Yelena was now back in her office with Alex nowhere to be seen, and three young girls aside from her.

“I don’t get it. Why do we need a handler?” Kamala asked with her arms crossed as she stood in front of Yelena. She was still tethered to Laura, who silently stood at her side with her arms crossed as well.

As for Irene, she was sitting on Yelena’s comfortable leather chair while licking a lollipop. The past six months since she’d joined the widows had been the best months of her life, and she had gone from the timid, confused, and scared twelve-year-old girl to a carefree thirteen-year-old who, while appreciating what she had, knew what she was worth. Of course, such a transformation couldn’t happen in six months without the voice of Apex in her head, encouraging her all the time. And even now, there were hints of her old, timid self in her when she was forced to confront someone—even if they were her own age.

“Because you are still trainees,” Yelena said to Kamala.  “You have not completed your training yet and are still trainees. Hence, you need someone to take care of you.”

“But we’re already adults. We don’t need someone to babysit us,” Kamala said.

“I won’t be babysitting you. I don’t have that kind of time, while I do everything else. The only one I’m going to babysit is Irene. You two will have the freedom and privacy to do whatever you wish as long as you completely follow my training regimen.”

“Are you going to send Laura and Kamala away?” Irene suddenly asked, making Yelena stumble over her words.

“We are going to need to work on you speaking your mind without thinking, Irene,” Yelena said. “Your precognition can be dangerous.”

“But if I didn’t tell you about it, I would’ve forgotten about it,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?” Yelena frowned.

“I’ll tell you in a little bit,” she said cryptically.

Yelena looked slightly confused and slightly creeped out before turning back to Laura and Kamala, who were looking at her with doubts.

“Yes, I’m sending you away for a bit. You will be going back to your Earth,” she said. “Apex’s last communication with me included information about what was to be done about you both. For the time being, you will be going back to your planet. Since Hydra has been wiped out, they are still working on rebuilding things there. Your presence there will have a significant impact.”

“We get to go home?” Kamala said with disbelief. “I thought that we would never get the chance. Laura! We’re going to go home!” She exclaimed before hugging her closest friend in the world.

“What about Apex?” Laura asked with a slight smile on her face as she patted Kamala’s back. “You said that the suits will be temporarily decommissioned if we go to another planet.”

“You won’t lose the suit,” Yelena said. “Both the suit and the tether stay along with all of your abilities. Not to mention, you will return to us at some point, so there shouldn’t be any problems with that.”

“That’s good,” Laura seemed to calm down.

“So, you two can go back to your rooms and pack the stuff that you want to take back home.”

“Okay!” Kamala nodded excitedly before dragging Laura out of the room.

Yelena now turned back to Irene. “Are you going to tell me now?” She asked Irene.

“What?” the girl asked, confusedly.

“You said that you would tell me about something in a bit. What were you going to tell me about?”

“I don’t remember…” she frowned before her expression shifted as if she was listening to a voice in her head. “Oh! That. I got it. I forget whatever visions I get after thirty seconds.”

“Does that have to do with your power…?” Yelena asked confusedly.

“No, Mr. Apex says that the mind is like a computer, and memories are like a storage drive. If I kept all my visions in my mind, I would eventually forget my real memories and lose my sense of self— whatever that means. So whenever I get a vision or a dream, he removes it from my mind after thirty seconds to make sure that it doesn’t impact me in the long run.”

“That seems unhealthy and dangerous.”

[It’s not. Her visions come spontaneously and are like dreams. All I do is make sure that she forgets those visions like one does for their dreams. Precognition is a very dangerous power for one’s mind. Eventually, they won’t remember the difference between reality and their visions. Leading to their memories being a different reality. I don’t want Irene to go through any of that. Plus, if she wants to eventually learn how to manually look into a certain person’s future, she needs to have a robust and powerful consciousness.]

“Mr. Apex told you, right?” Irene asked Yelena. “That’s why he removes the memories.”

“Since he knows what he’s doing, I won’t contest it,” she nodded. “Are you—“

“Something very large is going to happen soon,” Irene suddenly interrupted Yelena. “A war… Against a Bastion.”

Yelena frowned. “Are you talking about the Bastion on the other side of the country?”

[Seriously, Irene. You have got to stop spoiling my surprises like this. You are supposed to predict stuff that might surprise me. Not stuff that I’m about to do.]

“I can’t help it, Mr. Apex,” she said. “I just speak what I see.”

“A war? Yelena said to the air. “What’s going on?”

[Irene, you can go back to your room for now and have fun with your friends. We won’t be doing any training today. I need to have a serious talk with Miss Yelena that has to do with the upcoming conflict.]

“Are people going to get hurt?” she asked while standing up from Yelena’s chair and putting her lollipop inside her mouth.

