"But you can't do that!" Maggy burst out, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Oh?" Alpha replied smoothly. "And why not?"

"Because it's against the law!" she half-shouted, flinging her arms upward.

"Says who?" Even through the drone's speakers, the smirk in Alpha's voice was unmistakable.

"Who?! The council, of course! Who else?!" she snapped, as if the answer should have been obvious to anyone with a brain.

The group had gathered in the same room the following morning to review their next steps and to fill Maggy in on what she had missed.

Alpha gave a low chuckle. "The only law I recognize is Federation law, girl."

Maggy's jaw dropped. "Are you seriously telling me that your precious 'Federation' would be fine with you just… taking over a criminal organization?!"

"Of course not," Alpha chirped.

"See!" Maggy leapt to her feet, pointing an accusatory finger at the drone. "You can't just—"

"We have specialist teams for that sort of thing," Alpha interrupted pleasantly.

The [Wasp] drone gave an exaggerated shrug, its frame tilting before shaking its head in mock regret. "Unfortunately, they're not here. Which leaves the job to us."

"That's— you can't just—" Maggy sputtered, tripping over her own outrage, until a firm hand landed on her shoulder.

She spun to find Dr. Maria at her side. The older woman gently shook her head. "Child, it's no use. If Alpha's decided on something, no force in this world can stop him. Not you. Not me."

Maggy turned back to the drone, pointing again with righteous fury. "But this is going to be a disaster! I can already tell!"

Dr. Maria nodded as though in solemn agreement, though her wide grin betrayed her. "Oh, it will be. No question." She leaned closer, her eyes gleaming with mischief. "But ask yourself, dear, who will it be a disaster for?"

Maggy froze, caught in the doctor's sparkling gaze.

Then, with a strangled cry of frustration, she threw her arms skyward, screamed, and stormed down the hall.

Hugo's armored frame shifted where he stood against the wall, the faint rasp of plates brushing together filling the pause Maggy had left in her storming wake. His jaw tightened, the lines in his face hard as stone.

"Is she going to be a problem?" His voice carried the gravelly weight of a man used to cutting through noise and nonsense.

Dr. Maria exhaled through her nose, shoulders slumping as though the question had been inevitable. She rubbed her temple with two fingers, her silver hair catching the lamplight. "No," she said at last, though it sounded more like a weary sigh than certainty. "The girl's always been a straight arrow. Hot-headed, yes, but not stupid. She'll rail and stomp her feet, but she isn't foolish enough to ignore which way the wind is blowing."

Garrelt leaned back in his chair, arms folded tight across his chest. A humorless chuckle rasped from his throat. "She doesn't have that luxury anymore." The man smirked, but his brow furrowed all the same as his eyes lingered on the doorway where Maggy had stormed out. "Maggy knows damn well she's in Icefinger's sights now. And after last night?" His voice dropped. "It's not just her own skin she has to think about anymore. It's the orphanage, too."

The words hung heavy, pulling the room taut. Even Hugo's expression hardened, the lines of his scarred face set deeper by the early morning light.

Alpha's red optic swiveled toward Garrelt, the glow catching in the brass fittings of the lamp. "Speaking of which," the drone said, voice smooth as polished steel, "how do you think your Guild will respond once they realize what I intend?"

The hunter tilted further back, balancing on two legs with practiced ease. He chewed on the question in silence, eyes drifting toward the ceiling beams as though weighing an invisible scale.

At length, he grunted. "Icefinger's been a thorn in the Guild's side for years. Not because he goes after the top-rankers, but because he preys on the small fry — the green Adventurers, the desperate, the ones too weak to tell him no." His mouth twisted into something between disdain and resignation. "And let's be honest, the Guild isn't spotless. We'll take contracts that aren't always clean. But there are lines even we don't cross."

He rocked forward suddenly, letting the front legs of his chair crack against the stone floor. The sound snapped through the silence like a shot. "Icefinger has no such lines. That makes his offers too tempting to the wrong sort of Adventurer. And every time one of ours takes his coin instead of the Guild's, our name gets dragged through the mud. Our authority gets chipped away."

Garrelt's eyes narrowed, a flinty smile tugging at his lips. "So if you step in as a more… palatable option? If you prove you can deal with the filth without staining our reputation? The higher-ups won't raise much of a fuss. In fact, they might just be glad to let you do their dirty work for them."

Alpha's drone tilted its head, antennae twitching with the imitation of curiosity. "But?"

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"But." Garrelt's tone hardened. "The Guild isn't the problem. The sects and clans are."

The lamplight caught the scar that cut across his jaw as he spoke, a pale reminder of battles past. "They like to parade their righteousness in the open squares, all honor and tradition. But behind closed doors? Nearly every one of them has dealings with Icefinger. Smuggling, extortion, debts, favors. You name it, he's got his claws in it. Move against him, and you'll be moving against their interests too. That's how you make enemies you can't afford."

The drone's optic pulsed once, unreadable.

"But," Garrelt continued, his tone shifting again, "you've got one advantage. The Radiant Sea." He smirked, the expression carrying more bite than humor. "Every clan and sect worth mentioning is salivating over what's happening there. Most of their powerhouses are already gone, racing to the grasslands to get their cut of the 'harvest.' That buys you time. Establish yourself well enough while they're distracted, and when they come crawling back, they won't be able to deny you. They'll have no choice but to acknowledge what's already fact."

He paused, scratching his beard, then let out a low chuckle. "Of course, there's always the other option — cut them out of the equation entirely. Permanently. But I wouldn't recommend it." His eyes flicked to Alpha's drone, sharp as an arrowhead. "Not unless you're looking to cripple yourself. You still need the Adventurer's Guild, and eventually the Craftsman's Guild too. The 'nobles' make up a large portion of both guilds' income. If you take them off the board now, you don't just make enemies — you'll be burning bridges you can't afford to yet."

