Dix smiles and nods. His burnt orange buzz cut looks odd on his baby face, but Sauda has never seen him with any other hairstyle. His freckles are darker since they started enjoying the eternal dreaded summer of New Orleans, but he still looks like a rag doll. Just more like Chuckie than Raggedy Andy.
“There have been a few fights,” he says, “and we’re trying to work out the extra training for all the magic, but other than that, we’re running smoothly.”
“We’ll brainstorm and figure out the training schedule after I get changed. We have recent recruits?” Sauda asks.
“Some fresh out of basics. The others just need to sign up with you before basic.”
“Bring me to ‘em.”
“You still got a little blood in your hair,” Dix points out. He looks a little paler, but it's a big change to how shocked and scared he would have been a year ago.
“And? They signed up to party with the Black Queen. Let them see her like this.” Jordan smiles.
Sauda rolls her eyes, hating the call name she received, but she just nods to Dix.
“Roger, Captain.”
Not too long ago they would have borrowed a conference room on the military base closest to them wherever their mission was. But since their Major was the son of the Brigadier General, they got a boost in funds and resources.
The Colonel wasn’t happy about them, but anything that made him turn purple in anger made Sauda happy.
With the bigger budget and a few boons from Sauda’s dad, they built an entire base hidden in warehouses right outside the city limits of New Orleans. They had barracks, a gym, MEPS, a clinic, and a huge DFAC. They even had their own separate area for Basic Training, where they got human and preternatural soldiers from all over the world. Sauda never had so many subordinates under her.
Dix and Jordan led her into MEPS and to a room in the back.
“A-tten-tion!” Jordan shouts.
Sauda follows her lieutenant into the room while the other lieutenant brings up the rear. In the room stands about twenty men and women in full ACUs. You could only tell that one was different by the color of her dark olive green skin, but Sauda could smell much more mixed in between the humans.
“At ease,” Sauda says, “take a seat.”
At the beginning of Sauda’s career, she would have hated all of this formality, but now that they were an official—secret—unit of the military, they had to act like it.
She walks to the middle of the room and stands in front of a whiteboard and looks into the room of soldiers sitting at the white fold-out tables. She can feel all their eyes on her as she spots Malik, Adorna, and Ashleigh in the back.
“So… how many of you are human?” Sauda asks, watching everyone’s facial expression.
A little over half of the room raises their hands and everyone looks to the left and right of them to see what exactly sat next to them.
No one looked disgusted to have humans or demons in their unit. Some humans looked scared or wary, a few looked sexually interested, and a group of four near the back looked like it was normal. Regardless, everyone was being closely watched for any troubles with human-demon relations. There was even an ombudsperson on sight just in case they needed extra help.
“I’m sure you have already been told, but this unit is like no other. You are all glorified assassins now. You kill who and when you are ordered too but let’s be clear… We are the good guys and we only kill who I deem bad. If you’re not sure who’s a bad guy, just ask, you will not get in trouble for wanting to know who you have to kill and why. If you kill an innocent by accident or for sport, I will kill you, in ways that only the daughter of a Demon Marquis of hell can enjoy. Are we understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
She looks around the room but doesn’t see any faces of regret. They all sit tall as they stare at her.
“There’s not a lot of money or glory in this station. You are all now secrets—the redheaded stepchild of the military. If you die, for any reason, or fail, you will be dishonorably discharged and branded a traitor. The only upside is that we will pay your family off. If you want to leave, now is your only chance. Welcome to the family.”
Sauda walks to the back of the room to greet her friends, who Jordan told her had a gift for her when they were still en route.
“If we talked to you before about staying, then wait here a while. Everyone else is dismissed,” Dix says from the front of the room.
Adorna sits in between Ashleigh and Malik, all in ACUs, sitting close but not touching, which was probably because they were in a room full of outsiders. If they were like they were the last time Sauda saw them, six months ago, they’d rush to get out of their uniforms and be all over each other. All three of them became a poly-trio. Like a regular couple, but with more people and more love. And since one was a succubus, and another was bonded to the said succubus, there was a lot more sex.
