Four months later…

"Stand back!"

She wrenches open the thick steel door with a wry face and a gripping motion at the air, as he just heaves a sigh and follows behind shrugging and rolling his eyes.

"Genuinely Evangeline, do you need to do that every time? You could knock."

"Where's the fun in that, Gaeli?" she tosses her sleek hair behind her shoulder and flashes a smirk. "When you have power, you use it."

He sighs again, the woman is more than exasperating. Nearly a year he has followed her every move, shadowing the groups leader as she plotted her way around Norta.

"Let's just get this over with then. Jon still freaks the hell out of me."

It had all started for Gaeli not too long ago, but seems more like an eternity. It had began with Jon. The grey man who whipped into his life and turned it upside down.

'Get on the next boat to the Far Western Kingdoms' the red eyed man had urged, showing up out of the blue one day. He had promised an adventure with a lifetimes worth of excitement, talking about meeting Kings and Queens and overthrowing governments - but Gaeli hadn't been interested.

The moment he'd promised Gaeli with an outstretched hand that the answer to living with his 'abilities' lay on the other side of the great sea though however hadn't been able to get the idea out of his head. He'd fought with who he was for as long as he could remember, and had few friends left in the world because of it.

'There'll be no one to miss you when you go…' the voice in his head murmured, and he'd listened to it.

"Close that will you, dear." Evangeline's sharp voice rings him back from his thoughts with a jolt and he flicks his arm to roughly close the metal door back in place. Maybe she's right, brute force is fun sometimes. He quashes a smile before it really forms.

The door leads them down a dark corridor, stone walls crumbling at the sides as the damp earth around them creeps through the brickwork. It's a bunker built low in the side of a hill in the Marsh Coast, he hates that covert meetings are always in dank, dark places.

The boat had been a dark, dank place too. Nearly a month on end hiding in the hull of a great clunking cargo ship, cowering together with the other people who'd foolishly paid for this dingy transport across the sea. He nearly thought he'd never survive it, feeling violently seasick day after day made him contemplate just giving up and leaping to his death over the side. He'd been saved when another passenger crept through the darkness and laid warm healing hands over his face. He'd been surprised by the power he'd felt coursing through the strong digits.

That had been Jarrod, the other Ingot who started out on Albion, but further North in the cold wastes of Scotia. They'd realised they both had abilities and bonded from then, sharing stories about how they'd both had visits from the Grey one, telling them to get on this ship and join a great war.

At first Gaeli was sad he wasn't special, wasn't the only one with this great soothsayer leading him to promised glory, but then he realised he was more glad of the company. That and a man who could heal your wounds was the best travelling companion you could ask for.

Absentmindedly he nervously pulls his hood down, he looks over to Evangeline, striding in front of him.

"Do you still have the gold?" Evangeline tuts and beckons him to pass the small pouch, hand outstretched.

"Of course I bloody do…Dear." She scowls and then breaks into a sharp laugh. Travelling so much together they've developed this funny sort of bond, but that's a whole other story. He feels like he sees a side of Evangeline no one else does, that's probably just wishful thinking though.

They walk through another archway, its littered with branches worming their way from the earth outside, great thick mangrove trunks twisting outstretched tendrils. Gaeli feels a shiver as he catches sight of the Grey one, looking up and staring with those scarlet eyes. He'll swears he'll never get used to them.

"Jon." They say as they enter. The room is empty spare a rusty table and some mismatched rickety chairs and stools.

The man nods as they approach and gives an unsettling smile as Evangeline lays the coin purse down on the table.

"Good. As soon as I put that where it is needed, things will change again. Better."

Couldn't make that any more vague could you Jon? Gaeli thinks to himself darkly. They'd been doing this for months. Transfers of information for whatever commodities Jon wants in advance. Evangeline doesn't like to hear it but Gaeli thinks he is definitely the man in charge, playing the whole game himself and making every player in this war dance to his tune. "When he says don't attack, we don't attack!" He'd reminded her once, "Seems like there is no other option but listening to Jon."

Gaeli likes to wonder what the other factions are up to, who receives the gold or the guns or one time even the barrels of Delphie wine. Maybe not just things, maybe Jon moves people too, moved like commodities like he was. Maybe someone else has abilities like he does?

Standing in the same room as Jon he feels that "freaked out feeling" because he has the conflicting tear of wishing to run away as fast as he can from his presence, or rip off a glove and touch his palm to the pale ghostly man's skin.
Long ago when Jon had shook his hand that first meeting he'd seen a glimpse of his own future, pictures of the present and even some very jumbled up pieces of Jon's past. Only directly seeing a mere second and he marvelled at what must be going on in Jon's mind. He'd not been able to loose parts of the images for days, and they'd been intoxicating. It was like a bright, glossy screened advert but straight into his mind, flashes of of him standing in ranks in an army, flickers of him bedding a beautiful woman, diving headfirst from planes and throwing great mountains of metal through the air. But then the images were quickly gone.

