M:   "I'm trusting you with sensitive information Iremacht, do not make me regret it," Poldara said, when the line went dead he hung up too, rubbing his face in exasperation.

"Well," a familiar voice said, "what did he say?"

Poldara glared at his cousin, "he said he'll take his people out of Belarus, but you infiltrating his bases isn't helping anyone."

"It's helped me out plenty," Zalia scoffed, "I know things that he's not telling you, the real reason why he wants those files. For now, I will respect his decision to keep it a secret, I'm sure in due time he'll let you know."

"How comforting," the special entity sighed, "you criminals always stick together, don't you. I don't have time for all of this, Pops wants my help in salvaging anything we can from his facility that your friend blew up. I'll need you to look after Adira while I do that, oh, and are you free next week, Machty and I are having our monthly lunch together."

"Actually I don't think I can," Zalia informed him, "China invited me to a business lunch that day too, guess you'll just have to let Machty finally meet your daughter."

———

Prudoria smiled proudly as he got off TU, "thank you, I've learned that you can't play by the rules if you want to win, the humans were very adamant about that."

He helped TU up and they both headed to the infirmary. On the way there, they passed a window that had a robin sitting in a tree, it flew away as they passed but Prudoria followed it with his eyes.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly," he asked, "I've dreamt about it for as long as I can remember, why do I have wings if I don't know how to fly?"

L:   "You don't know HOW to fly?" TU exclaimed. He waved at Prudoria's wings. "I thought you just COULDN'T fly right now. The humans never let you fly?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Seems kinda pointless of them to create a King Wing who can't fly."

They arrived at the infirmary and the nurses wrapped up their scrapes and scratches. TU tapped his chin in thought as they left the infirmary for the kitchen.

"You know, we technically have 'friends' with wings who can teach you how to fly," he said. "But sometimes ... eh, well, sometimes we don't know if they can be trusted. Depends on Iremacht's relationship with them at the moment. We'll have to ask him when he gets back."

Schwitzy had the table loaded with food when they arrived and was finishing her second cup of coffee. She watched them from over the rim of the mug, silently asking how things went.

M:   "I would like that," Prudoria smiled, "I also don't know why they wouldn't let me fly yet, it was probably because they were afraid I would try to escape sooner, they probably wanted to have better control over me before I would be allowed to learn."

 When the two arrived at the dining room and Prudoria saw Schwitzy he scowled at her, he wasn't going to let her scare him anymore and made sure she knew that.

"You should have stuck around Schwitzy, I just handed TU his ass while dueling," he eventually said, trying to be a little friendlier, "I tricked him into thinking we concluded a draw then attacked him while he had his back turned. I must say that I'm quite proud I was able to pull that off, I would have thought he would not be fooled by such things since he's a criminal, right buddy?"

L:   "So you used cheap tricks," said Schwitzy evenly, before TU could answer. "Then you didn't win. You haven't proved anything besides you know how to cheat like a coward."

"Oh come on, Schwitzy, our line of work literally plays dirty and you know it," said TU, plopping into a chair and eyeing all the mouth-watering food. "We win all the time because of it -"

"I didn't say we weren't cowards. And we have never won."

TU frowned at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Schwitzy sat down with a tired sigh. "Despite all the so-called accomplishments we've made, it always leads to more problems. We've made no friends all this time. We have no allies. We don't even have our families. We're blinded by the victories of puny skirmishes to the fact that we're losing the war."

 TU didn't know what to say back and simply stared at his plate. He only moved to serve himself food when Schwitzy started eating first.

M:   Prudoria growled at Schwitzy's pessimism, "you are such a fucking buzzkill, and honestly, everything you said pails in comparison to my shitty existence, you may not HAVE your families, but at least you ARE family, I'm just a Frankenstein abomination stitched together from people who never should have been together. So what if your losing, be happy with what you've succeeded, otherwise your pessimism is going to kill you before the battle wounds do."

Not wanting to be around Schwitzy and her negative attitude, he piled a bunch of food on his plate and stood up to go to the library, though he turned back to drive his point into her head, "at first I was afraid of you, but now I see your tough guy act is just to hide the fact that you are scared of failing yourself. I know how that feels, I've had that fear my whole life, maybe one day we both can free ourselves from that terror."

L:   Schwitzy waited for Prudoria to leave before silently resuming eating. TU observed her every move with unease; Schwitzy would go quiet right before she unleashed her bottled fury. He thought it best to wait for her to speak first.

"His shitty existence, hm?" she finally began to talk.

TU bit his lip. "Schwitzy ..."

"One of my fathers caused the deaths of millions in a genocide that shook the world and literally defined the word just seventy-something years ago. HIS fathers are long dead. NO ONE remembers them. But EVERYONE remembers me. The daughter whose life should be made utterly miserable for what her father did." She glanced at TU. "Honestly, your situation is worse."TU grimaced.

"Yeah, I guess I'm an example of a 'Frankenstein abomination' that Prudoria was talking about." He hesitated, then said, "But Prudoria's right. I'm not pessimistic about it like you are. I try to see the bright side of every situation and deal with the problems as they come to me. Of course, I'd feel like I'm losing if I'm always worrying."

