Chapter 12 – New Recruits
"So, how did it go?" I asked.
The question was casual, almost offhand, but it carried the weight of everything that had happened before it. After my confession and our night together, things between Natasha and I had changed in ways that were impossible to ignore. There had been a divide between us before—subtle, unspoken, something I hadn't consciously realized was there until it vanished. A careful distance, maintained by habit and caution rather than intent.
It was gone now.
In its absence, Natasha felt closer in every sense of the word. She was much more physically affectionate, her presence no longer something she merely allowed to be noticed, but something she asserted. A hand on my arm when she passed by. Fingers lacing with mine without hesitation. Leaning into my space simply because she could. I never pegged her for the clingy type, but she took every opportunity she had to touch me, to remind me of her presence, to show me her love—not desperately, not possessively, but with quiet certainty.
And I did my best to reciprocate it, learning her rhythms as she learned mine, matching her gestures with my own. It felt natural in a way I hadn't known relationships could feel, like something clicking into place rather than being forced to fit.
We moved into our new apartment not long after—a luxurious penthouse suite in Manhattan, perched high above the city with floor-to-ceiling windows and more space than either of us strictly needed. There was plenty of room for us, and for the future members of the peerage, whenever that future arrived. It had everything we could think of: sleek modern design, state-of-the-art security, quiet rooms and open spaces alike.
And yet, in its original state, it had felt like a display piece. Impressive. Expensive. Empty.
Natasha fixed that.
Once again proving that I had picked the best Queen, she managed to turn the ultraluxurious but lifeless suite into a proper home. Personal touches appeared almost overnight. Familiar scents. Rearranged furniture that made the space feel lived-in rather than staged. Small details that made it ours instead of just another place we occupied. Watching her do it, seeing how effortlessly she claimed the space, filled me with a quiet, private pride.
We spent an entire week enjoying ourselves.
We went on dates all over the world, slipping between cities and countries as easily as others crossed streets. Dinners that stretched long into the night. Walks through unfamiliar places with no agenda beyond being together. We spent hours just basking in each other's presences, sometimes talking, sometimes not, content to exist in the same space without needing to fill the silence.
And every night, behind closed doors, we explored each other in ways that were unhurried and deeply personal, learning, reaffirming, and choosing each other again and again.
Eventually, despite how tempting it was to continue on our little slice of paradise, we decided to get to work.
HYDRA had been dismantled, and even then Fury was still doing everything in his power to make sure everyone even slightly involved was caught and dealt with. Raids followed raids. Paper trails were burned down to embers. Sleeper agents were dragged into the light and neutralized before they could scatter again. The organization had been decapitated, dismembered, and bled dry.
But the Red Room was still out there, and for Natasha it was personal.
That difference mattered. HYDRA had been an enemy. The Red Room was a wound that had never healed.
Natasha called in on her old contacts, favors owed and names whispered through channels that officially didn't exist. People who trusted her not because of who she was now, but because of who she had been—and what she had survived. Piece by piece, a picture began to form, blurred and incomplete, but enough to point us in the right direction.
Soon, we found her former adoptive mother's last known location.
Melina Vostokoff was an elite agent, just as skilled and even more experienced than Natasha herself. She had gone through the Black Widow program four times, something almost unheard of, and had completed countless missions for many different handlers.
She wasn't just dangerous. She was adaptable. Resourceful. Smart enough to survive long past her intended expiration date.
We had managed to keep HYDRA's extermination mostly quiet, with the news only getting out when we had eliminated so many agents and destroyed so many bases that it was impossible to hide it anymore. By then, the rumors were already spiraling—conspiracy theories, half-truths, denials that fooled no one who mattered.
But when the news did get out and several HYDRA-affiliated people went to ground, Melina had also vanished.
She wasn't HYDRA, of that JARVIS was sure of. Her operational history didn't match, and her behavior patterns didn't align with theirs. But she must have been spooked by our manhunt. Anyone with her background would have recognized the signs.
And Melina Vostokoff had survived this long precisely because she knew when to disappear.
But, in the end, she was only human.
It didn't matter how carefully Melina tried to erase herself, how deliberately she minimized her footprint. The trail she left behind was almost imperceptible by human standards—but Natasha's senses were no longer human. Subtle disturbances, patterns in movement, the faintest inconsistencies in behavior and logistics all stood out to her like flares in the dark. What would have been coincidence or noise to anyone else became direction and intent to her.
It didn't matter that Melina managed to stay one step ahead for a while. The moment we figured out where she was heading, the chase was already over. She was bound by distance, by borders, by aircraft schedules and safehouses. We weren't. A teleport circle reduced the world to a map with no scale, and suddenly there was nowhere she could go that we couldn't reach faster.
It didn't matter that the people she contacted were loyal, old allies who owed her their lives or their freedom. Loyalty was a fragile thing when weighed against supernatural compulsion. Minds could be bent. Memories could be nudged. Truth could be coaxed out gently or torn free, depending on what was required.
I didn't particularly enjoy using hypnosis. There were moral reasons for that—hypocritical as I knew I was being, considering how readily I accepted the binding and everything it implied. There was also a simpler, more honest reason: I preferred direct solutions. Power of Destruction was clean. Honest. You applied force, and the problem ceased to exist.
Hypnosis required patience. Restraint. A willingness to intrude rather than obliterate.
But for Natasha, I was willing to make that concession.
I didn't just do it for her—I taught her how. Along with other techniques the best tutors in the Underworld had drilled into Millicas, methods of influence, control, and subtle domination that devils had refined over millennia. Things meant for nobles and manipulators, not soldiers.
She took to it frighteningly fast.
Natasha approached it the same way she approached everything else: analytically, pragmatically, with an instinctive understanding of people and their weaknesses. Where I relied on structure and theory, she relied on intuition and experience. I could already see the gap closing, her control becoming smoother, more precise.
I suspected it wouldn't be long before she surpassed me.
The thought didn't bother me at all. If anything, it was just another reason why she was the best Queen I could have asked for.
Still, it took a full month before we finally managed to narrow down Melina's location.
She was good—better than good. She changed routes, burned identities, cut off contacts the moment they became liabilities. Every time we thought we had her cornered, she slipped through our fingers by the narrowest of margins. Once, we arrived less than an hour after she'd left. Another time, she doubled back so cleanly that even Natasha needed several minutes to untangle the misdirection.
By the end of it, Melina wasn't just running from us. She was running from her own shadow.