It is this, his gift, this curse that makes Gaeli both the most and the least powerful person he always thinks to himself. He is a conduit for power, an absorber of consciousness and abilities through skin to skin contact but only for a brief time. When he touched Jon he received a lesser glimpse into the Eye's visions and they subsided, the same is true every time he touches Evangeline. A few days of slightly weakened metal manipulation and it too subsides. In people without abilities, Reds, he is amused they call themselves here, he only feels their feelings. Imagine merely touching someone who is suffering intense grief and feeling down for days? This is why Gaeli never liked people, they affected him to much.

Evangeline pulls a chair out from the table and sits down, long legs crossing as she leans over to the grey figure. "What've you got for me then?" she purrs. She's confident, and fierce, and violent. When Gaeli brushes a touch over her skin though he feels something different sometimes, a weakness in all the bravado and the bitterness, like she's not that sure what's she's doing sometimes. He'd never utter it out loud though, then she probably would kill him.

Jon sits down too then, barely leaning back and never breaking eye contact as he lowers himself down to the rickety stool across from the silver haired woman.

"I can tell you, as I keep telling you, that now is not the time to approach the firebrands with any deals. Either of them. One is consumed with drunken rage, burning down every state with as much dark fire as the kingdoms have ever seen, and the other is slowly going a little more mad with each passing day. I'll leave you to decide which is which," He almost smiles at his mysteries, at least Gaeli sees a twitch at the corner of his mouth. "You could say they certainly take after their parents."

Evangeline starts to tap her long painted nails dismissively on the table, she hates these vagaries and is only really pleased when Jon gives her useful specific details. Map points, dates, meetings.

"What use will they be soon then? Either no longer a worthy leader or driven insane? I have the girl as leverage. I can use her to make the Guard work with me now" she pauses and Gaeli knows when Evangeline says 'work with' she really means' work for'.

"Or I could escape my contract with the crown and get more power in the city." She looks up at Gaeli as she mentions the contract and he nods.

She is betrothed to the King still, even though he holds no interest in her whatsoever, but she must retain appearances and travel back to Archeon and stay within the palace walls every few weeks. What Maven has been up to she wants to distance herself from the crown. Appearances must be kept though, so he must have no idea she is plotting against him until she holds enough power to reveal her plot. Evangeline thinks this is now, but Jon tells her every time to wait.

In truth, Gaeli hates seeing her leave every time she takes off the Ingots uniform and steps back into an ornate dress. Partly because this leaves him in charge, another Magnetron to tug at the recruits who are still collared. No one else but Jarrod knows he isn't just a magnetron. Evangeline likes playing all her cards close to her chest.

"Not yet." Jon remarks quietly.

"Not yet?" she slams her fist to the table and the rusty legs on every chair and shake a little. "Not yet is all you give me? What else do you have for me? What else can you do for me than riddles and silly gossip I could have found out from my palace spies?" She has been starting to get a shorter and shorter temper the longer Gaeli has known her, fraying at the edges with stress he thinks to himself.

Jon is quietly displeased with her outburst, Gaeli feels flickers of anger without even touching him. "What haven't I done for you? I could call you ungrateful if I even cared about such things. I was there when the Lightening girl was unveiled to the world in chains. Standing near you, I put her there, I told you to tell Maven exactly where they would be, did I not? I told you he would have her briefly trapped within the King's cage and then you would have her but you just had to wait."

He stands up and pushes the pouch of gold into his jacket.

"So now you have exactly what you want, she seems to be fitting in nicely… almost, and still you haven't the patience to wait again?" Pointing slowly to the exit behind them he turns on his heel and quickly disappears down a dark corridor to another entrance. Evangeline huffs and with a motion slams the door shut behind him as he leaves, almost petulantly. Standing up and turning around on her heels she closes her hand into a fist and the table crumples into a pile of metal scraps.

Gaeli resits the urge to try to unravel it out. "Why'd he leave so quick then, you think? Never seen him storm off, you've said worse things to him."

She straightens up and dusts herself off, the scowl slowly replaced by a smirk. "He obviously knew what was coming, didn't want to stay to see it probably."

"What's that then? Your tempter tantrum?" he starts to get her point as she pushes, half shoves him, down into the chair.

"No." There's a loud zipping noise as she pulls the toggle of his suit down. He pushes his hair back from his face, the silver white patch is growing by the day. The more he touches her skin, the more obvious it becomes and he worries it'll start to get conspicuous exactly what they've been up to.

"He didn't give me what I want. So you will." The smirk almost curves into a proper smile as she starts rolling down his gloves. He makes a move to pull her hair out of its tight tail.

He finds her a very beautiful woman.

A/N Well forgive me! I took a long time, four months really ;-) to be hit again by some ideas, some inspiration - but I'm not feeling very sure about it!

I'm going to try to shake things about a bit and alternate chapters both with both Mare's and Cal's POV and other characters to fill in info like Gaeli here from the second (or is it 3rd?) person. See the new command structure at the Scarlet guard, introduce the Ingots some more, lots of Cal & Maven angst now they still think Mare is dead!

If things are confusing… or you like them… or it's not very good! or well any thing!

Reviews, comments, questions, message me , follow, poke me! You get the picture :) feedback gives me the warm fluffies to write more.

C x

Note to a Note: If Naercey is post apocalyptic NYC then Alba is the UK and Scotia (if you caught some accent in the previous chapter!) is Scotland. I figured I could draw people further than just Norta. t! I'll expand into what's happening over there too… maybe :)