---

The walk toward the Faith Manor's front entrance was easier than Amanda would’ve thought. Morgana's knowledge of navigating among the winding corridors and many, many rooms inside the Faith manor was useful. However, Amanda could still only gawk at the various fineries inside the manor itself. Statues of ancient pre-Christian witches, great enchanted artifacts that are still seemingly functional even after hundreds of years being interned inside the house, and the curious look of several younger witches when they see their new Mistress of the house walking alongside an Android, and OMR agents to the left and right.

They exited into the massive courtyard, into the litany of various OMR agents that quickly stormed through the front door of the Faith manor, intent on capturing the former headmistress of the Faith family, capture and attempted murder of OMR agents are both crimes within the British legal system, and Morgana’s mother is most likely heading to a trial in the coming months. But that doesn’t really concern Amanda right now, the details of the legal case will be hammered most likely by some political machinations. This is the Faith family after all, and such a severe judgment of a senior witch will most likely have massive ramifications within the British magical world.

“Oh, are you Lhoris?” Amanda quickly approached the elf. “Hi there! It’s nice to meet you! My name is Unit 13K, or you can call me Amanda if you don’t want such a technical name. I’m the agent in charge of capturing Mr. X, and I heard that you are the new member of the team, no?” The robot asked her, quickly turning her head towards the rest of the team. She quickly introduced Lhoris to them. “Everyone! This is the new agent I’ve been talking about earlier. I heard she’s a great healer, and her backstory is also quite interesting. But I think I’d let Lhoris introduce herself to the rest of the group first.”

She then made way for Lhoris to introduce herself. Anxious as to what she has to tell.

The three gods suddenly caught Mikey.

He let out a hiss as he leaned back into their arms. He chuckled, "I'll bet you it would have gone differently if I wasn't so drained." He grins. And with the help of his friends, they trail along the main group and outside. Not that it's his job, but he and his godly friends take up a rear guard position. Until they are out of the building.

Micheal limps along slowly and tiredly. Once outside the quartet, relax, and seeing an OMR task force come to help out sure takes some stress off everyone shoulders. Praise the OMR, he grins abit.

Nodding a greeting to the new team member, "Welcome to the team glad to have you. A healer you say. Think you can do anything with this?" And he holds out his magic burn borne from over use of his ritual magics. He grins, not expecting much, but can't hurt to ask.

---

The surprise couldn't entirely be hidden from Lhoris' face. She knew about Amanda's existance but it was another thing to see an entirely mechanical person face to face. The world had started running out of completely new things she'd never seen before. She cleared her throat and composed herself.

"Hello. Yes, I'm Lhoris. It's nice to meet you, Amanda. And the rest of you," the elf greeted, looking to the rest of the team. "They have assigned me to this team now. I'm ususlly a response agent but they've decided the situation is starting to get too dangerous to have someone like me stay on the sidelines. I can't blame them. I read the brief Frankfurt sent me, and they're still keeping the finer details close to their chest but what I was told is concerning. Cults, Eldritch magic, weapon stockpiling and now ties to the Faith family. I don't think I could sit back and mind my own business after healing you, now I've been shown the magnitude of this situation."

She looked to Michael, and his magic burn. "Hmm, I can heal it but I won't be able to restore your magic. Though this is the mansion of a witch. I could whip up a restorative potion if they have the right ingredients."

Lhoris placed her hands over the burn and began to heal it as she turned to look at Morganna. "You must be Angelica's dauhter. You look just like your great-great-grandmother. Do you know if they have potion ingredients in stock? I told Alvira faith again and again that it would be a good idea and I hope she listened to me."

Despite not having walked the halls of the manor for several years at this point Morgana still knew her way around and it did not take long for her to guide the others towards the front entrance. Along the way they passed by many decadently furnished rooms, extravagant vanity pieces and dangerous artefacts, but Morgana was in no mood to give a tour; Amanda in particular seemed interest in them, but she just couldn’t deal with a stroll down memory lane with now. Instead Morgana did her best to avoid looking at any of them and tried even harder to ignore the curious looks of the witches who had stuck around after the end of the duel; whatever they may think, whatever tradition dictated, she was neither the mistress of this house nor the matriarch of her family. That duty could fall to whichever of her cousins was ambitious and stupid enough to accept the role once this was over.

