All day, Antoine had been thinking, I can’t believe my luck.

That morning, sent on a quest to Shaman to look for undesirables. I can’t believe my luck! The chance to explore a whole other planet!

The team had only been on Shaman for a couple of hours when they got a tip-off that a demigod was nearby. Not just any demigod, either – one of the most wanted ones. I can’t believe my luck! I’m going to be the one to drag a top undesirable right back to Alliance HQ!

Now, as he sat bound to a tree with one of his colleague’s heads lolling on his shoulder, all Antoine could think was, I can’t believe my luck. Taken out by a kid.

It was bizarre, and Antoine still couldn’t quite work out how it had happened. The three of them had been approaching the clearing where intel said the little girl was playing with a campfire. Antoine had been at the front, with Christian behind him and Francois making his way silently through the treetops. A sharp thump, like a body hitting the ground, had sounded to Antoine’s rear left. It was only when he turned that he realised Christian wasn’t there. Francois was lying on the ground a few hundred feet away, unmoving. Antoine had drawn his weapon just as something came swinging down from the trees in front of him and smacked him in the face and broke his nose straight away. There’d been a scuffle – with a dog, a bat, a small pony, all three? – until a blind burst of white light and a searing pain had knocked Antoine out for a while. The next thing he knew, he was coming to in the very clearing he’d been sneaking up on, in front of the campfire, tied to a tree with his two colleagues, both of whom were still snoring.

Ángela, meanwhile, could not believe her luck. She’d taken out what she’d assumed were all the annoying kidnappers, and now someone else was trying to sneak up on her? Maybe she’d missed one. In magpie form, she circled just below the canopy, eagle-eyed for any sign of movement. If there was a fourth operative, he would undoubtedly try and rescue his colleagues. She did another loop round, scanning carefully and… there! Something in the trees. Ángie perched on a branch, watching carefully. She couldn’t see the person’s face, but it was definitely a person, sneaking about up in the trees. Not for long.

She took flight again. This move was one Ángela had spent months perfecting and she slipped into the motions with practiced ease. In magpie form, she flew a path which would take her directly over her quarry’s head. Just before she was about to fly over him, she somersaulted in the air and shifted back into fairy form, smacking the sneaker right in the chest with her booted feet. The pair of them tumbled down to Earth and Ángie shifted again, this time into the form of a black panther. She landed on all fours and leapt onto the creeper, snarling viciously… and then shifted back into a fairy again, her nose wrinkled.

“Oh, it’s you.” She stood up and dusted herself off, but didn’t bother helping him back onto his feet. “Should have smelled you,” she remarked, resting her hands on her hips and smiling prettily. “My bad.”