A month of constant flight does things to a person. It wears them down, strips away patience and optimism until only raw instinct remains. By the time she retreated to a small, nondescript safehouse in the Russian countryside, she was exhausted, paranoid, and out of options. Whatever she thought we were—assassins, cleanup crews, ghosts sent to erase inconvenient survivors—she had clearly decided that if this was the end, she would make us pay for it.
Which only made the actual meeting profoundly awkward.
Natasha entered the safehouse alone, walking straight through the front door as if she owned the place. The first burst of gunfire barely slowed her down. Bullets sparked and flattened against her skin as she casually slapped them aside, more annoyed than threatened, before calmly explaining—over the ringing echoes and Melina's ragged breathing—that no, we weren't there to kill her.
Melina didn't believe her at first. Resignation came next, then confusion, then a brittle sort of disbelief as Natasha kept talking instead of pulling the trigger.
They talked it out. Slowly. Carefully. Years of unspoken resentment, guilt, and justification surfacing in fragments and half-finished sentences. I stayed out of it, watching from a distance, letting it be something that belonged to them.
From the looks Melina kept giving me, I was fairly certain she had decided Natasha was seducing and using me, manipulating a powerful supernatural being for her own ends. The irony wasn't lost on me. I mostly ignored it.
When I pointed out—privately—that Melina had been the one who handed Natasha over to the Red Room, and that I would be more than happy to wreak bloody vengeance on her behalf, Natasha had simply shaken her head and told me to leave it be.
Once Melina pointed us toward the Red Room's location—hidden so thoroughly that not even SHIELD, with all its satellites and black budgets, had ever managed to pin it down—the rest was almost disappointingly straightforward.
The facility itself was buried deep, layered in misdirection and obsolete Cold War paranoia. Physical secrecy, dead zones, false signals, routes that led nowhere. It was impressive, in a grim, joyless way. It just wasn't enough.
We slipped inside without fanfare. The few Widows still on-site never stood a chance. Natasha moved through them like a shadow, disarming and disabling with practiced precision, while I ensured no one could raise the alarm or do something desperate. By the time anyone realized something was wrong, it was already over.
Dreykov was exactly what Natasha had described: small, smug, and utterly convinced of his own untouchability. That certainty didn't last long.
I watched as Natasha took control of him—not with rage, not with cruelty, but with a cold, deliberate focus that was somehow worse. She stripped away his will, rewrote his priorities, and turned him into a tool with the same detached efficiency he had once used on others. She made him recall every Widow still out on missions. She made him release his control over them. And then she made him understand, in the quietest possible way, just how completely he had lost.
When the Widows arrived, freed from the chemical leash that had dictated their lives, the aftermath was… messy.
They were disoriented. Angry. Some were terrified. Others were numb, staring at their own hands like they were seeing them for the first time. Years—decades—of conditioning didn't just vanish because the switch had been flipped.
Natasha spoke to them. Not as a commander, not as a savior, but as someone who had been exactly where they were. She offered them places in SHIELD. Not as a continuation of the Red Room, but as a chance—structure without chains, purpose without coercion. Something to do while they figured out who they were without orders in their heads.
It was practical, too. After the HYDRA purge, SHIELD was stretched thin, and experienced operatives were in short supply.
In private, Natasha admitted another reason. She didn't want to leave Fury hanging when we inevitably left this world behind. It was her way of tying off loose ends without pretending she could fix everything herself.
Not all of the Widows accepted.
A few asked for nothing more than a clean slate and a ride somewhere far away. Different countries. New names. A chance to disappear and never look back. I was more than happy to oblige, teleporting them wherever they wanted to go, no questions asked.
But most stayed.
Among the new SHIELD Widows was Yelena.
"About as well as can be expected, all things considered," Natasha answered.
She was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed loosely, posture relaxed in a way that told me she was trying not to dwell on it. I could tell she was tired—not physically, but emotionally. That particular exhaustion that came from reopening old wounds and finding that, no matter how careful you were, they still bled.
"She didn't take it well?" I asked.
Natasha exhaled through her nose, a quiet, humorless breath.
"My relationship with Yelena has always been… complicated," she said. "I don't think she even knew what she wanted."
I nodded slowly.
Yelena hadn't been happy with Natasha. That much had been obvious from the moment they'd spoken. Along with the other Widows, she had been placed under Dreykov's mind control as direct fallout from Natasha's defection from the Red Room, and resentment like that didn't just evaporate because the villain of the story was gone. Even if it wasn't rational, even if Dreykov was the one truly responsible, the bitterness still had to land somewhere.
And it landed on Natasha.
More than that, Yelena had seen Natasha as her elder sister, despite knowing—intellectually—that it had all been manufactured. Shared training, shared punishment, shared survival. Roles stopped feeling like roles when you lived them long enough. When Natasha defected, Yelena hadn't just lost a teammate. She'd lost family.
Now, she was feeling abandoned all over again.
Natasha refusing her a place in my peerage had cut deeper than either of us had expected. Not because Yelena necessarily wanted to be bound to me, but because, to her, it felt like another door closing. Another reminder that Natasha was moving forward into a new life while she was being left behind to pick up the pieces.
I hadn't changed my mind.
With a limited number of Evil Pieces and no way to acquire more, I couldn't afford sentimentality. Every slot mattered. Every choice had to justify itself in terms of power, utility, and long-term survival. And as much as Yelena was just as beautiful—especially given that she was blonde with blue eyes, which I had always had a weakness for—and just as skilled as Natasha, she didn't bring enough to the table to warrant it.
Not even as a pawn.
The temptation was there, undeniably so. Having both sisters, bound to me, fighting at my side. It was the kind of indulgent fantasy my devil nature happily whispered about.
But fantasy wasn't worth weakening my future.
I glanced back at Natasha, watching the faint tension in her shoulders, the way she carried guilt even when she knew—logically—that she had done nothing wrong.
"This isn't your fault," I said quietly.
She didn't answer right away. She just nodded once, as if acknowledging the words without fully believing them yet.
"I know," she said.
She shook her head once, sharply, as if physically discarding the weight of the conversation. The shift was immediate and unmistakable. The lingering exhaustion drained from her posture, her shoulders squaring, her spine straightening. The Black Widow was back—not the survivor burdened by old ghosts, but the operative who had learned long ago how to compartmentalize and move forward.