"You don't worry enough," Schwitzy grumbled. "I'm playing devil's advocate because neither you nor Iremacht will." She gazed at the food on her plate, but she'd lost her appetite. "The day you two really start thinking about the consequences of your actions is the day I'll stop being a bitch."

And Schwitzy left the table too.

M:   Prudoria was in the library reading, he had to go through a lot of convincing the librarians to let him have food in there. He wasn't looking to learn anything in particular, he just wanted to get his mind off of Schwitzy's negativity, so he picked a book at random and read.

After a while more, he got bored of reading and asked the librarian, "hey, what do you do in your spare time, I mean, besides reading, of course, I still have yet to explore all there is to do outside of a water tank."

L:   The librarian had been on her phone and did not expect Prudoria to ask a question.

She stammered, "W-well, back at my old station, we had very long lunch breaks where we could use the recreation room. I like to play ping pong so that was always fun. A couple of my other friends also played basketball. They even had a video gaming room. There's a recreation building for the staff here too, but it's separate from the estate."

-----------

Iremacht arrived home mid-afternoon. TU came out to greet him but Schwitzy was nowhere in sight.

"She left about an hour ago," TU explained. "Said she wanted to visit Switzerland."

"She needs space," Iremacht concluded. "What happened while I was gone?"

"We did some training with Prudoria, and ... jeez, he's got MAGIC, Machty. He can create a force field dome to protect himself and shoot fireballs from his hands. Oh, and did I mention he's a professional at twin sabers?"

"Twin sabers?" Iremacht raised his eyebrows. "That's Prussia's choice of weaponry."

TU blinked. Then the realization dawned on him.

"He's inherited the skills of the two countryhumans he was made from," Iremacht said. "Did he act strange when he was using them?"

"Eh, he looked a little bloodthirsty when he had the swords."

"That sounds like Prussia," Iremacht chuckled. "Absolutely wunderbar. Where is he now?"

"He and Schwitzy got into a mini-argument and he left during lunch. He's somewhere in the estate, just don't know where."

M:   "Interesting, though if it's just for the staff then I don't want to intrude, thank you either way," Prudoria said.

With nothing else to do there, he stood and put his books away, then went to the kitchen to put his dishes away too. After that, he simply wandered around, exploring the places he didn't get to see on his first tour, but still stayed away from the cousins' areas like he was told to do.

At one point, he walked past a billiard room and stopped to have a look. It wasn't terribly large, enough for two pool tables and a bar, at which there was a bartender, the country also saw a dart board, foosball, and a jukebox.

"Wow, this place is cool," Prudoria whistled, "what are all these tables for, is this a mini dining area?"

L:   The bartender looked around like he thought Prudoria was talking to someone else. When it was evident that no one else was with him, the bartender answered, "These are pool tables. It's a kind of game that Master Iremacht often plays with Master Third Union." He tilted his head curiously. "Are you the new guest living in the guest section? My name is Kenneth Abwehr, the bartender. Nice to meet you! Want a drink?"

He had several shakers out already since he had been testing new drinks. He only had three customers, after all, and they rarely visited this room with how busy they were. That gave plenty of time for invention.

M:   Prudoria shrugged, "sure, I've never had alcohol before, though I remember one of my human caretakers, if you could even call them that, was sent somewhere else when he was caught drinking a ... I think he called it a flask, I don't know if they were talking about the drink or the container."

He walked over to where the balls were set up on the pool table and picked one up, surprised at how heavy it was for its size, "interesting that it's called pool when there is no water involved, these balls would definitely sink if there was."

He put the ball down and went to sit at the bar, "so what do you recommend for a new person, I have a faint idea of what alcohol is, that if you have too much of it, it can impair your ability to function properly, not sure if I want that my first time."

L:   "I couldn't tell you," Kenneth laughed. "Most gambling tables are called pools. Like when you're placing all your bets in the pool at the center."

He poured Prudoria some beer to start but stopped short of handing it to him.

"Wait, I forgot to ask for your age. I can't serve drinks to underaged visitors, though I'm pretty sure all countryhumans are pretty much ageless. My uncle hadn't aged at all the last time I saw him and I bet he's still the same now."

He wasn't normally this talkative but Prudoria was the newest visitor that he'd seen in a while. Iremacht and TU usually didn't chat with him for this long and Schwitzy never came here.

M:   Prudoria paused at that, seemingly confused, "now that you mention it, I don't really know, to be honest, I was 'born' per se, about thirteen years ago, but everyone kept referring to me as being in the thirties. And when you think about it, I can't really claim to be born if both my parents were long, long dead."

Prudoria leaned his chin on his hand and he thought really hard about the concept, trying to figure out his age, "if I had to pick an age, I'd probably go with mid-thirties, I can understand things better than a child would, even if I don't really know as many things as a normal person does, I think I'm mature enough to qualify as one."

