Late. That’s what I am. I just had to stop for oranges.

Her steambike had a longer front chassis than any other bike, with two wheels in front and one massive wheel in the back. Her bike's back end was massive, with four steam shafts acting as exhaust pipes connected to the engine. It also appeared to be bulkier, as the front chassis served as her cargo compartment, while a compartment behind the exhaust shafts served as a sidecar for another passenger.

Another characteristic feature that distinguished her bike from other vehicles was that most would stow their service bots inside, hidden away. Luna's service bot, on the other hand, was located near her driver's seat and had been retrofitted to also serve as her assistant and navigator. And right now, her service bot, Servo, was ringing to remind her that she was already late.

The front of the warehouse was packed with seven trucks that belonged to the enforcers. Luna noted the size of the trucks they brought; they were big enough to hold twenty people each and were heavily iron-plated with a mounted cannon on the top. The troop crawlers are no doubt what the enforcers will use in the assault later in the night, but Luna needed to talk to Ketil about the use of cannons in this operation. Luna silently judged the enforcers that observed her and, to her, they seemed to be the trigger-happy sort of people.

She parked her bike right out front as she was in a hurry to get inside. Her service bot attempted to climb out of its seat, but Luna pressed it down.

“Stay here. Guard the bike.” It made a sad chiming sound as she quickly took off her helmet and goggles.

“I’ll be back soon.” Luna opened the front compartment of her bike as the robot gave another sad sound.

“Look, I’m already late. I’ll make it up to you later, okay?” Luna threw her helmet inside and put on her hat and satchel bag. The bot closed the compartment as she hurried to the warehouse.

Inside, the meeting had already begun. Forty people, all fully armed human, bestian, and ork enforcers, listened to three men in the front of the room.

This is more than I expected it to be.

The moment she was about to close the door, a gust of wind slammed the door, and everyone in the room looked at her. With everyone’s attention on her, she quickly approached the front of the crowd where Max, Ketil, and a dark skinned man briefed the enforcers.

Max smiled as he shook his head. As the dark-skinned man stared at her, Ketil remained stoic and unconcerned. It seems Luna interrupted him when she came in.

“Sorry everyone, I needed to organise a few more things for tonight.” She said as she arrived at the front and began to take out some documents from her bag and handed them to Max and Ketil. Luna then cleared her throat and addressed the crowd, which began to murmur. “Listen everyone, can we take a five minute break before we-”

“The briefing has already begun.” The dark skinned man said loudly, his tone rising and commanding, which made the room quiet down. It seems this man, whoever he was, clearly regained control of the crowd.

“Ummm... who is this?” Luna pointed at him while she looked at Max and Ketil for an answer.

“Treese Bats, Lady Luna. He is a bou-” Ketil answered.

“Nice to meet you, now please leave.” Luna said before he can say anything else, as she tried to shoo Treese away with her hand. “Those not involved in the operation can exit now as we will begin as soon as I update-”

Max pressed his lips together and tried not to laugh.

“Lady Luna, Treese will be joining in the raid.” Ketil said to her.

“He’s what?! On whose authority?” She looked at him, puzzled, then back at Treese, who appeared to be on the verge of yelling in rage. Max only shrugged his shoulders.

“Listen, Treese, is it?” Luna addressed him directly. “Who invited you here?”

Everyone in the room, even Ketil, could see that Treese tried her best not to lash out at her.

“Maurius put me in charge.” He said coldly. “He told me that they needed a professional to lead this mission.”

“Uh huh.” Luna smiled. It was clear Treese was trying to remove her from her position as the leader of the entire raid. To her, it was refreshing to see someone trying to look down on her again. “So you’re in charge now then, is that it?”

“Yeah, you have a problem with that?” The two of them locked gazes. Her hands and fingers twitched.

Luna was amused at how this man was trying to act tough and clearly trying to establish his power in the room. If it was any other mission, and any other day, she would be happy to let other people do all the work for her, especially since she had already been paid half the contract. She hated working with others besides her own guild, but unfortunately for the man trying to boss her around, this mission was too personal for her and she needed to bring his ego down.

It happened in a flash, and Max and Ketil had barely time to react to try and stop her.

In one quick stride, she closed the distance between her and Treese, locked her leg in place between his, grabbed his entire arm and used her entire body to sweep him down to the floor. Luna pinned Treese to the floor and put his arm in a lock.

The crowd was in an uproar as some tried to rush the front in order to assist Treese, while Ketil held them back while Max tried to get Luna off.

“Who is in charge!” Treese grunted in pain as the crowd paused to watch as she twisted his arm upward. She was not satisfied and twisted it so much that Treese yelled out in pain.

“Luna stop-”

“Who is in charge!” Luna pinned her knee harder and twisted his arm further up. Treese gritted his teeth and howled in pain.

“Answer Me! Who! Is! In! Charge!” His bones and joints started to sound when he finally yielded.

“You! You are in charge!” The crowd watched as she still pinned him down, despite Treese acknowledging defeat. When there was a clear winner in their power struggle, Luna let go.

“Take him out of here.” She ordered, and two enforcers helped Treese stand up.

