Greta slid through the sewers, she hated coming out here so much. It wasn't like the surface, where there was fresh air and the bright open sky, and it wasn't home either. Father at least kept the den well cleaned, some of the less intelligent of her kin might have made messes, but he made sure they cleaned them up. The sewers though were filled with filth.

  As she moved her glasses slid through lenses, moved and flipped by a slight expenditure of her will. Each was special, each suited for the purpose for which it was made. She'd been using some that enhanced her night vision, but now something more was needed. This time she needed her most amazing lens.

  The crystal she'd acquired from that shop had been so interesting, how oddly it glowed. Even Father had liked it, had remarked on how it seemed to react not to light but heat. Whoever had put it in the shop had clearly not known just how it could be put to use, but she'd figured it out, and now it added to her arsenal.

  “Quiet, slow,” she told the three others who were following her, among the smarter of her burrow.

  Unsurprisingly her change in lens had shown her that one of the tunnels was hotter, there'd been a smell of burning but this confirmed it, someone was fighting down here. Their fight had been close, close enough that the stones were still warmed from the passing, close enough to follow. Brilliant spots in her vision spoke to flames licking the wall, possible to follow by smell perhaps, or the soot stains, but so much easier with her invention.

  As one the four of them slinked down the tunnel, watching corners and chasing what was down here. The hunters, possibly human, possibly not, had been a problem a real one. Local humans were bad at finding their foraging teams, but these hunters had chased them down, causing many deaths and more injuries, even big brother Sigmund had taken a blow from them, though survived to tell the tale.

  “Greta, we need to hunt their hunters, as the cleverest of my children find them, destroy them,” that was what Father had said, and so she would, nothing else to it.

  Could he have done it himself? Certainly, and he had taken one of the teams out, but he had other things to do, important things. It was also good to let the young build themselves up, grow stronger to strengthen the burrow as a whole.

  She put those thoughts to the side as the sounds of battle began to echo through the sewers, the woosh of spells and the loud reports of guns appearing faintly at first, but growing rapidly in volume and intensity as they moved. Whoever was fighting they were near, very near. Comparing a mental map of this part of the undercity with the signs of fighting she'd seen led to a conclusion about where they'd gone.

  The cadre of hunters sidled up laying on a lip that overlooked a drop into a huge holding and distribution tank led to the battleground. She'd studied the build of it a couple years ago, a rather clever bit of architecture that served several purposes in making the whole city's wastewater system far more efficient.

  “Capture, don't kill, we need to interrogate them!” one of the fighters said, a huge man in a dark uniform before he threw another fire spell.

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  It was four on ten, unfortunately the four all had power while the ten had only two individuals with the blessing of magic. Normally that powerful tool would against even such odds but there was a change, the larger group had new weapons.

  A trill ran up Greta's spine as she saw them, works just like that boy had had, beautiful mechanisms spitting fire and death. Father had been injured by one of these but she'd as of yet failed to get a proper look, oh how she wanted a proper look. The massive increase in firepower was evening this playing field so well, how she wanted one.

  While she looked on several of the uniformed enemies fell to those she was hunting. At the same time, the four had been reduced to two, bullets shredding a pair of their companions to ribbons. The leader, the one talking kept shouting, kept commanding, until two went down to one, and finally the last fell to the ground, body broken and bleeding.

  As the uniformed men tried to check for signs of life, finding one of their enemies still breathing and beginning to patch him up something pressed the outside of Greta's leg. One of the three she'd brought with her, Gar, her favorite among the males in the nest, had gotten against her. That wasn't unusual, in such small confines contact was constant, but what wasn't was his position. His member was poking her leg, arm even snaking near hers.

  She let out a harsh but low hiss, warning him off. There was a time and place for flirting, and this wasn't it at all. Smarter than most of her kind perhaps, but still a male, still enamored with lust. That was fine, good even, but so was stealth, which they needed presently. Our of the side of her vision though she watched him, he was studying her, watching where she was, seeing what she saw.

  The uniformed men finished, hauling the living and the dead quickly to another tunnel, one which led to the surface after a cursory search around the pit they'd been fighting in, not that they could find anything in the muck. After giving them a minute to fully vacate she looked at the males.

  “Follow behind them, go quiet, I return to tell Father of this.” It was best to keep her statements short and sweet just in case they were difficult for the others to understand. They all offered affirmatives and she slipped away back to the nest.

  She did just that, going back to report that the humans were fighting one another, an odd thing to happen.

  “No, humans fight one another more than anything else,” Father corrected her when she told him as much. “Are more of the hunters around?”

  “No sign of them Father,” she replied.

  “Good girl, make sure the rest of the team has returned and your task is complete.” He even patted her head when he spoke. “I knew I could trust you.”

  She bounded to the opening of the nest to check, finding her sister on guard.

  “They're back,” Sasha told her from the front door with a horrid smile playing on her lips.

  “Why are you smiling,” she asked the other girl.

  “Hehe, you'll see.”

  With a sigh she left to wash and go rest, it had been a long day after all. There was even a little soap, stolen from somewhere or other. Father used it, so she used it too, as did some of the others who were more clever. Too many ignored it though, washing only with cold water from a small pipe.

  Greta returned to her own personal space, a carved out hollow near the center where Father lived. As a female and one of his favorites she'd gotten a prime location. She wasn't surprised to find Gar standing there holding something, however she was when she smelled him, he too it seemed had washed while she reported to Father.

  “Gar,” she said cold, his antics earlier not amusing her at all.

  “You wanted this right? I bring it to you.” He held out his hand revealing one of the weapons, it too well cleaned. “One of the soldiers dropped it.”

  She registered his grammar being imperfect, but that gift was. Gifts she got, more and more as she grew older. The males of the nest brought her food, or shiny things, or whatever they liked. They also liked to do as he had and get almost upon her, or make big shows of their power, physical or otherwise, to get her attention. Frankly it was a bit tiresome and stupid.

  What none of them had ever done though, was try to figure out what she wanted. They thought of themselves, brought her things they liked, but Gar had brought to her something he thought she'd like; the difference was night and day. She loved her sister for how her sister thought about things, and now Gar was thinking too, thinking about her.

  “It is beautiful,” she said, taking it carefully from his hands before turning to her door. It was a curtain, she'd seen the humans doing it and liked the idea, so she used the same thing to separate off her space from others.

  She stopped as she crossed inside, looking back through the curtain. Gar stood there, looking a bit dejected that she'd taken the item and said little else. Before he turned to leave though, she spoke again.

  “Coming inside?” After all, the little gun wasn't the true gift he'd brought her, he'd brought her consideration, something far more valuable than a trinket.