"Do kids come here often, considering the people who live here I would think it wouldn't be very safe for them," he then asked, chuckling slightly.

L:   "Oh no no, this is no place for kids," Kenneth laughed. He handed Prudoria his beer and pointed at it. "Let's just say you're in your mid-thirties then. This is the lowest alcohol level we have. This drink along with this bar is very much off limits to children. Plus, most of the games here take concentration, so you can't have kids bumping into you all the time. And yeah, you know, house of crime lords."

Kenneth went back to wiping the squeaky clean table and lowered his voice. "A lot of my friends who work here have wondered if the masters and mistress will ever have kids. It's surreal picturing them with a significant other, much less being parents. I'm biased though - Master Iremacht won't admit it, but I think he gets along very well with my uncle. He's the only outside countryhuman that Master Iremacht has ever brought into the house."

M:   Prudoria froze midway in bringing his drink to his mouth, did he hear that correctly?

 "Um, pardon me, mister Kenneth, but I think I must have misheard you," he said with a deep confusion, "you said your uncle is a countryhuman, but that's impossible, I may be a lab experiment but I know how the genetics work, the humans wouldn't shut up about how a countryhuman can not interbreed with a human. Were you adopted by a countryhuman, otherwise, maybe I don't need alcohol after all."

With that said he still took a sip of the liquid, humming at the taste, "though I will admit, it does taste pretty good."

L:   "Really?" Now Kenneth was confused. "They've bred with humans throughout history, though. Most of the children turn out human, so maybe that's why they didn't think it was possible." He shrugged. "Either way, my uncle started out as a human before Germany appointed him as a militant entity. There's this global entity guy called United Nations who can turn humans into entities. My uncle was the son of a human who was really important to Wehrmacht - he's Iremacht's dad by the way. And Germany needed a militant so he chose uncle Bundeswehr!"

Kenneth laughed nervously. "Sorry if that was a whole lot of names. I don't know who you've met yet. But I'm happy to help if you have any questions!"

M:   "That's not what I was told," Prudoria shrugged, "at least about the humans and countryhumans, the ones that created me said hybrids were impossible and the only successful one they made was an abomination of animal parts."

He paused to take another sip of beer, "you know, I remember the name 'Wehrmacht', the humans were trying to create a serum that could dampen one's mind and make them more willing to follow orders, they had Wehrmacht on the list of countryhumans they wanted to control because of his reputation, something about being a Nazi and that made him perfect to take control of to make him hunt people. I guess they got tired of making their own countries."

He finished off his drink and asked, "that was pretty good, what else you got," like what he just explained was normal.

L:   "Whoa, whoa I never said anything about hybrids," Kenneth clarified. "That's a different story. You're either pure human with one hundred percent human features or you're pure countryhuman. An abomination of animal parts doesn't sound successful at all."

His eyes widened when Prudoria said the word Nazi. He fiddled with his shakers and mixed up a wine cocktail for Prudoria to try while stammering, "Er, yeah. Wehrmacht's a retired general, so I guess he's still got some fighter instincts. He's got wings like yours actually, but pitch black."

"Who's got wings like Prudoria's?"Kenneth nearly spilled the drink as he was pouring it upon hearing Iremacht's voice. The criminal entity stood at the doorway of the billiard room with TU. He looked between the shaker in Kenneth's hand to the glass to Prudoria and back to Kenneth.

"Ken, why are you serving him alcohol?" Iremacht asked.

"Um." Kenneth glanced helplessly at Prudoria. "He's not underage?"

"That's not the point. We don't know what alcohol will do to him. And Prudoria, why are you in here?"

M:   "I was exploring and found this area," Prudoria said innocently, "I'm sorry if it was off limits, I was only told not to go into you and your cousins' areas, and don't be mad at mister Kenneth, I was the one who asked for a drink, though I will say that beer is quite tasty."

Prudoria was hesitant at first to tell Iremacht about what they were talking about, he was worried about how the German would react to hearing about the scientists wanting to control his dad.

"We were talking and something came up that I forgot to tell you about, though maybe we should go somewhere else," he eventually said, "it might upset you and if you go off the wire I don't want Kenneth to get caught in the crossfire, since I think he might be the first human I actually like," he turned to Kenneth, "I hope that's not weird or anything."

L:   "Not at all!" Kenneth smiled, though he still glanced nervously at Iremacht every now and then. "I enjoy your company."

Iremacht maintained a serious expression and stood still as stone for a moment. Then his facade cracked and he laughed, "I'm glad you like our beer. Of course, you're allowed to be here! This is the room with the most fun in this whole estate." He walked over and sat at the bar beside Prudoria. "I overheard what you were talking about. I'm not surprised Wehrmacht is a target. He nearly took over all of Europe, and I'm sure the humans would love for him to do it again."

TU came over and pointed at the drink Kenneth was mixing to indicate that he wanted some too. Kenneth poured glasses for all three of them.

"Get yourself one too," Iremacht said, raising his glass. "Let's do a cheer."

"What for?" TU asked.

"To the successful destruction of another artificial countryhuman facility."