Her green eyes locked onto mine, steady and resolute.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
I nodded. I had been putting this off for far too long. Wanda and Pietro had been hovering at the edge of my thoughts for weeks now, an unresolved thread I kept circling without pulling. With the Red Room dismantled, HYDRA ashes still settling, and no immediate catastrophes demanding my attention, there were no more excuses left.
"It's time," I said.
Natasha didn't hesitate. She stepped closer and raised her hand, fingers tracing precise, practiced motions through the air. Power answered her instantly. A teleportation circle bloomed beneath our feet, crimson lines carving themselves into reality with elegant efficiency. The spellwork was clean, stable, and perfectly balanced. I scanned it out of habit and, once again, found nothing to criticize.
I couldn't help but feel a flicker of pride.
I had inherited Millicas's education— demonic theory and spellcraft drilled into me from the moment I'd taken his place. Natasha had earned this herself. Every sigil, every stabilizing anchor, every safety redundancy was the result of her own effort, her own stubborn refusal to be anything less than exceptional.
Light flared.
The world folded.
And just like that, the polished luxury of our Manhattan penthouse vanished.
We emerged into a narrow, forgotten alley in Sokovia's poorer district. The air was colder here, heavier, carrying the faint scent of damp concrete, rust, and old smoke. The buildings pressed in on both sides, their facades scarred and uneven, chunks of masonry replaced with mismatched patches where repairs had been done cheaply—or not at all. Cracks spiderwebbed across walls that had seen too much conflict and too little care.
I stepped forward, boots crunching softly against grit and broken stone.
The people were much the same as the buildings. Thin. Tired. Wrapped in clothes that had been mended too many times to count. Faces set into expressions of quiet endurance rather than hope. This was a place the world had stepped over and forgotten, a place where survival was routine and dreaming was a luxury few could afford.
I took it all in, letting the contrast settle.
If I hadn't known better, if I hadn't already known who lived here and what she would one day become, I never would have guessed that one of the potentially most powerful women in the universe was only a few streets away.
Soon, we arrived at a small, narrow building wedged uncomfortably between a corner bakery and what had once been a drugstore. The bakery still clung to life, its front window fogged with warmth and the faint smell of bread drifting into the street. The other storefront was long dead—its sign half torn down, its interior dark and hollow behind dusty glass.
The apartment building itself looked tired. Cracks ran through the brickwork like old scars, and layers of graffiti overlapped each other in chaotic colors, some faded with age, others fresh and angry. Several of the windows were cracked, one of them held together with tape in a way that suggested it had been like that for years.
I knocked.
After a moment, the door creaked open to reveal an elderly woman, hunched slightly with age but sharp-eyed. She looked us over with the practiced wariness of someone who had learned not to trust strangers easily. When we asked about the Maximoff twins, her expression softened just a little.
"Upstairs," she said, jerking her thumb toward the stairwell. "Second floor. They should be home."
I thanked her, and she nodded once before closing the door again.
The stairwell was narrow and dim, lit by a single flickering bulb that buzzed faintly overhead. Each step groaned under our weight, the wood complaining loudly as if offended by the intrusion. The walls were scuffed and stained, handprints and scratches marking years of hurried comings and goings.
At the second-floor landing, I raised my hand and knocked.
After a brief pause, the door opened just enough for a woman to peer out.
Wanda Maximoff looked at me with clear, immediate suspicion.
She didn't try to hide it. Her body was angled defensively, one hand gripping the edge of the door, the other just out of sight. She wore a simple black sundress, its fabric slightly faded, with a red jacket thrown over it that had seen better days. The jacket's seams had been repaired more than once, the stitching visible if you knew where to look. Black boots completed the outfit, scuffed but clean.
Nothing about her clothing was fancy. Everything about it was practical.
And yet, she was still beautiful.
Her brown hair fell smoothly around her shoulders, silky and well cared for despite her circumstances. It caught the light just enough to give it a healthy sheen. Her hazel eyes were bright and alert, sharp with intelligence and caution, watching me closely for any sign of threat. Even the way her clothes fit her—tailored by necessity rather than design—only emphasized how naturally striking she was.
"What do you want?" she asked, her voice sharp and guarded.
"I have an offer to make you," I said, smiling easily. "May I come in?"
"We don't want anything," she replied immediately, the words tumbling out as if rehearsed.
Then she shut the door in my face.
The sound echoed in the narrow hallway.
"Well," I said after a beat, staring at the closed door, "that could have gone better."
"You don't say?" Natasha replied, her amusement practically radiating off her.
She rolled her eyes and stepped past me before I could say anything else.
"Let me try."
She knocked again—firm, controlled, the kind of knock that carried confidence without aggression.
"I told you, we don't—" Wanda began, opening the door once more, irritation already written across her face.
"Miss Maximoff," Natasha cut in smoothly, her tone calm, warm, and just authoritative enough to make Wanda hesitate. "We only need a moment of your time. Please. May we come in?"
Wanda froze, clearly caught off guard. Her eyes flicked from Natasha to me and back again, suspicion warring with curiosity. I could practically see the calculations running through her head: two strangers, one clearly dangerous, the other… unsettlingly composed.
Natasha's presence nudged her just enough.
After another long moment, Wanda sighed and pulled the door open fully.
"All right," she said. "But if you try anything, we are armed."
"You have nothing to fear from us," Natasha replied gently.
Wanda flushed—just a little, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. From the way her gaze lingered on Natasha for half a second too long, I suspected she might have an interest in women.
Before anything else could be said, a voice called out from deeper inside the apartment.
"What's the hold-up, sis?"
It was feminine, casual, and faintly amused.
We stepped into the living room—and I stopped short.
Standing near a battered couch was a toned woman with silver hair. It fell just past her shoulders, catching the light in a way that made it look almost metallic. Her skin was paler than Wanda's, her build lean and athletic, the kind of physique earned through hard living rather than training facilities. Her hair was shorter, her posture looser, but the resemblance was unmistakable.
The same sharp cheekbones. The same eyes, just colder. The same face, shaped by the same hardships.
Pietro Maximoff—except not.
I blinked once, recalibrating.
…Huh.
That was unexpected.
"Calm down, Petra," Wanda said with a huff, shooting her sister a warning look. "We have guests."
Petra Maximoff finally turned her attention fully to us.
Her gaze flicked over me first—quick, dismissive, already categorizing me as either harmless or not worth worrying about. Then her eyes landed on Natasha.