They were met in the courtyard by the OMR team who was to relieve them and Morgana gave them a quick set of directions and a brief explanation of the circle that bound her mother before letting them pass.

As Amanda introduced herself to the new member of their team, Morgana moved over to a stone bench and sat down heavily as her legs finally gave out from under her. She half paid attention to the conversation going on until the Elf looked her way and addressed her directly, raising an eyebrow at the mention of her great-great-grandmother. The witch gave Lhoris a considering look when the implication that she knew her family personally, albeit a century or two ago, set in, but she couldn’t recall ever hearing any stories about Alvira faith and an Elf healer.

“If things haven’t fallen into complete disarray then all of the more mundane potion ingredients should be fully stocked in the pantry. If you need anything more potent or… restricted by law then you will need to venture into the basement; that’s where we kept the ritual components.” Potions had never interested her, but they were a staple part of traditional witchcraft after all. “I’m not sure they were ever used for healing though.”

@Silver Carrot

---

Amanda kept herself silent as the team talked amongst themselves, the various agents trawling the location and even arresting Angelica Faith. Putting the witch in cuffs as she is slowly being led to a paddywagon. More witches from the coven emerged and she noticed that reactions were all over the place, from shock, to anger, to disbelief, to even sadness. The Android made sure to make a mental note, revisiting the Faith manor once more with Morgana when this all blows over is of utter importance, preferably with someone who can act as a mediator between the two.

Maybe Hecate’s willing to do that? She’s personally not sure, but someone that specialises in magic for sure would be needed to accompany her.

Up to this point, no major Witch’s coven has even cooperated with the OMR regarding anything, and such a situation needs a rapid change lest things continue to deteriorate, the thought of Witches being terrorists crossed through her mind, and the white-haired woman couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. But enough of that! She just got news from various OMR sources on her comms antennae, and it is a doozy for sure!

And oh boy... was it a doozy...

“Well, hello there Lhoris!” The android then turned towards the Elf, bowing politely. “I know the situation’s a bit chaotic right now, but you can get your ingredients for your potions later. We have to fly back to Frankfurt ASAP. The evidence collected in the Witch’s coven will no doubt help our investigation, but we are already compiling enough stuff that we can make arrests right now. Some of our friends in the French, Dutch, Belgian, and Polish offices are already preparing to submit evidence to local courts and issue arrest warrants right now. It appears that all I have all of you to thank! So thank you!” She bowed down to the rest of the team. “And man… those OMR tech wizards really do work fast. I just got an update that they are cracking Angelica’s 2nd computer, apparently your mom has 2 computers Morgana?” She glanced at the Heretical researcher. “No matter, evidence should be compiled, decrypted, and organised by the time we arrive in Frankfurt. I have already reserved a meeting room to gather the added information from our friends scouring the Faith mansion currently.”

And so, just like most missions, they piled up to the car once more and quickly went to the nearest airport. Amanda was silent as she drove the vehicle, the black SUV she rented from the nearest OMR office slowly piling up with more figures once more. She was the one driving the car, but anyone who even glanced at her knew that something was wrong. Her usual vivid look turned paler, and paler as the group slowly approached the nearest airport. “Just so you know. Madeleine has been slowly working with the IT team in Frankfurt too, and the evidence is being submitted to OMR offices all over Europe, that’s partly why we are seeing movement right now.” She told her team, the unnerved look on her face visible as a whale surfacing to the surface after a long dive. Amanda contemplated for a moment, wanting to share the information when they arrive back in their Headquarters, a silent battle raging in her Processing Unit between withholding the information or sharing it for everyone to hear.

In the end, however, Amanda could only be herself.

“Fine… alright alright!” The android responded, seemingly to an imaginary observer by the looks of it. “I have to tell you this since she requested it. But the director of the OMR is coming to see us directly. She is boarding a flight right now and will reach our office in, like, 8-9 hours. She told me to ‘be on your guard, the likeliest suspect is someone I know very, very well. Will doubtlessly have thousands of years of combat experience, and is very proficient with magic.’” She finished her sentence, now her tension was visible for everyone to see. “She also told me that this is almost certainly a god, and a very ancient one. So… I don’t know about that one.”

“Heheh…” Amanda said nervously. “Just… prepare for a fight against a god guys! I can only tell you that some gods and goddesses can be really arrogant, and you can use that arrogance against them. Just know that I’ll try to help you the best way we can!” She finished, projecting a false sense of self-confidence towards the team, it's the least she could do now with the information she had on hand.

