Catherine stood outside of a building, one that in her childhood, used to be one that was held in such respect, where citizens would bow their heads in fear, or respect as they passed by it, averting their gaze from those who inhabited it. It’s windows shined bright like diamonds in a dim cave, the exterior wood would glisten with such greatness, it would blind those around it, now stood looking dilapidated, uncared for, the windows fogged with cigarette smoke, the wood somehow aged fifty years in the seven since she’d seen it.

The former headquarters of the Athenian branch of the Icor Brotherhood. Catherine knocked on the door, and waited several seconds, to no answer. She tried again, tapping a bit harder, not wanting to strain or break the wood.

“Don’t want my first meeting in years to be ‘oh hey sorry guys, just broke your goddamn door.” she thought to herself as she knocked again, and waited for no answer; “You call me all the way out here and you won’t open the door?” Catherine said internally, getting frustrated now, as she considered just kicking down the door.

Before she could, she heard the door unlock and a dark skinned man stood before her, graying around the temples, wearing an all-white version of the Brotherhood’s old robes, with minor changes, namely a strange crest she’d never seen before.

“Yes?” asked the man, “May I help you?”

Catherine flashed the note to him, allowing him to take it, “Catherine Tharros.”

“Ah,” he said, flashing a smile, “You kept us waiting.”

“Door was locked.”

The man nodded, and gave a small bow as he moved out of the way for her to enter, “Take the spiral staircase down to the-”

“Yeah, I know, I lived here before,” she said, walking past him, hands in her pockets, but stopped short just before entering the stairwell, “Sorry, that was… rude, I guess.”

“It’s no trouble.” he replied

Catherine turned her neck to look at him, “Never got your name.”

“Christopher Aeacus, on the Circuit Court of Athens.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed, “What are you doing here, your honor?”

Christopher nodded, “Hard as is to believe,” he said as he started down the stairwell in front of her, “I am one of your…sect.”

Catherine blinked, “An Abnormal?”

“Precisely.”

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Well you see, after a court case went the way someone didn’t want, one of his friends tried to have me assassinated later that evening, he stabbed me right between my ribs, but it didn’t go deep enough to damage anything important.”

“That sucks, sorry to hear that, but that doesn’t-”

He raised his hand a bit, silencing her, “When police stopped him from trying again, some of my blood pooled into a fallen lantern, the fire ignited my blood, and it burned gold. While in the hospital, one of your members approached me, and offered membership, I accepted, however as I am too old to begin training, I still wanted to help, and I help fund our sect’s acts in private, while I continued my practices in the Courts.”

“Much appreciated.” Catherine said, “Sorry again you got stabbed.”

Christopher let out a hearty belly laugh, “Oh don’t worry, if it makes you feel any better, his friend got ten years over something petty.”

Catherine thought for a moment, “Lemme guess, public intoxication?”

“Oh Gods no, horrid parking.”

“He got ten years for parking like an idiot?”

“No… The ten years was for attempted murder of a city official. He would have only gotten ninety days for parking where he did.”

Catherine nodded, pretending to know what kind of joke he was trying to lead her into. However, the staircase had finally stopped showing the man-made concrete of the building above, and being greeted by natural forming rock in a cave system, the floor of the cave being made from what appeared to be a purple-like opaque, allowing one to see straight down to the bottom, where Catherine could see rushing water coming in from the ocean. Overlooking the water, kneeling at the edge of the crevice, was a woman, and at the edge of the cave system was a brawly man, both she was well acquainted with.

Christopher maneuvered around Catherine as she approached, doing another bow before clearing his throat, “My lady, Maria Mnemosne, for you is one Cath-”

“Catherine Tharros,” Maria said, turning, revealing the hood she wore adorned a mesh that prevented her face from being seen, “It’s been too long,” Maria finished, there was no friendliness in her voice, no joy, but no anger either.

“Maria,” Catherine said, giving a small nod.