[Some of them might, yes. But you can rest assured that nothing bad will happen.]

“Okay…” She nodded and took small steps out of the room. As she left, Alex materialized in front of Yelena.

“A war?” She asked him, crossing her arms.

“First off, let me tell you a little story, okay?” Alex said. “A story about a woman named Laura Kinney.”

“The kid that you’re sending back home?”

“Another version. Older. The Laura Kinney of this reality. At one point in her life, she was kidnapped and imprisoned. Her wardens were sadistic guards who treated her like a dangerous feral animal, using catchpoles clamped around her neck. Do you know why they did that? Because they were extracting her bone marrow. Every single moment for years, her bone marrow was constantly being extracted as her healing factor regenerated it. She couldn’t even kill herself and was forced to live with the constant and endless inhumane pain of having her bone marrow extracted without any sedatives. All for what? A healing medicine that had the power to barely hold back the infection of the abominations.”

“Was it…”

“The Bastion,” Alex nodded. “I was the one who broke her out. And she is coming here to destroy every single one of the people responsible for her misery. My Black Widows will stand beside her.” He cupped her cheek and stepped closer to her. “You will stand beside her. You are all my valkyries, an unstoppable sword that will bring ruin to all my enemies. Killing abominations was never your purpose. You are the valkyries of the Apex Empire, and I will not have you falter in front of a measly Bastion.”

“Apex Empire?” Yelena said as a faint smile appeared on her face, but there was a different emotion in her eyes. A budding fury that demanded an explanation. “You love the Apex theme for everything, don’t you?”

“The Gaia Federation was always going to be a temporary thing. Gaia will be the central AI that governs my Empire, and that’s all. What I’ve shown the world is merely a public beta version.”

“What about your currency? You gonna call them Apex credits after a while?”

“Probably not. I want something that sounds more capitalist and less dystopian. Apex credits or dollars are a little unimaginative. I’ll come up with something later,” he said. “My point is. Are you in, Yelena? You are the sole general of the Widows right now. Once Irene matures and grows up sufficiently, you two can be co-generals. With her precognition and your strategizing, the Widows will be my unstoppable sword.”

“I’ll have to brush up on The Art of War…” She said before a threatening expression appeared on her face. “But if you think you are going to treat us like weapons… so help me god.”

“You very well know that I won’t be doing that,” he said. “The widows will have a life. They will have the honor of being the most prestigious force of my empire.”

“You know… every single widow’s initial demand was for the fighting to stop… For them to be something more than just weapons in a war,” Yelena said. “But now… after a year working for you. I’m pretty sure that most of them are going to change their minds.”

“That’s because, unlike the Red Room…unlike Hydra…I don’t treat them like objects.”

“You’ve treated me like an object on more than one occasion,” she quipped.

“That’s different,” he said as a smile appeared on his face. “And a lot of your soldiers enjoy being treated like objects in that way. As long as it is temporary and limited to role-play. Just like you. You’ve gone on missions on Gaia. You’ve seen both planets with your eyes. You’ve seen the difference that your actions have made, even more than the other widows. Look into my eyes and tell me truthfully that you are against my true plan for the Widows.”

“I can’t, okay?” She said, suddenly getting agitated. “I know almost all of them are hollow and empty women without any sense of purpose in life. Being your Black Widows gives them purpose. It gives them confidence and a reason to continue living. To…not give in to the void that their experiences in the Red Room left in their hearts. I know all of that. I know all of that intimately because I’m the same way. You give me purpose, Apex.”

“And that terrifies you,” he completed for her. “Why is that?”

“Because I’m scared of being abandoned,” she suddenly shouted with a cracking voice. “Of being discarded like a disposable weapon by an immortal alien emperor with too big an ambition for his own good. I don’t care about doing good or bad. That was beaten out of me when I was five. I care about my purpose.”

“And I will be your purpose until the end of time, my Yelena,” Alex said, hugging her as she buried her teary face in his shoulder. “I am immortal. Period. My empire will last for eternity, and my valkyries, my Black Widows, will be by my side for all of that eternity.”

“You promise?” She looked up and asked with a cracking nasal voice. “I’ll do all the bad things you want me to do, but you can never abandon me.”

“Abandon you?” Alex smiled, cupping her cheek and wiping her tears away with his thumb. “Yelena, I may be willing to let a couple of the widows go after they give enough back to me, but unlike them, you are permanently stuck with me. You can try escaping me, betraying me, or whatever else. I will never abandon you. I may, however, send you to my special prison if you do something like that. You know, just for a couple of years to help you clear your rebellious thoughts out of your mind.”

“Should I consider this a proposal?” She asked. “Now that you’ve finally revealed things.”

“Now? You were mine the day I fucked you in all your holes in the name of healing you,” he said before pulling her face close and kissing her roughly.