And stayed there.
If Wanda's interest had been subtle, Petra made no attempt to hide it. Her posture shifted, shoulders squaring, chin lifting slightly as her eyes traced Natasha from head to toe with open appreciation. It wasn't crude, but it was unmistakable.
I couldn't even fault her for it.
Natasha, for her part, didn't react outwardly. She was used to being looked at like that, and her expression remained politely neutral, though I could feel the faint ripple of amusement.
What I did notice was Wanda.
The brief tightening of her jaw. The flicker of irritation in her eyes. The way her shoulders stiffened just a fraction.
Jealousy.
Interesting.
"Who are you guys?" Petra asked, finally tearing her eyes away from Natasha—though not without effort.
I stepped forward before the tension could build any further.
"My name is Millicas Gremory," I said calmly. "And this is my Queen, Natasha."
I gestured to her as I spoke the word Queen, letting just a hint of my authority bleed into the air. Not enough to dominate, just enough to be felt. To make them listen.
Wanda's eyes narrowed, clearly bristling at the implication. Petra's brows rose, surprise and curiosity flashing across her face as she glanced between Natasha and me.
"I want you to join my peerage," I continued, my voice steady. "Become my servants, and I can give you anything you desire."
Before either of them could interrupt, Natasha spoke.
"We are devils," she said evenly.
Her voice carried a quiet certainty, the kind that didn't demand belief but made disbelief feel foolish.
"My king has the means to reincarnate others into his devil servants," she continued. "In exchange for your servitude, you will be granted immortality and power beyond your wildest dreams."
The room went very still.
"You are crazies, aren't you?" Wanda said warily.
Her hand slipped behind the couch, fingers curling around something solid and familiar. I didn't need enhanced senses to guess what it was. The way her shoulders squared, the tension in her wrist—it was a gun, just like she'd warned us.
Petra moved before I could even react.
"Wait a minute," she said sharply, rising to her feet and lifting a hand to stop her sister. Her eyes were fixed on me now, narrowed in concentration rather than fear. "I recognize you."
Wanda hesitated, confused, but didn't pull the weapon out.
"You are that weird guy from the alien invasion," Petra continued. "New York. The portal. The flying."
I felt a flicker of irritation. We'd been cut off right before I could properly lay out the offer, the part I'd rehearsed over and over again in my head. The careful framing. The reassurances. The benefits laid out cleanly and logically.
But Natasha, as always, adapted instantly.
"We were at the Battle of New York, yes," she said smoothly. "Clips of what my king did spread over the internet. You must have seen them."
"You mean the flight and the weird balls?" Petra asked, glancing at Wanda. "Yeah, we saw it."
"I told you not to keep watching those American videos," Wanda chided, though there was less bite in her voice now. More uncertainty. More curiosity.
That was my opening.
I raised my hand and let my power answer for me.
Black and red energy coalesced above my palm, forming a perfectly contained orb of Power of Destruction. It didn't glow so much as it existed, warping the air around it, drinking in light rather than reflecting it. The room felt heavier instantly, like reality itself was holding its breath.
Both sisters froze.
Wanda's hand slipped away from the couch, forgotten. Petra stared openly, eyes wide, pupils dilated as she tracked the slow, almost lazy rotation of the sphere.
"Those weird balls," I said calmly, "are my Power of Destruction."
I let it hover there for a few seconds longer, just long enough for the weight of it to sink in. For their instincts to scream that this was real. Then, with a thought, I dismissed it. The pressure vanished, the room snapping back to normal like a released spring.
Neither of them spoke.
"Among the powers you will gain if you join us," Natasha said, breaking the silence, "is the ability to use magic."
She took a step forward, her voice gentle but certain.
"With magic, you can do anything."
That did it.
I felt it immediately—the shift in Wanda. Her skepticism didn't vanish, but it fractured, curiosity bleeding through the cracks. Her eyes lingered where the orb had been, unfocused, as if she were seeing something that had always been just out of reach.
Magic.
I could practically hear the question forming in her mind.
"It will also awaken your potential," I said.
That part, at least, was entirely true. Capturing them would essentially grant them their own template—unlocking what already existed inside them and allowing it to surface naturally, without torture, without experimentation, without the Mind Stone tearing them apart first.
For Petra, that meant speed—true speed, the kind that bent perception and turned the world into something she could outrun
For Wanda, it meant chaos magic, raw and instinctive, answering to emotion and will rather than wires and restraints.
No HYDRA labs. No cages. No screaming scientists taking notes.
"For real?" Petra asked, eyes lighting up despite herself. The suspicion didn't vanish, but it cracked, excitement bleeding through the edges. "That is so cool."
"Quite," Natasha said smoothly, folding her arms as if this were the most reasonable offer in the world.
The sisters went quiet after that. They didn't speak, not a single word, but they didn't need to. They looked at each other, heads tilted just slightly, expressions shifting in subtle ways—anger, hope, fear, longing—passing back and forth in a rapid, silent exchange that only twins could manage. Years of shared loss and survival compressed into a few seconds of eye contact.
I could feel the moment stretching, fragile and decisive. If I hesitated now, doubt would creep back in. So I reached for the final piece.
"There is something else," I said, my voice lowering. "Regardless of what you decide, you deserve justice."
I drew a stack of files from my inventory and set them on the table between us. The paper looked ordinary, almost mundane, but the weight of what it contained was anything but. Tony had pulled them from Obadiah's private archives—records never meant to see daylight.
"Years ago, Obadiah Stane, the then CEO of Stark Industries, secretly sold weapons to a terrorist cell," I said. "At the time, Tony Stark wasn't in control of the company. He only learned the truth years later."
Both sisters snapped their attention back to me, the air in the room tightening instantly.
"You are defending that bastard!?" Petra snarled, fingers curling into fists, her body coiling like she might launch herself across the room.
I shook my head once, firmly.
"No," I said. "I am offering you the real culprit."
Wanda's eyes narrowed, sharp and searching. "What do you mean?"
I met her gaze and didn't look away.
"Dimitri Rascalov," I said. "The man who ordered the bombing that killed your parents. He's still alive." I let the words settle before finishing. "And I am offering you a chance for payback."
The silence that followed was heavy, almost suffocating. The sisters looked at each other again, but this time there was no excitement—only old pain, raw and unresolved. Grief etched into resentment. Anger sharpened by years of unanswered questions.
When they finally looked back at me, their expressions were hard, resolved.
I had my answer.
Chapter 13 – Payback
"He's here?" Petra asked, her voice tight.
"He is," I nodded.
I laid everything out for them after that. The documents, the transaction logs, the names scrubbed from public record but preserved in Obadiah's private files. Dates, locations, intermediaries. Proof that left no room for denial or comforting lies. I explained what Natasha had uncovered as well—how the weapons had changed hands, how the order had been given, how the strike that destroyed their home had never been random.
When I offered to take them to him, there was no dramatic pause, no hesitation, no debate between the sisters. Petra's jaw clenched. Wanda's hands tightened at her sides. That was answer enough.
We arrived in Latveria soon after.
I checked the political situation the moment we crossed the border, tension easing only slightly when the results came back. No armored monarch on the throne. No masked genius ruling from a castle of iron and arrogance. Victor von Doom was absent from this timeline—for now. He was one of the very few people on Earth I had no desire to encounter prematurely. I was confident I could protect us if it came to that, but confidence wasn't certainty, and I had no idea what the MCU's version of Doom might be capable of. Some questions were better left unanswered.
Dimitri Rascalov's home reflected exactly what Natasha's research suggested.
A single wooden cabin, weather-beaten and half-buried in snow, squatting in an isolated stretch of frozen countryside. No guards. No perimeter defenses. Just smoke curling faintly from a crooked chimney and footprints pressed into the ice, leading back and forth like the man still believed he could live an ordinary life.
I wasn't surprised.
Natasha's investigation had painted him clearly—not a mastermind, not a kingpin. Just a terrorist. A self-styled revolutionary who had once claimed to fight against the corruption of the Sokovian government. When the crackdowns came, most of his cell had been arrested, executed, or scattered to the wind. Dimitri had fled across borders and vanished into obscurity, trading ideology for survival.
What had angered the sisters most wasn't just that he had lived.
It was why he had done it.
He hadn't targeted officials. He hadn't struck military installations. He had bombed civilian neighborhoods—homes like theirs—because he believed ordinary Sokovians were complicit. Because they lived under the government instead of dying to overthrow it. Because, in his mind, their parents had deserved it.
They had been furious, the pain and grief laid bare in their eyes in a way that needed no words. The glance they shared was brief, but it carried years of loss, sleepless nights, and unanswered questions—and it promised a very painful future for Dimitri Rascalov. I felt no guilt about that. If anything, I was quietly satisfied to be the one enabling their revenge.
"Let's not waste any more time," Wanda said, her voice tight and controlled as she started toward the wooden cabin.
I followed a few steps behind, deliberately letting them take the lead. This was their moment. Their justice. I wouldn't steal it from them. I was here to make sure nothing went wrong, to intervene only if necessary—but the act itself, the reckoning, belonged to them.
Petra reached the door first and slammed her fist against it hard enough to rattle the frame. From the tension in her shoulders and the way she squared her stance, I could tell she was already gauging how much force it would take to break it down if no one answered fast enough.
"Who the hell is it?" a man's voice snapped from inside.
There was suspicion there. Fear, too. The kind of paranoia that never really fades once it takes root. Even after more than a decade in hiding, Dimitri Rascalov clearly slept with one eye open.
"Dimitri Rascalov!" Petra shouted, hammering on the door again. "Come out here, you bastard!"
I winced inwardly. He'd gone to ground under a false name; hearing his real one shouted like that was almost guaranteed to put him on edge. He was likely armed, cornered, and panicking.
So I stepped forward.
"Allow me," I said calmly, moving past the sisters before they could object.
I placed a hand on the door and gave it a light shove—nothing dramatic, just a casual application of force. The hinges tore free with a sharp crack, the door collapsing inward and slamming against the floorboards.
I barely had time to register the interior—a cramped room, a table, a half-packed bag—before the shotgun went off.
The blast hit me square in the chest, the thunderous report echoing through the cabin as pellets slammed into my coat with brutal force.
I rolled my eyes.
The pellets hadn't even slowed me down. In the same instant the echo of the gunshot was still bouncing off the walls, I moved—my body blurring as I crossed the space between us. One hand snapped out, wrenching the shotgun from the old man's grip before he could even register I was still standing. Metal screamed as I crushed the weapon in my fist, the barrel folding in on itself like cheap tin before I let the ruined mass drop to the floor.
Then I stepped aside.
I didn't say a word. I didn't need to.
The stunned man stood there frozen, mouth hanging open, eyes darting between me and the shattered remains of his gun. Whatever shock he felt at having fired point-blank and failed was nothing compared to what followed. I left him exactly where he was—exposed, defenseless, and directly in front of the sisters.
The adrenaline from the ambush, the sudden violence, the near brush with death—especially for Petra, who had been closest to the doorway—burned away in an instant. What replaced it was something far hotter. Rage. Old, festering, and finally given a face.
Dimitri Rascalov didn't look like the monster they'd carried in their nightmares.
He was pale and gaunt, shoulders hunched as if the weight of his own choices had bent him over time. His dark brown hair was thinning, retreating in uneven patches, and his tired blue eyes were wide now with naked fear. He looked small. Fragile. Just a bitter, insignificant old man who had once decided that other people's lives were expendable.
That didn't save him.
"You!" Wanda moved first, crossing the distance in a heartbeat. Her fist slammed into his face with a sharp crack, snapping his head sideways and sending him sprawling across the floor. "You're the one who killed them!"
He barely had time to gasp before Petra was on him, her boot driving hard into his stomach. The impact knocked the air from his lungs in a strangled wheeze, his body curling in on itself as he clawed uselessly at the floor.
"What the hell did they do to you!?" Petra demanded, her voice shaking with fury as she loomed over him.
"What?" Dimitri rasped, the word torn apart by shallow, panicked gasps as he struggled to breathe.
Petra didn't give him time to recover. She grabbed a fistful of his jacket, hauling the old man up with surprising strength before slamming him back against the cabin wall. The wood creaked under the impact, frost shaking loose from the beams above them.
"You killed our parents!" she shouted, her voice raw. Years of bottled grief and fury bled into every syllable.
Wanda stepped in beside her sister, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She wasn't as quick to strike, but the anger in her eyes was just as fierce—focused, burning, and deeply personal.
"They were innocent!" Wanda yelled. "They didn't do anything. And you killed them!"