Angered at Catherine’s lack of bowing, or her general lack of respect in her voice as Catherine addressed her, Maria nodded back, “Seven years since you left our sect, five years since you went on your journey, ordained by you by our leader, Aiden Aldrich, and what do you have to show for it, I wonder?”

Catherine simply leaned, giving Maria no sway, no power over her, Maria had no authority, as far as Catherine knew, Maria was still below her in rank in the Brotherhood.

Maria let out a huff, “Present what your time away has earned you.”

Catherine simply shrugged, “Why?”

“Why?” Maria repeated, “Why do you need clarification?”

“Why are you acting like you’re our Mentor?”

“In the absence of our Mentor, Aiden Aldrich, I was to be made acting Ment-”

“Says who? Did you vote, because last I checked there were only two of you.”

Maria got into Catherine’s face, to which Catherine tried to make eye contact, but could not see through the mesh on her hood, “You will respect your superiors.”

Catherine leaned in, an action that Maria did not expect, faltering a bit, and leaning back against Catherine’s show of force, “Show me a superior to follow, who I am willing to follow, and I will gladly take their orders. But until then, I ain’t gonna listen to a command from a Shika.”

“Enough!” The man in the corner finally shouted, stepping into the illumination of the glowing rocks on the walls, revealing his graying hair and long beard, and his piercing silver eyes, “Save your arguing for later.”

“Jaro.” Catherine said, giving him a salute with her initial fingers to her forehead. The man grunted and nodded at her in response.

Maria cleared her throat in an authoritative tone, “Yes, now would you be so kind?”

Catherine sighed, and took a few steps back before stretching out her hand, a blue light illuminated her hand as three cinder block sized novels materialized out of thin air, “Firstly, three old texts from our old storehouses.” Maria quickly snatched them from Catherine’s hand without so much as a thank you, or acknowledgement, “The only ones I found from the entire region.”

A long silence befell the group, as they all knew that raiders, and pillagers would have pilfered most of the Brotherhood’s belongings as soon as they evacuated their storehouses, Bureaus, and safehouses years ago.

Catherine pretended to reach into her coat, hiding a white light as she summoned her sword to her hand, holding it out for all to see, to the others it was only a hilt, but she knew the truth.

Jaro leaned in to examine it, arms folded, “Fancy. What’s it do?”

Catherine concentrated for a moment before a dim golden outline of a blade came into existence from the hilt, the “blade” itself being as opaque as the floor they were standing on now, “Nemorian creation, what they call hard light.”

Jaro extended a hand, “May I?” Catherine nodded, and he carefully took it from her hand, and in an instant he was on the floor, the blade piercing through the rock like a hot knife through ice, “What in the name of Hephestus!?”

Catherine playfully extended a hand, pointing at the sword sticking straight up out of the rock, “By all means.”

Jaro scoffed, gripping the hilt and pulled, his muscles straining, but nothing happened.

“C’mon Spartan, is that all ya got?” Catherine jested

Jaro gripped it with both hands and yanked, but again, nothing, not even an inch. Catherine shooed him away before pulling it up herself with ease, the blade sliding out of the stone before she offered it to him again, hilt first, “Go ahead.”

Jaro reluctantly took it again, Catherine raised her hands to show she was no longer assisting, this time, he was able to hold it. He let out a gasp of amazement.

“Alright, now hit me.”

Jaro looked at her and blinked, “What?”

“Hit. Me.”

“With the blade.”

“With the blade,” Catherine said nodding, stretching out her hands, “Free shot.”

“Kid, this thing just cut through rocks like nothing, I ain’t gonna dismember you over a bit of embarrassment.”

“Trust me.”

Jaro sighed, knowing there was likely a trick coming from her, he squared up, evened his shoulders before making a leaping strike, the blade coming ever closer to her, he closed his eyes as he landed, but there was no thump, no impact on the ground, he turned his neck to see Catherine looking back at him, one hand on her pocket as she approached him her other hand outstretched waiting for the blade. He handed it to her and in a moment the blade was gone, vanishing into thin air, and then the hilt itself was gone.