In truth, the sudden message from the Director unnerved her. Amanda has fought many a deity throughout her life, mostly in sparring rounds, and not involving magic. And it’s usually a 50/50, mostly due to them not being able to fire spells and enhance their already unnaturally strong physique. She has calculated that the odds of winning fights against a deity that did not hold back is in the rounds of 15-20%, not something Amanda likes to know about, although admittedly that is with one person, and currently Amanda has her whole team…

Hopefully, she will win the fight against Mr. X should things come to a head.

Micheal let out a sigh as the burn is healed, smiling, "Thanks alot doc, you're incredible. Guess I could try and get a tonic back at base." He sighs, rubbing his arm and his godly buddies snuggle in and they all limp off to board their transport out.

He slept the car ride to the air port. And had to be almost carried by Manabozho and Whiskeyjack to the plane. And he sleeps for most of the trip back. Only waking when Raven pokes him saying Manabozho is stuck in the washroom...something about getting sucked into the toilet. Which ends up with Micheal swearing rather fancily in Cree as he uses a plunger of all things, who knows where Whiskeyjack got it, to get the god out of the toilet.

And then Micheal ends up downing no less then six bags of nuts, another seven of those crispy salty seasame seed snacks, and when one of the attendants asks he downs something fruit and liquid and a microwaved steak.

Raven saying that Micheal needs energy to rebuild his empty reserves.

Back at HQ he's quiet for the most part.

Right up until they are told The Director herself is coming to see them.

Now the Shaman Confederacy are all Reserve Members, and as such they are almost never around when the Director is. So really this is a first even for the Confederacy. Micheal, heck he's never even had the honor to meet someone in the Director's office. So this is a treat. The Gods? Well they suddenly scramble for Mikey's room, they'd rather be scarce just in case.

How does one fight a god?

As far as everything Morgana had ever read or heard told her, you didn’t. Or at least, you didn’t and expect to win; history and myth was full of tales of mortals who sought to challenge the divine one way or another and while some of them were able to succeed, at least in the sense of achieving their goals and not dying in the process, those stories were usually cautionary tales for a reason.

According to Amanda, the director strongly suspected they knew the identity of the elusive Mr X, that Mr X was likely a god, a particularly ancient one at that and that they were now expected to prepare to fight them. It was likely only her exhaustion that prevented Morgana from vocalising exactly what she thought about that series of revelations. As it was, rather than yelling the witch tiredly turned her mind towards ideas of how she could ensure that she survived the upcoming fight; there wasn’t much she could do beyond that until she knew for certain who or what it was they were up against.

---

Lhoris smirked at Faye's question, and replied "You'd be surprised just how many Witches use computers. To me, Excel spreadsheets are a lifesaver. You know how many paper ledgers I used to need to keep track of?"

She was a little saddened she wouldn't have access to the no doubt rare and expensive ingredients stored in the Faith Manor right now, but Michael seemed content to wait until he was back at HQ to receive a tonic, and time seemed to be of the esscence. She followed them to the car. As Lhoris sat in the back seat, she closed her eyes and appeared to be dozing again. Lhoris had done a lot of travelling in her long life. It used to take weeks to complete a single trip. Nowadays it takes hours. To her, humans always seemed to be soimpatient to be doing something during trips. Their lives were too short to take fifteen or more hours to close their eyes and relax a little. They got bored. They needed a more productive and engaging use of their time, so they had to fill the silence. Or make entertainment through games or books. To Lhoris, living like that sounded exhausting.

She opened her eyes when she heard the tone of Amanda's voice. So, the director of the OMR was coming to see them. Lhoris had witness the aging, retirement and,in some cases, passing of the other founding members. Nowadays, a lot of agents don't even know Lhoris herself is a founding member, partly due to her very low rank to be such. Lhoris was a reserve agent who mostly made potions to order. Not even middle-managent let alone a senior operative. Lhoris didn't know who the currect director was by name, as she'd never asked. It didn't affect her job and she'd be living through a lot more of them.

And they were likely fighting a God. That caught Lhoris' attention. She'd never tried to fight a God before. Because it was usually suicide. But this time, they must have a plan. Now she was beginning to understand just why she had been called down here. It wasn't just cleanup and healing. The OMR were going to need to play every card they have in their deck, Lhoris included, to stand a chance.