Dimitri coughed, sucking in air in ragged bursts. Slowly, painfully, something seemed to click behind his frightened eyes. Recognition—or at least understanding—crept into his expression, and with it came bitterness sharp enough to cut.
"Your parents were just as guilty, girl!" he spat, venom replacing fear. "They all were. They put those rich corrupt fucks in power! They could have risen up, but it was too fucking comfortable to just keep their heads down!"
The words hung in the air like a slap.
Petra stiffened, her grip tightening, but it was Wanda who truly changed.
Her face darkened, the warmth draining from her expression as something cold and dangerous settled in its place. I felt it immediately—a subtle but undeniable shift in the air, like pressure building before a storm. My supernatural senses prickled as an unfamiliar presence stirred around her, wild and unshaped.
The lights overhead flickered, dimming and flaring erratically.
Dust trembled along the shelves.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I was about to witness the birth of the Scarlet Witch.
Wanda reached out slowly, almost hesitantly, her fingertips brushing against Dimitri's cheek.
The effect was immediate.
Crimson mist bled from her touch, seeping out like smoke made of blood and thought, curling around her fingers before sinking into the old man's skin. It wasn't violent—not at first—but it was unmistakably wrong, heavy with intent. I saw Petra freeze as she noticed it too, confusion briefly cutting through her fury as her eyes tracked the unnatural red haze.
Dimitri went deathly pale.
His pupils dilated, and his hands flew to his head as if he were trying to claw something out from inside his own skull.
"No," he whispered, horror dawning in his voice. "No. No—stop. Stop! Get away from me!"
His knees buckled. Tears welled in his eyes, then spilled over—thick, dark, streaked with red as blood leaked from his tear ducts. His breathing became frantic, shallow gasps tearing at his throat as his entire body began to tremble.
"Sister?" Petra asked, her voice uncertain now, the anger draining away as she took in the sight of him unraveling. "What did you do?"
Wanda didn't answer.
She stood there, eyes unfocused, her expression distant and eerily calm. The supernatural pressure around her continued to swell, rolling outward in uneven waves. In my senses, her presence refused to settle into anything stable—shifting, warping, changing from moment to moment. But beneath the instability, I could feel it clearly.
Power.
Ancient, raw, and profoundly chaotic.
"Please, stop!" Dimitri screamed, wrenching himself free from Petra's loosened grip. He collapsed onto the wooden floor, curling in on himself like a wounded animal. The shaking intensified, his limbs jerking violently as the convulsions took hold.
Petra stumbled back a step, eyes wide, fear finally overtaking rage. "What is going on?" she demanded.
I kept my gaze on Wanda, on the crimson energy still bleeding from her hand, on the storm gathering around her.
"Your sister," I said quietly, "is awakening her power."
Wanda twisted her wrist, the crimson mists responding instantly, flowing like obedient smoke around her hand.
Dimitri was ripped from the floor.
He rose into the air as if caught by an invisible fist, his body jerking violently as gravity lost all meaning. A scream tore from his throat—raw, animal, and utterly unrestrained—as Wanda clenched her fingers.
I heard the first snap.
His fingers broke one by one, the sound sharp and wet, bending backward at impossible angles. The scream fractured into ragged sobs as his arms followed, bones twisting, joints dislocating with sickening cracks. His legs went next, knees bending the wrong way, hips wrenching until the structure of his body simply failed to support itself.
Each snap echoed through the small cabin like a gunshot.
His screams died as his lungs emptied, his mouth still open in a silent plea as his chest spasmed uselessly for air. Wanda didn't stop. With every fracture, every grotesque contortion, I could feel it—her power swelling, stabilizing, sharpening. What had been chaotic and unfocused was rapidly becoming something terrifyingly deliberate.
Petra stood frozen, horror and awe battling across her face as she watched their parents' killer being torn apart without a single hand laid on him.
"Will she be okay?" she asked quietly, her voice trembling despite herself.
I didn't hesitate.
"She will be fine," I said.
Wanda clenched her fist one final time.
Dimitri dropped.
His body hit the floor in a boneless heap, the impact dull and final. There was no breath, no twitch, no lingering spark of life. Just a broken corpse bleeding into the warped wooden planks.
The pressure vanished all at once.
Wanda's presence collapsed inward, the crimson energy dissipating like mist burned away by sunlight. Her knees buckled, her body suddenly too heavy for her to hold up. Petra reacted instantly, catching her sister before she could fall, pulling her close as Wanda slumped unconscious in her arms.
Petra spared Dimitri's corpse one last look—cold, hateful, and utterly final—before turning to me.
"Take us home," she said hoarsely. "Please?"
"Of course," I replied.
As soon as they were close, Wanda breathing softly against Petra's shoulder, I released a controlled Wave of Destruction around us. The power rolled outward in a silent pulse, scouring the cabin clean—burning away lingering traces of Chaos Magic, erasing supernatural residue as if it had never existed.
Then I traced the familiar pattern beneath our feet.
The teleportation circle flared to life, light swallowing us whole.
And in an instant, we were gone.
"This place is amazing!" Petra said, spinning in a slow circle as she took it all in, eyes wide and shining. "There's a gym downstairs! A real one! And that TV—" she pointed emphatically toward the living room wall, "—that thing is bigger than our entire apartment back home!"
She laughed, the sound bright and almost disbelieving, before turning toward Wanda, who was standing more quietly near the window, still taking in the view of Manhattan stretching out below them.
"Sister!" Petra exclaimed, grabbing her by the arm. "We have a tub. A huge one. And it has a massage function!"
Wanda blinked, momentarily startled out of her thoughts, then let out a small, incredulous laugh as Petra dragged her toward the bathroom to demonstrate.
"I'm glad you're impressed," I said from my place on the couch, where Natasha was curled comfortably against my side, her head resting on my shoulder. There was a fond amusement in her expression as she watched the twins explore. "Because this is your home now."
Petra froze mid-step. Wanda turned slowly, both of them staring at me as if I'd just casually announced the sky was purple.
"Our… home?" Wanda repeated.
I nodded.
After Dimitri was dealt with, I'd left them in their Sokovian apartment with enough money to ensure they wouldn't have to worry about rent, food, or utilities for several years. It had been practical—giving them space to grieve, to process, to breathe—but it had also been a quiet nudge, a reminder that I could provide stability as easily as power. Then I'd teleported back to Manhattan and waited.
I gave them a full week.