The room fell quiet for a moment, the weight of Garrelt's words settling like dust. The fire in the grate cracked, throwing sparks across the shadows.

Alpha's drone shifted, its wings giving a faint, metallic buzz before stilling again. The red eye lingered on Garrelt, bright as a coal in the half-light.

"Noted," Alpha said, his tone clipped, precise.

Alpha's red optic lingered on Garrelt for a beat longer before shifting to sweep the table.

"With that in mind," his voice cut through the low crackle of the hearth, smooth as polished steel, "what are our next steps?"

Garrelt barked out a laugh, leaning back so far in his chair that it creaked against the stone floor. "You're asking us?" His grin carried no warmth, but his eyes glittered with sharp humor. "You're the one with all the shiny toys, all the drones and tunnels and—" he waved a hand toward the [Wasp] perched nearby, "—that ridiculous little army of ants. You've got bigger ambitions than half the Guildmasters combined. Shouldn't you be the one telling us what to do?"

The [Wasp] tilted its frame in an exaggerated mimic of a shrug. Alpha's smirk carried even through the distortion of the drone's speakers. "I'm not asking for instructions, I'm asking for input." His optic glowed, catching the lamplight, the red flare like a coal in shadow. "I may have my ants, but I am not a native here. I don't know this city's games, its clans, its culture. You do. Not using such resources would be… wasteful."

Silence fell across the room, broken only by the crackle of the hearth and the faint tick of armor plates as Hugo shifted his weight against the wall. Each of them turned the thought over.

Dr. Maria was the first to break the quiet. She set her teacup down with a soft click, silver brows lifting. "There are a few avenues we could explore," she said, her tone carrying the calm precision of a surgeon laying out instruments. "But there's one that would address several of our problems at once."

She leaned forward, hands folding together on the table. Her eyes gleamed in the lamplight. "The shop."

Garrelt frowned, but Hugo raised a brow in quiet recognition.

Maria's smile turned thin, humorless. "One of the reasons Icefinger has proved so difficult to uproot is his stranglehold on the public cultivation market. The Craftsman's Guild shields the actual refiners and artificers, true. But rumor has it the Icefinger's men practically run the Merchant's Guild. Seeker is said to have his hand in nearly half of the storefronts in the city. Those that he doesn't tend to owe him money in some manner."

Her gaze softened for the briefest instant, a bitter shadow flitting across her face. "Even my Pavilion had to go to him for loans, once or twice. Interest sharp enough to cut bone, terms that left us crawling." She shook her head, jaw tight. "It's his greatest weapon — not his claws or his magic, but the chokehold he keeps on the city's coin."

Alpha's optic narrowed, a faint buzz of wings vibrating in thought.

"Which," Maria continued, "is also why he's so desperate for a foothold in the Deep. Right now, his supply comes filtered through clans and Guilds. If he could source directly, his grip would tighten further still. He'd own this city outright within a year."

Hugo's gravelly voice rumbled from the corner. "And you, on the other hand, have the opposite problem." His arms folded, scarred knuckles pale against black chitin plates. "You already have access. To the Deep. To production that puts half these refiners to shame. What you don't have is a foot in the market to make use of it."

The red eye swung toward him, a single pulse of light acknowledging the point.

Garrelt's chair thumped back down to all four legs. His smirk sharpened, this one carrying real weight. "Which means that's our angle with the Guild." He leaned forward, elbows braced on the scarred wood. "Offer them an alternative. Prove you can cut into Icefinger's purse without dragging the Guild's name through the mud. Give them a cleaner choice, and they'll take it in a heartbeat. That's how you deal a blow he won't recover from — cut off the flow of coin, and the rest of his 'empire' will start to collapse around him."

The hunter's eyes glinted, sharp and feral. "And once you've got the Guild backing your storefront? Then we expand. Piece by piece, you hollow his influence out from under him until he's standing on nothing."

Hugo's voice cut in again, flat as a blade scraping stone. "Except doing that is the same as declaring open war." He glanced toward the drone, his scarred face etched with the gravity of the words. "There's no pulling punches if you step into his market. Every coin you take is one he'll bleed to get back."

The optic turned toward him, gleaming steady red. "I've dealt with his type before. It was always going to come to that."

Even Garrelt stilled at the certainty in the tone.

Alpha's wings flicked once, a metallic whisper that carried like a sigh. "As it stands, we still have a few days before Robert arrives. Once he does, Icefinger will have everything he needs to understand what he's dealing with."

The lens dimmed, then brightened again, a pulse like a heartbeat. "Until then, he underestimates us. That is the only advantage we'll ever hold over him."

A stillness followed, taut and sharp. Each of them felt the weight of the choice pressing closer, as inevitable as the tide.

Then the drone's wings buzzed once, snapping the silence.

"Here is what we'll do," Alpha said, voice clipped, precise. "Maria, I want you to get a hold of those contacts you promised me.. Keep your loyalists close and your nurses visible. Garrelt, prepare your Guildmaster for the pitch, and get me that meeting. Hugo, return to the Nexus and start organizing transport for goods to the city. We'll need both quality and volume to prove our worth. I'll coordinate the rest."

The red optic flared brighter, casting the table in bloody light.

"We move now," Alpha finished, his tone final, irrevocable. "Before Icefinger knows the war has already begun."

Garrelt grinned like a wild man. "And what are you going to do? I don't see you just sitting around while we do the heavy lifting."

Alpha grinned back.

"Me? I'm going to prepare a little 'show' to keep our watchers distracted."

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