WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Sibyl's POV

The Menagerie's "war room", which was just a massive, glorified study, made more sense to Sibyl now as Aleister and her walked towards it. She hadn't seen much of this war of attrition that he spoke about. There were occasionally people delivered here by singular or groups of fae, or fae coming and going with information, weapons, and resources for the Menagerie. At this point, she assumed that this Menagerie was a singular part of a greater beast, but Aleister and the rest of his team were evasive when she asked questions.

When they entered the room she was lost in thought, as she often was, and failed to recognize the ball of pink and blonde flying towards her. Svetlana crashed into her, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing her within an inch of her life, which was impressive considering her small form and Sibyl's new constitution.

"I'm so sorry," she blubbered, tears and snot getting all over the silken clothes Aleister had brought her to change into, "I didn't think you'd DIE! It was just a little plan, a little fun, I'm so sorry," her pink face was now bright red, the tips of her pointed ears bright red as well.

"I didn't die…" Sibyl began, shocked by Svet's apology, thinking a trickster fae would never apologize for the harm they'd cause, "I just… became different."

Svetlana shook her head furiously as she stood back and wiped her face with the sleeves of her bell armed shirt.

"You DID die Sibyl!" she insisted, "Don't make light 'cause of me. You trusted me and I let you down."

She didn't know how to reply, but nodded slowly, silently accepting her apology so they could move on. Strong emotions like sadness or guilt from others always made her a bit uncomfortable. Where she was from, such feelings were an embarrassment. She didn't linger on the thought of how a fae was more comfortable with something she attributed to humans than her own people were.

Aleister, now standing in front of his desk and leaning on it, clapped his hands together to draw attention to the entire room. The room consisted of Merle, Yifa, Felix, Svetlana, Cahal, and Sibyl. It looked like Nora and Lievin wouldn't be participating this time.

Confirming her thoughts, Aleister began, "Lievin and Nora have been tasked with a different mission, they were contacted by some of our compatriots. You six will be handling this alone, which is just as well," he sighed, "for this operation we're going to need a smaller number of people anyways."

"I do regret to inform you all that you did in fact kill a Urian," he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "To be transparent with you all, we fucked up."

"We?" Cahal barked, "You're the informant and you're telling me you simply weren't informed demon nobility would be traveling through your domain?"

"Bullshit," he spat, the green on his cheeks turning dark with frustration.

Aleister put up both his hands in defense, "I absolutely agree with you. I am but a worm amongst the shit. Can we move on to the important part? Where I share the new information I've gathered and we speak on what to do with it?"

Cahal raised his lips as if to speak but let out of hiss instead, turning away slightly and waving for the other to move on.

"Anyways, Svetlana, would you be a doll?"

Svetlana nodded, the bottoms of her eyes still puffy from her earlier outburst. She raised her hands up towards the blank wall to their left and suddenly a map of the greater area appeared, topography and all. Sibyl had never thought about how deeply magic could change even the smallest things in life, including the simple act of looking at a map.

Sibyl hadn't been able to see an up to date map until this moment. What she saw both shocked her and didn't. It was within expectations, but knowing something could be true and finding out it was actually true were two different things. The western mountains of the Sierra Nevada mountain range was now where the sea ended and land began. The Menagerie was on the northernmost part of the valley within the mountains. It made sense to her now how Dominic found her on the shore while collecting fish. On the other side of the valley was a red marker with the label "Nouveau Angeles".

"As most of you are aware, most of our nonessential members have been assisting the Las Vegas Menagerie with moving their entire organization to the north after the hell that was the midnight massacre."

"They set out back here about a week ago and the first team to get back had some very disturbing reports," he motioned to the red marker, "it appears our friends are becoming a little too friendly. We've held the west coast for about a hundred and fifty years now, but they've been more aggressive in recent years. The brief repopulation of Las Vegas, the inhospitable hell, was proof of that. I fear, as a whole, The Menagerie of Sins may have been too lax in our one minded focus of liberation of chattel."

"Svet, next map please," Aleister asked, and Svet wiped once hand to the side in the air and the map changed.

This time, the map was more like a rough x-ray, an approximation of a space. If Sibyl was honest, she had a bit of a rough time reading it, she'd never seen a map like it before.

"This is what is apparently, in trashy taste if I do say, Nouveau Angeles. Looks to be approximately two thousand feet deep (609.6m) and about four hundred and eighty feet (146.3m) wide," he sighed heavily, "and, at this time, has approximately forty-five thousand residents. The fae who gathered this map is unable to give specifics on species, so we do not know how many are human and how many are demon or fae."

"So, at this point, are you telling us this is an extermination mission, not just…" Cahal threw his hands to the side and balled up his fists, "not just dealing with the aftermath of some pretentious nobilities death?"

"You said it, not me. Is that what you would think is best, Cahal?" Aleister questioned.

"Don't play fucking coy with me old man," Cahal growled, "you know we have no choice."

"Do we not?" Aleister asked, tilting his head to the side, "we could just cover up his death and remain as we have been. We do not have to do anything."

At this point, it looked as if Cahal was going to snap. Sibyl didn't understand why Alesiter was dancing around his questions, or why he felt the need to very clearly push the others buttons.

"I'm also a little hurt that you'd use my age against me… that's very ageist Cahal. I've been this way since I was very young."

"I bet you fucking have you absolute-"

"Stop it! Both of you. We're destroying that wasps nest and that's all there is to it. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. We have so many things to do for us to indulge in your vampiric ways, Aleister." Merle snapped, moving her head to look back and forth between the both of them.

Finally her gaze settled on Aleister, "Now, I know you have a plan. May we please, pretty please, just be made aware of it?"

"Oh, yes, of course, I'm so glad someone asked kindly," he replied, his lips pulling thin against his sharp teeth.

Sibyl went back to the thought she had on her last mission, that perhaps she should be more worried about her allies than her enemies.