When I returned, I half-expected Wanda's awakening—her first taste of real power, of something vast and frightening—to have made her wary. If anything, it had done the opposite. She was more curious, more eager, her questions sharper and more focused. Petra, for her part, hadn't even pretended to hesitate. The idea of being left behind while her sister stepped into something bigger clearly terrified her more than devils, magic, or servitude ever could.
They agreed.
They packed what little they owned that held sentimental value, said goodbye to the few friends they trusted enough to explain their sudden departure to, and stepped through the teleportation circle without looking back.
And now they were here.
Watching them react to the penthouse was almost surreal. The polished floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the quiet hum of climate control, the sheer space—it all hit them at once. They moved through the apartment like tourists in a foreign country, touching surfaces, opening doors, marveling at things I'd already begun to take for granted.
I couldn't really blame them.
Before the Company, before devils and magic and power, I'd never been rich enough to even imagine living like this. Watching the Maximoff twins lose their minds over heated floors and automated lights was a sharp reminder of just how far I'd come—and how far they were about to go.
"Here." Natasha said, lifting a hand as a pair of sleek black cards drifted through the air toward the twins, carried by a simple but precise telekinesis spell. "Those are for you. I'll take you shopping later for whatever you want."
Petra caught hers reflexively, already grinning, but Wanda hesitated before taking the card, staring at it as if it might vanish.
"Whatever we want?" Wanda asked slowly, testing the words like she wasn't sure they meant what they sounded like.
"There is no budget," Natasha replied gently, her tone calm and utterly sincere. "You can spend as much money as you want."
If anything, that stunned Wanda more than the casual use of magic. Her fingers tightened around the card, knuckles whitening.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "You've already given us so much. We don't want to seem greedy."
I laughed, unable to help myself.
"Trust me," I said, leaning forward slightly, "greed is one of the lesser sins you can embody as devils."
That earned me a startled look from Wanda and an amused snort from Petra.
"Besides," I continued, my tone softening, "you're my peerage. If I can't even provide for you, then I've failed as your king."
I met Wanda's eyes and smiled, letting the words carry their weight.
"Whatever you want—if it's within my power to give—it's yours."
That seemed to finally sink in. Wanda swallowed, her expression a complicated mix of gratitude, disbelief, and something dangerously close to hope.
Then I stood.
"Speaking of which," I said, straightening, "it's about time I reincarnate you two. Are you ready?"
Petra didn't even let Wanda answer.
"Me first!" she said, practically bouncing as she darted past her sister and planted herself directly in front of me, hands on her hips and eyes bright with excitement.
Wanda opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again, shaking her head in fond exasperation.
"I feel like you aren't appreciating the gravity of the situation," I chuckled.
Petra just grinned wider.
I willed the Knight piece into my hand. It appeared above my palm, a small crimson chess piece radiating infernal power, slowly rotating as if suspended in water. I let it hover there for a moment, giving Petra time to back out.
She didn't.
Pressing the piece against her chest, I felt the familiar resistance give way as it sank into her flesh, dissolving into light.
Petra gasped sharply, arching as power flooded her body. A heartbeat later, a pair of bat-like wings tore free from her back in a burst of crimson energy, unfurling with a wet, leathery sound before settling.
She blinked, twisted awkwardly to look over her shoulder, then reached back to poke one experimentally.
"Cool," she said, utterly unimpressed by her own demonic transformation.
Then she paused, her grin faltering as something unfamiliar settled into her bones. Experiences that weren't hers yet—instincts, muscle memory, reflexes sharpened beyond human limits—clicked into place all at once. Her posture shifted subtly, like her body had learned a new language without asking permission.
A heartbeat later she vanished.
The air cracked softly as Petra ran, laughter echoing behind her as she crossed the entire apartment in the space of a single breath. One moment she was in front of me, the next she was at the far wall, then gone again, a blur of motion that barely disturbed the furniture she flashed past.
I felt my eyebrows rise despite myself. Even as I was now, even with everything the Company and the Evil Pieces had given me, matching that speed would have been difficult. And that was before accounting for what I knew was coming—this was just the Knight's initial boost. Petra's true speed, the one that belonged to her, would only continue to grow from here.
"Petra!" Wanda chided, her voice sharp with reflexive worry, just as a loud clatter echoed from the direction of the kitchen, followed by the unmistakable sound of something hitting the floor and shattering.
A moment later Petra reappeared, sheepish but still buzzing with energy.
"It's fine," I said easily, waving it off. "Come on. It's your turn."
Wanda didn't move right away.
She stood there, fingers curling into the fabric of her dress, eyes flicking briefly to Petra's wings, then to me, then to Natasha. The excitement she'd shown earlier had dimmed, replaced by something quieter and more fragile.
She hesitated.
"You don't have to force yourself to do anything, Wanda," I said gently. "If you want to stop, you can."
It wasn't entirely the truth—I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be angry if she backed out at the last possible moment—but I wouldn't force her.
"It's not that," she said, shaking her head. "It's just… things are changing so fast."
Her voice was steady, but there was an undercurrent of uncertainty beneath it. Fear, not of me, but of the sheer momentum of her life suddenly accelerating beyond anything familiar.
"I get it," Natasha said softly, shifting closer. "I felt the same way when I was reincarnated."
She reached out, resting a hand lightly on Wanda's arm, grounding without pushing.
"But you don't have to worry," Natasha continued. "We'll be here. All of us. We'll help you through the change."
Wanda looked at her, really looked at her, and slowly nodded.
I started to repeat the process, summoning the Bishop this time. The piece shimmered into existence above my palm, its presence heavier than the Knight had been, more deliberate. Wanda drew in a slow breath, then another, visibly forcing herself to relax as I stepped closer and went to press the piece against her chest.
Only I was met with resistance.
Not physical—there was no barrier, no force pushing back—but something deeper. A pressure, subtle yet unmistakable, like two currents grinding against each other instead of flowing together.
I froze.
"What?" Wanda asked immediately, her voice tight. Petra was at her side in an instant, wings twitching as she leaned forward, concern written plainly across her face.
"One moment," I said, keeping my tone calm despite the sudden knot forming in my gut.
I pulled the Bishop back slightly and focused on the sensation, turning my attention inward. The Evil Pieces were as familiar to me as my own heartbeat, their rules etched into my soul along with Millicas's knowledge. They were based on the DxD system, with all the same benefits and limitations. The only real deviation was the binding layered on top—my set didn't just reincarnate, it captured, tying those I reincarnated to me in a way Ajuka's creations never did.