He brushed them off and attempted to retaliate, but the enforcers held him back. Treese struggled and seemed to be able to break free when four more men tried to escort him outside, but he cursed and yelled as he went. Once he was outside, Max glared at Luna, who was recomposing herself. Ketil, however, did not let this pass quietly.

“What was that? What was that for?!” Ketil called her out.

“I’m enforcing authority and discipline, Captain.” She replied flatly, which angered him even more. “You need to put the upstarts in their place after all.”

“You call that enforcing discipline when you start a fight in the middle of the room!

“I would watch your tone, Captain. You would do well to remember who is leading this operation and that you are in the middle of a crowded room yourself.”

Luna then gave him a look that said, it is over. He exhaled loudly and began to address his fellow enforcers to organise themselves again.

“Granted, I hated the guy, thinking he could just muscle everyone around him.” Max said to Luna, who picked up the papers that fell from their scuffle. "But did you really have to do it like that?"

“I was simply bringing him back to the ground, Max.” Luna then handed him the documents she had retrieved. “With a head that large, he needed to learn his place as who is the leader here.”

“You do know you are making more enemies, right?”

“When was I not making more enemies?”

“You know he is a shadow, right?”

Luna just laughed. “When did that matter, Max.”

After a few minutes, the enforcers had reorganised themselves, and those that escorted Treese outside had returned to their places, although Treese himself did not. Once the crowd had settled down, Luna, with Max and Ketil beside her, began to address them.

=0o0=

There were only so few magicores they managed to get for the whole day.

The sun had long set, and the darkness of the night covered the mining compound. The slavers had retired for the day and were counting the ores they found inside one of the structures they used as their barracks. As they checked, they found only a few could be used as the slaves had damaged most of them while mining them out.

“Those useless dogs keep damaging the ores!” One of them threw the ore into the wall. “The whole batch is useless!”

“Is there nothing that can be used?” Another one checked. He frantically looked but found all the ores were scratched, chipped or cracked.

“Nothing! The whole batch is worthless!” Another one kicked the crate of magicores they mined to fall to the ground. "Lousy freeloading parasites aren’t worth this garbage!"

“Make the slaves keep going.” The leader of the group said as he inspected the ores carefully. “We can still sell this to some dumb town in the middle of nowhere. They won’t know the difference.”

A knock came from the outside.

“Sir, There is trouble at the mines, sir. It’s the slaves.” All of them stood up and escorted their leader outside. As they approached the outside of the mines, it seemed there was a group of armed slavers that pointed their rifles at a group of children. They were huddled together, guarding an elderly ork who had fallen to the ground.

“What is going on here?” The leader said as he arrived.

“These slackers-” The slaver pointed his rifle at the group of children. “Don’t want to work, sir. We disciplined them, but the ork got in the way. We had to shoot him to keep them in line, but now the children won’t budge. Should we shoot a few more of them?”

The leader contemplated whether they should shoot a few to motivate the children to work faster, but that would just slow down their output.

“Don’t bother wasting more rounds on them. They are not even worth it. Just put them back to work, we have a shipment to fill by the morning.”

The slavers then fired their guns into the air, which caused the children to cry and scream as they were dragged and forced back into the mines. But two small boys, both looking exactly alike with short brown hair, brown eyes, and sandy brown skin, refused to leave the dying ork’s side.

“I said back in the hole!” A slaver struck one of them with the butt of the rifle, causing him to fall to the ground and wail in pain. The other child cried loudly and attempted to console both the ork and the other boy, but the slaver was stopped by the leader before he could strike.

The slaver leader examined the old ork, who grunted and huffed. The bullet struck him in the chest. It was only a matter of time until he died. And he despised the smell of corpses and refused to smell the dead body in the morning.

“You two.” He signalled the two children. “Dig a hole and throw him in when he dies. Then get back to work.”

The leader of the slavers left afterward, and the guard who struck the boy held the children at gunpoint. He then ordered the two of them to drag the old ork as far away from the mines and the compound as possible.

Once they were far enough away, the slaver threw them two small trowels. “Start digging a hole for this wretch!”

Both hesitantly began to work slowly as one of the children kept on crying. The slaver realised this would take a while and, feeling a pang of hunger, realised the children weren’t worth skipping a meal over. The children were wearing metal collars on their necks, and when the slaver saw some metal chains nearby, he retrieved them and latched them to their collars, then tied the other end around a nearby tree to prevent them from escaping.

“You dogs better be done by the time I get back!”

As the children began to dig, he turned and left. Once the slaver was gone, the children stopped and rushed to the old ork, who coughed and gasped for air. The ork signalled the two of them to come closer as he felt his vision slowly starting to fade.

The boy, who still had not stopped crying since back at the mines, approached him, and the ork placed his large calloused hand on his head.

“My magic will end soon, little one. I can no longer protect you.” The boy held his hand and cried harder. Sputtering between gasps for air, the ork’s last words were-

“You must be strong now, Elizabeth.”

The old ork gasped his last breath and his large hand fell to the ground. The moment he died, the boy’s appearance began to change. His short brown hair began to change into long golden blonde locks. His brown eyes shimmered and turned into a clear blue, and his sandy brown skin turned pale and fair. The boy was gone, and in his place was a girl in a dirty white dress who wept and embraced the body of the dead ork.