DIVISION 52 - BOOK I

CHAPTER LV

– S C O R P I O N –

The luxury fusion craft could not have flown slower. That is what it felt like.

Every nerve in my body was a live wire. So close to what we had planned every inch of. The night it would all happen. The night it would also all end. We would not just walk away with Makayla back in the Underworld. I felt the constant perfectly balanced weight of the vanta glass daggers strapped low across my back under the folds of my fitted suit.

I looked at the stranger seated across me in the plush seats. He watched me with more calculation than a politician ever would. And the most hilarious part about it all... he wore cushioned places in his suit to befit the role of the tub of lard that was the foreign secretary off-continent. Apparently he had pissed himself the night Proximo captured him.

Proximo adjusted the tight shirt collar against his hexagonal tie.

"What a waste of air this lump was." He uttered in a more high, less threatening version of his voice.

I lost control and laughed loudly at him within the confines. He made to strike me with an obsidian walking cane. A bloody walking cane. For Proximo. Walking assistance– I doubled over again and he let out another unthreatening sigh.

"You look like you lost your virginity in a library." He shot back.

Tears had begun running down my face and the holo skin flickered. This sobered me and I drew back to compose my tight suit and pencil skirt. A skirt. Gods the things I do for Makayla Xavier were now officially one too many... At least the suit hid my tattoos.

"You look like you ate the library." I snorted leaning into the seat.

"Perhaps I will spend the evening grazing the horderves then?" He snapped, casting his double chin to the window. Another giggle left me. Swiftly followed by a firm kick.

"Please reveal yourself to Makayla before the night is over."

"I will reveal myself to the damn Emperor if you do not compose yourself, Margret Kelsey." 

"She really must have lost hers in a library with that name." I muttered.

Proximo cleared his throat–or many throats. "5 minutes. Is your vanguard active."

"Indeed." I said cooly in a higher pitch than my own voice. I flicked the invisible armour for good measure and it rippled dark black. "Remind me to send Xafra an extended line of credit. He's gold to us."

"Yes, Margret." He smirked, waggling his cane at me.

"We're so going to blow this shit high..." I muttered. "Did you even do your homework on him?"

Proximo tried to look offended in that skin but it just ended up constipated. I fought the urge to cry with everything I had. Before I could ruin both our skins the driver came through.

"We're dropping now, Scorpion."

"Margret." I snapped. But the high pitch made me sound more like a late aged book warden than ever and Proximo lost the ability to breath again. I took the longest breath I could as the fusion craft touch ground.

"Show time." I told my second. His expression was already that of a seasoned social climber and nothing of the Underworld. I wore a bright grin per my new persona that made me want to shoot my own forehead full of plasma and stepped into the bright lights of the Emperor's gleaming floodlit walkway to the main lobby.