So if something was wrong, it wasn't because my set was defective.
As far as restrictions went, there were only two that truly mattered.
The first was that Evil Pieces couldn't reincarnate gods. Even that rule was… flexible. Half-gods like Rossweisse slipped through just fine, and given how wildly different "gods" could be across universes, the line was blurry at best. I was almost certain that wasn't the issue here.
Which left the second restriction.
A King couldn't reincarnate someone too powerful.
I frowned slightly, turning the thought over. The Pieces could sense potential—raw, unrealized power—and compare it against the King's current strength. If the gap was too wide, reincarnation would require more Pieces than normal… or be outright impossible.
That rule had never worried me.
Soul Talent ensured my growth was explosive, and the Power Stone had shoved me several tiers higher in one brutal leap. I was a solid ultimate-class devil now, and not a weak one. Rias had been a high-class devil when she reincarnated Issei, and while I had no love for the guy, even I had to admit that the Boosted Gear represented absurd, world-shaking potential.
Compared to that, Wanda shouldn't have been a problem.
Hell, compared to Rias at the start of DxD, I was in a completely different league. I was stronger, faster, more versatile. I was fairly sure that if I went all out, I could beat Sairaorg—someone universally acknowledged as the strongest of the young devils.
And yet.
The Bishop resisted.
Not violently. Not rejecting me outright. Just… refusing to settle, like it was brushing up against something vast and unstable, something that didn't fit cleanly into the shape it was meant to take.
Wanda had too much potential.
In hindsight, it should have been obvious. She wasn't just another enhanced human or latent mage waiting for a spark. She was the Scarlet Witch—the wielder of Chaos Magic. The only Avenger powerful enough to shatter the Mind Stone in the movies. And even if she hadn't outright destroyed it, the fact that she could damage an Infinity Stone at all was proof enough of just how absurd her ceiling truly was.
Infinity Stones weren't just powerful artifacts. They were foundational. Concepts given form. Touching one, let alone harming it, was something entire civilizations and pantheons couldn't even dream of. And Wanda had done it while still fumbling through her own abilities.
And that hadn't been the end of it.
Her power hadn't plateaued there. If anything, it had only accelerated. I hadn't watched WandaVision all the way through, but I'd seen enough clips, enough discussions, enough raw displays of power to understand the scale of what she became. A hex that warped reality across an entire city. People rewritten. Physics bent. Causality treated as a suggestion.
That wasn't just potential.
That was a walking natural disaster waiting for the right emotional trigger.
Slowly, carefully, I summoned my second Bishop. The piece materialized beside the first, identical in form but resonating on a slightly different frequency, like two notes that only harmonized when played together.
Almost immediately, the resistance vanished.
The pressure I'd felt before dissolved, replaced by a smooth, eager pull. I could sense it clearly now—if I wanted to, it would only take a single thought to merge the two pieces and reincarnate Wanda. The pieces had recalculated, adjusted, and decided that this was sufficient.
Two Evil Pieces.
Two of my Bishops.
I didn't miss the implication.
Bishops were the pieces best suited for magic. Not just spellcasting, but conceptual manipulation—rituals, reality alteration, the kind of abilities that, depending on the universe, could do almost anything. Losing one was already significant. Losing two, especially both of my magic-specialized pieces, was a steep, permanent investment.
I hesitated.
My gaze moved to Wanda, standing there with her hands clasped together, trying to look brave despite the nervous tension rolling off her in waves. To Petra, hovering close, wings half-spread, ready to intervene if anything went wrong. To Natasha, calm and steady, her presence a quiet anchor behind me, offering support without pressure.
If I hadn't already reincarnated Petra, I might have made a different choice.
But it was too late for second-guessing. I had made my path, piece by piece, and I wasn't about to walk it halfway.
I closed my fingers around both Bishops.
The decision settled in my chest, heavy but resolute.
I could only hope Wanda Maximoff was worth the investment.
Both Bishops merged, sliding into Wanda's chest just as effortlessly as the Knight had into her sister's.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Then the power hit.
It rolled outward from Wanda in a heavy, pressurized wave, filling the apartment with a palpable force that made the air feel thick and electric. It wasn't quite as overwhelming as my own presence when I stopped holding back, but it was close enough to make my instincts flare. The sensation reminded me sharply of the cabin in Latveria—of that moment when Chaos Magic had first bared its teeth—but now it was threaded through with something unmistakable.
The demonic taint.
The same underlying resonance I felt in Natasha. The same newly awakened signature in Petra. Wanda's power wasn't just awakening—it was being claimed, woven into the structure of devilkind and anchored by the Evil Pieces now embedded in her soul.
I saw Natasha tense beside me, subtle enough that most people would have missed it. Her shoulders stiffened, her breathing changed just slightly. Her supernatural senses weren't as refined as mine yet, but they were more than sharp enough to feel Wanda's presence spike so suddenly. She didn't reach for a weapon or a spell—she trusted me—but she was ready.
Petra, on the other hand, noticed none of it.
Her entire focus was on her sister. She stood close, hands half-raised, eyes wide with concern, prepared to catch Wanda if she stumbled or to lash out at anything that threatened her. For all her newfound speed and power, she was still, at heart, an overprotective younger sister.
Wanda gasped.
From her back, wings burst forth—bat-like and demonic in shape, but suffused with a faint crimson sheen that made them look almost unreal, as if they were half-formed from magic rather than flesh. They twitched once, then again, reacting to sensations she had never experienced before.
Her eyes snapped open.
For an instant, I could see it clearly—the glow of Chaos Magic burning behind her pupils, red and volatile, wild and ancient. Power spilled off her in uncontrolled ripples, warping the ambient magic in the room and making the lights flicker in protest.
Then something shifted.
The template took hold.
I felt it happen rather than saw it—a subtle locking-in, like a key sliding into place. Wanda's breathing steadied. The chaotic surge smoothed out, no longer leaking into the environment. The glow behind her eyes dimmed, not vanishing but settling, contained. She hadn't consciously done it, not really. Her instincts had simply known what to do.
Control, born not of training, but of nature.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Any lingering doubt I had evaporated, replaced by a quiet, fierce satisfaction. Whatever the cost, whatever the risk, this had been the right decision.
I stepped forward, smiling, spreading my arms to encompass all three of them.
"Congratulations, Wanda. Petra." I said, my voice warm and certain. "Welcome to the family."