Before the Spice Dreaming technique could be employed to mine the past for truth of actions, Murbella's merger of the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres was viewed as a result of the impending threat of the Master Face Dancers returned from the Scattering. The Returning had less to do with her decision, which hinged upon two factors from the distant past. Murbella was led to an ancient concept for which she appropriated the name Fish Speaker School. And she was led their by the evil that the old Harkonnen managed to work on St. Alia from beyond the grave.

-Memoirs of Yanima Ampre

Having a few hours before her meeting with her dubious guests, Murbella spent the morning armed within a new battle carapace that enhanced her already supple prana-bindu combat prowess. Kitrana Blaise assisted Murbella in fitting the carapace, and making her aware of the new enhancements. Blaise had been promoted from Custodian of Arms and Combat Training, a role she held since the Bene Gesserit battle with Honored Matres on Taltios, to General of The Bene Gesserit forces.

The time had come to fight the Ones With Many Faces.

"In addition to the new modulating plasma weapons mounted in the wrists, we've added a bio-magnetic shielding, in case they try to acquire memories through touch." Kitrana was combat hardened and thorough. She had once met the first Miles Teg in covert battle he had lead, in which she outfitted his troops with certain weapons her sister had developed.

Murbella's training was already hyperkinetic. The Honored Matre sexual imprinting went deeper than eroticism, it fused cellular awareness into every region of her body. Her leg could kick in a combat situation without direct impulse from her brain. The fact the she was with child did not hamper her combat ability in the least.

I simply need to keep aware of the womb, and protect it from danger and will away the stress of the situation. I will the calm upon me.

After the demonstration, Murbella and Kitrana discussed the News of two recent battles with the Ones With Many Faces, one waged by Bene Gesserit and the other by Honored Matres.

Perhaps our common enemy will unite these two sisterhoods.

Murbella and the Honored Matres. It was a complex idea for her, as she was raised by the renegade sisters who perfected their twisted variation of Bene Gesserit technique for the two thousand years of the Scattering.

Once we trained as Honored Matres enter the mode of combat, woe to all in our paths.

As they walked to the receive their arriving guests, Kitrana gave results that the Bene Gesserit outpost on Chasuba had been leveled, and only a handful of sisters had survived.

Kitrana read Murbella's silence as disapproval of her war effort, "I assure you Mother Superior that the Master Face Dancer's every movement had been under constant surveillance. We have at least gained that mush from this sacrifice."

Murbella did not bother to bath or changed into more formal attire for her meeting with the Honored Matre envoy

As Kitrana read off the statistics of the two most recent victories by the common enemy, Murbella spiraled out her plans the possible and the probable. She knew Sheeana was planning perhaps the most radical change the Universe had ever seen. Rebecca, off with Sheeana in the folds of no-space became the only link to the old Bene Gesserit order and the New Sisterhood that would come if any of them survived the Ones With Many Faces.

I hold on to the idea that Rebecca is still the True Bene Gesserit, for rest assured, Sheeana is not. Nor am I.

Her thoughts had been on Saint Alia, the sister of Muad'Dib, and her tragic death that had spawned a dozen major religions and a dozen dozen cults over the ages.

I must not fail the Honored Matres or the Bene Gesserit as we failed her. The is an answer to those who represent the margin and the rupture of a society. The answer is to bring them to the center.

Murbella's focused on this time as the dawn of some integration between her two peoples. As Kitrana finished her report, two sisters flanked them before entering the reception hall.

Murbella shot a glance at Kitrana, "I asked for no escort."

Kitrana had been prepared for this response, "With all respect, Mother Superior, as in my role as military commander, I thought it in your best interest and ordered the escort myself."

Murbella nodded her acceptance.

Drastic measures for dark times.

Within the reception hall stood Honored Matre Guerina and two dangerous looking companions. Guerina had known the Spider Queen that Murbella had deposed, and represented the more conservative factions resistant to change.

I must break this Guerina's will today.

The meeting only served to annoy Murbella at how wrong the underlying framework of the Honored Matre philosophy was.

They are chased from the Scattering in a mass exodus, a Returning brought on by their fear of the Master Face Dancers, who are only the dawn of the greater chaos.

They would have done well to keep to some of the old Bene Gesserit adages.

"There are factions amoung the Honored Matres. Some would see you as the Great Honored Matre, while others see your path as weak, and seek to usurp you position."

"How dare you speak to me thus." She gestured to the two sisters at her side, poised to kill at any moment. "You come begging for assistance and now you'd question my strength."

Guerina's escorts poised themselves ready for a possible incident, but the Honored Matre gestured them to stand down. "I only speak of what transpires amoung those of the Returning."

Murbella pitched her Voice strategically. This is the leader of Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres who speaks now! "I will not pay heed to any of this unthought chatter." Her Voice leveled, "Do the Honored Matre factions that are against me not want the assistance of their Bene Gesserit cousins?"

Murbella turned to Kitrana, "How many Honored Matre worlds have been destroyed so far."

Kitrana perform the data extraction from her Mentat archive. "As of last reports this morning, the Honored Matre world of Alcius has just fallen, bringing the count of Honored Matre worlds up too thirty-four."

Thirty-four worlds destroyed, hundreds of billions of lives ended or assimilated, and these bitches question my lead.

Guerina bowed low her head at the numbers.

The color drains from her face. Those numbers will turn her to my side.

Guerina lifted her head, "Perhaps I can do something to convince the factions that an alliance is the only course of action, Great Honored Matre."

Murbella met Guerina's eyes with a firm but reassuring gaze, "Do so quickly, for the Face Dancers do not wait to kill."