Ashleigh looks small, like a teenager, her dirty blond hair looking dark, pulled back. Adorna looks just as tiny in her modified uniform. If she transformed, her uniform had room for longer, stronger limbs, and two sets of wings. However, in her human form, her uniform looks baggy. Both of their skins are golden brown. Ashleigh’s Yemeni heritage and Adorna’s Filipino, letting their skin tan well and bring out the brown in their eyes. Malik’s skin is the same color as theirs, but his features are distinctly African American. He towers over them, taller than them even when sitting. With his muscular body and broad shoulders, he can wrap them both in his arms. His hazel eyes sparkle as he looks at his two loves. His eyes remind Sauda of his brother, Shaw, who died on their last mission together.
“Where’s my present?” Sauda asks them.
Ashleigh smiles and points her hand to the group of four who sit at the table closet to them.
“Oh. You brought me people… Fingers, are you trying to have an orgy with me?”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“I would,” Adorna cuts in, “but that’s not what this is. They’re all Castors.”
Sauda looks at the group as they patiently wait for her acknowledgment. Two of them look like siblings. Another was different, with a birthmark coloring her hair, and the last Sauda knew very well.
“The unit’s first Castors. Right? Welcome to the group,” Sauda says.
“Not just any Castors,” Malik smiles. “Ashleigh spent six months dragging us around the world to find them. They’re Elemental Castors.”
“Elemental?”
Ashleigh just nods and points to them again. Sauda turns and gives them her full attention.
The two look-alikes step up and stand side by side, one smiling and one looking angry. They both have big green eyes and blonde hair, the female’s hair in a tight bun at the nape, and the brothers shaved on the sides and long on the top.
“My name is Roman Perez,” said the male, “from Nicaragua. I specialize in water casting.”
“Water casting—”
Sauda watches him draw a rune in the air with his fingers and slowly a little bubble grows between his fingers. The larger it gets, the more Sauda can see the bubble is made of water. Sweat pours down the Castor’s face.
“I can pull water from the air, or control water that’s already there. This is a little harder and takes longer, but it works when you have nothing.”
“And not all Castors can do this?”
The female version of him sucks her teeth, but Roman just smiles. “No. Very few can manipulate any of the elements outside of air. This takes tremendous power and practice.”
He lets the water flow through the air until it’s above a glass cup on the table where he drops it in. He steps back and the other blonde steps up.
“This is my twin sister, Jessica. She’s not mute, just unfriendly. She’s fire.”
With a scowl on her face, she pulls a gadget from her pocket. With a pull on it, it sparks and her hand burst into flame, but she doesn’t scream in pain. Instead, she opens her fist until her palm is facing up. In it grows higher and in the flame, a picture forms of a bunny hopping.
After a few seconds, she closes her palm and the flame snuffs out and a thin trail of smoke rises into the air. Jessica steps back, crossing her arms.
The woman next to her steps in her spot. She sports the same pulled back bun, but hers is dark brown with a spot of white on the side where her birthmark is. Her right eye, the side of her mark, is a bright green, and the other is a shiny hazel. Her skin is a dark brown that you could only get from long hours in the sun.
“My name is Earth, but you can call me Baby—I promise, it’s not a pickup line. I wasn’t named until I was older, as is the custom of my people, so everyone just called me Baby… I am from a reservation in Arizona. I specialize in Earth Casting.”
She bends down and casts a rune on the floor and slowly the dirt and dust on that section of the carpet gathers and packs into a tiny pyramid.
“There’s dirt almost everywhere. People track things with them from outside on the bottom of their shoes and clothes. Sometimes… they even bring in seeds.”
A small green bud blooms at the top of the dirt. Sauda claps.
“That’s nothing,” Adorna says. “When we found her, she used mud bricks from the side of a building to stop a thief and then rebuilt it.”
“Impressive,” Sauda smiles.
Baby steps back and leans against the table with an enormous smile. Sauda turns to the last girl in the group.
“My dear Katya, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” Sauda crosses her arms and smirks as the girl that she’s known for five years. The last time she saw her, they were both laid out, bleeding and shedding tears from the scrape with a powerful Demon. One second, they were grateful to be alive together, the next second Katya got up and crawled away and Sauda hadn’t seen her till now. “What trouble are you going to get me into now?”
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone