ALERT

The druid had a look of intense contemplation on his face as he surveyed his witch partner. While his glamour had erased any trace of inhuman appearance on him, his partner's work was burdened by vanity. She would immediately be picked out as "not of this world" when they arrived in the lost city of Hopewell, life encapsulated in the year 1813.

"Okay, not my fault that imps are so good at glamours though," Felle argued, rolling her deep black satin eyes so far back into her skull they nearly got stuck. Her hair was still long, curled, and silky, an artificial chestnut with perfectly placed golden highlights throughout. Kindred could almost swear he could still see the glint of her nose piercing at certain angles, as well. It would have been easier just to take it out.

"You know very well that I am not an imp. Anyway, we learned the magic from your kind, witch. It is you alone who is bad at it. I do have to say, though, that I can't find the surgery scars. The humans did a great job on you." The brunette's cheeks burned red with anger. The hairs on Kindred's arms stood up on end as Felle's magic began to pulse around her. He sighed with irritation. She should have learned years ago to control her emotions, and therefore her powers, but she'd been resistant to the Society's tutelage ever since they found her.

"Kindred, you absolute cuck of a druid, you know good and God damn well that I'm a 17-year-old with no legal guardian. How would I have gotten plastic surgery?"

"You're crafty when you want to be. Either way, we need to do something about it. For one, human women were not six feet tall in the 1800's. That alone will terrify them. We can hide the rest of you with the right wardrobe, I guess, but it's giving Great Value Kim K and I need it to give Pride and Prejudice Kiera Knightley."

Felle's magic crackled and swirled, a fearsome orange that swelled out of her with intensity like fire. "If those ass-backward witch bitches don't kill your stupid ass, I-"

The door to the transition chamber slammed open with a frustrated boom as the director stormed in. Kindred and Felle's naked bodies became suddenly rigid and obedient. Philomena was small but powerful and easily incited fear in her subjects when she needed to do so. Born to descendants of each of the most powerful New Orleans covens and vampiric lineages, she was the first Impure and witch to head Plena Aurum since its conception. She was pushing 300 years old but hardly looked 25. Felle had asked many times for her skincare routine with no success. It goes without saying that the combination of might witch and immortal vampire blood did wonders for the complexion.

"I have, not once in my career, seen a pair of idiots such as the two of you. You've wasted over an hour of mine and the pantheon's time, now, and it is imperative that you get your shit together and get on to your mission. We selected the two of you for a reason, but if you're going to spend the entire time bickering, you will not be making it out of Hopewell alive."

"Yes, Directress," they answered together. The halfling stopped in the center of the room and commanded her hands to the sky. Felle's aura calmed and her skin began to tingle. After a few moments, a mirror was summoned before her. Kindred had grown nearly a foot, and she a foot shorter. She hardly recognized herself but for the star-shaped birthmark upon her cheek. She and Kindred almost looked like twins.

Two trunks slid to each of their sides, atop which sat one outfit. Felle only dressed because a woman with the ability to flick a finger and shatter her into a million pieces stood watching. The dress was from the very early 1800's, shapeless, and plain. The color was so bland she could hardly call it a color at all. She had been hoping she would be wearing something more extravagant like the styles she'd seen on Hulu. It nearly burned her skin to don something so out-of-season.

"The remainder of your clothing is in here, along with pouches of money and journals that will act as your communication with us and ours with you. These will also contain all of the information you did not pay attention to in any of your briefings, Felle. Philomena crossed her arms over the Plena Aurum crest hanging from her neck and glared into Felle's very soul. It was the younger witch, her talented but problematic prodigy, whom she was most worried about. For just a moment, her brow betrayed her true concern. The directress had already sent so many children off to their deaths, and was inherently against exploiting the orphaned and forgotten supernatural children at her school for cheap military labor. But Plena did what they must for the greater good.

"You need to go now, but listen closely. You were selected for this mission because of your previous success on individual missions. The pantheon has expressed their concern with my choice to pair you up. You will have to learn to work together, or you will not be returning alive. There is a contact there already who will assist you in assimilating. Watch each other's backs. Do not make me look like a fool."

Felle and Kindred nodded. The former felt a knot form and tighten in the pit of her stomach. She was close to aging out of the society, and in just a few years would have been eligible to return to a free life - one where no one would be relying on her and she would only need to think of herself. But she would need to be alive to do that. She'd never quite fit in with her peers, who were hopelessly devoted to accomplishing as much as they could in what they considered much too brief a time to serve the pantheon. To them, she was too vain, too careless, and too human. Her teachers and mentors had seen great power and potential in her, but the problem had always been that she was not willing to use it.

"Are you ready?"

The pair nodded, and with a loud snap and an overwhelming cloud of darkness, their surroundings disappeared and their old lives were no more.

"Kindred, did she say anything about where we're meant to live?"