“How did-”

“It was forged with a drop of my blood, designed to only work for me, or the people I tell it to work for mentally. It can never bring harm to me, either the blade will phase right through me, or the blade itself will stop you mid-attack.”

“Fascinating…” Jaro muttered to himself, rubbing his beard in heavy thought, “And the Nemorians just made this for you?”

“I’m shocked you found them.” Maria muttered rather loudly under her breath, unconcerned with the showcase that had happened mere feet away from her.

“They did, as an old favor to Aiden, they even offered to make me a set of armor, but I was in a rush.”

Maria raised her head in their direction, “And why is that?”

Catherine let her head down, keeping her gaze at Jaro, “I was tracking a member of the Crimson Order.”

Maria scoffed, “They’ve been gone for twenty years.”

“Straggler, I guess. Or the child of one.”

“Is this… straggler with us?”

Jaro laughed, “Would you think she would return to us if she let him live?”

Catherine nudged her shoulder toward Jaro, “He tried to beg for his life, but I refused, he feeds the wildlife now.”

“And you think there are more of them?” Maria asked

“Dunno, I’d need a spy network for that.”

Maria slammed the book she was reading shut, “And that we have, yes?”

Catherine blinked, “What?”

“Your meeting with the government agent, were you not meeting with your informant?”

“Technically no.”

“Technically?”

Catherine closed her eyes, already feeling the regret she would feel for once she told the group what’d went down, “The leader of Athens apparently wants to offer a…truce, an olive branch.”

Maria tilted her head, quizickly

“An offer, I can only assume he wants to start where we left off. He wants to re-align with our Brotherhood.”

Maria shuttered, backing away, “No! We must not! We must stay in hiding, who knows what they’ll do to us if they ever find out how many of us remain, where we are.”

Catherine looked around, “Four of us?”

Jaro walked forward “We got two hundred strong around the planet, all were told to go in hiding, we used the old bird messaging to give the order.”

Catherine nodded in understanding, “Well… on the ride over I thought about it, I’m open to giving it a shot, we need their spy network, we need to find more Abnormals. We need to find Aiden.”

Maria scoffed, “And why do we need that old man?”

Catherine shoved Maria into the stalag formation behind her, “Because it’s obvious none of us are fit to lead, and if something goes wrong, I don’t want someone like you calling the shots, hiding in a goddamn cave while the world burns around us!”

Jaro raised his hand slightly, “I second that…a bit, I say let’s go public, we take the fame, we take the glory, we’re basically Gods, right? We should be treated as such, imagine the admiration from the public, the statues in our image adorning every street corner.”

“Says the Spartan.” Maria mumbled, “Tell me, how would the public react to a SPARTAN God, hmm?”

“Watch your mouth, girl.”

Catherine stepped between them, despite being as hot headed against Maria a moment ago, Catherine did not want to see Maria’s bloody head on the floor from Jaro’s rage.

Christopher cleared his throat, the first sound he’d made since this informal meeting had started, “May I offer a compromise, a bit of each from all three of your stances?”

Catherine dumbfounded a bit, “Oh…sure?” Catherine looked between the other two, who each nodded, “Go ahead.”

Christopher clasped his hands behind his back before speaking, “Catherine, you take the role the good Daemon gives you, but you do not reveal our true number, or locations. We go a bit public, but not too much in case of public backlash, Jaro, you get to go out in said public, and risk adoration… or retaliation, and Maria, you get to continue reading your rather large novels in the peace, and safety of this cave.”

Catherine let the idea fester in her brain for a moment, “Sounds good to me.”

Jaro grunted, “Deal.”

Maria simply nodded before going back to her books.

Catherine walked forward, clasping a hand on the judge’s shoulder, “Good job,” she whispered to him, to which the judge nodded.

Catherine then said in a louder voice, addressing the other two, “I’ll make the call to the Daemon, I’ll meet with him and try to get his spy network, maybe we can look into helping sort out Hades.”

Jaro laughed at that statement, “That’s a God’s errand, girl.”

Catherine shot him a grin, “And are we not Gods?”